Democrats and Republicans: Both Liberal?

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In 19th-century Europe, liberalism was understood in contrast to conservatism on the right and socialism and anarchism on the left. Of course, in 19th-century Europe, conservatism referred to support for an absolute monarchy, aristocratic privilege, and the authority of the Church (with monarchists tending to prefer a powerful central state and aristocrats preferring to maintain the localized control and accumulated privileges of feudalism). Socialism embraced, often in revolutionary form, the cause of the working class (and occasionally the peasantry) and the need to create an egalitarian society with direct popular control over the levers of both governance and industry; it emphasized that the disadvantaged could gain power through collective action: labor unions, communes, revolution, and public ownership of capital.

Liberalism, in contrast, was the ideology of the urban middle class: the capital-owning bourgeoisie, merchants and traders, bankers, professionals, and the clerks that supported the bureaucracies of both state and commerce. It was born of the ideals and philosophy of the Enlightenment: parliamentary democracy, individual rights, freedom of conscience, equality before the law, and the like. Being the ideology of the commercial and professional classes, it often emphasized private-property rights, free markets, and free trade (today what would be termed classical liberalism or liberartianism). In the later 19th and early 20th centuries, liberalism began to accrete more support for state intervention through the concept of positive liberty, justifying a role for government-provided welfare and regulation to compensate for some of the actual illiberal outcomes a market-based economy can produce. In the United States, this tendency dovetailed with the WASPy, moralizing Progressivism that also produced Prohibition; it also provided a basis for the New Deal, the New Frontier, the Great Society, and civil-rights legislation. This also allowed for liberalism to start synthesizing with socialism, mingling into social democracy. Again, this more contemporary social liberalism remains the ideology of much of today's urban, sophisticated professional class, showing that, although some of the core ideas have evolved, it remains the ideology of much the same socio-economic class that supported liberalism in the 19th century.

Classical liberalism also evolved to the right, becoming contemporary libertarianism and mixing with American conservatism. Here, the ideas of private-property rights, less state interference in economic activity, and free trade tended to buttress the bottom line of the trusts and corporations growing as a result of the industrial revolution (although businesses opportunistically tended to support tariffs and regulations when it would help them). Here the managerial class of private enterprise incorporated a differing set of ideas derived from liberalism, which could be used to justify their higher status in the social order through merit and the results of free choice. This blended well with older conservative ideas of deference to established authority, belief in a just world ("We live in the best of all possible worlds"). Just as the left version of liberalism gained working-class support by blending in ideas from socialism, the right-wing version of liberalism gained wider popular support by cementing itself to an exuberant patriotism; Fundamentalist Christianity; and a moralizing, self-righteous attitude.

So the modern-day Democratic Party runs the gamut from social democracy to a center-left liberalism and even a somewhat conservative liberalism, and the modern-day Republican Party incorporates economic-libertarian elements along with a heavy dose of social and religious conservatism (often a quite illiberal impulse in the Republican Party). Both derived from a historical core of Enlightenment-era liberalism and ran in different directions with it.

Liberal is probably is the most bastardized word ever. Socialists and progressives hijacked the term long ago. The meaning of pretty much every political label has been bended too.

More accurately, both parties are Statist. They see the government as the main engine of U.S. society. In fact, business is the main engine of U.S. society. Government does not produce anything much. As Calvin Coolidge said: The business of America is Business. At best, government is an institution for regulating activities in the society. It is a very bad initiator of activities.

ruveyn

+1

The current political powers (both major parties) embrace the concept of a massive centralization of power. AKA Big Government.

Hence, whether you support Democrat or Republican, the result is an onward push to an expansion of government power and non-stop infringement on state and individual rights.

I have to agree that both American parties are descended from classical liberalism, however, this really isn't surprising. The entire concept of America was a result of Enlightenment ideology, so the idea that America has generally stuck to its intellectual roots isn't shocking.

one mans conservitive, is another mans librial, frankly they both seem so polirized that it seems that vioting is noe based on choosing the pretiest evil

Well... they are both generally liberal in the broad sense that they are descended from Enlightenment-era ideals. Certain segments of the Republican party are in some respects illiberal as pointed out in the OP. However, both parties are also, broadly speaking, conservative. Neither party is interested in sudden radical overhauls of the current system and generally favor the status quo.

Local utilities such as water and power are often handled by government.
The interstate highway system was built by the government.
My elementary school was built by the government.
Upwards of half of scientific research is funded by the government, including the project I'm working on this summer.
Vaccines that save millions of lives every years are developed and distributed by government.
The US government is the world's single largest employer of mathematicians, and much of the work being done in mathematics today is funded by the government, even if the mathematicians are not directly employed by governmental agencies.

Handled and controlled is not the same as produced or invented. Government is a regulator and a constrainer, and very rarely an original producer or driver. Let me make an analogy. Consider a steam engine protected by a centrifugal speed governor (note that word governor, whose root is "to govern") and an overpressure release safety valve. The power of the engine comes from the fuel, the water turned to steam by the burning of the fuel and the power to the wheels produced in the cylinders. What the centrifugal speed regulator does is prevent the engine from going too fast or to slow given that fire is turning water into steam (at pressure) which is transformed into mechanical energy by the cylinders, pistons and rods. The governor servers the useful function of preventing the engine from shaking itself to pieces and the pressure valve (another regulating device) prevents the boiler from exploding due to over-pressure. The regulators are necessary to the safe and prolonged operation of the engine, but they don't produce the power that makes the engine useful. And the engine will operate for a time without either a pressure release valve or a centrifugal governor.

At its best what civil government does is to serve a role analogous to the centrifugal regulator and the pressure release safety valve. At its best it prevents certain excesses from destabilizing and destroying the society. At its worst, government consumes the production of the nation, enslaves its subjects and leads to the ultimate ruination of the society.

ruveyn

Private utilities are far superior to those handled by governments. Particularly if the private utility enjoys a monopoly, and can arrange a profit-maximizing system for billing the service. "Dead Weight Loss" is an unfortunate term, which implies that there is something wrong with a monopoly that maximizes profit. Someone will have to come up with a better term that would seem to glorify monopolies.

Private roads are infinitely superior to public roads. Public roads are simply a waste of public funds.

Public schools are also a waste of public funds. Private schools are infinitely superior. Certainly children whose parents can't afford private tuition could be put to work profitably in mines and factories.

Vaccines are saving too many lives, and hurting the business of hospitals and undertakers. A conservative approach would be to allow a private firm (with a patent) to maximize profits by setting a price high enough to where individuals can make a decision as to whether the risk of economic loss due to contracting and dying from a disease exceeds the cost of the vaccine. We don't need a "nanny state" to step in and make vaccines "affordable." It simply disrupts the free workings of the market place.

Government-funded scientific research is worthless.

And, if mathematicians were worth anything, they wouldn't have to rely on a "nanny state" to give them a job.

It's amazing how you can be presented with a rich, detailed, account of the ideological history of liberalism (always a rather broad term) and thoroughly ignore it, presenting a vulgar, petty, simple-minded, Far Right pseudo-history of what happened ("SOCIALISTS"! !! ! hijacked it!").

If Liberal were "hijacked" by socialists then it was hijacked in Britain (by the "socialist" Liberal Democrats), in Canada (by the "socialist" Liberal Party of Canada), in Denmark (by the "socialist" Danish Social Liberal Party), in Norway (by the "socialist" Liberal Party of Norway), and so on.

It would also of had to be hijacked by "socialist" John Stuart Mill, who advocated for social welfare measures. And, of course, by "socialist" Wilhelm von Humboldt - who advocated some social welfare measures and engaged in almost quasi-Marxist analysis. Not to mention "socialists" like Jean-Jacques Rousseau (while a radical, traditional radicalism was regarded as a subset of classical liberalism) and Adam Ferguson's rather "Marxist (like)" analyses of politics.

In short, your post represents all that is wrong with the far right - you support cliched and Kindergarten understandings of history, be it the history of ideas, economic history, or you name it.

And those unable to understand history are unable to understand the present.

While I don't buy Chomsky's long-term (as in centuries) goal of libertarian socialism (I'm more of a social democrat) these analyses of the founding documents of classical liberalism prove that it wasn't an exclusively rightwing phenomena.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ovhUYh0YLE&feature=related[/youtube]

I think that guy would like a word with you.