The path down to green liberalism

ABSTRACT

The debate over the compatibility of environmentalism and liberalism has primarily been defined by the challenge of bringing liberalism ‘up’ to the moral level required to deal with environmental issues. For instance, it is argued that liberalism must become ‘more liberal’ in order to enshrine hitherto unrecognised rights of non-human nature into the liberal order. I will argue, however, that those who reject the possibility of ‘greening’ liberalism have misinterpreted the phenomenon of actually-existing-liberalism, and uncritically accepted its propagandistic self-description. I show that the realistic compatibility of environmentalism with liberalism lies with the latter’s ability to act in ways generally considered illiberal, rather than with its ability to become more liberal, or come ‘up’ to the moral level of environmentalism. It can instead be a moral path ‘down’ by which liberalism can become ‘green’.

KEYWORDS:

• Environmentalism
• liberalism
• green liberalism
• authoritarian liberalism
• environmental authoritarianism
• climate crisis

Introduction

The debate over the compatibility of environmentalism and liberalism began in an alarmist atmosphere following the ‘Limits to Growth’ report (Meadows et al. 1972). Following this initial phase, the debate had mostly taken place on an abstract basis concerned primarily with the commensurability of core liberal theoretical principles with overarching issues of sustainability and human/nature relationships, and with less focus on scarcity and the practicalities of response to catastrophic climate collapse (Dobson 2007, Goodin 2013). Recently, however, following the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report (IPCC 2007), which warned that previous climate predictions were optimistic and that climate change is proceeding faster than anticipated, environmentalism has re-entered a catastrophic phase. This phase has seen the emergence of ‘new catastrophists’ (Urry 2011) who work from the assumption that, on the current trajectory, human-induced global warming is likely to trigger runaway climate change in the near to medium future with devastating effects for human systems, up to and including the possible extinction of the human race (eg Bendell 2018). This turn has also reinvigorated discussions of the limitations of liberal responses to the challenge of climate change, and the possibility of authoritarian alternatives (eg Beeson 2010, Stehr 2016, Flipo 2018). This turn has, of course, been reinforced by increasing signs that climate change is not merely a future threat but a current reality, and that we are already entering an era of worsening and potentially irreversible climate crisis (Ripple et al. 2019). Although I will not address the scientific debate here, nor attempt to prove that catastrophic climate crisis is inevitable, I begin from the acceptance that we must take the possibility seriously. Therefore, I focus on the compatibility of environmentalism and liberalism in the specific context of near-term catastrophic climate crisis. However, this is not an attempt to solve the issue and provide a normative agenda. I provide a critical perspective on liberalism and do not argue that the form of green liberalism outlined should form the basis of a response by contemporary liberalism to environmental challenges. Instead the form of green liberalism described here should serve primarily as a warning, to those of us who hope for a response to climate crisis which deepens rather than erodes democratic systems, that authoritarian responses to environmental challenges can emerge from sources ostensibly committed foremost to liberty.

In all of the phases of this debate a particular conception of liberalism has predominated – liberalism’s own self-image – that of a perspective genuinely committed to individual liberty. Arguments based on this conception have produced two main positions: firstly that sustainability demands actions that compromise core liberal principles, which if accepted would transform liberalism beyond its conceptual boundaries, and so liberalism must be abandoned (eg Ophuls 1977); and secondly that liberalism could be ‘greened’ by expanding its protections (to include, for instance, the liberties of non-human nature or future generations), thereby bringing liberalism ‘up’ to the moral level required by the climate challenge (eg De-Shalit 1995, Wissenburg 1998, Goodin 2013). In the current catastrophic context this continues to be an influential approach to the issue (eg Eckersley 2019, Pinto 2019).

While it is certainly desirable to ‘bring liberalism up’ to meet the climate challenge, and the attempts to do so are laudable, I take a different approach here. I will draw primarily on the image of ‘authoritarian liberalism’ or ‘actually-existing-liberalism’ offered by governmentality scholars Barry Hindess and Mitchell Dean (Hindess 2001, 2004, 2008, Dean 2002, 2003, 2010), which sees liberal authoritarianism not as aberration or pragmatic adaption of theory to practice, but as a faithful instantiation of liberal principles. Therefore, it does not reinforce a conceptual divide between pure theory and imperfect practice, but emphasises their inter-relation as a mutually reinforcing complex.¹ This perspective is complemented by Noam Chomsky’s anarchist critique of liberalism, which similarly casts liberal authoritarianism as the logical application of liberal principles, contributes a critique of the liberal distaste for mass democracy, and highlights liberalism’s reliance on, and development of, modern propaganda techniques and institutions (Chomsky 1970, 1992).

From here I will argue that liberalism and environmental concerns can be reconciled, but that the catastrophic context of the climate challenge, and a realistic appraisal of actually-existing-liberalism, suggests a method of ‘greening’ liberalism that is generally overlooked. Rather than a defence of liberalism, this critical perspective disputes liberalism’s purported commitment to individual liberty. This perspective holds that liberal theory and practice are not primarily concerned with liberty as such but with defending and justifying restrictions and exceptions; liberal freedom is conditional, and it is as reasonable to see liberalism as constituted by these conditions and exceptions as by commitments to liberty.² The central argument is that those who reject the possibility of ‘greening’ liberalism have misinterpreted the phenomenon of actually-existing-liberalism, and uncritically accepted its propagandistic self-description. I will show that the realistic compatibility of environmentalism with liberalism lies with liberalism’s ability to act illiberally – that is, in ways that infringe on liberty³ – rather than with its ability to become more liberal, or come ‘up’ to the moral level of environmentalism. It can instead be a moral path ‘down’ by which liberalism can become ‘green’. This is not to say that climate crisis necessarily entails authoritarian responses, or that such measures are the best response to climate change or environmental issues generally. Nor is this a defence of authoritarianism, green or otherwise, but a call to recognise that authoritarian responses to climate crisis may come not only from a curtailment of liberal values but through an extension of them, albeit in a direction that we may not like.

The article is structured in three sections. In the first section I outline how ‘liberalism’ and ‘environmentalism’ are represented here, and challenge the traditionally accepted definition of liberalism. In the second section I look at the perceived fundamental barriers to the ‘greening’ of liberalism. As I do so I consider how the ‘catastrophic context’, and a realistic understanding of actually-existing-liberalism, should change our approach to these issues. In the final section I address the issue of catastrophic collapse, demonstrating how actually-existing-liberalism and environmentalism are compatible, especially in an emergency response⁴ to accelerating climate change.

Actually-existing-liberalism

Considering the greening of liberalism in the catastrophic context forces us to address the real world. We must see the question ‘Is liberalism compatible with environmentalism?’ as not merely theoretical, but inescapably material. To ask it is to ask if liberal democracy as it exists has the capacity to deal with the crisis that we actually face (Parenti 2013). Therefore, I will argue that the liberalism that should most concern us in this debate is actually-existing-liberalism, or liberalism as a theory and system of governance. It would be of little use to determine that a theoretical liberalism that does not exist in practice could be of assistance in confronting climate change.

Liberalism developed out of the pre-industrial philosophical Enlightenment. However, according to Chomsky it was anarchism, which emerged from the same philosophical tradition, that ‘preserved and extended [its] radical humanist message’ (Chomsky 1970, p. xi). Conversely, liberalism accepted the legitimacy of many pre-existing social constructions, and perverted the radical Enlightenment message of individual and collective emancipation into an ideology to sustain the authority of the state, material inequality, the market, patriarchy, and imperialism (Rocker 1947). It also provided a philosophical defence of the coercion and authoritarian control of those ‘exceptions’ judged incapable of exercising individual freedom (Hindess 2001).

Liberalism is not monolithic, and its different strains vary on their commitment to liberty and its scope. However, not even the most freedom-privileging strain endorses absolute liberty. Liberal freedoms are conditional – they are hedged by caveats, exceptions, and exclusions. In both theory and practice it has not focused principally on protecting individual liberty, but determining the exceptions to, and limits of, acceptable individual liberty under fundamentally illiberal pre-existing conditions (ie the state, the market, societal class divisions, empire, patriarchy, etc), which are accepted a priori. As such it is fundamentally a theory and system of state, government, and preservation of social inequalities (Chomsky 1970). As with any theory of ‘the art of government’, systemic stability and preservation are fundamental goals. Therefore, actually-existing-liberalism is highly concerned with the practicalities of the ‘government of unfreedom’ (Hindess 2001, p. 100). It proceeds from a theoretical and philosophical justification of the limits and exceptions of liberty to the practical policing of individuals, groups, actions, and periods of time that have been justified as requiring coercive, ‘despotic’ authority to control (Dean 2002).

In contrast though to the absolutist systems that during the Enlightenment were increasingly seen as illegitimate and therefore unstable, liberalism casts itself as a system of ‘reasonable’ exercise of authority (Zafirovski 2010). Recognising that unnecessary restrictions on liberty create resistance, to bolster its legitimacy liberalism uses ‘freedom as a technical means for achieving its ends’ (Dean 2002, p. 37). It attains systemic durability by the judicious provision of liberty and by practising minimal intervention in areas where this is seen as a more effective form of governance. And it employs the ‘radical humanist’ language of the Enlightenment in the philosophical justification of its despotic aspects. By claiming that the exercise of its authoritarian capacities constitutes an exception to its fundamental character, and that it is authoritarian only when unavoidable, liberalism can achieve more durable governance than arbitrary authoritarianism (Hindess 2001). Thus the liberal claim of ‘accountable government’ can be thought of as a claim of ‘reasonable authoritarianism’. To be clear, I am not arguing that liberalism’s use of authoritarian means is truly reasonable, merely that it is claimed to be so on the basis of its philosophical justification and its status as an ‘exception’ compared to the arbitrary authoritarianism of ‘unreasonable’ regimes.⁵ From this perspective, liberalism appears as a pragmatic adaptation by ruling classes to the increasing incontestability and philosophical hegemony of the Enlightenment principle of individual liberty (Zafirovski 2010).

It is this understanding of ‘reasonably authoritarian’ actually-existing-liberalism that I will seek to reconcile with environmentalism. As this is a somewhat controversial, and sometimes complicated perspective, I draw out its specifics in the context of the debate between liberalism and environmentalism that I explore in detail in the next section. I also expand on this perspective and its application in the final section when I look directly at the ability of actually-existing-liberalism to confront catastrophic climate crisis scenarios.

Green critiques

The critique of liberalism’s green credentials is usually based on one of two broad perspectives: that liberalism is too liberal; and that it is not liberal enough. The first began with the reactions to the 1972 publication ‘The Limits to Growth’ (Meadows et al. 1972). It was argued, most notably by William Ophuls (1977) and Heilbroner (1974), that liberal democracy could not possibly manage the inevitable environmental crises that the limits to growth thesis entailed. According to these critics, liberalism’s commitment to individual liberty would prevent an effective response to the crisis as ‘no-one is likely to succumb voluntarily to the measures needed’ (Dobson 2007, p. 70). Therefore, liberalism could not countenance such measures as the rationing of scarce resources, technocratic leadership, restrictions on production, consumption, and lifestyle that these eco-authoritarians felt would be unavoidable as a response to environmental limits.

After this first wave of authoritarian environmentalism, the environmental critique of liberalism entered a phase where the second critique, that liberalism is not liberal enough to comprehensively address environmental matters, dominated the debate (Goodin 2013). This phase was more dedicated to the theoretical compatibility of liberalism and environmentalism than the practicalities of crisis and scarcity. This was essentially a theoretical attempt to bring liberalism ‘up’ to the moral level of environmentalism (Dobson 2007, p. 28–31, Eckersley 1992, p. 23, 24). For example, many critics in this phase argued that as liberalism restricts its provision of rights to individual humans and does not recognise the rights of non-human nature, it is not liberal enough and needs to expand its sphere of rights to become compatible with environmentalism (Eckersley 2019, p. 6–7).

These two perspectives on liberalism have very different focuses. One is concerned primarily with pragmatic, short-term crisis response; the other motivated by a more long-sighted and long-term project of (r)evolutionary social change. In the catastrophic context the former obviously has more immediate relevance. As such the current phase of ‘new catastrophist’ environmentalism has seen a revival of focus on more short-term crisis and the critique of liberalism as ‘too liberal’ (Shearman and Smith 2007, p. 116). It also focuses less on deep theoretical compatibility, the critique of liberalism as not liberal enough, and long-range goals of social transformation (Lilley et al. 2012, p. 34, 35). This is not to say that new catastrophism has completely foregone long-range ecotopian visions (Parenti 2013, p. 51, Foster 2009, p. 276–277). There is, however, increasing recognition that as any holistic transformation of human global society will be a long-term effort, we do not have time to undergo such transformation before facing crisis (Parenti 2013, p. 57), and that ultimately some basic limits must be imposed (Dobson 2007, p. 150). It is also broadly accepted that there are some ‘essential outcomes’ (Dobson 2007, p. 115; Wong 2016, p. 140) that must be achieved; that without addressing this existential threat, the necessary material conditions – ie humanity’s survival – for any holistic transformation of human society will not exist (Parenti 2011, p. 240–242).

The catastrophic context demands that we recognise the dominant concern of contemporary environmentalism in the face of looming climate crisis: securing the conditions for the survival and continued development of human and non-human life (Parenti 2013, p. 57, Pinto 2019). Therefore, the critique that must be addressed with most urgency, and the one that I will seek to answer, is that liberalism is ‘too liberal’ to effectively respond to climate crisis and related issues. To do this I will consider liberalism’s position on individual liberty, its supposed neutrality towards ‘the good life’, and, as a special case of both, its commitment to the ‘free’ market. I will leave aside the more long-range issue of whether it can subsequently develop into an ecological utopia, which at any rate is contingent on the successful navigation of climate crisis and humanity’s survival beyond the immediate future. And while it should not be assumed that authoritarianism is capable of responding effectively to all issues required for a genuine and comprehensive environmentalism, in the context of climate catastrophe it is reasonable to expect that crises of scarcity and disaster could develop which are conducive to authoritarian responses.

Barriers to authoritarian green liberalism

Freedom

Actually-existing-liberalism’s freedoms are highly contingent. Liberalism ‘entails divisions between and within both populations and individual subjects, in such a way as to require authoritarian or despotic rule in a wide variety of instances’ (Dean 2002, p. 57). It is ‘as much concerned with paternalistic rule [over those] judged incompetent as with the government of autonomous individuals’ (Hindess 2001, p. 94, 95). Examples from early liberalism are obvious, from the systematic subjugation of women, and repressive paternalism towards ‘the poor’ (Rose 1999, p. 71), to the colonial conquest and subjugation of the non-European world (Hindess 2001, p. 101). But the tendency continues in modern liberalism through the neo-colonial project of economic globalisation and ‘democracy promotion’ through war (Rose 1999, p. 60); the treatment of displaced people and asylum-seekers (Little 2007, p. 154); the treatment of Indigenous inhabitants of settler-colonial societies (Coulthard 2014); the criminal justice system; the punitive provision of social security; the control of those deemed psychologically and intellectually ‘inferior’; and the enduring but often overlooked authoritarian control of minors (Hindess 2001, p. 94).

Liberalism’s freedoms are also contingent on particular circumstances in time. The use of authoritarian governance as ‘emergency measures’ in ‘unusual’ circumstances or ‘states of exception’ is a common feature of all government (Agamben 2008, p. 1). However, liberal regimes, in line with their ‘reasonable’ authoritarianism, claim to employ such measures only as a last resort or when easily justifiable (Cox 2013, p. 17). Still, when we consider the variety of exceptions that liberalism considers unavoidable or justifiable, and subjects to despotic authority, from individuals, to groups of people, to actions, to periods of time, the so-called ‘state of exception’, far from being exceptional or peripheral, appears to be among the core characteristics of actually-existing-liberalism.

Liberalism as a ‘reasonably authoritarian’ form of governance evolved out of a reaction to unreasonable (and ultimately unstable) authoritarian government (Zafirovski 2010, p. 170). But, although it employs the rhetoric of liberty and its judicious provision to maintain its legitimacy through a contrast with such regimes, it too is first and foremost a system of government. All governments, including liberal democratic regimes, were established and are maintained, both externally and internally, by violence and the threat of violence. The basic condition of liberal society, as with all societies under government, is not liberty but obedience (Hume 1960, p. 150–152), and philosophical devices such as the theory of the ‘social contract’, which environmentalists generally accept as ‘liberalism’s most fundamental feature’ (De-Shalit 1995, p. 83), function primarily to legitimise authority.⁶ It is always the prerogative of the powerful to renegotiate the contract; to determine the limits for liberty that are acceptable, the exceptions that are necessary, and the means for dealing with these limits and exceptions (Hume 1960, p. 155, 156).

Understood in this way, liberal democracy, like all forms of government, is fundamentally about the exercise of authority. But as it seeks to minimise its authoritarianism in order to retain ‘legitimacy’ and therefore durability (Hindess 2004, p. 4), liberalism contends that it transgresses the liberty of individuals only as a last resort (Cox 2013, p. 38). As such, it justifies its illiberal actions as a defence of liberty more broadly, claiming to be authoritarian only in the defence of freedom (Rose 1999, p. 61). The erosion of civil liberties in Western democracies in the wake of 9/11 and the ‘War on Terror’ that is justified as necessary in the defence of freedom is a pointed example of this tendency (Cram 2009, p. 3–4). Likewise, the measures employed by some liberal democracies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.⁷ But the restriction of liberty for its own sake is not merely a response to extreme threats such as terrorism or pandemics. It is also the justification for the criminal justice system generally; the confinement and control of people with psychological and intellectual disabilities; the prohibition on the carrying of most and the ownership of many weapons; the prohibition on recreational drugs; and the harsh police response to protest outside of narrow permitted bounds (Rose 1999, p. 68).

Liberalism’s commitment to freedom is a secondary concern compared to its desire for social control, stability, and systemic preservation (Shklar 1989). Once ‘reasonable’ limits for acceptable action are transgressed, liberal democracies respond with much the same coercive and authoritarian measures that characterise any ‘art of government’ (Dean 2002, p. 37). The restrictions on individual liberty that are likely to be required for a comprehensive response to climate crisis, far from requiring a ‘new, unsullied system’ of technocratic leadership (Shearman and Smith 2007, p. 166), can be enacted by actually-existing-liberalism. Liberalism has traditionally regarded those people, actions, or beliefs that can be argued to be irrational, unreasonable, and, especially, a threat to the liberty of others, as exceptions that cannot be trusted with autonomy, and legitimate targets for authoritarian measures. In a climate crisis that is considered a serious emergency requiring radical action, those who advocate actions or beliefs that can be argued to be ‘unsustainable’, can easily be dealt with by the usual legal (though authoritarian and coercive) means with a liberal justification that their acts or beliefs are unreasonable, dangerous, and a threat to liberty, especially fundamental liberties such as the right to life.

The good life

Following from the supposed centrality of individual autonomy is the belief that liberalism maintains a neutral position regarding ‘the good life’. This is seen as a major problem for greening liberalism because, in mandating any particular relationship between humans and non-human nature, environmentalism must advocate a particular ‘good life’ (Dobson 2007, p. 114). However, that liberalism does not promote or attack particular visions of the good life, and that it believes that people ‘know what is in their own best interest’ (Dobson 2007, p. 165) is flatly contradicted by actually-existing-liberalism’s history.

Despite the protestations of some liberal theorists (eg Rawls in Hindess 2004, p. 2, 3) actually-existing-liberalism has always been driven by an overwhelming interest in international affairs, particularly with promotion of particular liberal visions of the good life. The brutally authoritarian imperial project of nineteenth-century British liberalism was justified in terms of the ‘improvement’, or ‘civilising’ of colonial subjects (Hindess 2004, p. 7, 2001, p. 104); the neo-colonial projects of the twentieth century by the ‘development’ of globalised ex-colonies; and contemporary wars by the promotion of ‘democracy’ (Ross 2004, p. 39–42). These liberal projects are all based on the belief that liberal democratic society is the best of all possible societies, and that the liberal life is the best possible ‘good life’. Aside from international endeavours, liberal societies’ internal authoritarian rule of those exceptions mentioned in the previous section, such as children, non-whites, females, the poor, etc, and the institutions of this rule, such as the education, criminal justice, and social security systems, are also justified by the ‘betterment’ of ‘inferiors’ within liberal societies in line with a particular liberal vision of the ‘good life’ and those qualified to lead it (Rose 1999, p. 62, Hindess 2001, p. 98).

Liberalism has also demonstrated its commitment to a particular ‘good life’ in its adaptation to the threat of popular democracy. As universal suffrage loomed inevitable, the liberal fear of the ‘tyranny of the majority’, especially the presumed likelihood of attempts to redistribute wealth from ‘the opulent minority’ (Madison 1977, p. 78) to the poor majority, drew an authoritarian reaction from many liberals (Gottfried 2001, p. 30–47). Mass democracy was to be managed by a special political class, with the ‘bewildered herd’ looking on as ‘interested spectators of action’ without any real participation but that of occasionally legitimising elite rule by minor democratic actions such as voting (Carey 1995, p. 22–23; Gottfried 2001, p. 75). The elite leadership of ‘responsible men’ would ‘manufacture the consent’ of the masses and provide a narrow and acceptable range of options from which to ‘democratically’ choose (Chomsky 1992, p. 367–368).

This translated to elite, technocratic leadership, using the ‘modern science of propaganda’ to promote ‘liberal values’ in defence against the potential threat to ‘men of property’ of the enfranchisement of the ‘bewildered herd’ (Lippmann 1982, p. 91). This was first seen as a program of ‘Americanisation’ of European immigrants to the USA before the First World War, which sought to replace any anarchistic or socialist tendencies with a commitment to American liberal democracy and corporate capitalism. This propaganda effort, soon relabelled ‘public relations’ (PR), was gradually expanded to target the entire US population as part of the Second World War (WW2) ‘war effort’, and in the anti-communist ‘Red Scare’ in the subsequent ‘Cold War’ (Carey 1995, p. 64–74). It eventually became enmeshed in the US political landscape in the ‘think-tank’ form of PR machine and from there spread internationally through the neoliberal effort to convince the world of the ‘one true right way to live’ (Chomsky 1999, p. 65, Carey 1995, p. 64–74). Now PR is seen as an indispensable element in a modern form of liberal democracy dominated by a professional political class, a scenario remarkably reminiscent of the technocratic rule by specialists advocated by early twentieth-century liberal theorists (Gottfried 2001, p. 70). Liberal democracy’s use of propaganda in promotion of a specific ‘good life’ during WW2 has particular relevance for the climate crisis. Through promotion of community cooperation and simple living under shared conditions of hardship, this PR drive connected the ‘war effort’ to everyday life and encouraged such schemes as community food gardening ventures known as ‘victory gardens’ which produced up to 40% of the US’s wartime fresh food (Endres and Endres 2009, p. 405).

Liberal commitment to neutrality is dependent on the level of threat it perceives. Socialist, anarchist, and even fascist⁸ political views are currently tolerated by liberalism, as they are no longer seen as serious threats (Blum 2006, p. 4–5). Militant groups with fundamentalist Islamic beliefs, however, while tolerated and even supported during the Cold War, have seen increasingly authoritarian measures applied to them and others who share similar beliefs, by liberal regimes as the actions of these militants have become categorised as serious threats by the contemporary counter-terrorism security state (Cram 2009, p. 3–4).

Therefore, the idea that liberalism maintains a neutral stance regarding the good life can at most be seen to apply within very strict parameters. Liberalism aggressively promotes its vision of the good life, and tolerates opposing visions only so far as they are not viewed as a threat to the continuation of liberal governance, as the examples of liberal response to WW2, the Cold War, and the ‘War on Terror’ demonstrate. The crisis that the ‘war on climate change’ is on track to become could similarly trigger such interventionist promotion of a particular ‘good life’, where liberal governments define the parameters of a ‘reasonable’ human/nature relationship, and attack opposing visions that could be argued to be ‘unsustainable’ and therefore a threat to life and liberty.

The market

Following from both liberalism’s presumed commitment to individual freedom and neutrality regarding conceptions of the ‘good life’ is the claim that liberalism is committed to non-intervention in economic affairs and privileges autonomy within ‘the market’ (Martell 1994, p. 141). However, liberal democracies have a long history of pragmatic market intervention, sometimes to extreme levels. It is often overlooked that the dominance, and even the existence, of ‘the corporation’ in modern capitalism is itself a systematic form of state intervention in the market from a classical liberal perspective. Adam Smith, a thinker who has been posthumously claimed by liberals as one of their own (Hindess 2004, p. 7) and the foundational philosopher of the benefits of free market economics, railed vehemently against this form of monopolistic market distortion (Smith 1976, p. 471–472). In Smith’s day corporations, or ‘joint stock companies’, were temporary constructions requiring the periodic validation of the state for their continued existence (Chomsky 1999, p. 148), but since then they have grown to become permanent and, as was apparent in the government responses to 2008’s global financial crisis (GFC), are considered to be an indispensible cornerstone of the modern ‘free’ market (Mason 2009, p. 60).

As prominent and powerful as they are, their dependence on the state remains significant. The willingness of liberal governments to intervene in the market, and the amount that the modern corporation still relies on the state to protect its continued existence, was vividly demonstrated in the wake of the 2007 Wall-Street crash and subsequent GFC in 2008. During this crisis liberal governments around the world ‘bailed-out’ many ‘too-big-to-fail’ corporations with injections of capital estimated to have amounted to 15 trillion US dollars globally in 2008, and even nationalised, or semi-nationalised many such entities (Mason 2009, p. 53). Corporations still rely on the state for their existence, and while in the neoliberal era the state has appeared less willing to intervene in corporate affairs, in the end, as is clear from events across liberalism’s history, liberal market freedoms, like all of liberalism’s freedoms, are contingent and can be rescinded in response to crisis.

During WW2 liberal democracies intervened spectacularly in the market. Seeing fascism as an existential threat in a traditional security sense, as well as a threat to the system of ‘free’ economics, the governments of Britain and the USA assumed direct control of their countries’ economic realms, and directed economic efforts towards serving the pragmatic requirements of facing this threat (Gilding 2011, p. 110). This meant a centrally planned economy with production, consumption, and property rights all subsumed by the need to support the collective challenge that these societies faced (Gilding 2011, p. 129–130). The liberal World War effort also demonstrated the underlying national control of corporations. In just one striking example, four days after the attack on Pearl Harbour the US government ordered the US car industry to halt all civilian production (Ferguson 2005, p. 149). In fact, from an elite perspective, one of the benefits of modern corporate capitalism is its ability to be managed by manufacture of consent and non-intervention during times of ‘normality’, but constitute a highly integrated, centralised, planned, economic infrastructure that government can reassume control of when required (Shearman and Smith 2007, p. 15). Corporate capitalism then, is effectively a kind of latent authoritarian state-planned economy that under ‘normal’ circumstances is run for private profit.

In the post-WW2 ‘Cold War’ between liberal and communist societies, liberalism also undertook a massive program of state intervention and corporate control known as the ‘welfare state’. The ‘market intervention’ represented by the welfare state was in a sense a way of undermining the attraction of communism while materially reinforcing the assertion that liberal societies are the best possible societies and liberal lives the best possible ‘good life’ (Gottfried 2001, p. 49). From this perspective the neoliberal revolution was merely the termination of the ‘welfare state of exception’, which reminds us that liberal ‘states of exception’ can last for extended periods if the perceived threat continues.

In a climate-war economy, liberalism would not need to do much more than it has done in the recent past. Rationing of energy, food, water, and other scarce, essential resources; nationalisation of corporations and general government control of the market (Cox 2013, p. 17–26); authoritarian, even military social control (Gilding 2011, p. 138–141); active promotion of particular values and ways of living (Carey 1995, p. 65) have all been enacted by liberal democracies in response to crisis, especially those threats justifiably considered possibly existential. The potential of social collapse and even extinction are threats so grave that they easily meet liberalism’s preconditions for the enactment of its latent coercive and interventionist capacities.

The war on climate change

The relevance of authoritarian green liberalism

As discussed, previous attempts to reconcile liberalism and environmentalism have been focused on the ability of environmentalism to expand the sphere of liberal rights, to enlarge the arena of moral considerability or value, or to otherwise bring liberalism ‘up’ to the moral level of environmentalism (Goodin 2013, p. 15, De-Shalit 1995, p. 84, 85). I have argued that this approach is misguided because it accepts liberalism’s self-description and tries to expand it, rather than critically evaluating liberalism as it really exists. However, even if we were to accept that liberalism is fundamentally concerned with individual liberty, the idea of expanding liberalism’s freedoms, rather than contracting them as a response to climate crisis, ignores the contrary tendency in recent political history. Any real concern for individual liberty within liberalism, aside from a narrow conception of economic liberty, has for at least the last thirty years, been on the defensive against neo-conservatism and neoliberalism. In the last two decades liberal democracy has also been the site of progressive erosion of civil liberties within the ‘state of exception’ response to the supposed existential threat of terrorism (Ross 2004, p. 148, Newman et al. 2009, p. 9). The attempt to bring liberalism ‘up’ to the moral level of environmentalism also ignores the growing consensus in ‘new catastrophist’ environmentalism that as ‘a crisis would be needed before society responded … such a crisis is inevitable’ (Gilding 2011, p. 126). As the likely response to climate change, by any form of government, will take the form of crisis-response, liberalism’s ‘greening’ if it occurs, will do so in a ‘state of emergency’. Therefore, the form of liberalism that is most relevant to the catastrophic context of the climate challenge is the actually-existing, ‘reasonably’ authoritarian, liberalism of the exception.

Moral equivalent of war⁹

Environmentalists in the contemporary ‘catastrophic context’ frequently point to the USA’s and Britain’s response to WW2 as illustrative of the possibilities for a liberal democratic system to employ authoritarian measures, especially in a climate emergency that threatens to destroy the possibility of government of any type (Cox 2013, p. 15–17). Rationing of essential goods such as food and energy; a directly planned economic system, promotion of community spirit, shared hardship, and frugality; and authoritarian, even militaristic, social control, were employed to protect liberal democracies from the existential threat represented by fascism (Gilding 2011, p. 138–141). As climate collapse represents an existential threat to liberal democracy it will again find no contradiction in curtailment of individual and economic liberty, and the promotion of a particular ‘good life’, in order to preserve the conditions for their existence.

The mere linear worsening of climate change (that is, ignoring the possible effects of catastrophic tipping points) is predicted in the short term to produce crisis levels of global scarcity in resources such as food, water, fossil fuels, arable land, and living space (Cox 2013, p. 53–59). Progressive patterns of desertification and reduced access to water threaten to displace millions or possibly billions while simultaneously making food production impossible in the areas where the vast majority of the world’s food is currently grown (Dyer 2010, p. 14–21). When tipping points are considered the picture looks much worse. Events such as the sudden mass release of ocean-floor or permafrost methane deposits, which some believe capable of leading to an average temperature global rise of up to 5° Celsius within a period of twenty years (Wright and Schaller 2013), would likely have devastating impacts, potentially including dramatic sudden uninhabitability of currently heavily-populated regions, as well as crises in critical systems such as food production. In response to such crises it is hard to imagine liberal regimes responding in any manner but by the enacting of emergency measures of the type that characterise a war economy such as within liberal democracies during WW2. The restrictions on freedom, promotion of a particular ‘good life’, and intervention in the market that would be required to meet the challenge of extreme climate crisis would all again be justified by liberalism in the name of ‘the greater good’ (Ignatieff 2013, p. 8).

The relative nature of governments is again important here. As long as there are truly autocratic regimes with which to compare liberal democracies, regimes that are broadly and/or historically liberal can employ authoritarian policies to a remarkable degree without this being seen as altering their fundamental character (Rose 1999, p. 61). While liberal Western democracies have ‘free and fair’ elections, a non-government media, a right to peaceful protest, and a nominally independent judiciary, then illiberal policies can be argued to be a temporary, regrettable, but unavoidable curtailment of liberty for liberty’s sake (Ignatieff 2013, p. 8, 10). As long as an explicit commitment is maintained towards progressively dealing with the crisis, and eventually rolling back the state of exception, the argument can, and likely will, be made that no meaningful alteration to the fundamental character of liberalism has occurred (Ignatieff 2013, p. 51). In the coming climate crisis it is implausible that countries that already have an authoritarian government and history of authoritarian rule will react in any way but by becoming more authoritarian (Beeson 2010, p. 277). It is almost certain that conflict, social unrest and state failure will accompany near-term climate change in frontier climate-exposed regions of the developing world (Dyer 2010, p. xiii), and it is arguable that this process has already begun (Parenti 2011, p. 9). In such scenarios it is unlikely that there will be fewer authoritarian regimes with which liberalism can positively compare itself than currently exist.

Potential objections

It might be argued that an authoritarian eco-liberalism would not ‘really’ be liberal. Indeed there are those who argue that the ‘state of exception’ that characterises the ‘War on Terror’ can no longer truly be described as liberalism and in fact constitutes a ‘post-liberal’ form of government (Newman et al. 2009, p. 9). However, as I have shown, it is far more historically accurate to see the role of states of ‘exception’, when understood to apply to both people (Hindess 2001, p. 101) and (even extended) periods of time (Agamben 2008, p. 87), as among the core characteristics of actually-existing-liberalism. It might also be held that my assertion regarding the relative nature of governments is an argument that ‘anything goes’ for liberalism as long as dictatorship exists. This would misunderstand the position I have put forth. It is precisely the ‘reasonableness’ of liberalism’s authoritarianism that allows it to differentiate itself from dictatorship. To maintain its legitimacy, especially during such a crisis response, liberalism must retain a commitment to the eventual termination of its state of eco-emergency, as well as maintain participation in ‘free and fair’ elections, non-state media, right to protest, etc, that already gives legitimacy to elite, managerial, liberal rule (Gottfried 2001, p. 75). Provided that it does this, however, the relative nature of government will apply and liberalism will have significant recourse to authoritarian measures while claiming no fundamental change in its character. This is not to suggest that this approach would not constitute ‘real’ authoritarianism, merely that it would be claimed to be reasonable in comparison to other forms of unapologetic authoritarianism, as it is in keeping with the theoretical and practical tradition of liberalism, and emerges from the extension, rather than a betrayal, of liberal values.

It might also be argued that authoritarian green liberalism wouldn’t ‘really’ be ‘green’ (Eckersley 1992, p. 175). And, of course, according to the common divisions in environmental thought – between deep and shallow; intrinsic and instrumental values; biocentric ecologism and anthropocentric environmentalism – authoritarian green liberalism would indeed most likely be a shallow, anthropocentric environmentalism which takes action on the basis of instrumental self-interest rather than a deep biocentric ecologism that protects non-human nature for its intrinsic value (Dobson 2007, p. 149–151, Eckersley 1992, p. 34, 46–47). However, the achievement of even bare sustainability, from our current bleak position, would certainly entitle the regime that achieved it to the claim of at least a basic level of environmental credentials. But more than this, an authoritarian green liberalism would require both an acute and active awareness of the long-term importance of environmental sustainability, as well as the need to retain a commitment to the eventual termination of illiberal measures. Therefore, the liberal concept of gradual progress could take on a distinctively ‘green’ character. The achievement of sustainability, even by an authoritarian system, would be a mammoth task of social reorganisation. Once the conditions for survival were secured and some elements of the state of eco-emergency could be relaxed, radical green visions for the directions of such reorganisation, and radical opinions on a new green social model, could be pursued within the acceptable limits of green liberal pluralism just like any other position that did not threaten the new status quo. In this sense not even the most idealistic deep green visions are mutually exclusive with authoritarian green liberalism. Again, this is not an endorsement. This seemingly positive evaluation of authoritarian green liberalism only applies in a strictly relative sense – if, despite our best efforts, authoritarian measures become an unpreventable element in a response to some climate crisis, their implementation by a liberal regime committed to their temporary status would at least be preferable to implementation by a shamelessly dictatorial abandonment of liberal values.

Conclusion

Actually-existing-liberalism and environmentalism are compatible, especially in the emergency context of climate crisis. Liberalism’s basic desire for systemic stability, and environmentalism’s recognition of the fundamental need for survival and the imposition of limits as part of a response to crisis and imminent collapse, means that there is adequate ground for their practical commensurability. The most relevant of environmental critiques of liberalism in the catastrophic context – that liberalism is too liberal – does not hold when measured against the historical and contemporary reality of actually-existing-liberalism.

As shown, actually-existing-liberalism is first and foremost a system of government whose philosophical and practical history has been centrally concerned with the justification of exceptions to the provision of liberty and their authoritarian control, from individuals to vast groups to extended periods of time. The major reasons for the rejection of liberalism’s ability to deal with global crisis of climate challenge – curtailment of individual liberty; promotion of a particular vision of the good life and de-legitimisation of opposing views; and state intervention in the free operation of ‘the market’ – all are in fact far from alien to liberalism, especially in a crisis or ‘state of emergency’. Liberalism has a long history of restricting liberty: in its brutal colonial history and its modern technocratic rule through ‘public relations’; in its paternalistic rule of those it deems incompetent and the despotic control of those who transgress its ‘reasonable’ limits; and in its response to the threats of fascism, communism, and terrorism.

As many environmentalists and this article have argued, WW2 is an apt example of liberalism’s ability to respond to an existential crisis in pragmatic ways that while usually deemed illiberal, can claim the retention of liberalism’s fundamental character, and are especially applicable to the climate crisis. I have argued that the Cold War and War on Terror also provide examples of liberalism’s ability to respond to what it sees as serious threats and have shown that liberalism can employ the authoritarian measures presumed to be required to meet the challenge of practical environmental sustainability in a climate crisis scenario, by enacting its latent authoritarian and interventionist capabilities in much the same way as any authoritarian system of government. It would though, like all liberal government, need to retain a commitment to an eventual end to the state of eco-emergency in order to maintain legitimacy. Therefore, authoritarian green liberalism, unlike other possible authoritarian eco-regimes, would at least retain the potential to develop beyond the illiberal reaction to the immediate effects of the crisis.

Acknowledgments

My thanks to Lucas Grainger-Brown, Priya Kunjan, Kennedy Liti Mbeva, Sana Nakata, and Kaye Quek for helpful feedback on previous drafts, and to three anonymous reviewers and the editor for their valuable assistance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. As this phrase foregrounds the influence on liberal theory of real politics and history rather than a divide between theory and practice, it can be used to highlight different ‘actual’ elements. My usage, following Dean and Hindess, draws attention to the prevalence of authoritarian practices and their theoretical justifications across liberalism’s history. See: (Hindess 2008).

2. Though uncommon in environmental political theory, this is not an unusual reading of liberalism in contemporary critical and radical literatures. This critical approach could be undertaken from a variety of theoretical perspectives, including Marxist, poststructuralist, feminist, race-critical and post-colonial disciplines. The governmentality and anarchist lenses are employed as they incorporate the relevant elements of those other critical perspectives while also contributing complementary additional elements, and are therefore the most comprehensively relevant to the questions at hand. See: (Dean 2002, p. 57).

3. ‘Illiberal’ is used in this sense throughout, rather than to denote something outside the scope of liberalism.

4. I emphasise: response – it is not suggested that this approach might emerge as a preventative to climate disaster.

5. As outlined in the third section of this article, this contrast also enables liberal regimes to respond to crises with measures generally deemed illiberal – if some basic institutional commitments maintain, such as elections, free media and judiciary, etc, liberal regimes have remarkable scope for liberty-restriction while still claiming no fundamental change in their liberal character.

6. A point also made in more contemporary theory, for instance by Pateman and Mills (2007).

7. In the state in which I live, for instance, the government imposed a more than 6-month ‘lockdown’ including curfew and general restriction of movement. These were justified as short-term measures required for the long-term protection of basic liberal rights, see: (Mclean and Huf 2020).

8. Though, in the wake of numerous far-right terrorist acts, notably the 2019 mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, this attitude is arguably beginning to change, see: (Stevenson 2019).

9. Originally coined by William James, this phrase is used by environmentalists to describe the societal effort required to face climate change. See: (Cox 2013, p. 15–17).