The French Revolution was a complex historical event, and its intellectual foundations were likewise complex. It is a mistake to reduce it to the Jacobin terror. It was a liberal revolution whose ideals sprang from the Anglo-Saxon legal tradition.
Individual freedom by itself is not a political good. Classical liberalism understood the state not only as a threat, but always as a guarantor of freedom. To this end, it can also restrict freedoms, as in the case of fighting a pandemic. Everything is a question of proportionality—and about this some people have justified doubts.
Capitalism and the market economy are the foundations of our prosperity, which, thanks to globalization, is also spreading to places in which poverty still prevailed decades ago. At the Austrian Academy 2021 experts explain to twenty-two young people why this is so.
In his book “Why Liberalism Failed” Patrick Deneen deals with all varieties of Liberalism. They are the fruit of a false image of man – an assertion which, however, proves to be questionable on closer inspection.
Today, social debates are ignited from the political margins. When democracy is in crisis and social cohesion is crumbling, it is time for intellectuals to focus on the essentials. What is needed is an anti-totalitarian self-enlightenment from the political center.
Freedom of expression is a fundamental right without which a free and democratic society cannot exist. We all grew up in this culture of freedom. But Political Correctness and conformism endanger it.
