Death Of Liberal Possibilities?

Wind Rose Hotel posted this comment by novelist Alessandro Baricco. It applies to the West in general.

"One [mistake] is that we have always seen ourselves as working in defense of the weak and marginalized, as advocating for people who have no voice and are victims of social injustice. That’s a wonderful starting point, but I want to say this: that we, on behalf (and with the excuse) of that, have mainly set up a protection system, a system of privileges, for a part of this country—and a rather dark one—which seems to be held together by mediocrity and a certain inclination to servility. I don’t know how this happened, but it happened.

We thought, with regard to the defense of the weak, that we might achieve it only by somehow blocking the system on a stable net of rights and defenses. I, along with others, now know that the best thing you can do for the weak is to let him have a dynamic system, not a blocked one. It’s not true that risk hits the weak; risk is a chance for the weak. A blocked system blocks a country, blocks the economic growth, the enthusiasm, the hope, and the options of revenge. It blocks social mobility and capabilities. It is an asphyxial system, and the rich suffers from asphyxia, but not very much, while the poor dies from it. [IL FOGLIO, November 1, 2001,"

What took him so long to figure it out? It pretty much seemed self-evident to me since, like, the 1980s. I guess I got turned off to left-wing ideology for two reasons: Its acceptance for violence and the mistake for conflating welfare with entitlement.