Who can save liberalism?

Who will save liberalism? The question of whether the liberal order has ended has become one of the Western world's favorite debates. Nobel Prize-winning economist Daron Acemoglu takes up the same question in his latest book, published in Turkish as “Which Liberal Democracy?” Its English title asks, “What Happened to Liberal Democracy?”

Acemoglu acknowledges that the optimism surrounding the liberal system, once thought to have triumphed after the Cold War, has disappeared. He links that change mainly to the worsening distribution of prosperity, democratic decline and technology moving in the wrong direction. In a single phrase, his answer is that liberalism must be rebuilt through what he calls “working-class liberalism.”

“If liberalism is to rise again, it must do so with the working class at its center,” he says. Acemoglu believes the solution requires cooperation between politics and technology. He argues for an inclusive system rather than one built around big technology companies and artificial intelligence while excluding ordinary people.

That broad and somewhat ambiguous framework has drawn opposition from several directions. Neoliberal market advocates argue that greater state intervention would only make the system worse. The critical left says capitalism cannot be repaired with liberal remedies and views “working-class liberalism” as an attempt to reform the existing system rather than replace it.

The strongest opposition, in the article's view, comes from major technology companies and their stakeholders. Acemoglu argues that the global economic order has enriched a handful of technology companies while impoverishing the masses, making those companies central targets of his criticism. The debate over whether liberalism can be saved is likely to continue, while recent criticism of Acemoglu's book and academic work offers another sign of the system's crisis. The article compares that reaction with recent coverage by The Economist and The Wall Street Journal, including a supermarket video presented as evidence of capitalism's superiority.

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If liberalism is to rise again, it must do so with the working class at its center.