One of Mao Zedong's most famous pieces is a short command from 1937 titled "Combat Liberalism." Contrary to what many conservatives would have us believe, Communism is not the completion of liberalism but one of its mortal enemies, the fruit of a Leftwing, Romantic Reaction to the Enlightenment. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the program offered by the reactionaries who misunderstand both liberalism and Communism holds many of the same grievances against liberalism as Mao did 85 years ago. That's because post-liberalism is post-liberalism, whether it comes from the Left or the Right. In this episode of the New Discourses Podcast, host James Lindsay goes through Mao's short essay to make this simple point clear. Join him to learn why these demands for post-liberalism, Left and Right, aren't so different from one another after all.
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