What Hope for the Libertarian Age?

Mark Lilla ponders what has followed the end of ideology:

This is a libertarian age. That is not because democracy is on the march (it is regressing in many places), or because the bounty of the free market has reached everyone (we have a new class of paupers), or because we are now all free to do as we wish (since wishes inevitably conflict). No, ours is a libertarian age by default: whatever ideas or beliefs or feelings muted the demand for individual autonomy in the past have atrophied. There were no public debates on this and no votes were taken. Since the cold war ended we have simply found ourselves in a world in which every advance of the principle of freedom in one sphere advances it in the others, whether we wish it to or not. The only freedom we are losing is the freedom to choose our freedoms.

Not everyone is happy about this. The left, especially in Europe and Latin America, wants to limit economic autonomy for the public good. Yet they reject out of hand legal limits to individual autonomy in other spheres, such as surveillance and censorship of the Internet, which might also serve the public good. They want an uncontrolled cyberspace in a controlled economy—a technological and sociological impossibility. Those on the right, whether in China, the United States, or elsewhere, would like the inverse: a permissive economy with a restrictive culture, which is equally impossible in the long run. We find ourselves like the man on the speeding train who tried to stop it by pulling on the seat in front of him.

Although this account has a certain plausibility, I think it is wrong in many ways. First, there is no reason to assume, as many have, that capitalism in China will inevitably lead to democracy. On the contrary, I think the numerous democratic failures of the past 20 years (Egypt, Iraq, Thailand) will only further reinforce the hold of the Chinese party state; so far as I can tell, only a handful of Chinese activists are really pining for free national elections. The Chinese "right," if so it can be called, seems solidly in control.

Meanwhile I am not at all sure that western societies are marching toward ever greater freedom. Environmental and safety rules still seem to be proliferating, for example. As to whether a society as devoted to freedom as ours can restructure the economy in the pursuit of fairness, I would say that remains to be seen. I am certainly interested in trying.