University of Southern California and the Dornsife Center for the political future to promote this particular program. So a big shout out to those tuning in remotely from la. As a longtime fan of the Commonwealth Club and advocate for its civics Civic Mission to convene the community on important issues. I am delighted the club has returned to hosting in person Public Programs on a regular basis. So i encourage you all to check out the programming and learn more. About upcoming offerings at www. Com wealthclub. Org and its literally every week. Theres stuff that youd want to come to and my wife reminds me we still have kids. You know that right at home. Tonights feature speaker is political scientists francis. Fukuyama, dr. Fukuyama is the olivier nomeli nomelini, excuse me senior fellow at Stanford Universitys freeman spokeley institute for International Studies and a faculty member at the fsi center for Democracy Development in the rule of law. His also director of stanfords ford dorsey masters in international policy. Dr. Phukiyama has written widely on issues in development and International Politics and he joins us tonight to talk about his new book. Liberalism and its discontents which builds on his prior book on identity. Theres broad consensus that liberal democracy is under attack or in retreat in many parts of the world. It is being contested not just by authoritarian states like china and russia, but also by populists who have been elected in many democracies that seemed secure. Why is this happening . What has the combination of unbridled neoliberalism identitarian politics and social media wrought . And how do we return to the classical form of liberalism . Dr. Fukuyama is one of the most recognized thinkers on the long historical arc of liberalism and democracy and he will share his critique of liberalism. Conversation with political consultant and writer Tim Miller Tim is a writer at bulwark. I know we are in for a truly fantastic and supremely relevant conversation this evening one final note. Before welcoming the speaker to the stage. We will be taking your questions for dr. Fukiyama tonight. If youre here on site, please write your questions on a card and itll be brought up to the stage. And if youre watching online, please put your questions in the youtube chat box, and those questions will be forwarded to tim. So with that im pleased to welcome, dr. Francis fukiyama and tim miller to the stage. Hey everybody. Its so good to be with you in person. I missed the week to weeks here at the Commonwealth Club and seeing everybody it is really nice to be back. Thanks to ken for supporting this conversation. My name is tim miller. Im a writer for the bulwark as ken mentioned. I also have a book coming out why we did it about why people who knew better went along with trump. Its preorder now, just saying, i dont know that its up to the level of the book that were gonna be speaking about tonight, but i think youll enjoy it. It. Im so excited and honored. Be able to moderate this conversation with frank who ive long admired and i was i appreciated the opportunity to read this book to kind of refresh my memory about some of the Political Science and political philosophy classes that i may or may not have skipped while i was a George Washington university. And so i feel very prepared for this. Its extremely timely and im excited to be here with you. Well great to be here. I just wanted to point out im wearing a ukrainian baseball cap with the ukrainian trident. Im now going to take it off. Although i realize it its actually quite helpful in. Shielding me from those bright lights, but just in politeness to the Commonwealth Club. Im and i had just purchased a slavo ukraine sweatshirts, which i would have worn had you told me that to be in theme tonight that also very relevant. I want to get to ukraine and some politics at the end. Just one more reminder if you have questions if you dont like my questions write them on the cards, and im happy to take some advice from our esteemed audience. I want to start first. The book is liberalism and its discontents. So i would like to start the conversation by defining our term specifically liberalism as a for those of you that dont know. Im a kind of former never trump republican types. So as a College Republican growing up liberal was a dirty word for me. You know, it meant all these San Francisco tax hiking tree huggers and then as ive come to read your book over the past 24 hours. I was like, actually i think liberalism is the opposite of a dirty word. I might im turns out i might be a liberal but over in europe obviously in opposite definition. So when we talk about the discontents of liberalism, what are you talking about specifically . Sure . No, thats very important because i definitely dont mean it in that american sense. I immediate in the sense of the doctrine that really got its start in the middle of the 17th century after the european wars of religion. At that point europeans have been killing each other for about 150 years over whether there are protestant or catholic or what sective protestantism and at that point a number of thinkers said well, maybe we shouldnt actually be killing ourselves over, you know these concepts of the good life and lower the horizons of politics. To life itself and to protect, you know, each citizen in their, you know, personal security and agree to disagree and you know, thats the doctrine that is associated with certain institutions most important of which is a rule of law. These are rules that protect individuals from state power and limit, you know, what executive authorities can do through constitutional checks and balances and it you know is really designed to enable individuals to exercise choice moral choice autonomy. You know, thats what gives them dignity liberalism says. Were all equal human beings universally because we do have this capacity for moral choice, and thats really what the government needs to protect. Its not associated with a particular economic policy. So on the right, you know, you have libertarianism, which is not what i consider liberalism. Thats kind of funny uniquely american antigovernment, you know attitude on you know, economic and social issues. Its not yeah the center right version in europe is like the german freed democrats that are kind of promarket, but socially more liberal thats not my version either. So as far as im concerned sweden social Democratic State is a liberal state because they protect individual rights. They respect the rule of law. And you know, thats really i think the essence of liberalism for me. So youre really breaking it down to a few attributes and when were talking about. Rule of law democratic republic, but you also talked about some other attributes, you know kind of the Scientific Method, you know other elements of a liberal society like what are some of well, thats thats particularly important now in the internet age because liberalism was highly associated with a certain cognitive mode called modern Natural Science. So modern Natural Science assumes that there is an objective reality thats outside of our subjective consciousnesses. It can be apprehended through something called the Scientific Method and that apprehension can be used to manipulate the world and thats really what creates. Not sign not just science, but the technology that flows from science and you know, our modern economic world would not exist, but for that technology and so, you know that cognitive mode is very much embedded in you liberal approach. Well, so i want to get into the very the discontents on the right and left before we do that one other things i think was in the introduction to the book that felt was interesting and timely for what were going through now here is as you assessed it the the threats that we face to liberalism are actually more acute maybe than the threats to democracy right . I dont know we spent a lot of time talking about the thrust democracy. Im sure well have more on here at the club. So we saw in january 6th. We were on a panel together about that. But your point is i take it is basically that you know democracy is not necessarily a protection from illiberalism right demographic democratic winners. So talk about how as you kind of do a threat assessment right now, you know compare the threats favor the liberal order versus democratic order. Yeah, so liberalism and democracy are usually allies and they usually support one another but theyre distinct phenomena. So liberalism is really about law and legal constraints against the abuse of power. Democracy is the legitimation of power through reference to the people and you know governments ought to reflect the will of the largest number of their citizens and although the two support each other in what we call liberal democracy. They can also be separated and so victor orban and hungary had announced you know a number of years ago that hes trying to build not a liberal democracy, but an illiberal democracy meaning hes democratically legitimated. He just won a big election. You know, he got a pretty good majority in parliament. So theres no question that hes democratically legitimate, but hes undermining the independent press and hungary. Hes undermining the court system. Hes fostering a system of corrupt croneism and all of that, you know reflects the erosion of the rule of law on the other hand. You can have a country like singapore or maybe you know imperial germany in the 19th century. That actually does have a strong rule of law. They respect Property Rights and permit individual freedoms, but theyre not democratic they dont hold elections. I think that the reason i wrote about liberalism being under threat rather than democracy is that these days almost nobody can test the principle of democracy that the peoples will should be sovereign even the chinese even putin. Yeah democratic. I mean he pays homage, you know a hypocritically to democracy by holding, you know, fake elections, but he still holds them in the Chinese Communist party say they represent the true democracy because theyre really representing the will of the chinese people, but people dont like liberalism in the first instance and they attack those legal constraints, you know, thats what every populist in the world modi in india orban and in hungary erdogan and turkey and our donald trump here in the United States all get elected in the first thing they do with that mandate is to try to undermine the rule of law and thats why i think that its really liberalism. Thats the first victim now once you undermine the rule of law, then you can go after democracy, which is what youre now seeing, you know, hungry itself. Theres a lot of gerrymandering in our country something similar is going to happen, you know, if federal judges are not going to stand in the way of election manipulation then you know republicans are going to manipulate elections. So the two of them are related, but theyre not identical. So i want to get into the critiques of our liberal right and left here, but for but first just maybe try to put on the hat, which you do i think in the book of what are there what are the legitimate grievances with liberalism that is sort of undermining this Illiberal Movement on each side and how just before we get into that. Can i tell you whats good about liberalism . Okay. I was gonna end with whats good, but we can start with whats good. Okay start with whats good because i think its kind of a baseline from which you can then measure whats not so good. Okay, great, right. So i really think theres three issues very simply theres a pragmatic issue. There is a moral issue and theres a an Economic Issues to the pragmatic issue is very simple as i said, its a way of dealing with diversity in a Diverse Society if you have a system that stresses tolerance for people that are have different opinions from yourself, then its a way of managing violent conflicts and so it starts out managing the conflict between different types of christians in the 19th and 20th centuries. Its an antidote to out of control nationalism and in that respect. Its very good if youre coming out of the, you know, two big world wars that have destroyed european civilization liberalism looks pretty good to you or if youre living under communism a communist dictatorship again, you know having the freedom to come and go and speak your mind, you know looks pretty good. Thats thats pragmatic. The second is moral because liberalism is really about human choice, and i think that its something that is pretty universal among human beings. They dont like to be ordered around they like to be able to decide you know what theyre going to do in life who theyre going to marry where theyre going to live these basic freedoms, but its more than that because you know going all the way back to the book of genesis. What makes human beings uniquely human in that judeochristian tradition is their capacity for moral choice. They can choose right or wrong and that elevates them up, you know above the rest of nature and so by protecting the ability to choose liberalism protects this fundamental human quality, and thats what makes liberals think that all human beings are actually equal because we may differ by skin color intelligence height, you know all sorts of things, but we all are moral creatures, you know underneath thing is economics because liberalism protects Property Rights and freedom to transact and so its historically been associated with prosperity with modern Economic Growth and the like so i just want to say i mean, its important to hit the good points before you hit the critique. I did a lot of critiques lately. Okay, thats fair. I want to run up you actually then lets start about the positive liberalism because you sort of expressed towards the end of the book that that one of your concerns about. You know, i think one of the critiques of liberalism is a sense that it doesnt foster a sense of community and that thats but as i was reading that i was thinking to myself is is that really true. I dont know the second year your second point this moral component this component that everyone has this individual dignity. When put together into a broad Diverse Society, i think there is this sort of communal sense right that maybe we dont agree on every specific thing or you know me. Our backgrounds arent exactly the same we grew up, but we have this one thing in common, which is that we all want, you know to flourish and that we all want everybody to succeed. Im just imagining here in San Francisco. Youre sitting in dolores park on a sunday afternoon, like i was doing on sunday and theres all kinds of people, you know, all races and i think everybody in that park does feel like that. Theres some commute some connective tissue. Weve all chosen to be here and this free country and and so i wonder sometimes why advocates of liberalism arent that good at kind of making the case for . Yeah the communal nature. Well, yeah, i think the problem is that its not one community. Its many communities right so liberal societies produce a very very gated and healthy and vigorous civil society, but you know, there are people doing all sorts of things, you know, their environmentalist. Theyre feminists. Theyre trade unionists. Theyre stamp collectors, you know, theres all sorts of people and you know, that is an aspect of our human freedom to be able to join with other people voluntarily to pursue passions and interests that we share but i think that for many people thats not enough, you know that they would like to actually see a stronger sense of a Broad Community where people you know share more than just these hobbies and you know kind of interest but but you know religious views or you know a sense of National Purpose and i actually do think you can see that in ukraine right now. I mean, youve got us going again. Yeah, i mean you got this unbelievable degree of National Unity right now, so Something Like a quarter million ukrainians that had been living in other parts of europe have actually gone back to ukraine after the war started so that they could fight, you know on behalf of their country and thats something that you know, frankly youre you dont get you know that degree of civic spiritedness and engagement is certainly not and and even in our country. I think its deteriorate one thing. I remember reading dean atchisons autobiography many years ago has a graduate student so world war one broke out when he was an undergrad at yale and every member of his yale class volunteer to join the us army at that point and then went off to europe now. Can you imagine the members of the yale undergraduate class, you know . Stringer we dont need zoomer slander here. Okay. Theres you know, who knows what the threat would be from the gen z credit yale. Thats right, but let me trying to challenge you at that point a little bit though. I i absolutely hurt youre saying about kind of the national for national fervor of whats happening in ukraine, but i think that there has been a sort of reanimation of of kind of what a panwestern, you know, sort of unity and behind ukraine and you see this across europe obviously in some of the countries close to ukraine. Theres a security element, but you know in france, i dont think that that concerned like, you know, russias market gonna march across europe and you you know, i think saw rejection of the of the National Swing there, i think in large part, i think ukraine played a big part of that in the recent French Election here in america. I just speaking to my peer group, you know, i see a lot of people who are like they want to volunteer they want to contribute they want to help me th