cover image What's the Matter with Liberalism?

What's the Matter with Liberalism?

Ronald Beiner. University of California Press, $45 (208pp) ISBN 978-0-520-07793-5

Liberal political theory, which promotes choice, mobility and maximum personal freedom, has contributed to a ``shopping mall culture'' whose members are producers and consumers instead of involved citizens, suggests the author. Critical of left-leaning thinkers' ``preoccupation with rights, interests and rational preferences,'' he urges liberals to shift gears and turn to the Socratic tradition, with its emphasis on virtue and character formation, for guidance in reordering our social priorities. Beiner, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto, has produced a dense, challenging scholarly critique. He seeks to transcend ``phony individualism,'' which hinders creation of the level of public culture necessary to sustain meaningful citizenship in a community guided by moral aims. Described here by a colleague as ``a socialist admirer of Allan Bloom,'' Beiner in a closing chapter sketches ``an alternative case for socialism'' that centers on solidarity and political enfranchisement rather than economic redistribution and social equality. (Aug.)