Liberalism - How Far Has it Strayed From Original Concept?

[Chris Alger]

You are confusing terms with different historical trajectories. Classic liberalism was the Enlightenment's response to feudalism, monarchy, the guilds and other medieval institutions. It's contribution was the emphasis on individualism and private property. The term has evolved into today's "neoliberalism," the economic theory favoring private sector ownership of the means of production, free markets and limited but crucial state intervention in the economy. Neoliberalism is the ideology underpinning all Western-style economies and, in a harsher version, their preferences in lesser developed countries. None of this has anything to do with the debate between US "liberals" and "conservatives," or the Democrats and Republicans. Virtually everyone with authority in the US embraces neoliberal economics, despite disagreements over how to deal with the side effects. Nor does this have anything to do with the tendency of the media to portray business-oriented moderates like Moynihan, Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council as "neoliberals."

US political liberalism emerged in the late 19th century as a reaction to the industrial revolution, when the word was basically a synonym for "reformism." It became prominent about the time of the first Wilson administration. (The New Republic, which most people still regard as the weekly journal of the liberal intelligentsia, was founded around this time). This is the "liberalism" that most people associate with faith in progress, progressive taxation, state intervention in the economy, a stronger federal government vis-a-vis the states, egalitarianism, environmentalism, internationalist (some would say interventionist) foreign policy and, later, a greater emphasis on individual social and political rights. This is the tradition of Al Smith, both Roosevelts, LBJ and Humphrey. Opponents of liberalism, distinct minority which began to call itself "conservative" sometime in the late 1950's, were a polyglot of small businessmen, laissez-faire monetarists, segregationists, anticommunist zealots, anti-Vatican II Catholics, bible thumpers and so forth.

All of this changed after Vietnam and Civil Rights. Vietnam fractured the liberal foreign policy consensus, creating a minority antiwar faction on the left wing that has remained firmly rebuffed by the leaders of both parties. The Civil Rights movement institutionalized the notion of federal intervention to guarantee social entitlements, a prospect that began to scare elites in both parties by the middle 1970's.

The upshot was that the "Democratic Left" has become a marginal force in US politics while the centrists of both parties are virtually indistinguishable, apart from the occasional partisan bickering. Both parties effectively amount to one party wedded to civil rights, social security, "big government," moderate environmentalism, massive intervention in the economy, foreign intervention (especially when it comes to Israel), a huge military and federal support for public education. Both parties, however, strongly emphasize the need to limit or even curtail the federal government's willingness and ability to satisfy popular demands unless they are extremely well organized and financed. In those few cases, the parties fall over themselves to respond.

The basic difference between the parties is (1) the different interest groups and issues each has locked up, which tend to checkmate each other; and (2) their attitude over the amount of compromise elites must endure in order to retain their privilege. The Democrats no longer look forward to any "Great Society" of full employment and living wages for all; Republicans no longer talk about the "welfare state," "state's rights" or the social horrors (extreme poverty, sexism, racism, homophobia) that they defended as recently as 20-30 years ago.

"Conservatism" is more a mish-mash of reactionary propaganda than a coherent ideology, but I'll stop.