In
this thread on Hillary Clinton,
Wertz and I went on an interesting sidetrack discussing the original meaning and evolution of the word "liberalism" in describing political philosophy. I think it is appropriate to continue this debate here.
Questions for Debate;
1) What did the original conception of "liberalism" as a political philosophy entail?
2) What is the relationship (similarities/differences, etc..) between classical liberalism and modern liberalism?
3) Does modern liberalism accurately reflect an evolution of language from its use in the Pre-Industrial Revolution era?In order to preempt a surely strong post by
Wertz, I will present my own case.
1) What did the original conception of "liberalism" as a political philosophy entail?The original conception of liberalism as a political philosophy entailed an ideology than encompassed a great many concepts that would have effect in the political, social, and economic spheres. During the Enlightenment, numerous theorists composed a philosophy that rejected autocratic governments of their day as they yearned for more freedom from arbitrary control. It was a consistent philosophy that stress individual liberty and limited government power in the social and economic arenas (free trade). Originally, there were two schools of thought in liberalism, the rationalist and the anti-rationalist. The rationalist camp was composed of theorists such as Hobbes, Rousseau, Paine. The anti-rationalists were Adam Smith, De Tocqueville, Montesquieu, and Edmund Burke (to name a few). The rationalist was the champion of reason over all else while the anti-rationalist recognized the limits of using reason in understanding how traditions and institutions come about.
It was these philosophers that encompassed the heart and soul of liberalism...until the Industrial Revolution. When the IR occurred, liberalism took on a new face that while borrowing ideas from classical liberalism, brought in new ideas from another ideology, socialism (please, i am not using socialism in a derogatory sense). Whereas at one point individual liberty was the main concern for the liberal, now it was "welfare" and "equality" that took prominence. This finally culminated into the new liberalism displayed by FDR in the New Deal legislation where there was a huge expansion of government power over the economy. FDR's programs which are now called "liberal" would have been abhorrent to liberals pre-IR. It wasn't so much that liberalism evolves as that it changed its meaning. Socialists and social democrats who were failing to gain any support with their ideas adopted liberal ideas in order to achieve their ultimate goals. To clarify, socialists saw a great social upheaval/revolution as too idealistic for the times and believed that their goals can be achieved through democratic institutions. So they went along with democratic ideals in so much as they can facilitate the socialist ends. This is where modern liberalism is derived. It is a political philosophy that supports increased government intervention (even at the expense of individual liberty) in order to protect the general welfare and equality. Liberal support for the welfare state is the complete opposite of what liberals supported in the early conception of liberalism.
2) What is the relationship (similarities/differences, etc..) between classical liberalism and modern liberalism?The similarities are a few significant ones, while the differences are numerous. The similarities include the protection of
most civil liberties and also confidence in democratic institutions. The modern liberal and the classical liberal abhor totalitarianism as well as any form of overt authoritarianism. They believe that people should be granted equal opportunity and equal protection under the law. The differences are that the modern liberal sees government as an instrument to bring about social change whereas the classical liberal sees such action as majoritarianism trumping individual liberty. The modern liberal emphasis welfare and equality where the classical liberal sees individual liberty as the means for welfare and equality. From Milton Friedman's
Capitalism and Freedom:
QUOTE
"Beginning in the late nineteenth century, and especially after 1930 in the United States, the term liberalism came to be associated with a very different emphasis, particularly in economic policy. It came to be associated with a readiness to rely primarily on the state rather than on private voluntary arrangements to achieve objectives regarded as desirable. The catchwords became welfare and equality rather than freedom. The nineteenth century liberal regarded an extension of freedom as the most effective way to promote welfare and equality; the twentieth century liberal regards welfare and equality as either prerequisistes of or alternatives to freedom. In the name of welfare and equality, the twentieth-century liberal has come to favor a revival of the very policies of state intervention and paternalism against which classical liberalism fought. In the very act of turning the clock back to seventeenth-century mercantalism, he is fond of castigating true liberals as reactionary!"
The socialists and social democrats adopted the populist term "progressive" and later the label "liberal" in order to legitimize their beliefs on the political stage. So
Wertz, it wasn't conservatives that turned "liberal" into a derogatory label. Originally, these groups embraced being called liberal. Conservatives have used the term liberal in the modern day with a negative connotation to mean big government, but that definition is by most accounts accurate.
3) Does modern liberalism accurately reflect an evolution of language from its use in the Pre-Industrial Revolution era?No it does not reflect an evolution of language but rather a change in meaning. The classical liberal and the modern liberal have little in common as they espouse different fundamental beliefs. They have some similarities yes, but not enough to say that modern liberalism emerged out of classical liberalism. Rather it was socialists and social democrats who merged their philosophies with that of liberalism that one out in the Post-IR, New Deal America.