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Tuesday, December 07, 2004
The "L" word
This piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education: The Triumph and Collapse of Liberalism deserves flagging (found on Arts and Letters Daily), particularly because it gives a little history lesson on classical liberalism.
Posted by Kevin Steel on December 7, 2004 in Current Affairs | Permalink
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» Liberalism - History of an Idea from Gods of the Copybook Headings
The Chronicle of Higher Education has this piece on the history liberalism, from a modern liberal's perspective - the author interestingly refuses the label. [Read More]
Tracked on 2004-12-07 8:48:25 PM
» The trouble with liberalism from Le blog de Polyscopique
Kevin Steel has linked to an interesting article on the history of liberalism showing how the label 'liberal' in the Anglo-American world used to be associated with the libertarian-leaning ideas of classical liberalism and is now associated with the so... [Read More]
Tracked on 2004-12-15 6:49:27 AM
» The trouble with liberalism from Le blog de Polyscopique
Kevin Steel has linked to an interesting article on the history of liberalism showing how the label 'liberal' in the Anglo-American world used to be associated with the libertarian-leaning ideas of classical liberalism and is now associated with the so... [Read More]
Tracked on 2005-06-24 5:17:41 PM
Comments
An excellent and insightful article about the de-meaning of the word liberal and the pedigree of the liberals. Thanks for the link. It's nice to see that some people still understand the difference between liberalism and socialism.
Liberals can rightly lay claim to many of the greatest achievements in the 19th and 20th century. The author point out a few: "the abolition of slavery; the promotion of universal education, universal suffrage, freedom, and equal rights for women; and the provision of health services, guaranteed help for the poor, popular sovereignty, etc., if not perfectly or everywhere, but at least in principle, have been widely adopted around the world."
Liberals have been the architects of disaster as well; the "projects" in Chicago is an example.
While the term liberal is meeting a sad end, I'm not sure that liberalism is meeting the same end. The ground that was won won't be given up. In fact liberal principles are now firmly entrenched in almost all mainstream political parties in the west. You could probably make a compelling case that Harper is more of a liberal (in the classic sense) than any other CDN party leader.
Posted by: KevinG | 2004-12-07 12:16:02 PM
"Liberals have been the architects of disaster as well; the "projects" in Chicago is an example."
There are lots of failed "projects" up in Canada too. Housing projects as bad as any in Chicago, plus failed health projects, failed transportation projects, failed cultural projects, failed educational projects, failed foreign aid projects ... and so on down the list of liberal "achievements".
But in truth, "socialism" - the political system of communal ownership - is the correct term for these policies. The root of the word liberal - freedom - has nothing to do with a system in which politicians and bureaucrats take away citizens' money by force, steal and/or waste half of it, and provide shoddy services with what's left. While simultaneously making it either illegal or economically impossible for citizens to provide the services for themselves.
Posted by: Justzumgai | 2004-12-07 7:13:34 PM
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