Justin:>>>These (Manchester and New Deal liberalisms) are economic liberalisms. I'm a political liberal, like Mill and Rawls.<<<
me:>>please explain.<<
Justin:>OK. Manchester liberalism is what we now call libertarianism, favoring a nightwatchman state and unfettered free markets with private property. New Deal liberalism saved capitalism by creating an admistrative state, lots of regulation, and social supports for the less well off under capitalism.<
It's important to remember that the New Deal also had lots of support for businesses, too. (The NIRA was basically a pro-business plan which luckily had a pro-labor element.) Also, World War II helped "save capitalism" in the US, since the New Deal didn't pursue the Keynesian part of the New Deal liberal program except in a half-hearted way until the war. Of course, the anti-democratic Smith Act and the like also helped "save capitalism."
Further, the "progressive" -- or better, the democratic -- aspects of New Deal liberalism did NOT arise from "liberalism" as much as from mass struggles (the Veterans' march on Washington, the CIO & sit-downs, etc., etc.) and elite fears of revolution or uncomfortable reforms (fascism, communism). When pressure "from below" weakened (in the 1940s, especially in the 1950s), the New Deal liberals shifted to the right, abandoning "progressive" New Dealism.
>Political liberalism [on the other hand] is neutral on the best economic form. Its key idea is that freedom is a good, as is self-government.<
Freedom is good? what kind of freedom? this word has many meanings and uses (and abuses). Usually, our fearless leaders use the word to refer to _laissez-faire_ (freedom for the wealth-owners). How did Mill use this word? did he include freedom from hunger as part of "freedom"? freedom from capitalist exploitation? If so, he went beyond the "negative" definition of freedom that characterizes actually-existing liberalism, except at the edges.
from a different message I sent recently: I notice that often the _ambiguous_ nature of mental concepts ... can be quite important to society's _unity_. At a fourth of July celebration I went to recently, people on the stand (and tapes of Dubya) could speak of "freedom" and people of all walks of life could nod and say "yup" even though a worker's definition of "freedom" may be quite different from that of the capitalist.
Self-government? this means profound democracy to me, where we go beyond parliamentary democracy and the like to make sure that the majority really rules. That would also go beyond standard liberalism. or do you mean _individual_ self-government?
>Accordingly it favors a limited representative government with elected officials chosen by univeresal suffrage and hedged in by extensive civil and political liberties.<
again, it's unclear what the content of these are. The official line in the US is that we have these already, but that depends on the definition of the key terms.
>Its classic statement is Mill's On Liberty, a defense of people's rights to live without oppressive social legislation or social pressure that disfavors experiments in living (in Mill's case, living openly with his girlfiend, lover, and collaborator Harriet Taylor), imposes orthodox beliefs such as a state religion or adherence to some required secular doctrine, and the like.<
so he would oppose the IMF, which uses its financial power to push the secular religion of _laissez-faire_?
What about the socio-economic forces that prevent experiments in living? One reason why people can't set up worker-owned factories is that they lack the financial resources. They often end up dependent on one or two people for money -- and thus end up emulating capitalism -- or fall apart.
>Political liberalism takes no position on the so-called economic liberties defended so aggressively by the Manchesterians; Mill was a market socialist, personally.<
Was his "market socialism" similar to yours? I've noticed that many people equate "socialism" with "a bigger role for government," so that it's quite possible that Mill would currently be termed a "New Deal Liberal" or some such even though at the time it was called "socialism."
(I'm no expert on Mill, as should be obvious. I also don't think quoting authorities is a useful intellectual activity if one can present the argument oneself.)
...
I wrote: >In any event, the distinction between "political" and "economic" is
bogus and seems inappropriate to a political economy discussion list.<
JKS:>It's not that there's no distinction, just that it's rough and ready and context specific. Here it signifies the neutrality of liberal governmental forms among different (socialist and nonsocialist) economic arrangements.<
The neutrality of governmental forms? having Congresscritters on the take to big corporations (raking in the campaign contributions) is something that will persist when socialism comes? We'll still be ruled by creeps like Gray Davis (the California governor)?
>As I said before, almost everyone here--you too--favors representative
govt, univ. suffrage, extensive civil rights and liberties. In that sense we
are all liberals.<
if you define your terms vaguely, any statement is true.
It's really cool that you stretch the definition to the breaking point, so that it no longer means much at all. I guess that's one form of anti-liberalism: if you remove the content, people will reject it. Liberals have traditionally opposed democracy, where the latter means rule by the majority. They prefer rule by the elite, with checks & balances to check and balance the "tyrrany of the majority."
Marx shared ideas with the (more enlightened) liberals, but it would be wrong to say that the kind of democracy that he described (and advocated) as prevailing in the Paris Commune "is a variant of liberalism." His ideas _transcended_ liberalism, which doesn't mean that they _abolished_ all of liberalism. Transcendance involves transformation _and_ preservation of some elements.
BTW, I think that one thing we should do is to choose a definition of liberalism and stick to it (at least for this thread, since there are no "true" definitions). I follow the historian of political thought, George Sabine, who defines liberalism in utilitarianism, individualism, and the independence of "private" enterprise from political control, and consequently for freedom in exercising rights of property. As he writes, in the 19th century, "It was a new form of middle-class social philosophy partly replacing and partly revising the philosophy [of Locke _et a_] of natural rights." [A HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT, 1937, p. 648.]
JD
