Introduction

Summary

The book is driven by the conviction that the alt-right is effectively using the linked issues of migration from the Global South and cultural difference to erode liberal values and institutions in rich democratic states. In this introductory chapter, the author elaborates the nature of the liberal perspective from which he views the questions of how open borders should be and the experience and policies of Western governments in response to several generations of migration from Global South. His liberalism draws on both the individual rights liberalism associated with John Locke and the French Revolution’s linking of liberty with equality and fraternity, as well as John Rawls’s Difference Principle and Amartya Sen’s vision of equalized opportunities for the expression of capabilities. He notes liberalism’s internal tension stemming from the fact that it is both a recipe for peaceful coexistence of different faiths, both secular and religious, and a faith with a crusading impulse of its own. And he recognizes the leftist critique of the very liberalism he proposes to defend.