The Collapse of Global Liberalism - by Philip Pilkington

Book Synopsis

In the 1990s, a vision emerged of a frictionless world of globalization in which the West would become ever richer on the basis of a tech-based service economy, all underpinned by a rules-based liberal international order. It became the basis for the mainstream politics of centre-left and right.

Philip Pilkington argues that this vision was always delusional and is now dying. It is based on a doctrinaire and unrealistic form of liberalism and has given rise to hollowed-out financialised economies and disintegrating societies that can barely even reproduce their population or meet their energy needs. The US and UK find themselves ill-equipped to compete with China and other non-liberal states within an emerging post-liberal order in which what really matters is industrial capacity, realpolitik and military strength. Only by abandoning our liberal delusions and advancing our own brand of hard-headed post-liberalism can the West survive.

No clear-sighted observer of contemporary geopolitics can afford to miss this bracing diagnosis of the West's malaise and bold agenda for renewal.

Review Quotes

"Philip Pilkington has written a bold, original and compelling book. It should be read by anyone wishing to understand the sources of our current political and cultural crisis, and to discern a better path forward - that is, it should be read by everyone."
Patrick J. Deneen, Professor of Political Science, University of Notre Dame

"The Collapse of Global Liberalism is a ruthless dissection of liberalism's failings, and a compelling roadmap to the post-liberal world we already inhabit."
Aris Roussinos, contributing editor at UnHerd

"Illuminating... Pilkington moves with easy confidence across levels of analysis, from geopolitics to macroeconomics to birthrates to religion, producing a succinct and largely convincing portrait of what's happened and what's ending."
Peter Leithart, First Things

About the Author