Giancarlo Bosetti 28 May 2025
After the publication of Postliberalism: The New Politics of Meaning (2021), by Adrian Pabst, the ranks of those criticizing liberalism and liberal democracies have grown – particularly those who take upon themselves the task of moving beyond a political phase marked by discontent and the erosion of democracy on a global scale. Some authors attempt to give meaning to this “post” by framing it as an alternative to both neoliberalism and populism. These include conservative thinkers (like Patrick Deneen), religious and theologically engaged figures (like John Milbank), and others who push their critique of liberal universalism to the edge of reactionary extremism (like Yoram Hazony), to the point that they appear more anti- than post-liberal. Pabst, a British political philosopher and Catholic, represents a more moderate, reformist version of this trend. He argues that modern liberalism has exhausted its capacity to give meaning to political, social, and economic life – because radical individualism, combined with a socially unbound market and a technocratic state, has reduced the human being to a consumer.