Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s new book “Decades of Decadence” is about the “failings” of liberalism, but it is not a book on why liberalism failed.
Rubio sets out to chart what he views as the “three core failings” of the post-Cold War order: its ruthless pursuit of economic efficiency; its imperialistic tendencies abroad; and how those tendencies come home to roost. He consistently weaves the economic and cultural symptoms of American decline into a coherent whole, correctly pointing out that it is impossible to diagnose one without looking at the other.
However, while he appears largely ready to walk away from economic liberalism as currently practiced, he still has hope that the fundamentally liberal principles of the American founding will continue to define our civic culture. What this boils down to is an embrace of common sense traditionalism — the type that virtually all Americans (outside the fringes of academia, at least) could agree on until roughly 10 years ago.
The economic order that the U.S. embraced after the end of the Cold War was indeed a departure from tradition.
Some stores ran out of copies of my new book #DecadesOfDecadence since Tuesday & more being shipped
But you can still get a hardcover copy online or in audio book & Kindle https://t.co/Ubc1hIooiz
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) June 16, 2023
Rubio decried the pivot to “neoliberalism,” which he defines somewhat inadequately as the “belief in free markets and deregulation above all else.” In the name of efficiency (and by extension world peace), the U.S. would voluntarily hollow out its manufacturing base, dispersing production primarily to China with the promise of lowering consumer prices back home.
This new order betrayed the long held Hamiltonian tradition of economic independence, forgetting that trade is good only to the extent it serves the national interest.
As Alexander Hamilton wrote, manufacturing is the key to the “independence and security of a country.” It was wrong to embrace trade where it undermined our self-sufficiency. Unregulated trade can only be beneficial “if the system of perfect liberty to industry and commerce were the prevailing system of nations” which of course is as implausible now as it was then.
We emboldened China, they ate our lunch. The material impact was devastating, as we can see in small towns across America. Of course the cultural and moral foundations of a community begin to erode once its economic center collapses. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Republican Senators Introduce Legislation To Deny Federal Funds To TikTok Business Partners)
This idea was utterly uncontroversial throughout American history until the end of the Cold War. More importantly, it is not inconsistent with the liberalism of America’s founders. Rather, it is only in conflict with the bipartisan extremism embraced after the Cold War. Rubio makes this explicitly clear, always falling back to the refrain that while “the free market should always be the first choice, we must be able to acknowledge when the market does not necessarily know best.”
He clearly is anticipating resistance from the old guard Reaganites who still dominate the think tank world and many legacy conservative outlets, not to mention the donor class whose net worth depends on maintaining the status quo.
On the cultural front, Rubio clearly sees the intermestic nature of liberalism’s crusading spirit. The missionary zeal that drives liberals to social engineer “radically new economic and social values” abroad is the same as what drives them to wage “countless destructive culture wars back home.” Their triumph in the Cold War has led to absolute faith in the spread of liberal principles.
Yet these are no ordinary liberals. It is here where the inadequacy of Rubio’s definition of neoliberalism comes into play. The common theme of “free markets” and “deregulation” is the reduction of transaction costs. When markets are unimpeded, the cost to participate in the economy goes down, stimulating greater profit. So too, when all values are the same — imposed from above — the cost to transact goes down in the long-term. In this utopia, no cultural conflicts will inhibit market efficiency — we will all “eat the bugs.”
This is the neoliberal worldview, and it is critical to understanding why our elites have embraced a host of radical social justice values that seem at first glance to undermine their own interests.
The failure to see this helps explain why Rubio devotes his final chapters to the rise of “American Marxism,” rather than say, late stage liberalism. As prosperity reigned, Americans “began to forget the horrors of true Marxism.” A “watered-down, ever-shifting version of it grew more and more popular on college campuses” due to the “few professors and ideologues who still subscribed” to it. College graduates increasingly brought this insurgent ideology into the “real world” with them.
In this telling, the ideology of Black Lives Matter and drag queen story hour is not a natural extension of America’s liberal principles, but an ideology wholly alien. It oversimplifies the way radicals captured America’s leading institutions — which is critical to understanding how to fight back — but still demonstrates Rubio’s ability to see the big picture.
Thus, this is a categorical rather than a substantive error. Whether described as the social dimension of neoliberalism or American Marxism, it is nevertheless a departure from the founding spirit of American pluralism. Either way, it denotes an optimistic view of our founding as well as our future.
Much ink has been spilled by “post-liberal” conservative academics in recent years alleging that American founding principles are inherently corrupt. The emphasis on individual liberty, it is said, inevitably and always leads to abuses like transgenderism and sweeping attempts to engineer radical equality. If this is true, America requires entirely new founding principles to escape the current malaise. (RELATED: ‘Hatred Of Christianity’: Station Airing Dodgers Game Reportedly Rejects Rubio Ad Blasting Anti-Catholic Group)
Rubio has much more modest ambitions — and that is a good thing! He wants to mitigate the excesses that were embraced after the Cold War and return to the melting pot view of America that he describes so affectionately. After all, he experienced the best it has to offer growing up in a Cuban family in Miami. Just as economic decline laid the foundations for cultural decline, economic revival will establish the pre-conditions for a return to American civic nationalism.
The worst that can be said about the book is that it does not add much new to the conversation. It addresses issues that have been percolating for quite some time, and makes only general recommendations for achieving an economic renaissance. Sure, we must put “Wall Street in its place,” “bring critical industries back,” and “rebuild America’s work force” — but those are no easy feats. Innovative and bold leadership will be required, but still it will be easier than an entire national re-founding.
Ultimately, Rubio knows what time it is, but he’s not ready to give up on this great American experiment just yet.