3 - Dueling liberalisms: progressives versus right libertarians

Summary

Today it has again become fashionable to declare liberalism “failed” and totally sapped as a political culture. But ideologies are like rivers. They remain constant by continually swirling and changing. In the modern world, the major ideologies rarely if ever dry up, but instead pick new paths as they churn and mix with other cultural streams, rolling down the canyons, deltas and plains of history. For this reason, no human observer is able to predict with certainty an ideology's demise. Ideologies are, by their very nature, renewable.

One might suspect from reading the first chapter on classical liberalism that this tradition is done and dusted. But the truth is liberalism has never gone away. To the contrary, it is one of the most powerful political cultures shaping the modern world. It also continues to be a common, although by no means exclusive, ideological basis for capitalism. True, liberal-capitalism has experienced many dramatic crises, and sometimes teetered on the brink of collapse. But rather than disappearing, this complex conglomerate of meanings, practices, institutions, patterns of action, and regimes, has shown a tremendous ability to evolve and reinvent itself.

This chapter turns to liberalism one final time to examine how this massive tradition underwent two earthshaking transformations in the twentieth century that helped create a fierce polarization between left-versus-right variants. So strong is the division internal to contemporary liberalism that the two factions are often on friendlier terms with those outside their own tradition than with the opposing wing of their own ideology.

THE PROGRESSIVE CASE FOR POSITIVE RIGHTS

The left variant of liberalism is often referred to as “progressive” to underscore its conviction that liberal politics ought to be actively involved in evolving through history in order to more deeply realize individual freedom. Progressivism is also sometimes called “social liberalism” to signal its attempt to reform classical liberalism's atomistic streak. As a cultural map, this ideology pursues individual liberty, but in a way that experiments with new practices and allows for communal cooperation and a greater role for government.

To be sure, progressivism's departure from classical liberalism can be overstated. It inherits from this older tradition a number of key themes, including: the authority of natural reason; the affirmation of pluralism; the separation of church and state; the need for liberties of press, association, individual expression, and personal property.