Here is a basic entry about Liberalism that isn’t bad over at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
As soon as one examines it, ‘liberalism’ fractures into a variety of types and competing visions. In this entry we focus on debates within the liberal tradition. We begin by (1) examining different interpretations of liberalism’s core commitment — liberty. We then consider (2) the longstanding debate between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ liberalism. In section (3) we turn to the more recent controversy about whether liberalism is a ‘comprehensive’ or a ‘political’ doctrine. We close in (4) by considering disagreements as to ‘the reach’ of liberalism — does it apply to all humankind, and must all political communities be liberal?
Jeffrey Friedman of Critical Review has several good articles about the historical and ideological relationships between liberalism, radicalism, republicanism, socialism and all the various offspring of these movements - from a less parochial view than that of ‘libertarian’ history. He also has good criticisms of Property-Libertarianism, liberalism, egalitarianism and statism.
Herbert Spencer was excellent in several respects, but he suffered from a slightly ‘Whig’ theory of history.
The classical liberals were more concern from escaping the control of the totalitarian states of the old european monarchies and to increase individual rights and personal liberty, I dont think they were interested in creating yet another concentration of power.
I see it very clear.
Individual rights and self-managent vs collective rights and state intervention.
Off course I admit that american liberals follow a very loose form of socialism.
I think you are mixing things up a little too much.
Dare I say you are just using the american definition of liberalism.
No marxist would EVER use the word liberalism to describe his ideology.
I reject the label of “propietarians” clearly used as a pejorative form by the “libertarian” socialists in their insane obsesion to denounce private propety as an evil thing.
of course marxists do not consider themselves to be part of the “liberal movement” in the strict sense, although they appear from the outside. they consider themselves to be social scientists. they are to politics/economics what chemists and biologics are to science. indeed now most of them have branched out to literary critisism and psycology. (no need of LTV and mode of production there )
“Liberty to” is a deliberate stretch of language. “Opportunity to”, “ability to”, and “power to” are much more natural and less confusing ways of expressing what you see liberalism as espousing. When the Athenians fought for eleutheria, they didn’t fight the Persians for “liberty to” prosper, except ONLY insofar as the Persian yoke would have precluded it. The slaves led by Spartacus weren’t fighting for the libertas to have three square meals a day, they were fighting for libertas FROM their slavemasters.
That said, the corruption of the word “liberty” goes back farther than J.S. Mill; it goes at least as far back as Rousseau. But the motivation then was the same as now. The true liberalism of Locke, the Levelers, Cato’s Letters, and the zeitgeist in general was so popular in the 18th century that one couldn’t come out explicitly against liberty without incurring disdain. So statist schemers like Rousseau had to corrupt and co-opt the word to get a hearing. Just as now, if leftists were honest and explicit about how they actually don’t think very highly of liberty, they would be driven out of the political arena. So they also corrupt and co-opt the term, and try to convince people that the natural conception of liberty is some “fringe” ideal (just like you’re trying to do).
Whatever, I’m apathetic between whatever definition you want to give to ‘liberty’, ‘equality’, ‘justice’ etc., I have no horses in the race - I care not what you call it, only that it serve me.
Liberty used to be a word to symbolize absolute connection with god and a god supporting state.
Liberty used to mean freedom from a sovereign nation, but nothing of the people.
Liberty has been used to mean a lot of things in history. Even booklets from the IRS explaining how to pay taxes display an image of the Statue of Liberty on them.
Like any word, it’s all about who finds meaning in them. For many of us, it means drastically different from what conservatives and liberals would define it. Even then, the words conservative and liberal are so broad, that it’s hard to define what either are or will be.
I find it amussing to sit in any class on politics or government and over and over again hear the teachers explain conservatism and liberalism, same examples over and over, and then turn around and call the very people that don’t represent those ideals as extremely right or left wing individuals.
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