William McGimpsey: Liberal Democracy's Fatal Flaw

Neutrality, Managerialism, and the Collapse of Political Community

Introduction – 2001: A Space Odyssey and the logic of breakdown

One of my favourite films is 2001: A Space Odyssey. The central drama (though by no means the only interesting or important part) is the conflict between the ship’s AI computer, the HAL9000, and the crew of the Discovery spacecraft. HAL murders the entire crew except for Ship Commander David Bowman, who manages, heroically, to deactivate HAL.

The relevant question here is why HAL murdered the crew.

The novel, by Arthur C. Clarke, explains that HAL’s actions result not from malevolence, but from a logical conflict between two incompatible instructions:

1. HAL’s basic programming: to relay information accurately, without distortion, error, or concealment.

2. The secret mission-specific orders: to conceal the true purpose of the voyage from the crew (investigating the monolith/signal directed toward Jupiter).

HAL cannot resolve this contradiction. Unlike a human decision-maker, he lacks the capacity to question his objectives, renegotiate his parameters, or refuse the mission altogether. Instead, he adapts procedurally. He begins to “manage” the crew: monitoring their conversations, questioning their confidence in the mission, and inferring whether they suspect that critical information is being withheld. Over time, this behaviour produces a spiral of mutual suspicion: the crew begins to doubt HAL’s reliability, while HAL increasingly interprets the crew’s doubts as a risk. Eventually HAL reclassifies the humans he was designed to assist as threats to the mission and resolves to eliminate them.

The film illustrates how systems collapse when foundational questions are suppressed rather than resolved. This paper argues that modern liberal democracies now exhibit an analogous pathology.

Problem Definition

Modern liberal democracy claims to be neutral with respect to values, identity, and ends. It refuses to explicitly define:

• Who the political community is, and

• What the community views as the legitimate ends of political activity.

This refusal is not benign. It creates a structural contradiction.

Governance is unavoidably teleological - including at the level of policy analysis. I am a former policy advisor: the job cannot be done without making value judgments about threats, risks, benefits, and costs.

Threats are always threats to something. There are no threats without an implied subject and value framework; even “global” threats presuppose a shared conception of what is to be preserved. Similarly with risks, benefits and costs - it has become commonplace among experts and administrators to speak as if these things can be objectively defined, but in a formal logical sense they cannot - they all presuppose a subject and system of values.

Failure to explicitly define the bounds of the political community and its view of the good results in these judgements having to be made (often implicitly, and even covertly) by bureaucratic, managerial, and technocratic systems - effectively forcing them to exercise power that ought to be reserved for elected representatives.

Under these conditions a politically neutral public service is impossible.

Modern liberal democracy originally evolved in relatively homogeneous, high-trust societies, where shared national identity, demographics, and culture provided the social preconditions for effective governance, widespread civic cooperation, and institutional legitimacy. By refusing to explicitly define and protect these elements - in the name of neutrality and pluralism - it has permitted their gradual erosion, thereby undermining the very foundations on which the model’s success depended.

But also, liberal democracy is a means, not an end. Treating the preservation of the system as higher priority than the survival of the people reverses the proper order of political authority.

The managerial turn

The evolution of an unelected managerial elite is the solution to this structural contradiction. Ostensibly “neutral” bureaucrats, intelligence agencies, courts, and media take on the power of making value judgements that is formally reserved for elected representatives - effectively exercising sovereign power. But because these actors cannot openly acknowledge what they are doing, they frame their decisions as technical, procedural, or safety-based expert judgement.

This produces a self-reinforcing security spiral. Power wielded undemocratically generates mistrust among citizens. That mistrust is interpreted by institutions as a warning signal, creating incentives for monitoring, narrative management, and surveillance. Surveillance and control, in turn, appear even more hostile and illegitimate to the population, escalating tensions. Institutions are forced to make covert friend–enemy distinctions, resulting in discrimination against certain sections of the community.

Dissent that would once have been resolved politically is now recast as a risk or threat. ‘Populist’ and ‘far-right’ movements, especially those emphasizing identity or opposing managerial power, are delegitimised as extremism or misinformation. The result is a structural cleavage: defenders of “the system” versus defenders of “the people,” with political disagreement framed as moral or security failure rather than legitimate debate.

The managerial system has tended to promote officials loyal to it, while discriminating against those who prioritise the survival, self-determination, and preservation of the identity of their people (i.e. the far right) - leading to institutional capture by actors detached from, or hostile to, the nation’s traditional biological, ethnic, and cultural foundations (woke institutional capture). The system also tends to generate individuals with weaker awareness of and attachment to these foundations, such as immigrants, ethnic minorities, gays, and transgenders (the latter of whom are psychologically inclined to view identity as primarily volitional rather than biological). Institutional capture makes it increasingly difficult to persuade the system, or those within it, that ethnocultural identity, demographic stability, and biological distinctions are important, valuable, and in need of safeguarding.

The Great Replacement and institutional legitimacy

Contemporaneous with the rise of the managerial elite has been the significant changes in immigration policy across many Western countries away from tightly controlled systems aiming to preserve traditional demographics to more ‘liberal’ policies allowing mass migration from many parts of the world with racially, ethnically, and religiously distinct populations.

When citizens experience rapid demographic change yet are told that noticing or resisting it is immoral/illegitimate, trust collapses. Some conclude that demographic transformation is intentional.

The more institutions refuse to acknowledge demographic change as politically salient, the more they damage their own trust and credibility. The response to this however has not been a reassessment, but further securitisation - bans on free speech and political organisation, and the demonisation and delegitimisation of an increasing proportion of the political spectrum.

From terrorism to removal of civil liberties

The Christchurch mosque attack marked a decisive escalation of this logic. Political leaders, most visibly Jacinda Ardern, reframed an individual act of violence as evidence of a broader ideological threat requiring global speech control. The Christchurch Call institutionalised this shift: peaceful political opposition to mass migration and multiculturalism was formally reclassified as a security risk. This transferred discretionary power over political expression to bureaucracies, platforms, and “experts,” largely outside democratic control.

The same pattern is now visible in Australia following the Bondi shooting - political elites have again moved to justify restrictions on political speech, protest, and political organisation, particularly around immigration and identity.

The spiral tightens: populist dissent is treated as threat; violence used to justify speech control; censorship deepens mistrust; mistrust confirms elite hostility in the eyes of dissenters.

System failure

These actions do not eliminate identity conflict and they do not improve social cohesion or stabilise democratic politics, they undermine them by delegitimising peaceful political expression and provoking further resistance. Populism, nationalism and identity politics is not a pathology, it is a signal that our political system no longer represents a coherent people. Treating that signal as a security threat rather than a political problem ensures escalation rather than resolution.

History shows that people are willing to suffer, fight, and die to protect their identity, people, culture, and way of life. Demonising and delegitimising this natural inclination is more likely to provoke conflict in the long run than to prevent it.

Proposal

Governments should constitutionally enshrine the survival and flourishing of their people as the chief purpose of the state.

“The people” should be defined in explicit racial, ethnic, cultural, historical and linguistic terms:

• Japan should exist to preserve the Japanese people.

• Germany the German people.

• The United States ‘Heritage Americans’.

• New Zealand its constituent peoples: British settlers and Māori.

• …and so on.

In addition, governments should constitutionally recognise the principal religious and philosophical traditions from which the state derives its conception of the good, its moral limits, and its understanding of legitimate authority. This recognition does not entail theocratic rule or coercion of belief, but it rejects the fiction of institutional neutrality. Law, rights, and political norms arise from specific civilisational traditions; denying this fact does not eliminate value judgments, it merely forces them underground into bureaucratic and judicial discretion.

This establishes the ultimate ends toward which political authority, legislation, and public policy are to be directed. It does not prescribe every policy outcome in advance, but it provides a constitutional anchor that constrains interpretation and prevents foundational questions from being displaced into unaccountable managerial systems.

Constitutional clarity must be matched by institutional alignment. If the state exists to preserve a particular people and their way of life, its institutions cannot be staffed by officials who are indifferent or hostile to that purpose. Recruitment, promotion, and retention within the public service, judiciary, security agencies, and publicly funded cultural institutions should therefore prioritise membership in, and demonstrated loyalty to, the people and constitutional order. This does not require ideological uniformity or party allegiance, but it does require a shared commitment to the survival, cohesion, and self-determination of the political community. Institutions staffed by actors who reject the state’s foundational ends will inevitably subvert them, whether consciously or not.

Immigration policy must also be aligned with the constitutional purpose of preserving the people. States should therefore prioritise entry from groups that are racially, ethnically, linguistically, and religiously compatible with the existing population: migration should be drawn from traditional sources and occur at modest and assimilable rates. Policies could include national, racial, ethnic and religious quotas, language restrictions, and cultural-alignment criteria. By linking immigration to the survival and flourishing of the political community, the state ensures that population change does not endanger the survival of the people or undermine the coherence, trust, or stability of the nation.

Education is also central to this constitutional purpose. A people cannot survive if it is not taught who it is. Public education systems must therefore be oriented toward transmitting the nation’s history, traditions, religion, myths, symbols, norms, and civilisational achievements, not merely technical skills. Education should cultivate historical consciousness, shared memory, and moral formation, situating students within a long national and civilisational story. This includes honest instruction about founding events, cultural inheritance, religious influences, and the moral assumptions embedded in national institutions. An education system that withholds this inheritance or treats it as morally suspect actively subverts the nation.

Civic ceremonies, national holidays, and public symbols should complement formal education, providing shared rituals and visible markers that reinforce historical memory, common identity, and attachment to the nation’s traditions and values.

Evaluation

Constitutionally anchoring the state to its people, aligning institutions, and reshaping immigration and education policy offers clear benefits:

• It addresses the fundamental incoherence of modern liberal democracy: without a defined political community, governance defaults to covert managerial discretion and securitisation.

• It also addresses the existential and mental health crises bedevilling Western nations which is plausibly tied to the loss of and demonisation of their identity. Citizens would gain clarity about who they are and what their institutions exist to preserve. Education would cultivate shared memory, traditions, and moral understanding, and civic rituals would reinforce cohesion and identity.

• Institutions staffed with officials loyal to the people can implement policy with confidence and legitimacy.

• The Great Replacement would be formally brought to an end, and potential remigration efforts legitimised.

The risks are also substantial:

• Defining the people in racial, ethnic, linguistic, and religious terms will be denounced as exclusionary, discriminatory, or illiberal by liberal, progressive and globalist actors, and will provoke both domestic opposition and international censure.

• Implementation challenges are significant: recruiting and training loyal officials, replacing disloyal ones, reforming education, managing immigration in line with ethnocultural compatibility, and balancing civil liberties with collective preservation.

• Poorly executed, the policy could heighten social tensions, provoke radicalization among excluded groups and at worst lead to civil war.

Yet the long-term effect is a society with a secure identity and institutional legitimacy, where political disagreement occurs openly within shared boundaries rather than being securitised and pathologised.

In short, the proposal fundamentally reshapes Western states: law, policy, and public institutions would explicitly serve a defined people; education would transmit history, culture, and values; and civic life would foster continuity and belonging. The proposal is not without risks or controversy, but it is required to address the foundational contradiction of liberal democracy - allowing the political system to evolve to a “post-liberal” phase where it can govern openly, coherently, and with legitimacy on behalf of a particular people and within a defined Tradition.

Other options

Several alternative responses to the crisis of legitimacy and securitisation diagnosed above are available. Each addresses aspects of the problem, but only partially, and each ultimately fails to resolve the underlying contradiction concerning the lack of definition of the political community and its purpose.

Procedural liberal reform

One option is to attempt to retain liberal neutrality while strengthening procedural safeguards: robust free speech protections, increased transparency, stronger judicial restraint, and enhanced oversight of intelligence and security agencies. This approach seeks to curb the excesses of managerialism without addressing the structural flaw that gives rise to it.

Managerial authoritarianism

A second option is to abandon democratic legitimacy and embrace elite or technocratic rule, justified by expertise, security, or the failure of the liberal democratic model. Dissent would managed by authoritarian means, and stability maintained through surveillance, censorship, and coercion. But without a shared identity or moral authority, this option requires ever-escalating control and produces permanent securitisation. It resolves the contradiction by suppressing democratic politics and freedoms entirely, rather than by restoring them.

Decentralisation and local self-determination

A third option is to lower the stakes of national identity by decentralising authority or expanding rights of exit, allowing communities to self-govern or secede from unwanted political arrangements. While this can reduce conflict intensity and provide temporary relief, it does not resolve the contradiction at the level where sovereignty, borders, and national policy are ultimately decided. In moments of crisis - war, migration surges, economic shocks - authority will recentralise, and the same managerial dynamics will reassert themselves.

Assessment

Each of these alternatives treats symptoms rather than causes. By contrast, constitutional recognition of a people, its view of the good, and its survival supplies the missing foundation that allows political disagreement to occur openly, legitimately, and without securitisation.

However, some of the discussed measures could be implemented as complementary to the main proposal in appropriate contexts.

Conclusion

Modern liberal democracy is descending into incoherence. The identity of the political community and its ends have been left undefined, which has led to a covert ideological war being fought out across society and within the institutions. This makes a mockery of the idea of political neutrality, has undermined democratic legitimacy, wasted enormous civilisational energy and resources, and is driving decline.

The HAL9000 went haywire because it could not step outside its parameters. Machines cannot recognise when the rules of the game are broken. A problem our institutions and leaders apparently also struggle with. However, individual humans possess meta-awareness, moral judgment, and the capacity for disobedience and heroism. That is how Bowman beat HAL - by forcing his way in when the system refused to yield - and that is how political renewal must occur.

The solution is not more management, but explicit commitment:

• Define the political community

• Declare its survival a legitimate end

• Accept that governance requires loyalty to a people and judgment about the good, not neutrality.

Only then will Western states regain their sanity, stop treating patriots as security threats, and be able to reverse our present demographic and civilisational decline.

William McGimpsey is a Public Policy Professional, Free Speech Advocate and Political Commentator. This article was sourced HERE