The political theories of liberalism have received mounting challenges. While, earlier it was believed that it faces fierce opposition only from the Marxists, today there have arisen new schools of thought questioning liberalism on a number of points. These include:
1. Marxist accuses liberals of providing ideological apparatus to the capitalist mode of production, hiding inequalities and exploitation of workers and perpetuating status quo.
2. Communitarians have questioned the notion of disembodied self. They hold that an individual is deeply embedded in a social matrix which is vital part of his identity.
3. Postmodernists have questioned the enlightenment predicaments that liberalism is accused of serving. They deny the relevance of universal categories and grand theories. Instead they hold that social experience is contingent. There is nothing certain and final. In essence, they emphasize fragmented nature of social world.
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4. Multiculturalists have attacked the uniformity popularized by liberal institutions. They question the relevance of individual right allocated to the citizens without taking into account of his linguistic, ethnic or other such connections.
5. Feminists have attacked the division of social life into public and private sphere. They hold that the notion of neutral public sphere is biased and reflects the male presuppositions.
Ever since its genesis in the turmoil in Europe, Liberalism had suited the genesis of time. It replaced traditional conservation and orthodoxy by modern rationalism. Perhaps because, of its efficacy and pragmation, more and more .country’s are getting lured towards liberal democratic institution.
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The triumph of liberal democracy as a final form of government may be decried in some quarters, but as Stephen Eric Bronner argues “a replacement to liberal democratic state no longer exists.”
However it will have to be sensitive as regards contradictions of economic relations in the society. It will have to buttress itself with egalitarian elements of socialism and cultural consecutiveness of multiculturalism.