“Social Change is Really Hard” || David Brooks and Sam Moyn on radicalism and moderation

The tension between incremental reform and transformational change defines the modern liberal tradition. David Brooks, a proponent of Burkean moderation, argues that social complexity and the inherent risks of concentrated power necessitate steady, cautious progress. Conversely, intellectual historian Sam Moyn advocates for a more ambitious, emancipatory liberalism that actively dismantles systemic hierarchies, including those embedded in market structures. Both participants identify a profound failure among contemporary meritocratic elites, attributing this decline to insularity, economic stagnation, and disastrous foreign interventions like the Iraq War. Despite their philosophical differences, they explore a potential "Scandinavian compromise," which would leverage free-market dynamism to fund a more generous welfare state. This dialogue ultimately reveals that their disagreement rests on a fundamental divergence regarding human nature—whether it is fixed and prone to sin or malleable and capable of being reshaped through environmental and structural change.