The political platform of the Greek New Right, which has embedded authoritarian attitudes cultivating an anti-liberal sub-culture to the party’s voters, is in accordance with several European conservative movements like in Hungary, Austria, or Czechia.
The liberal order is still a relatively young system by and large. Over millennia before the industrial revolution and the ascendancy of liberal ideas did tribalism of some sort or the other prevail. The legacy of liberal order is undeniably impressive.
Over the past decade, sympathies and support for the authoritarianism have been spreading across Europe. The fourth issue of The Visio Journal features a debate on liberalism versus authoritarianism, which is fought in the realm of ideas, institutions, and public policies.
Hungary held its municipal elections on October 13, 2019. Although the opposition and the regnant Fidesz party applied starkly different communication strategies, one topic featured in both campaigns: antisemitism.
Liberalism won, no doubt about it. The world is migrating towards more freedom, more equality, and as a result less poverty and war. Nazi Germany was defeated in World War II and the Soviet Union imploded unders its horrid lies. Why don’t we feel like victors then?
In Europe, liberalism seems to have a different meaning depending on the specific national political context. In Germany, for example, the Free Democratic Party (FDP) is considered a centre-right, classical liberal party supporting free markets and limited government.
“How Do Democracies Win?” was the main theme of this year’s edition of Freedom Games, an annual prestigious forum of ideas organized in Lodz, Poland. Needless to say, the title of the forum is a question uneasy to answer. I would also not dare to provide a straight-forward answer to it.
Liberty-minded people should not strive for utopias, but instead encourage people to see how much better the world became through the ideas of free markets, rule of law, and democracy. If we continue on this path, we have a good chance of living in the best world that can ever be.
Time and again, those who should defend “our” ideas vehemently beat their breast and start apologizing, claiming that they were stupid in their attempts to redefine liberalism. They sometimes even go as far as to state that liberalism is a thing of the past.
Our progress is already big – for example, you can work almost anywhere in Europe. But we have reached the wall – because we don’t know what foundation, what system we should have. When we do not have solutions, demons wake up.
