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Walter Russel Mead has an interesting challenge that appeals to me. He is speaking of the need to move past what he calls the 'blue model' of liberalism, or 'Liberalism 4.0' and change to a 'Liberalism 5.0.'

Now, he's playing off the idea that 'liberalism' has altered its meaning several times: a very early meaning was what we now call 'classical liberalism,' which was (roughly) the ideology of the Founders. By the 'blue model' he is thinking of the FDR sort of liberalism (what is sometimes called 'reform liberalism').

Setting aside the terminology, though, there's something useful being said about the American project. After describing elements of the 'blue model' that are not optimal -- say, massive commutes to the factory; having to work in a factory -- he talks about some future improvements that we can imagine. For example, we can imagine not commuting to the factory, but working from home. Or commuting not to a central office, but to a smaller, local office.

If we can imagine that much, what else?

In my posts late last year about 5.0 liberalism I was beginning to get at the need for a new political imagination that could take us beyond the world of 4.0 liberalism and its blue social model.... It’s not just a question of bulldozing the bureaucratic structures of the 4.0 world (though in some cases bulldozers are called for).

For 4.0 liberals, who genuinely believe that the old social system was the only good way to organize society, life is full of gloom and doom. For 5.0s, this is a time of adventure, innovation and of unlimited possibility.

Adventure is my trade, of course, so I'm pleased to hear the call. We're talking about a movement away from the FDR-type of systems; and what shall replace them?

We might start by asking what kind of life we want. If we object to the trekking to factories, and working in factories, what do we want to do? And who shall work in the factories? Not only robots! This was a problem that Marx had to wrestle with, even, for he believed that capitalist systems were necessary to produce the wealth that could inspire a revolution. Thus, even when the revolution came, someone was still going to have to turn up at the factories -- everyone takes a shift, so that everyone can also have a shift at literary criticism, or politics, or philosophy?

Well, let's start with the last question, because it's the easiest one. Most visions of the good life include the liberal arts, the humanities. They are pursuits of the True and the Beautiful, as we often say. Good. This requires study, and study is expensive. Therefore, we shall have to make study less expensive.

Public education is already "free." Shall we expand the model to, say, graduate school?

It is clear that we cannot do so. Indeed, it is not clear that we can afford to continue with free education to the high school level, if it is to be governed by teachers' unions and mandatory benefits that must be paid before the state budget can proceed to new expenses.

That seems like a problem out of the gate. But we already have (so we have heard) a glut of Ph.D.'s. They are outside of the system, and therefore have no stake in it -- they can be used, and would probably love to find work in their field.

An easy answer should lie here. What is it, friends?