Critique of Liberalism
Liberal societies, Fukuyama admits, can be excessively consumerist, permissive, tolerant of inequality, dominated by political and cultural elites, and slow to respond to the needs and demands of citizens. [1]
Solutions proposed:
- Fukuyama - First, to promote a sense of national identity not focused on “fixed characteristics” such as race or faith but on patriotism and love for a liberal, open society of which citizens, whatever their politics, should be justly proud. Next - Next, he urges moderation in our politics, both from classical liberals such as himself and from the discontented. OSE Perspective - note that the above 2 points come from a scarcity mindset of limits. OSE tends more towards an abolutely creative approach for problem-solving. That is - we must start at the economy - where poor economic performance is underscored as a cause in this article. See also, for example, What Russians Really Want as a 4-person data point. The qeustion of the economy comes up over and over. Human frailty is certainly an issue, but we cannot start to problemsolve democracy by starting at sociology - we must start at the economy. OSE maintains that the economy is fundamental and must be addressed first. Politics and sociology follows. Hence the OSE mission of collaborative design for a transparent and inclusive economy of abundance - as a starting point.
Thus, Fukuyama's proposal doesn't appear to get us far - 'calm down, love each other, and things will be all right?' Come on.
Let's pass each of the issues through a solution filter instead:
- excessively consumerist - OSE promotes distribution of productive power for mutually assured abundance - focusing on regenerative development, not consumerism.
- permissive - OSE's Radical Man appraoch states live and let live, and bridge the distance, by risking yourself.
- tolerant of inequality - Distributive Enterprise is designed to address exactly this point
- dominated by political and cultural elites - we see the shortcomings of the The Best and the Brightest in addition to the apparent positives. The gap is integrated education where people see things more holistically
- slow to respond to the needs and demands of citizens - OSE promotes max agency for Self-Determination - personally and politically.
