Modern Liberalism -- Conceptual Mayhem

In his collection of essays, Classical Liberalism and the Austrian School, Ralph Raico writes:

    Understandably enough, the current disfavor in which socialism has fallen has spurred what Raimondo Cubeddu (1997:138) refers to as "the frenzy to proclaim oneself a liberal." Many writers today have  recourse to the stratagem of "inventing for oneself a 'liberalism' according to one's own tastes" and passing it off as an "evolution" from past ideas. "The superabundance of liberalisms," Cubedda warns, "like that of money, ends up by debasing everything and emptying everything of meaning."

     In truth, a survey of the literature on liberalism reveals a condition of conceptual mayhem. One root cause of this is the frequent attempt to accomodate all important political groups that have called themselves "liberal."  This is an approach favored by some British scholars in particular, in whose conception of liberalism the doings and sayings of the Bristish Liberal Party of the twentieth century weigh mightily (e.g. Eccleshall 1986: Vincent 1988).

     There is no doubt that after around 1900 the Liberal Party in Britain veered increasingly in a statist direction. In the United States a similar transformation took place within the Democratic Party---once "the party of Jefferson and Jackson"--at a somewhat later date. But the shifts, evident also in Continental parties that kept the liberal name, are easily explained by the dynamics of democratic electoral politics.

     Faced with the competition of collectivist ideas, liberal parties produced a new breed of "political entrepreneurs," men skilled at mobilizing "rent-seeking" constituencies, i.e., those who use the state to enhance their economic position. In order to gain power, these leaders revised the liberal program to the point where it was "practically indistinguishable from the democratic and social-reformist ideas, ending up by accepting the notion of the state as an instrument for redesigning society to produce particular ends." (Cubedda 1997:26)

This "liberal" transformation is my basic concern. The Democratic Party has been particularly successful in building a coalition of "rent-seeking constituencies" to the point that now around half the nation has developed an unhealthy dependency on interventionist government in a concerted effort to empower, increasingly, the State. As the statists seek to redesign society to produce particular ends, we must ask what ends and whether this is what we have in mind for American governance. I propose that this transformation of the Democratic Party is illiberal and antithetical to liberal principles.

Most modern liberals bristle at the mention of principles, but this is the problem. When modern liberals are confronted, like a chameleon they change colors and hide behind a concocted rationalization that's part of the nuanced pragmatism so popular among the statists who call themselves liberals. Liberalism can't mean whatever the liberal finds convenient at the moment -- this renders liberalism meaningless.

The Socialist Master Plan? I wish

Liberals like to make fun of conversatives and libertarians who criticize government interventions by assuring their critics that there is no Master Socialist Plot to take over America (snicker, snicker). Actually, this is not reassuring. Most libertarians I know don't believe anyone in DC is really smart enough to devise and carry out a Master Plan. What liberals don't understand is that what's taking place is far more troubling because there is no plan. They make it up as they go along. It would be easier to combat if a group of Socialists were planning to take over America through our democratic process -- we could defeat them then and quickly get that out of the way. 

I think most people are upset because modern liberals/statists in government are obscurantists drifting along with no plan at all. They act on political instincts to maintain power, and as a result we're 16 trillion in debt. Big Government Republicans who've followed the same political instincts are just as much to blame. This making it up as they go along has been going on for awhile from both parties, but now we're in a jam.

Currently those political instincts drive Obama and congress to offer temporary payroll tax cuts and to extend unemployment benefits. The convoluted, confused and misguided stimulus efforts wasted billions of dollars, and now they're just grasping at straws, doing what feels right to please the public and get re-elected. No one is looking, as usual, at the long-term effects of short-term gimmicks and give aways that are easier than making difficult choices. For Heaven's sake, please give us a Master Plan, socialist or not, so we can at least have a good laugh. Better yet, though, just get the hell out of the way and quit pretending you know how to turn around the economy.

The need for a new Old Right

The Old Right of Jay Albert Nock, Murray Rothbard, Frank Chodorov and Roy Childs stood in opposition to the statist transition of the time. Many classical liberals during this period were coaxed into a modern liberal movement influenced by socialism's popularity and the belief that a free market was too disruptive and it restricted America from becoming a Great State which could do good in the world.

In recent times, the Right has been dominated by conservatives who challenge modern liberals for control of a powerful State. Modern liberals have won the war, so far, despite the temporary and incomplete challenge during the Reagan era. Eight years of Bush represented the Right's complete shift to statism. Between the two establishment political parties we witness a battle for power, coercive power through the State. Both are two heads of a basically conservative coin which attempt to maintain a statist, status quo, each with their vision how State power should be managed. There has been criticism during the last couple of decades that the two parties are more alike than different despite the rhetoric during campaigns -- this criticism is mostly true.

The Old Right sought a different kind of power, and there's evidence a new Old Right is emerging, represented by Ron Paul, his son Rand, Gary Johnson and some of the Tea Party conservatives who seek this same kind of power. The Old Right, and I hope it's true of the new Old Right, sought the power of productivity, innovation, liberty, individuality, cooperative/competitive private sector enterprise, artistic expression, a free market of ideas, peaceful trade with other nations, limited government, charity, science, technology and reason. The Old Right fought expansion of State power and railed against interventions overseas which used young men and women as fodder for political ambitions. The Old Right sought the power of creative interaction and free choice in a private realm where individual rights are protected through government limited by the people it represents.

This next year of campaigning will reflect how much influence the new Old Right has in the political realm -- a realm still under the control, however tenuous, of powerful groups bent on central planning and social engineering. It's up to the American people, because the new Old Right should not be an effort to simply put a new face on the tired old mug of statist power -- the new Old Right should arise to empower the private sector and once again focus on nation, country, people and their rights. The new Old Right can perhaps end the deification of State power and start a new chapter in human development, less war and grand designs of power, and more cooperative and productive action in a growing global economy. America is an idea of liberty and rights, not a State, it's interventionist government and a muscle-bound army spread across the globe.

The Centrist movement which basically desires to save the status quo is not what it's billed to be. We don't need cooperation within government between parties to compromise and expand the State's ability to manage our economy and the power structure of the world. We need true opposition to this State management and control in order to find cooperation and compromise and free choice management in the private realm which has been splintered by politics. Harmony and no-labels among State actors is an attempt to marginalize opposition to expansion of State power, so let there be tension and discord in government, and let opposition work to limit coercive State power and to free the private sector. It's our only way out. 

Morning Joe 10/21/2011 -- Democrat Hour of Power

At least Morning Joe hosts and guests are admitting their bias -- this morning Scarborough said that critics are calling them out on their biased slant toward Democrats. Morning does more than inflate Democrats, in fact, they don't inflate Democrats much, because they can't without calling more attention to their damaged credibility -- they simply ignore Democrat deflation. I mean, who can really defend Pelosi, Reid, Biden and the Democrat Senate without coming across as delusional? So what Morning Joe does is what they did this morning -- John Heilemann, Mika, Barnicle, Katty Kay, Carl Berstein, David Gregory and Eugene Washington pick the worse aspects of the Republican candidates for President and they gang-attack the entire party-- they single out Herman Cain and make it appear that Cain represents opposition to Democrats -- they cherry-pick verbal gaffes by Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry and play them up, while giving lip service to the other candidates, Romney, Paul, Gingrich and Huntsman -- they take a temporary poll in a Republican primary without giving complete context of ups and downs in past primaries and make it appear that this temporary fluctuation in polls is indicative of all opposition to Democrats -- they find the most ridiculous statements and focus on these statements without presenting the body of ideas on the Right which contrast with the body of ideas on the Left -- they ignore the implosion among Democrats and horrible economy which the Democrats preside over and the failed policies Democrats are pushing.

The first two hours are propaganda against Republicans, and Scarborough plays the "conservative" voice, but Scarborough is more moderate/modern liberal than limited government conservative, and Scarborough doesn't have a libertarian bone in his body -- he's a Big Government Republican who pretends to be a "small" government conservative. More than that, Scarborough is a political animal who will go wherever the political winds blow. When Morning Joe does have a Republican on the show who can articulate a limited government/free market position, the Republican is overwhelmed with opposition, and I have never seen a real libertarian on the program besides Ron Paul.

This morning on the show, they talked even more about Herman Cain accusing him of running for President to sell books and make money. Either Herman Cain threatens them, or they think it's a good strategy to make it apprear that the Republican base is extreme and wants to elect an unexperienced person for President who will endanger America because he doesn't know anything about foreign policy. You would think that we're deciding on the next Dictator who will make decisions without input from anyone else. In a way this shows how the political class thinks about Presidents and American governance. The executive branch has taken on so much importance in the minds of modern liberals and progressives, they want a Super Technocrat who can really, really manage the US from central control in DC. I mean, Obama's central, technocratic management has been astounding, right? Plus, he's single-handedly killed bin Laden, Awlaki and Ghadafi. But let's not worry about Obama -- let's focus on Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry, a year out from the next election. Don't worry about unemployment, the coming financial disaster of Obamacare, the streaming regulations coming from DC and crippling small businesses or the mideast quagmires or the unilateral actions of Obama in Libya and Uganda or Solyndra or Fast and Furious or Democrat support of OWS or Democrat attempts to reward unions with more stimulus money or the stalled and uncertain business community or the continued bleeding of Fannie Mae or the Fed's destructive monetary policy or Dodd-Frank or Democrat cronyism or blocked energy production -- no, let's focus on Herman Cain and his books -- yes, Cain is the biggest issue facing America right now, and he must be stopped at all costs.

The libertarian threat to modern liberals

There are Leftists in the blogosphere conversation who claim a touch of libertarianisn, but insist on Left-Libertarianism. This insistence on Right and Left libertatrianism is motivated by either an ignorance of libertarianism or it's a means to destroy the threat of libertarianism. There wasn't much talk about libertarianism until some on the Right started embracing libertarian ideas and moving away from moral regulation through government -- not that libertarianism is immoral or amoral, but libertarians don't promote government regulation of morals. This interest in libertarianism from the Right and some factions of the Tea Party received media play, and as long as I've been watching media coverage, which has been a long time, only in the last 2 or 3 years have I witnessed media coverage of libertarianism.

The only reason I can determine why some on the Left are insisting on Right and Left libertarianism is to marginalize libertarian ideas on the Right and co-opt libertarians who might be influenced to buy into the illiberal statist economics on the Left. The major weapon is welfare -- the Left-Libertarian will embrace libertarian ideas (some of them) except for ideas which call for private assistance over the welfare state, thus making much of libertarianism meaningless. Economic liberty is a big part of libertarianism, and without it the philosophy is meaningless. This same marginalization/co-opting happened at the turn of the 20th century when classical liberals were divided and conquered by modern "liberals" who were really social democrats -- the classical liberals who refused to accept the illiberal economics on the Left were labeled rightwing and were denigrated.

Libertarianism actually transcends Right and Left, although the old classical liberals who held to their libertarian ideas, especially economic liberty, didn't object to being placed on the Right -- they made up what's now called the Old Right, but they were simply libertarians. Now, it doesn't make sense to divide libertarians between Right and Left unless your purpose is to divide and conquer. Libertarian ideas are a special threat to the welfare state, so it stands to reason that statists on the Left who want to protect statism will attempt to neutralize the threat of libertarianism. Libertarianism is a powerful set of ideas which threaten modern liberalism. Anyone calling for an alliance between Leftists and libertarians either doesn't understand libertarianism or they want to destroy it in order to safeguard the statist system .

Libertarianism is libertarianism, and I'd hate to see it perverted with Left-Right politics, like it was in the 20th century. Every time liberty raises its head the status quo controllers and social engineers fight to beat it back down.