----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Farmelant" <farmelantj at juno.com>
That's because you're originally from Europe and you're thinking of the label the way that most Europeans do. Friedrich Hayek always insisted on calling himself a "liberal", and he was alway clear that meant supporting free-market economics. In the US, the term "liberal" is generally used in place of the term "social democrat." Prior to the 1980s, an American liberal was someone who generally supported a relatively generous welfare state.
------ Maybe. But in the U.S. "neo-liberal" is used to mean "hard-core free market supporter", so here too there is the eonomic sense of liberal.
Joanna