----- Original Message -----
From: "Justin Schwartz" <jkschw at hotmail.com>
>
> What it means, first of all, is that the state is neutral on the good;
it
> favors, as little as possible, no particular set of ideals about what
is
> good over another: neither religious nor secular ideals,
consumptionsit or
> perfectionalist ideals, etc. In terms of practical realization, this
means
> that a liberal state has a government elected by universal suffrage in
> competitive elections, and offers extensive guarantees of civil and
> political liberties under the rule of the law. The RoL is a matter of
the
> laws beinf fairly predictable, reasonably equally applied, and
determined in
> a tolerably democratic way.
===================
The State and the RoL are about as neutral as money. You don't believe in the neutrality of money do you?
>
> Liberalism so understood is compatible with socialism, understood as
> democratic control over the basic economic decisions of life. It does
not
> favor markets or planning. On that issue it is neutral. It is not
compatible
> with Marx's communism envisaged as a stateless society without law.
But then
> I think that would be a very bad thing.
>
> jks
====================
Well if one simply follows Morris Cohen with regards to your first sentence, we've always had socialism; the law, by delegating certain sectors of society with control over the means of production via democratic deliberation of economic legislation....If property and the control of property is merely what the State says it is...........
Ian