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Contemporary political discourse commonly takes place in terms of liberal vs. conservative. The former is used synonymous with "left" and the latter synonymous with the "right." From time to time we hear of libertarians who are often see as left on social and right on economic issues. Yet, while modern liberals are left of center, there are other distinct ideologies on the left: social democracy, democratic socialism and Marxist socialism. Equating modern liberals with democratic socialists, as some libertarians or conservatives do, is little more than an extravagant display of what is either ignorance or an over-zealous attempt to show once ideological opponents in a negative light. So what is liberalism? Well there are two main kinds of liberalism: classical liberalism (think Friedrich Van Hayek, CATO Institute, etc...) and modern liberalism (what is simply called liberalism in the U.S.). Both classic and modern liberalism see the advancement of freedom as key to the perpetuation of the common good. Both see the advancement and protection of freedom as the proper role of the state. Both share the same philosophical roots. Yet, at the risk of over-simplifying excessively myself, the difference between the two lies in the definition of freedom. Modern liberals believe in positive freedom, i.e. freedom consists of the opportunity to actualize one's potential and reach one's goals. To perpetuate positive freedom, both first and second generation rights need to be provided universally. It is this commitment to positive freedom and its commitment to social justice that gives modern liberalism its egalitarian bent. Fellow modern liberal, Princeton sociologist and co-founder of the American Prospect Paul Starr: "Liberalism wagers that a state... can be strong but constrained - strong because constrained... Rights to education and other requirements for human development and security aim to advance equal opportunity and personal dignity and to promote a creative and productive society. To guarantee those rights, liberals have supported a wider social and economic role for the state, counterbalanced by more robust guarantees of civil liberties and a wider social system of checks and balances anchored in an independent press and pluralistic society." Interestingly, modern liberalism is not a dogmatic ideology, if one can even call it that. It is a highly pragmatic "ideology." It supports those policies, which are seen as the most effective in ensuring the universal provision of positive liberty and advancement of social justice. To determine whether or not government should intervene we, therefore, follow a rather technical appraoch. Modern liberalism is undoubtedly a powerful ideology. After WWII it became the dominant ideology on economic matters. The Great depression, two world wars and the rise of fascism was directly linked to the laissez-faire policy of previous decades. As London School of Economics, economists John Weeks put it, "the thirty years that followed [WWI] brought a series of disasters to the developed world... Almost without exception, the leadership of the mainstream parties in the developed countries... concluded that these disasters resulted from instabilities inherit in market economies." This includes the Republican Party of the U.S. The GOP was home to a large and powerful progressive wing, includes the likes of Nelson Rockefeller, and followed a largely Keynesian-modern liberal approach to fiscal policy. Modern liberalism changed the face of the political-economy in all developed countries. While classic liberals managed to exploit stagflation and the oil crisis of the late 1970s to their advantage (in the U.S. pushing the GOP to the right and turning supply-side economics into a prominent school of thought), neither Reagan nor Thatcher managed to overturn much of the pervious modern liberal policy. Conservatives have managed to stop the welfare state from growing further (surprise, surprise - poverty stagnated too, and inequality has been on the rise), and have made access to certain programs more difficult but all developed countries remain committed to the general principles of the mixed social market economy. There is, of course, a lot more to be said on the topic of modern liberalism, but my aim here was simply to sketch a short overview.
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