We argue that liberalism—market economies governed democratically—is the best approach for navigating the far future. A growing longtermist literature paints humanity’s path to good outcomes as narrow, with small errors risking value lock-in, gradual disempowerment, or other forms of permanent catastrophe. We argue that this literature underestimates the institutional dynamics that have historically steered liberal societies past similar predictions of crisis. We defend long-term liberalism by e
