On the Convergence of Liberalism and Populism

That liberals can be populist and authoritarian is not new. What might be novel is the collusive convergence of liberal ideology with the politics of sophistry and even neo-fascist ideas. The reason is that liberalism's anthropological pessimism and techno-scientific optimism are disconnected from reality in ways that require an ever-greater voluntarist pursuit of power combined with wealth and social status. As a result we are now seeing an ultra-liberal ideology that slides into an absolutism always lurking in the liberal logic since Thomas Hobbes and John Locke—the violent state of nature that supposedly warrants an all-encompassing sovereign or self-ownership that

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