Click Here For Liberalism: The Slippery Slope to the Left by Barry Loberfeld
"The principles that have classically defined liberalism -- the primacy of the individual; the distinction between civil society and the political state; natural law and natural rights; political equality and limited government; private property and free enterprise -- existed in piecemeal form at various times before the advent of John Locke. We may think of the Greek Sophists, the Roman Stoics, the biblical separation of Caesar and God, the Spanish Scholastics, Milton, Spinoza. And among the key examples of practice that preceded theory are Magna Carta of England, Magdeburg law of Germany, the Golden Bull of Hungary, and the toleration of seventeenth-century Holland. But it is in Locke that the philosophy of liberalism finds its fountainhead. With his Second Treatise on Government, he distilled these principles from his precursors and linked them together into a practical framework for contemporary government -- that is, as a confident creed to challenge royal absolutism:
* 'The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only have the law of nature for his rule.'
* '[Each man] is willing to join in Society with others for the mutual Preservation of their Lives, Liberties and Estates, which I call by the general Name, Property.'
* 'Government has no other end than the preservation of property.'
Among the links was one between political liberty and private property, which would take the world stage in a single year not even a century later. In 1776, the American colonists issued a Declaration of Independence that echoed Locke for all its central themes, and Adam Smith published his Wealth of Nations, the work that fofounded the science of economics with its demonstration of the productive superiority and universal benevolence of the free market. Liberalism was evolving from the proposals of philosophers into the policy of governments. (The term itself eventually came from the Spanish parliament's anti-monarchist Liberales of the 1820s. Marx soon after added 'capitalism' as a synonym.)
The century of 1815-1914 is widely recognized as the liberal epoch, a period of industrial progress, unprecedented growth in both population and living standards, expansion of individual liberties and social tolerance, the abolition of slavery and serfdom, a reprieve from major wars, and the waning of political authoritarianism. 'Until August 1914,' observed British historian A. J. P. Taylor, 'a sensible, law-abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the state.' The government did not control how he lived, where he lived, where he traveled, what he purchased, whom he traded with, or whether he should enlist in the military. 'It left the adult citizen alone.' Such is the laissez faire that comes to mind when we speak of classical liberalism.
And so the question arises: How did liberalism transform, moving to our American context, from a term denoting a policy of Jeffersonian domestic liberty and Washingtonian foreign non-entanglement into a synonym for what has been called the 'welfare-warfare state?' How did a 'liberal' go from being an advocate of limited government to being one of expansive statism? Was this change substantive or semantic, i.e., an example of ideological evolution or an act of terminological theft?"
* 'The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only have the law of nature for his rule.'
* '[Each man] is willing to join in Society with others for the mutual Preservation of their Lives, Liberties and Estates, which I call by the general Name, Property.'
* 'Government has no other end than the preservation of property.'
Among the links was one between political liberty and private property, which would take the world stage in a single year not even a century later. In 1776, the American colonists issued a Declaration of Independence that echoed Locke for all its central themes, and Adam Smith published his Wealth of Nations, the work that fofounded the science of economics with its demonstration of the productive superiority and universal benevolence of the free market. Liberalism was evolving from the proposals of philosophers into the policy of governments. (The term itself eventually came from the Spanish parliament's anti-monarchist Liberales of the 1820s. Marx soon after added 'capitalism' as a synonym.)
The century of 1815-1914 is widely recognized as the liberal epoch, a period of industrial progress, unprecedented growth in both population and living standards, expansion of individual liberties and social tolerance, the abolition of slavery and serfdom, a reprieve from major wars, and the waning of political authoritarianism. 'Until August 1914,' observed British historian A. J. P. Taylor, 'a sensible, law-abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the state.' The government did not control how he lived, where he lived, where he traveled, what he purchased, whom he traded with, or whether he should enlist in the military. 'It left the adult citizen alone.' Such is the laissez faire that comes to mind when we speak of classical liberalism.
And so the question arises: How did liberalism transform, moving to our American context, from a term denoting a policy of Jeffersonian domestic liberty and Washingtonian foreign non-entanglement into a synonym for what has been called the 'welfare-warfare state?' How did a 'liberal' go from being an advocate of limited government to being one of expansive statism? Was this change substantive or semantic, i.e., an example of ideological evolution or an act of terminological theft?"
posted by Robert at 9:19 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home