Illiberal Delusions that Disfigured the Modern World There is much in the modern world to delight Julian West when he awakes in Boston in the year 2000 after a 113-year sleep. He marvels at a primitive version of the internet that pipes a selection of music into the home around the clock. Merchandise, ordered from a warehouse, is delivered swiftly to the door, paid for with an American credit card that is “just as good in Europe as American gold used to be”.[1] West, the central figure in Edward Bellamy’s 1889 utopian fantasy Looking Backwards, finds Boston to be an…