Introduction
This article analyzes the crisis of contemporary liberalism, which has become a hostage to its own success. The system has evolved toward technocratic management and social engineering, losing its foundation of epistemological humility.
The reader will discover how to reconstruct freedom as a state of non-domination. The text explains why institutional pluralism and the voices of working people are essential to protect society from expert hubris and algorithmic determinism.
The Paradox of Liberal Success and the Shift Toward Freedom as Non-Domination
Liberalism became oppressive when the victorious doctrine began to treat its own interpretation of 'the good' as a neutral description of reality. Power shifted from the hands of tyrants to technocrats armed with data and models.
Today, freedom should be understood as non-domination. It is not merely the absence of formal prohibitions, but a situation in which no one possesses arbitrary power over us.
A prime example is the gig economy worker. They may be formally free, yet they remain dominated by opaque algorithms and rankings that they cannot effectively challenge.
The Material Foundations of Freedom and the Social Nature of Humanity
Public services, education, and social safety nets do not restrict liberal freedom. Rather, they are the material instruments that enable its actual exercise.
A human being is not an abstract individual, but a social being who learns through social learning in community. Community is a prerequisite for autonomy, as it provides the language and categories necessary to understand the world.
Economic security constitutes the infrastructure of freedom. The right to dissent is an illusion if refusing to cooperate with a monopolist or a bureaucrat results in existential catastrophe for the citizen.
Liberalism as a System of Collective Error Correction
Freedom and decentralization are essential because knowledge about society is dispersed. No single entity possesses it in its entirety, resulting in a state of inevitable ignorance.
Liberalism thus becomes a technology for collective error correction. It requires freedom of speech and self-governance as mechanisms of self-correction, ensuring the system does not merely produce 'good news' tailored to the demands of a central authority.
Expert knowledge is valuable, but it must engage with local knowledge. Only such a confrontation prevents technocratic blindness and allows society to avoid the pitfalls of social engineering.
Conclusion
Modern power no longer needs to employ censorship; it is sufficient for it to be written into the code of choice architecture. Freedom is shifting from the realm of law to the sphere of algorithms.
True liberalism is a system capable of surviving its own mistakes and correcting them. It requires an acknowledgment of the fallibility of every center of power and the protection of citizens' real agency.
The greatest challenge today is not the fight against state tyranny, but resistance against the invisible cage of digital norms.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why has contemporary liberalism, despite its successes, become an oppressive system, and how should freedom be understood today?
Contemporary liberalism became oppressive because, after achieving success, it began to treat its own interpretation of the good as neutral reality, and its institutions transformed into technocratic hierarchies and opaque bureaucracies. Freedom today should be understood as non-domination—a state in which no one holds arbitrary power over another—making economic security an essential part of the infrastructure for real autonomy.
1. Do public services and social ties limit liberal freedom, or are they a necessary condition for it?
2. Public services, education, and social security do not restrict liberal freedom; rather, they constitute the material instruments that enable its realization. This freedom is inextricably linked to belonging to a community, as individuals shape their skills and views through interactions with others.
3. Why are freedom and decentralization essential from the perspective of acquiring knowledge about society?
4. Freedom and decentralization are essential because knowledge about society is dispersed and local; no one possesses it in its entirety. They allow for experimentation, the competition of information against orthodoxy, and mutual learning, making them a technology for collective error correction.
5. Why are freedom of speech and self-governance necessary to prevent a system from becoming a closed loop that produces only 'good news'?
6. Freedom of speech enables the detection of errors and the functioning of a self-correction mechanism, preventing a situation where an institution unable to accept bad news begins producing content to order. Self-governance, meanwhile, counteracts centralization and paternalism by distributing decision-making capacity, protecting the system from an incentive architecture that limits the flow of information challenging the center.
7. What is the difference between helpful expert knowledge and harmful technocracy?
8. Expertise consists of providing data and arguments within a learning process, whereas technocracy is the transformation of specialized knowledge into a claim of political and moral superiority. The technocrat believes that because of their knowledge, they know better what others should choose, rendering their consent secondary.
9. What is 'working-class liberalism' according to Acemoglu, and on what principles should modern liberalism be based to avoid becoming a system of domination?
10. Working-class liberalism is a concept in which working people become co-authors of institutions and regain economic and cultural agency through shared prosperity and the strengthening of communities. To avoid becoming a system of domination, modern liberalism should be based on institutional humility regarding human fallibility, the decentralization of knowledge, and the provision of material security and institutions for collective voice.
What is the new proposal of liberalism based on, and why is acknowledging one's own fallibility crucial for the functioning of the state and institutions?
The new proposal of liberalism is based on epistemological humility and the recognition that everyone is fallible, which means we need each other to discover errors. Acknowledging one's own fallibility is crucial because it forces institutions to be built in a way that allows for the correction of mistakes and creates systems where openness and criticism are cognitive necessities rather than gestures of grace.
Why are diversity and decentralization essential from a cognitive perspective?
Diversity and decentralization allow for the testing of alternative solutions, which is essential to verify whether the dominant solution is indeed the best. This makes it possible to utilize dispersed local knowledge and the unpredictable discoveries of individuals that a central analyst is unable to perceive.
Why is expert knowledge alone insufficient for managing a system, and what is the role of the community in acquiring knowledge?
Expert knowledge is insufficient because it overlooks the local context and the experience of people directly affected by a given problem. The community serves as an environment for the verification, accumulation, and transfer of knowledge, enabling social learning and the passing of practices between generations.
Why are freedom of speech and critical education essential from the perspective of the theory of knowledge?
Freedom of speech functions as an epistemic safety valve that breaks the mechanism of mistaken beliefs about others' opinions and allows for the gradual correction of knowledge through the testing of arguments. Critical education is essential for building the cognitive autonomy of citizens, enabling them to distinguish evidence from propaganda and independently detect errors.
How does the theory of knowledge translate into specific institutional solutions, and why is the voice of employees indispensable in this process?
The theory of knowledge translates into institutional solutions by promoting experimentation, self-governance, non-domination, and common prosperity. The voice of employees is indispensable because they are carriers of practical knowledge from the periphery of the system; the absence of which in designers' decisions leads to epistemic costs and flawed solutions.
Why does the mere possession of vast amounts of data by algorithms not replace the distributed knowledge of humans?
Algorithms process codified data, whereas distributed human knowledge encompasses tacit, contextual aspects, as well as those resulting from practice and intuition. The centralization of information is not identical to the centralization of knowledge, because AI systems synthesize existing texts instead of gaining experience and observing phenomena in real time.
Why is acknowledging human fallibility essential for creating a system free from domination?
Acknowledging human fallibility leads to the postulate of non-domination, as the lack of a monopoly on knowledge removes the justification for arbitrary power. This is necessary because any power can be cognitively flawed, and the concentration of power ensures that errors made by the center generate high social costs.
In what way can theoretical moral principles lead to the restriction of citizens' freedom?
Theoretical moral principles can lead to paternalism and administrative uniformization when a legislator deems certain behaviors improper and prohibits them even when they only affect the citizen themselves. In such a case, the person ceases to be a subject of choice and becomes an object being protected from error, which may result in the deprivation of their freedom in the name of respect for their humanity.
Why does the belief in knowing the 'true good' of a citizen lead to systemic domination, and how can this be prevented?
The belief in knowing the 'true good' of a citizen allows institutions to treat their opinion as an error requiring correction, providing a pretext for invalidating opposition and applying coercion in the name of alleged freedom. This can be prevented by adopting fallibilism—recognizing the symmetry of fallibility across all groups and treating dissent as a source of information rather than evidence of ignorance.
How does a real social pact differ from theoretical models of the social contract, and what role does deliberation play in this process?
A real social pact, unlike a hypothetical contract, is a process of actual negotiation of norms between people with different interests. Deliberation serves as a mechanism for acquiring knowledge and arguments from those subject to the effects of decisions, which allows for the avoidance of expert errors and grants legitimacy to the solutions adopted.
Where does the state's right to impose norms end, and where does unacceptable indoctrination begin?
The state may impose norms and require specific behaviors if it serves to protect the conditions for the coexistence of free people and the rights of others. Unacceptable indoctrination begins, however, at the moment when coercion concerns the shaping of a citizen's internal beliefs and eliminates the possibility of questioning the imposed values.
Why does liberalism defend freedom, and how does it understand the relationship between the individual and the community in the context of domination?
Liberalism defends freedom to enable people to flourish and be the moral authors of their own lives, protecting them from realizing others' projects imposed from the outside. In the relationship between the individual and the community, it adopts normative individualism, recognizing the human being as the ultimate subject of good and harm, which precludes their total subordination to the collective. Freedom here is understood as non-domination, meaning protection against the arbitrary power of the state, employer, or community.
Why are material security and a fair distribution of profits essential for the functioning of a liberal system?
Material security and a fair share in the fruits of growth are conditions for real freedom because they protect individuals from dependence on a stronger entity. They prevent situations where citizens feel their own redundancy despite the country's economic success.
Why is the mere pursuit of good or being right not enough to avoid creating a system of domination?
The mere pursuit of good or being right is not enough, as just values can be defended using authoritarian and illiberal tools. Without an ethics of how values are disseminated and without including others in the process of creating evaluation criteria, a system can become an instrument of domination and discipline.
What is the difference between ordinary public policy and education and social engineering and indoctrination?
Public policy and education create rules of operation and transmit knowledge along with the tools to verify it, allowing for the possibility of criticism. Social engineering and indoctrination, on the other hand, are top-down attempts to shape values and thought in order to limit debate and eliminate the possibility of challenging the assertions being conveyed.
How can the pursuit of eliminating ignorance within liberalism lead to technocratic dominance and the control of citizens?
The pursuit of eliminating ignorance can lead to technocratic dominance when elites consider their own views as the only correct result of knowledge and treat citizen opposition as a symptom of a lack of education. In such a system, the citizen ceases to be a co-author of the political order and becomes merely the recipient of a modernization program subjected to cognitive paternalism.
Why does state administration often fail to recognize the real needs of citizens, and how can this be countered?
Administration seeks to simplify reality through categorization (so-called legibility), which leads to the omission of information that cannot be encoded in tables and registers. To counter this, institutional pluralism is essential—including local governments, civic organizations, and free media, which function as sensors providing local knowledge.
Where is the line between justified expert knowledge and harmful technocracy in the management of society?
This line is crossed at the moment of transition from possessing specialized substantive knowledge to the belief that such knowledge grants the right to define social norms and determine what constitutes a proper life for others. Harmful technocracy begins where competence in a given field is mistakenly equated with omnicompetence and the authority to set the boundaries of permissible dispute.
How can contemporary institutional and cultural language become a tool of power and exclusion?
Language becomes a tool of power and exclusion when proficiency in using codes of institutional correctness is equated with a higher value of one's political voice. This leads to situations where individuals unfamiliar with the professional idiom of post-industrial elites are symbolically humiliated and marginalized.
How should contemporary liberalism respond to populism, and in what way is technology changing the nature of dominance over the citizen?
Contemporary liberalism should separate the information contained within a protest from the ideological package of populism, listen to groups with different views, and persuade rather than discipline. Technology changes the nature of dominance by encoding social engineering into the architecture of platforms, where algorithms shape the space of a citizen's views without the need for a traditional censor.
