Saving Liberalism from the Liberals

Walter Russell Mead asks, "Can the L-Word be saved?"

It's a good question, and one important to this nation, which was founded upon classical liberal ideals.  It's been all down hill since then for liberalism, with its path winding through Fabian Socialism, illiberal nationalism, elitist progressivism and ending up in the dark caverns of tribalism, identity politics, and because-we-say-so-ism.

I do not hate liberals. Some of those nearest and dearest to me are liberals.  I was saddened when a liberal coworker moved on to greener pastures, because he is a very intelligent man and we had some awesome conversations while leaning on our shovels.

The words liberal and libertarian both come from the word liberty, but they diverged long ago and we here in America have hopelessly tangled up our terms.  Mr. Mead explains...

Politically speaking, America may be the most confused country in the world.  Millions of people in this country are conservatives and even reactionaries who think they are liberals; we have millions more liberals and radicals who call themselves conservative.

It is an unholy mess and it needs to be cleared up.  It’s time for a language intervention.

Many find such conversations pedantic and insist that the terms are what they are in this country and who cares if we've got it backwards?  But if you are a thinker trying to get to the root of the matter, you must start by defining terms and tracing today's movements back to their philosophical roots.  Clarity demands it.

"Liberals" sneering at tea partiers who cite the constitution provides a clue that liberalism has gone off the rails; progressives voluntarily severed ties with such antiquities in the early 20th century, and liberals inexplicably fell in with them.  Progressive politicians greatly expanded the commerce clause and the general welfare clause, and progressive judges let them get away with it.  We were grappling with wars and economic crashes, you see, so the president and congress needed extraordinary powers.  And today's liberals, with a straight face, would have us believe George Bush's post-911 bureaucratic expansion and increased government powers was a singularly unprecedented even in our nation's history.  Sadly, it was just one more brick in the wall.

Know Yourself (Socrates).  Know Your Enemy (Sun-Tsu)
Most liberals cannot explain liberalism, because it is an incoherent hodgepodge of pollyanic aspirations, musty dogma and high dudgeon.  Worse for them though, is that they cannot explain conservatism, and they are blind to the evidence that the tea party has a strain of radical liberalism running through it, while they have become the entrenched fuddy duddies on so many issues.  I urge my fellow conservatives and libertarians to not make the same mistake.  You must understand the ideology you do battle with.

most of what passes for liberal and progressive politics is a conservative reaction against economic and social changes that the left doesn’t like.  The people who call themselves liberal in the United States today are fighting desperate rearguard actions to save policies and institutions that are old and established, that once served a noble purpose, but that now need fundamental reform (and perhaps in some cases abolition) ...

Liberals Started With Noble Ideals
I also urge everyone to study liberalism with charity in your heart.  Along the way you may find liberalism has some admirable qualities.  American liberalism is not communism after all.  Liberals and Progressives did not set out with the intent to enslave us.  They perceived real problems and set about trying to solve them:

The industrial revolution and associated phenomena (urbanization, mass immigration from non-English speaking, non-Protestant societies, the economic decline of small farmers and rural communities) presented liberals with new and very complicated problems. The problems of urbanization, class conflict (and the competition with socialism for the support of urban industrial workers), assimilation, and the regulation of a modern industrial economy gave 4.0 liberals new issues to worry about.

The development of a professional, bureaucratic civil service and the regulatory state were intended to preserve individual autonomy and dignity in a world dominated by large and predatory corporate interests – and split into classes with most industrial and agricultural workers subject to very low wages, long hours and poor working conditions.

At the same time the challenges of modernization and urbanization (public health, food safety, provision of newly necessary services like electricity and gas) could best be met through public services and, in some cases, heavily regulated private monopolies.  The professional and managerial classes were not just middle classes in the sense of standing between the rich and the poor in income and status; they were mediating classes who sought through the state, the universities and the learned professions to impose a balance between the interests of the wealthy and the workers.

Mead gives them their deserved props, but concludes that rather than take a revanchist approach, liberals need to move on, and realize that while their goals were noble, they snuffed human liberty and initiative in the process. Keep the goals but ditch the totalitarian tactics

Mead also looks forward to a new liberalism, which he calls Liberalism 5.0.  I recommend you go read the entire article.  He provides a concise history of American liberalism.  If the libs got their heads screwed on straight, they'd make common cause with the tea partiers.

Walter Russell Mead - Can the L-Word be Saved?