Four Reasons Why Classical Liberalism Ultimately Fails

The premise for this article might seem surprising to many who are used to believing that the Fukuyaman "end of history," with its proposed ultimate victory of liberal democracy and market capitalism, is a done deal...

... it is manifestly obvious that most of what is called "democracy" is a sham and most of what is called "capitalism" is merely a cover for cronyism at the highest levels... We can no longer call our system "liberal" in any sort of classical sense when you can be jailed for referring to someone with the "wrong" pronoun and where the supposedly "free" press is effectively only the propaganda arm of one political party...

All over the world, classical liberalism is being supplanted by socialism and progressivism. This is obvious. What is even more obvious is that classical liberalism has been completely unable to prevent this from occurring. While there are some places where the tide is at least being slowed, this is due to the efforts of nationalists and others calling for stronger government along reactionary and traditional lines, not by those advocating for Reaganism, Thatcherism, or other manifestations of modern classical liberalism...

Classical liberalism itself was doomed from its inception. The reason for this is that classical liberalism derived directly from the sort of shoddy and shallow philosophies that drove the so-called "Enlightenment."... In contrast to the traditional values of the West, Enlightenment values represented a very skewed, unrealistic form of wishful thinking... it was only a matter of time before the leftward drift affected even the most morally well-insulated nations...

One of the core premises of the Enlightenment which set it apart from earlier periods in European history, was the belief on the part of the philosophes that man was inherently good..

Its Blind Trust in Constitutionalism

Because classical liberalism holds to a faulty anthropology, it naturally follows that its emphasis on constitutionalism will also ultimately end up failing...

Simply put, constitutionalism posits that governments and men in power can be restrained by pieces of paper. Because men are thought to be good, they are thought to be hindered by appeal to a governing document alone. Yet, this is shown not to be the case...

Its Fallacious Belief in Human Equality

It is a short step, then, from the belief in political equality to the belief in every kind of equality, coupled with the ever-expanding effort to force men to be equal in every way...

Our modern world is really just an anomaly, a fluke which by all apparent evidence will not last much longer and which will return to systems of authority, hierarchy, and order.

Preserving a Constitution Designed for a Moral and Religious People, by Mark D. Martin, Bradley J. Lingo, Michael Schietzelt, Regent University, 3 August 2020.