The Political Theory of Liberal Socialism

In 2022, the Pew Research Center published a report that caught many conservatives and classical liberals by surprise. Socialism, the report revealed, is no longer a dirty word in American politics. In fact, it turns out that socialism is pretty popular. Thirty-six percent of adults in Pew’s survey viewed socialism either favorably (30 percent) or very favorably (6 percent). And among young adults ages eighteen to twenty-nine, the numbers were even higher. Forty-four percent of Americans in this demographic had a positive impression of socialism, while only 40 percent had a similarly favorable view of capitalism (Pew Research Center, September 2022, “Modest Declines in Positive Views of ‘Socialism’ and ‘Capitalism’ in the U.S.”). In other words, more young Americans have a favorable view of socialism than of the capitalist system in which they live.

To many longtime critics of socialism, these findings were both puzzling and disturbing. After all, hadn’t Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek demonstrated the impossibility of rational economic planning in a centrally planned socialist economy? And hadn’t the moral, humanitarian, and economic failure of the Soviet Union eliminated any remaining doubt about what socialism, however well-meaning in theory, would actually amount to in practice?

Part of the explanation can be found by digging more deeply into an earlier 2019 iteration of the Pew study. In that version, participants were asked to explain why they had either a negative or a positive impression of socialism. Among the various responses, one consistent theme stuck out as particularly noteworthy to the researchers. While critics of socialism tended to point to the USSR or Venezuela as examples of why socialism wouldn’t work, defenders of socialism held up different countries—like Finland and Denmark—to show why it would (Pew Research Center, October 2019, “In Their Own Words: Behind Americans’ Views of ‘Socialism’ and ‘Capitalism’”).

The problem with this rationale, as many readers of this journal will probably object, is that Finland and Denmark aren’t actually socialist countries—at least, not if we adopt the standard definition of socialism according to which public ownership and control of the means of production are necessary conditions. Indeed, both countries score higher than the United States overall on the Heritage Foundation’s 2025 Economic Freedom Index, and specifically higher on respect for that supposed bugaboo of socialism, private property (Heritage Foundation, 2025, “Index of Economic Freedom”). Finland and Denmark aren’t socialist, command-and-control economies. They’re market economies with high levels of taxation and redistribution.

It would be tempting to conclude that respondents to the Pew survey are simply confused. They have a vague idea that “socialism” just means a system in which the state takes care of people’s basic needs, and Scandinavian welfare states certainly seem to fit that bill. But to dismiss respondents’ views as reflecting mere ignorance or misunderstanding would be a mistake. Even among serious and well-informed scholars, an important shift has been taking place regarding both the meaning of socialism and the arguments brought to bear on its behalf.

In this light, Matt McManus’s recent book, The Political Theory of Liberal Socialism, is worth serious consideration by friends and foes of socialism alike. McManus, a political theorist at the University of Michigan, argues that the most plausible form of socialism is one that is not merely compatible with but deeply rooted in the liberal idea of human moral equality. His book, while not a full defense of liberal socialism, nevertheless attempts to highlight the attractiveness and plausibility of the view and to show that it is not novel. Liberal socialism is not merely a fallback position to which socialists have retreated after the collapse of “real” socialism in the late twentieth century. Rather, it is an idea with a deep history, running through such well-known figures as Thomas Paine, Mary Wollstonecraft, John Stuart Mill, John Maynard Keynes, and John Rawls, as well as some lesser-known intellectuals such as Carlo Rosselli, Chantal Mouffe, and Alex Honneth.

Most of the book consists in a highly exegetical survey of these thinkers, focusing on how their political and economic visions qualified as at once both “liberal” and “socialist.” But bookending these surveys are two chapters of a more philosophical and normative nature—the first laying out the author’s account of what liberal socialism means, and the last gesturing at directions for future scholars of the doctrine to explore. Because I expect that readers of this journal will be especially interested in the content of the first of these chapters, it will be the primary focus of my review.

So how, then, does McManus define liberal socialism? The first chapter offers several characterizations of the view, some of which are pitched at a fairly high level of abstraction. His initial description of socialism, for instance, holds that socialists are “committed to the moral principles of the equal normative worth of all human beings, a commitment to individual liberty, and a belief in the ethical importance of community/solidarity” (p. 14). A bit later, McManus offers a definition of his preferred and distinctively liberal form of socialism, characterizing it in terms of three somewhat more specific principles: a methodologically collectivist social ontology, a commitment to equal opportunity through the provision of shared resources and a focus on human development, and an extension of liberal democratic principles into the economy and the family (pp. 17–18).

To take each of these in turn, McManus describes “methodological collectivism” as a rejection of the classical liberal view, which allegedly sees individuals as “atomized,” self-interested, and “fundamentally competitive” (p. 18). Liberal socialists accept the normative primacy of individuals, but insist that those individuals are fundamentally interdependent.

The second principle is more complicated and less fully developed. Liberal socialists are committed to equal opportunity, which means that certain resources are shared with the goal of fostering the human development of all. But what exactly does equal opportunity mean? Which resources are to be shared? And how precisely is the balance to be struck between equality, liberty, efficiency, and other legitimate values?

Finally, and perhaps most concretely, there is the call for the extension of democratic principles into the economy and the family. Behind this principle lies what I believe is one of the most important insights in the book for libertarians and classical liberals to consider. That insight is that the state is not unique in the threat it poses to human freedom; that power and oppression can come from private sources as well; and that it would therefore be a mistake for a philosophy rooted in a concern for individual freedom to focus exclusively on minimizing the state.

This warning about the dangers of private power is not a new one, but it is one that has received increased attention from critics of libertarian theory in recent years—critics on the right such as Sohrab Ahmari (2023, Tyranny, Inc., Forum Books) and critics on the left such as Elizabeth Anderson (2019, Private Government, Princeton University Press). What to do about those dangers, however, is significantly less clear. Does extending the principle of democracy into the economy mean mandating workplace democracy? Does it mean implementing some form of “market socialism”?

McManus doesn’t answer these questions, and indeed it seems unlikely that one could answer them satisfactorily with the tools of moral and political philosophy alone. Fundamental moral principles are one thing. Justifiable economic institutions are quite another. And the gap between them cannot be bridged by logic alone. When it comes to institutions, we also need to know what actually works.

Conflation can run in both directions. Consider, first, McManus’s initial definition of socialism as involving belief in equal normative worth, individual liberty, and the ethical importance of community. Careful readers might have noticed that each of these three beliefs is moral, rather than institutional. Moreover, absolutely nothing about these principles precludes a commitment to the capitalist institutions of private property, free markets, and limited government. If socialism is to be understood purely as a moral doctrine, we are thus left with the surprising possibility that capitalism might, at least in principle, turn out to be the best means of achieving socialist ends!

Just as economic institutions cannot be directly read off moral principles, so one cannot read moral principles off economic institutions. McManus seems to fall into this trap when he claims that those who favor a market economy are committed to a belief in a “possessive ethic” or, for that matter, to the metaphysical view that individuals are fundamentally “atomized” and “selfish.” It is no doubt true that some thinkers have supported a market economy on the basis of such assumptions. But there is certainly nothing in the nature of market institutions that requires such commitments, and one would be hard pressed to find much trace of them in the writings of Adam Smith, or Hayek, or most contemporary defenders of a market order.

These points might be read as a criticism of McManus. But I actually mean them as an encouragement. The fact that institutional conclusions cannot be drawn directly from moral premises suggests that the disagreement between liberal socialists and classical liberals might not be as insurmountable as it sometimes appears. It means that the debate need not involve a clash between fundamentally opposed moral principles (“selfishness” vs. “community”), but rather a debate about how exactly a commitment to community, or human development, or equal opportunity, can be best realized in the world as it is, with people as they are.

That debate is not trivial. But it is one that holds real promise for mutual understanding, constructive dialogue, and perhaps even some convergence on shared conclusions between liberal socialists and classical liberals. McManus is one of those all-too-rare thinkers to deeply engage with arguments from across the whole range of the political spectrum. Here’s hoping his book will be the start of a fruitful conversation.