Hayek's Enduring Relevance

The trend is to heap vituperation on historical or classical liberalism. A leading critic of liberalism, Patrick Deneen, writes in Regime Change that Western liberalism sought “a new governing class,” “a new ruling elite” or “ruling class” to constrain majorities while advancing “progress in a modernizing world.” He adds, “The cognitive basis of the new ruling class would eventually manifest itself in a set of distinct philosophical and political positions, a comprehensive worldview increasingly required as a basis of the social, political, and economic order” (his italics).