Moral Balance of the Social State and the Truth of Left-liberal Discourse

Abstract

The article focuses on revealing the objective role of left-liberal discourse in the context of the current crisis of philosophical, moral and ideological foundations of the welfare state. The author shows that morally and ideologically the social state is a compromise combination of local statist and economic utilitarianism and universalist liberal-socialist humanism. One can see the description of optimal moral balance of the social state, achievable within the framework of this “limited universalism”. Due to the destruction of this balance, it becomes necessary to search for new philosophical, moral and ideological bases of social policy. Currently, this search is unfolding within the framework of left-liberal discourse, which involuntarily contributes to the neoliberal “fragmentation policy”. Nevertheless, it destroys the obsolete moral and ideological foundations of the former social state, while the left and right populists, who oppose the left-liberal discourse, are still capable of only putting forward utopian slogans of its revival or protection.