Dunt's presentation of liberalism, like @jacobtlevy.bsky.social in Rationalism, Pluralism, and Freedom, shows us a liberalism that is flexible and resilient because of the tensions between its commitments.
In Dunt the tension is between what he calls "leave things be" and "shake things up" liberals. It acknowledges that existing property arrangements come with power arrangements and that democratizing power doesn't always follow from noninterference—but interference is always potentially dangerous.
As in tension between Levy's rationalist (uniform individual rights) and pluralist (rights for individuals to form groups with more restrictive rules) liberalism, tension between leavers and shakers push liberalism to keep reaching, but with a built-in restraint against its own potential excesses.
Leave-things-be liberalism isn't ambivalent about the liberation of people without power, but has faith that free people will tend to democratize power if their rights are protected and that interference with individual rights will tend to be coopted by the powerful.
Leave-things-be liberalism needs shake-things-up liberalism when faith in noninterference isn't borne out: prejudices incentivize discrimination in markets, people are wealthy enough to bear the costs of domination, market forces consolidate rather than distributing property.
Dunt appeals to liberals to listen to individuals as they organize and conceive of themselves in groups to meet challenges to individual freedom, which are always changing. Liberal involvement in these efforts can ensure that individuals always remain the centre of our concern.
