Proponents argue that liberalism, with its emphasis on individual rights, free markets, and limited government, has failed to adequately address societal challenges such as economic inequality, family breakdown, and a perceived loss of community and social cohesion.
Postliberal thinkers come from both the left and the right, and the movement is associated with a diverse range of ideas, including economic nationalism, localism, and a critique of liberal democracy itself.
Postliberals argue that the liberal focus on individual rights and freedoms has undermined the importance of community, family, and tradition in providing a sense of meaning and belonging.
[10] Patrick Deneen argues that liberalism, while claiming neutrality, influences people to approach commitments and relationships with flexibility, treating them as interchangeable and open to renegotiation, thereby encouraging loose connections.
In the economic realm, postliberals criticize the liberal commitment to free markets, arguing that it has led to the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few, while leaving many people behind, fostering stratification between cosmopolitan elites and rooted working classes.
They advocate for a more interventionist role for the state in managing the economy, including protectionist policies, and measures to reduce economic inequality, protect workers' rights, and promote the development of local communities.
Liberalism thus increasingly requires a legal and administrative regime, driven by the imperative of replacing all nonliberal forms of support for human flourishing (such as schools, medicine, and charity), and hollowing any deeply held sense of shared future or fate among the citizenry.
[4] Pabst suggests that the emergence of populism and civilization states reflects a reaction against global politics that, in their view, neglects national and local concerns, idealizes utopian visions over real places, and emphasizes individual identity at the expense of shared belonging.
Milbank and Pabst contend that US hegemony treats nation-states as large-scale liberal egos, grounded in American individualism and voluntarism, and disseminated through imperial means to achieve national goals.
Since the 1970s, they argue, global governance has strengthened state power and expanded individual freedoms domestically, while diminishing local decision-making and distancing authority from national democratic forums.
According to their analysis, "Enlightenment liberalism ironically threatens to turn war into an unlimited action against an enemy of civilization as such", which resonates with the ideas of German jurist Carl Schmitt.
[29][30] In the United States, several Republican politicians have been identified with postliberal and national conservative ideas, particularly Vice President JD Vance,[31] and Senators Josh Hawley, and Marco Rubio.