They may not be that common in the real world, but in political circles there’s a lot of people who declare themselves to be both economically and socially liberal – usually with a slight edge of self-congratulation to their words.
Liberalism isn’t the only thing these concepts have in common, there’s also a causal link between the two: The practical application of economic liberalism is what makes social liberalism viable. A free economy creates wealth, opportunity and mobility – and those in turn enable people to choose from a range of different lifestyles.
As Joel Kotkin explains at NewGeography.com this choice is transforming social structures:
Kotkin calls this phenomenon “post-familialism”, which though made possible by economic change, is also cultural in nature:
Social liberals, whether economically liberal or illiberal, celebrate this cultural shift as a triumph of individual expression and personal autonomy. But what they overlook is that post-familial societies are doomed:
Do the maths: If each woman has an average of 1.4 children (as is already the case in several countries) then that means that the number of babies born – and thus, in due course, the non-immigrant workforce – halves every two generations.
But we don’t have to wait that long for post-familialism to wreck the economy:
Arguably this is already happening, as demonstrated the unprecedented peacetime build-up of private and public sector debt. Kotkin also notes that “younger people tend to drive technological change, and their absence from the workforce will slow innovation.”
And there you have it: Record levels of debt, but fewer people and less growth to pay for it. So while prosperity promotes personal freedom, the reverse does not necessarily apply.