Francis Fukuyama on the Retreat from Classical Liberalism

Francis Fukuyama’s Liberalism and Its Discontents (2022) defends classical/humane liberalism—ideas that emerged in the second half of the seventeenth century—arguing for limitations on government, constitutions, the rule of law, and the protection of individual rights. Classical liberalism theory tends to be individualistic, egalitarian, universalist, and meliorist, with a capacity for self-correction. His goal is to describe contemporary American society’s retreat from the better aspects of classical liberalism.