ON LIBERALISM

Thoughts on an endangered word

It’s often said that liberalism is in trouble, but the word itself is in more trouble. It’s accrued so many meanings over the years that many are in direct opposition to each other.

The most common source of confusion is when people today refer to “liberalism” and mean “modern liberalism.” The two are not nearly the same. Ezra Klein contributed to this confusion in a recent New York Times column by making only the vaguest attempt to distinguish between the two. I’m going to offer my own definition, but it’s worth taking a moment to untangle the various meanings that have piled up over the centuries. The word after all inspired revolutions and civil wars, as well as liberty and prosperity for millions. We should know what it means.

The four (and-a-half) liberalisms

The original form of liberalism bequeathed by Enlightenment thinkers is now called “classical liberalism,” and is variously defined as laissez-faire economics, limited government, individual freedom, and civil liberties under the rule of law. Pretty close to what libertarians believe today.

But over the course of the 18th Century the hard individualistic edges of classical liberalism were rounded to include a greater sense of the social compact, the need for participation in the liberal project. This form of “liberalism” without the “classical” came to mean consent of the governed, rights of the individual, promotion of “the general welfare” (in the Constitution’s words), freedom of speech and religion, right to private property, equality before the law. It’s what most people think of as the foundation of American freedom enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, even if the Founders didn’t live up to its promise.

“Modern liberalism” didn’t arise until a hundred years later, and part of the confusion is that it sprang from different meanings of the word, in this case “generous” and “open.” It is usually defined as “individual liberty with a commitment to social justice, equality, and an active government role in addressing social and economic problems.” Which means that a whole lot of modern liberalism is in direct contradiction to classical liberalism.

But the poor word wasn’t finished being stretched. In the late 1930’s the term “neoliberalism” was coined as a corrective to the perceived excesses of “modern liberalism.” By the 1960’s its focus was entirely economic, a belief in free markets without government intervention. In Milton Friedman’s words: “The only responsibility a corporation has to society is to make a profit for its shareholders.”

And now of course there’s “post-liberalism,” which is famously lacking a strict definition because it is said to exist only in opposition to liberalism, which various post-liberals define as “materialist,” “lacking in values,” “licentious,” “empty,” “nihilistic,” “elevating the individual over both God-given moral absolutes and the public good.”

A metaphor about, of all things, steel

So since “liberalism” is now a free-for-all, I offer my own definition. With a metaphor about, of all things, steel:

We think of tempered steel as the hardest kind of steel there is, but that’s not correct at all. When red-hot steel is quenched – a moment we’ve all seen in movies – it does indeed become very hard, so hard that it becomes brittle and breaks easily. In that state it is useless. What happens next – which we don’t see in movies – is the steel is re-heated up to a very precise point that balances hardness with flexibility. That is what “tempering” is. That’s why we say, “His anger was tempered by his concern for her.” And there is no perfect tempering. The blade-maker must always accept some loss of hardness or flexibility or both.

And that is what “liberalism” means. Tempered. Imperfectly. Because it is impossible to have individual rights, general welfare, and liberty for all without some of those rights coming into conflict. And if the resolution of those conflicts must be by consent of the governed then by definition the resolution must be imperfect, because some portion of the governed will be unhappy with the result.

In my definition, “liberalism” cannot be defined by its separate parts. It must be tempered by all the parts or it is not liberalism: it is not unlimited freedom yet not an overpowering government either, not a group of atomized individuals yet not an authoritarian collective. In truth, liberalism does not even exist in its parts; it exists in the process of balancing those parts – the dynamic, ongoing, contentious, frustrating, doomed attempt to reach equilibrium.

What an astonishing creation liberalism was, what a high-wire act, what a delicate mechanism that must always keep working or collapse on itself!

An informed, engaged populace passionate about the process of liberty

And the Founders understood that. They understood liberalism could only survive if it was supported by an informed, engaged populace passionate about the process of liberty. They also understood that such a populace could only engage in that process if it agreed on and was guided by timeless, sacred values. Because only those values could teach humans the forbearance to tolerate such disagreement and frustration without violence, to reach compromise, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Yet even the phrase “timeless, sacred values” is subject to the same tempering. Whose sacred values? Judeo-Christian? Greco-Roman? Enlightenment? Transcendentalist? Buddhist? Evolutionary? Liberalism has survived for 250 years without resolving that argument, because it has allowed itself to be tempered by it, by free engagement in the argument itself. The real question, given the attacks on liberalism from all sides, is whether it can survive in today’s world.

Many post-liberals say it should not, because it is either corrupted beyond repair or was never valid to begin with. Yet when one looks at the post-liberal definition of liberalism, it’s clear they’re not talking about liberalism at all. Liberalism cannot be “lacking in values, licentious, empty,” and still be liberalism. So what exactly are post-liberals arguing against if it’s not liberalism? I suggest that post-liberals are seeing what many insititutionalists have not wanted to see, that liberalism is gravely, if not mortally, wounded — and has been for some time.

It can be argued that we don’t even live in a liberal society anymore

The ills of our day do not stem from a surfeit of liberalism, but a lack of it. A lack of tempering. It can be argued that we don’t even live in a liberal society anymore; we live in an extreme and unreasonable society, ruled by people who’ve forgotten timeless values.

Many post-liberals lay this loss of timeless values at the feet of Marxist post-modernism, with its moral relativity and assertion that there is no such thing as truth. From this corrupt ideology, they say, arose critical theory and wokeism, and all the totalitarian ills of the progressive left. But post-liberals then contradict this by also claiming the ideology of the left has become a religion, an orthodoxy that allows for no dissent. But orthodoxy is the opposite of moral relativism; it believes in received truth, not no truth. And the woke left absolutely believes in timeless values; did Jesus not say, “the meek shall inherit the earth?” The problem with the woke left is not that it’s liberal, the problem is that it is not liberal. It is extreme, untempered.

But if we accept for a moment the post-liberal argument that America has lost touch with timeless values, what part of American society is responsible for that loss if it’s not the extreme left?

The corrupting power of unconstrained greed

I suggest much of the answer is neoliberalism. Though it was created to exist within the constraints of a liberal society, its proponents did not account for the corrupting power of unconstrained greed. And now, two generations of business leaders have come of age unaware of any purpose or value other than profit. They cannot imagine saying what Charles Wilson, CEO of GM, said in 1954: “What’s good for the country is good for GM.” They cannot imagine shutting down every automobile factory in America to build tanks and planes, as was done in 1942. Instead they have chosen to pay themselves 1500% what CEO’s were paid in 1966. And lest we forget, the elevation of greed to the detriment of all other values is condemned by every major religion. Neoliberalism has become everything the post-liberals say liberalism is: materialist, lacking in values, empty, nihilist, elevating the individual over both God-given moral absolutes and the public good. It has torn America apart.

Neoliberalism has hollowed out our middle class, commoditized healthcare, housing, and education until they were unaffordable. It has made billions by turning our public sphere into a Tower of Babel. Its lobbyists essentially run the government. Its unquenchable greed has turned us into a modern feudal state, and it is at this very moment destroying the hopes of an entire generation of young Americans, even as it starts to unleash AI on a powerless populace who will have no say in the decimation of our workforce.

Neoliberalism has un-tempered America. Liberalism – the process of balancing consent of the governed with equality before the law, reasoned debate, the public welfare, and individual rights – has been swept away in a tsunami of greed and corruption. Ironically, even those who most reject liberalism – the young socialist left and the groyper right – point to the damage done to their generation by neoliberal greed.

I can see only one solution to this, and it’s not “post-liberalism.” Instead, America must embrace actual liberalism again, in all its righteous complexity and frustration. It needs a vast movement of reform to temper the corrupt, illiberal forces unleashed in the last 45 years of greed and narcissism. We need a functioning Congress uncorrupted by corporate money, whose job is once again to be guided by the will of the governed. We need a chief executive whose power is tempered by the opposing forces of Congress and the judiciary. We need to take the country back from the plutocrats who bought their way to power, not in some French Revolution way that destroys them, but in a profoundly American liberal movement to restore agency and opportunity to our citizens.

The Founders understood the difficulty of creating the first liberal democracy on earth. They knew the exquisite tempering process of liberalism is the hardest cultural force to sustain. It depends upon its proponents to subdue their own base instincts of fear, rage, revenge, and greed in order to forge a path together. Our illiberal age has convinced Americans they are powerless against the forces arrayed against them, taught them to hate their neighbor, acclimated them to passivity until many forgot the astonishing heroism of their own parents and grandparents when darkness threatened the world.

Darkness threatens again. Our leaders have failed us. But no timeless, sacred set of values ever pointed toward surrender at such a moment. Who among the people will rise up and lead the way back to the liberal democracy our Founders entrusted to us?