Janan Ganesh puts his finger unerringly on a key failing of liberal democracy, but then fails to complete the diagnosis (“Anarchy is a likelier future for the west than tyranny”, Opinion, June 22).

For 250 years, since the Enlightenment, the holy grail has been increasing individual empowerment and choice, and development of an economic system geared towards satisfying those individual choices, with little reference to the common good.

Perhaps unsurprisingly in our current age, the common good is now assumed to be simply the aggregate of individual choices, providing the perfect conditions for social and political entropy. It is very difficult to see how an existential, truly common challenge such as avoiding climate change can be met in such a system.

Robin Cooke-Hurle
London SW11