Are liberal democracies on the decline?

I am writing to clarify my thoughts on whether the liberal democracies are in decline, are our best days over, and will my daughter have to settle for a lower standard of living moving into the future?

My gut reaction is yes. This appears to be a widely felt feeling; pessimism is growing; gaps between rich and poor are spreading; inflation and interest rates seem out of control; and our civil institutions have lost the people’s trust. Only 39% of Canadians think our country is on the right track. Only 20% of Americans think their country is on the right track. “We have never before seen this level of sustained pessimism in the 30-year-plus history of the poll”. These sorts of numbers are repeated throughout the Western world. 

Liberal democracies are facing the rise of geopolitical challengers and have seen increasing illiberalism internally on both sides of the political spectrum. Could they tear themselves apart through internal struggles or fall behind the other global powers? Is this inevitable? Is the best we can hope for is a gradual and genteel decline? 

I hope not. Besides being my selfish reasons for wanting continual growth, prosperity and freedom, it is better for the world as a whole that we remain so. While things are not looking great right now, some historical perspective might help. 

The liberal democratic order has seemed in danger before. The late ’60s and 70s and early ’80s were a time of tension, with civil unrest, unpopular and unsuccessful wars, economic stagflation and global communism on the march. Crime in the US spiked, and people felt the civil order was collapsing. The movies of the period and the early 80s resonated with distrust of government and society decay. Yet just over a decade later, the USSR had fallen, democracy was rising worldwide, and the West’s technological abilities were light years ahead of the rest of the world. The USA was left as the world’s hyperpower and political scientists had declared liberal democracy had won, and we had reached the end of history. 

In the ’30s, the Western liberal democracies were suffering through the economic crisis of the great depression; strongmen like Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin seemed like models of the future and imperial Japan on the march. Yes, it required World War Two to reestablish liberal democracies as the primary force in the world and a bulwark against the forces of communism. Still, we emerged from that crisis in a much stronger position that looked possible a decade earlier. 

The point of these two examples is that liberal democracy is often counted out but has proven highly resilient, and it would be a mistake to assume the worst currently. But Liberal democracy does not just survive because it is destined to; it requires that its citizens believe in it and, if needed, fight for it.