The Story of American Political Ideas Since 1945—Part 2

Technocratic-managerial neoliberalism and its discontents

People taking turns smashing the Berlin Wall, 1989. (Photo by Alexandra Avakian)

In my lecture course titled “Political Ideas: Left, Right, and Center,” I tell an eighty-year-long story to try and make sense of how we got to the political turbulence of the present.

The story begins with the pluralistic and self-critical stance of postwar liberalism, which emerged from the ideology-driven bloodbath of the Second World War. It continues with the rise of the New Left, which highlighted injustices within the liberal order and the structural impediments to addressing them. The first half of the story culminates with the rise to power of a New Right that blends economic libertarianism, moral traditionalism, and a commitment to using American military might to defeat communism around the world.

That’s the ground I covered in Part 1 of this post.

The Neoliberal Center