Why Liberalism Might Last

In ‘Can Liberalism Last?’ Anomaly and Faria (2023) argue that liberal societies tend to undermine their own long-term survival,chiefly by fostering conditions—urbanization, mass migration from culturally distant regions and sub-replacement fertility—that erode social trust and grant a demographic advantage to illiberal groups, whereas liberalism's philosophical commitmentsbar the corrective measures (immigration restriction, pronatalism, nation-building) that non-liberal states can freely deploy. In this commentary we grant that these challenges are real, but argue that the inference from demographic trends to liberalism'scollapse is too pessimistic. We identify five mechanisms that could counteract these trends. First, the fertility advantage of il-liberal groups assumes high intergenerational retention, yet defection is pervasive and can accelerate suddenly once preferencefalsification and pluralistic ignorance give way. Second, liberal states are increasingly willing to adopt migration restrictions andpronatalist policies and—contrary to what Anomaly and Faria contend—such measures need not violate core liberal principles. Third, the economic and technological superiority of open societies allows them to exert outsized global influence. Fourth, be-cause illiberal groups tend to be more resistant to change, some of their traits may become maladaptive as conditions change. Fifth, low fertility afflicts illiberal progressives as well, diminishing one significant source of contemporary illiberalism. The upshot is that, even if liberalism's survival is not guaranteed, its prospects in many societies are better than Anomaly and Faria suggest.