From Liberalism to What-Comes-Nextism
A Brief History of the Rise and Fall of Liberalism: from 1600 to 2025
Classical Liberalism. It was a grand narrative we told ourselves in the 14th and 15th centuries. A beautiful story about progress, freedom, and the individual escaping the tyranny of kings, nobles, knights. We transcended serfdom with it, traded monarchies for markets. A good deal, we thought. And for a while, it worked.
Foundation: 1648-1776
The idea of “liberal me” took root. Philosophers like John Locke (1632-1704) and Adam Smith (1723-1790) whispered sweet nothings about rights to revolution and invisible hands. We liked the sound of it. Finally, a chance to be someone other than a serf serving his master.
“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”—Adam Smith (1723-1790)
Growth: 1776-1823
Revolutions sparked. New nations were born. The British and American experiments. The promise of liberty. Except, liberty for whom? The inconvenient truth: the story was selective. Some were more free than others. And the price of that freedom? Extracted resources, exploited labor, a blind eye turned to injustice.
Prosperity: 1823-1949
The Industrial Revolution roared. Wealth multiplied. The middle class emerged. Shiny things for everyone! But the story started to fray. The Gilded Age. Inequality deepened. The planet started to choke.
Warning: 1914-1972
World Wars shattered the illusion. The price of progress was tallied in human lives and environmental devastation. We saw the limits. We saw the cracks. But we doubled down. Keynesian Liberalism—a band-aid on a deeper wound.
“The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds.”—John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946)
Hubris & Universal Empire: 1972-2009
Neoliberalism. Margaret Thatcher (UK Prime Minister 1979-1990) and Ronald Reagan (US President 1981-1989). The dogma of deregulation, privatization, and relentless growth. We worshipped the market. We financialized everything, including Nature. We ignored the whispers of discontent, the rising tide of inequality, the melting ice caps. We thought we were invincible.
Crisis: 2009-2030?
“Liberalism is intrinsically unstable. It is essentially incoherent and is fundamentally parasitic. While it definitely provides a variety of super-salient goods, it does so by means of an extractive process that undermines its own integrity. As a consequence, it must either terminate or continuously expand its domain of extraction—either by going deeper (strip mining) or by going broader (colonizing).”—Jordan Hall in deepcode
The crash. The unraveling. The realization that the story was unsustainable. Populism rose. Trust eroded. The Liberalism system—the Golden Thread running throughout the globalized empire—groaned under its own weight.
What Went Wrong with Liberalism?
Liberalism started as a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG). It was a bold idea to transcend feudal restrictions in the pursuit of individual rights and freedom. It was fresh, exciting, and full of potential—a system that could finally break the chains of inherited privilege and open the door to meritocracy. It delivered, for a while. Through protests, revolutions, and constitutions, we built the foundations of modern democracy. But then—as has happened over the past 8,000 years—something went wrong.
Here’s the lesson: the early architects of liberalism didn’t envision a class-based system. They didn’t set out to concentrate wealth in the hands of the few. That’s precisely what they wanted to avoid. But history has a way of repeating. Over time, elites found ways to manipulate liberal structures. Over time they turned principles of ownership, human creativity and hard work into rentier markets that consolidate power. The invisible hand became a very visible fist.
And the lesson isn’t just about liberalism. Human civilization has been running this same experiment for over 8,000 years. Empires rise, grow, prosper, decline, and fall. Every experiment lasts between 300 and 500 years. The Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, Spanish, British Empires and more. Every single one follows the same script: elites hoard resources at the peak of growth, inequality explodes, systems become fragile, and eventually collapse under their own weight. It’s not a design flaw—it’s a design feature. Class-based systems are inherently terminal because they prioritize extraction of Nature's abundance over stewardship.
Liberalism was no exception. It gave us progress but at a cost: predictable environmental degradation, social fragmentation, and economic inequality. And so we find ourselves—again—in the “Crisis” phase of yet another cycle. As others before us have done, we’re left asking: what’s next?
The old story is failing. The “liberal me” narrative has reached its limit. We’ve strip-mined the planet and colonized each other. We need a new story.
Mycelialism
It’s not an ideology. It’s not a geographic location. It’s not a single nation, or a single language.
It’s different from Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, Ecolibertarianism, Bioregionalism, and every other ism.
It’s a shift.
For the first time in history, we have the tools and consciousness to try something different—a values-based experiment rooted in Mycelial Consciousness. From the individual to the interconnected. From extraction to regeneration. From scarcity to abundance. From class-based to values-based.
Think of the mycelial network. That vast, hidden web that connects all living things in the forest. It’s not about individual trees competing for sunlight. It’s about every participant supporting the health of the whole forest.
Mycelialism embraces:
Interdependence: We are all connected. Our actions have consequences.
Collaboration: Working together, sharing resources, amplifying each other’s strengths.
Regeneration: Replenishing much-needed resources, healing the planet, restoring ecosystems, building resilient communities.
Decentralization: Empowering local communities, respecting bioregional boundaries.
Consciousness: Recognizing the interconnectedness of all life, valuing ecological and social well-being, tapping into the wisdom of our Mother.
It’s not about tearing down the old or starting over from scratch. Liberalism served us well during our teenage rapid-growth years as a globalized society. We grew, experimented, and expanded. But now, as we mature, we recognize its limitations and contradictions. We’re not rejecting it—we’re building upon its lessons. We’re evolving into something wiser, more interconnected, and regenerative. A system rooted in collaboration and ecological harmony, one that understands the value of interdependence and moves us toward Mycelialism.
We’re already seeing glimpses of this future in bioregional regeneration initiatives around the world. Communities are coming together to restore ecosystems, rebuild local resilience, and create governance models based on shared values rather than top-down control. These aren’t just isolated projects—they’re seeds of a new story.
This shift may not be easy. It requires a willingness to let go of old selfish narratives, a commitment to evolving—as individuals, as society.
“Selfishness beats altruism within groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups. Everything else is commentary.”—David Sloan Wilson
The old story of “liberal me” is dying. And a new one is being written, right now, by the Evolutionary Agents willing to flow with the Evolutionary Impulse.
On which side of history will you be remembered?
References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_liberalism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism
International Political Economy in an Age of Globalization by Ngaire Woods: https://www.culturaldiplomacy.org/academy/content/articles/e-learning/read/b3/International_Political_Economy_in_an_Age_of_Globalization,_Woods,_Ngaire.pdf
Globalization by Ulrich Pfister: https://www.ieg-ego.eu/en/threads/backgrounds/globalization/ulrich-pfister-globalization/customview/++widget++form.widgets.dnb/@@download/pfisteru-2012-en.pdf
ECONOMIC GLOBALISATION - Origins and Consequences: https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2012/11/economic-globalisation_g1g134da/9789264111905-en.pdf
The Post-War Evolution of Globalisation and International Order: From Liberal to Neoliberal International Order: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13600826.2025.2470838
The Lost History of Liberalism, from Ancient Rome to the Twenty-First Century: https://journals.openedition.org/miranda/29687
Globalization and the changing liberal international order: A review of the literature: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590051X20300046
Deep dive: https://bit.ly/Hist-Lib