Populist Democracy and the “Individual Manqué”
A Oakeshottian account of Populism
Very short summary: In this essay, I discuss Michael Oakeshott’s critique of anti-individualism and reflect on its relevance to understand contemporary populism and identity politics. The virtue of Oakeshott’s critique is to show how much liberal democracy rests on individualism.
In his book The End of History and the Last Man, Francis Fukuyama argues that we can identify two trans-historical mechanisms that push (or pull) human societies toward capitalism and liberal democracy.[1] First is the accumulation of knowledge, which is especially driven by the emergence of modern (natural) science. Second, there is a general human need for recognition and self-esteem, which Fukuyama refers to with the Greek word thymos. The former largely accounts for the emergence and reinforcement of capitalist economic institutions. The latter, which is ultimately the dominant mechanism in Fukuyama’s philosophy of history, culminates in the universalism of the Enlightenment and grounds the political morality of liberal democracy.
Though Fukuyama’s thesis is nowadays often caricatured as a deterministic philosophy of history that —obviously— got facts wrong, his actual account is more subtle than that. While he does argue that the history of human societies is steered toward a liberal, democratic, and capitalist end state, he explicitly considers the likely possibility that this end state may not be stable. The very idea of “the end of history” is paradoxical in light of individuals’ insatiable quest for recognition. The last man —the man living at the end of history— would be someone who is no longer striving for recognition. Thymos is therefore likely to degenerate either into a desire for domination (megalothymia) or a demand for more equality (isothymia). In both cases, the quest for recognition is susceptible to destabilizing liberal democracies and pushing them toward new directions.
A proper reading of the end-of-history thesis is therefore compatible with the role played by identity politics in contemporary forms of right- and left-wing populism.[2] This role is widely acknowledged and not controversial. Populist leaders and ideas all play on individuals’ desires to gain further recognition as members of groups holding diverse social identities. It can be national, ethnic, or religious identities, as well as identities based on class or gender. What is less obvious is whether these demands for further recognition express a rejection of the form of individualism that became dominant in late medieval Europe, or quite the contrary, correspond to a perversion of the individualist ideal, turning it into something more radical.
John Gray somehow takes the latter view, at least with respect to the “hyper-liberalism” of the progressive left.[3] Hyper-liberals entertain an unbounded view of the self. But Gray, at the same time, acknowledges that the unending construction of always more fine-grained social identities is also a negation of individuality:[4]
“Within Western societies, the hyper-liberal goal is to enable human beings to define their own identities. From one point of view this is the logical endpoint of individualism: each human being is sovereign in deciding who or what they want to be. From another, it is the project of forging new collectives, and the prelude to a state of chronic warfare among the identities they embody.”
Interestingly, a similar tension also applies to the kind of identity politics more characteristic of right-wing populism. At first sight, demands for politics more sensitive to national or religious identities seem to entail a step back from individualism and a return to the importance of collective identities where individuals are first and foremost valued and respected as members of groups. On the other hand, the electorate base of right-wing populists like Trump or the German AfD is largely constituted of individuals who hold radically individualist views about the uncompromising priority of freedom from state interference.[5]
The bottom line is that it may not be so straightforward to view identity politics as a modern form of “collectivism” that would have displaced the old economic collectivism that was at the heart of illiberal worldviews in the 20th century.[6] Identity politics just resists a simple individualism-vs-collectivism type of analysis. It is the product of a complex interaction between a deepening of individualist aspirations and the unavoidable need for belonging.
Nonetheless, there is another route to show how contemporary identity politics is a clear departure from the form of individualism upon which Western liberal societies grew. In his much-discussed essay “The Masses in Representative Democracy,” the British conservative philosopher Michael Oakeshott argues that the rise of individualism in modern European societies has historically been contested by its negative, a form of anti-individualism that Oakeshott locates in the figure of the “individual manqué” or “mass man.”[7]
Oakeshott’s individual manqué is, by temperament, not fit to take advantage of the many opportunities of choice offered by modern societies. These opportunities are rather burdens that put him at a disadvantage because he is unable or unwilling to turn them into concrete benefits. The individual manqué is just more at his ease in a society where his life is driven by ends and values that are given to him, rather than in a context where he has to define which life he should live. The conditions of modernity create in him a series of emotions such as envy, jealousy, and resentment, driving his compulsion to annihilate modern individualism and the institutions that sustain it. Interestingly, Oakeshott does not see the individual manqué as a “relic from the past,” nor as —in a Tocquevillian fashion— a potential adverse implication of individualism. He is “a ‘modern’ character, the product of the same dissolution of communal ties as had generated the modern European individual.”[8]
Oakeshott’s characterization of the individual manqué is completed by three relevant considerations. First, the individual manqué enjoys a numerical superiority, far from being an outlier in modern liberal societies. Realizing this, the individual manqué views himself as the “mass man” who can use democratic institutions to escape from his predicament. “The masses,” Oakeshott writes, “are not composed of individuals; they are composed of “anti-individuals” united in a revulsion from individuality.”[9] Second, the masses need a leader, rather than a ruler, to achieve their goal. While the ruler conducts society to permit individuals to pursue their separate ends, the leader tells the masses what to think. The numerical dominance of the individual manqué then explains why the art of leading rather than the art of ruling became so important in modern democracies. Third, to be guided, the mass man has to belong to a “teleocratic” political community pursuing an overarching goal under the leadership of the state. In his last book On Human Conduct, Oakeshott refers to such a political community as universitas, in opposition to the societas, an association of individuals pursuing separate goals under common rules.[10]
Oakeshott’s critique of the anti-individualism of “mass man” has been hotly debated and largely criticized. For instance, the Oakeshottian scholar Paul Franco charges it as being highly ideological.[11] Oakeshott’s characterization of the individual manqué admittedly lacks nuance and historical sophistication. Nonetheless, it has some relevance in the context of contemporary identity politics and the form of populist democracy that keeps on gaining ground. The most interesting aspect is the connection that Oakeshott draws between anti-individualism and the teleocratic state as a political organization aiming at some definite goals. For the anti-individualists, the state is seen as the instrument to achieve overarching goals that they share as members of a political community. There is no logical restriction over the kinds of goals that can be pursued but they are all related to the membership of a collective unified by shared identity: reverting and improving demographic trends, re-industrializing the national economy, fostering the interests of a particular community deemed unfairly disadvantaged, promoting the values attached to a particular religion, and so on. In all these examples, the state is put at the service of a community and its goals. Because these goals are likely to clash with those of other communities or of people-qua-individuals, this is likely to turn politics into bellicose rivalries to promote some ends over others. The Schmittian friends-vs-enemies understanding of the political is then in sight.
Michael Oakeshott
Oakeshott’s societas, a political association grounded on proper individualism, quite the contrary, acknowledges the plurality of ends and values and looks for rules that minimize conflict and foster cooperation between individuals who are likely to disagree about them. This is not to say that the state should be neutral in the Rawlsian sense. Oakeshott’s societas is indeed based on the endorsement of ideals of individuality and autonomy that Rawls found problematic in the context of his “political liberalism.” There are good reasons to think that Rawlsian neutrality is elusive, anyway. A virtue of Oakeshott’s critique of the “individual manqué” is to highlight how much liberal democracy rests on a substantive commitment to individualism, rather than political neutrality or value pluralism. The crisis of liberal democracy is the crisis of the individualist ideal. Populist democracy succeeds because the individual manqué dominates not only in number but ideologically.
[1] Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man, Reissue edition (New York: Free Press, 1992 [2006]). I have discussed Fukuyama’s book here.
[2] As Fukuyama himself notes. See Francis Fukuyama, Liberalism and Its Discontents, International Edition (London: Profile Books, 2022).
[3] See John Gray, The New Leviathans: Thoughts After Liberalism (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023). I have commented on it here.
[4] Ibid., p. 109.
[5] Carolin Amlinger, Oliver Nachtwey, and Jan-Peter Herrmann, Offended Freedom: The Rise of Libertarian Authoritarianism (Polity Press, 2024).
[6] Such a view is defended, for instance, by Nils Karlson, Reviving Classical Liberalism Against Populism (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023).
[7] “The Masses of Representative Democracy.” In Michael Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays, Expanded edition (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1991).
[8] Ibid., p. 371.
[9] Ibid., p. 373.
[10] Michael Oakeshott, On Human Conduct, First Edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975).
[11] Paul Franco, Michael Oakeshott: An Introduction (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), p 108-10.