[lbo-talk] What Is a Liberal?

brad babscritique at gmail.com
Sat May 8 05:20:07 PDT 2010


Somebody wrote:
>Somebody: I feel like part of the problem is that we're using two different definitions of liberalism. Sometimes it seems as if we're talking broadly about classical liberalism, in which case everybody from Adam Smith to Friedrich Hayek is a liberal.

On the other hand, we have the 20th century American tradition of liberalism, which is a distinct subspecies of classical liberalism, which modifies the older tradition in part out of a response to working class demands, and in part simply in response to the changes brought about by modern society.? I mean, we can either differentiate between these two definitions of liberalism or not, but it's clear to me that self-identified liberals, especially amongst the public, subscribe to the latter political philosophy. In other words, liberals *don't* believe in money as equivalent to freedom of speech or to corporations having the full array of human rights. And truthfully, it's hard to argue that liberalism is much more amorphous a concept than socialism, or for that matter, fascism. These are all abstractions, and should be used merely as a form of useful short-hand. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I really don't think the two traditions are that far apart. Clearly Clinton, if we describe him as a liberal, did believe in money as equivalent to freedom of speech and that corporations should have the full array of human rights - or at least his policies did not dispute these liberal norms. Part of the problem is that we have let the right define liberal for us. Newt Gingrich or someone on Fox will deride and call everything they disagree with liberal (much as they now do with socialist). But this shouldn't confuse us on what the term means. The very limited and temporary movements away from classical liberalism by FDR and others needs to be understood not as a new form of liberalism or new tradition of liberalism, but as a move to save liberalism from its left critics.

Brad



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