Here’s another installment in our continuing effort to clarify the misnamed political alignments of the post-Cold War West. 

Today we take up the topic of how the word "liberal" has been hijacked by people who are anything but that.


Today the convention remains that we think in terms of "left" and "right," yet without a Cold War between freedom and communism to provide a sensible means to understand and separate the two poles of political thinking, the terms tend to sow more confusion than sens. Hence, I do not see any powerful need to sustain a left-right distinction between political positions at this time.
 
However:
 
I do believe that there are two main poles of political thought: liberalism and statism. This distinction, I believe, is fully true and highly useful.
 
This distinction, I think, makes much more sense of our current political divisons and alliances.
 
What is commonly called the Right today in the United States can be roughly associated with classical liberalism.
 
Central to this liberalism are the 18th century thinkers Smith and Burke.
 
Adam Smith remains an important figure in the liberal pantheon, in being the bridge from earlier strains of liberalism in Western history (which were very strong in the West but have been largely forgotten since the Enlightenment era).
 
It is important to understand, however, that Smith was nothing like a modern libertarian—his Christian moralism, open nationalism, and willingness to accept much government intervention in the economy would immediately disqualify him in most libertarians’ eyes if he were writing today. Classical liberalism, moreover, starts not with just Smith but, equally important, Burke, for whom a good many modern libertarians have little use.
 
The Austrian economist and philosopher Friedrich Hayek is another good touchstone for modern-day classical liberalism, but he too supported a very large amount of government intervention in the economy and shares much more with Smith and Burke than with modern libertarians. If doctrinaire libertarians were to read all of his writings they would quickly toss much of his practical policy advice overboard. My article in the next issue of National Review is on Hayek and how his thinking can contribute to a revival of classical liberalism
.
But there is one thing on which classical liberals and libertarians would agree: the nature of the state and the reason for individual freedom: the social contract.
 
This is a most important point. The classical liberals had a completely different idea of the social contract from that of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his followers. The former (taking their conception of it directly from its English originators) believed that the social contract truly was a contract, in which people gave up some freedoms in order to avoid Hobbesian chaos. The latter believed in the General Will and that individual freedom was socially destructive and absolutely not a valid goal of society, cf. Rousseau.
 
Consider, for example, the issue of intervention in the economy. Classical liberals supported—and still support—the idea of freeing people from any unnecesary social strictures in order to allow their talents to flourish. Heredity titles and state-mandated racial segregation are good examples of such structures which any classical liberal would agree should be dismantled as bad for both individuals and society in general.
 
Smith, Burke, Hayek, and any other real liberal would take this approach. For them (and modern-day classical liberals) the issue is one of means, not the end.
 
For Smith, Burke, Hayek, and others, markets are the best means of freeing people to employ their talents in their own interest, which also benefits society in general.
 
Hence, they argue, government policies should liberate people to participate and reach their full potential in the marketplace, to the benefit of all. How best to liberate them is the question, and it involves both philosophical and practical questions.
 
The modern liberals’ position is very different. They seek equality of results, and engage in an aggressive, egalitarian leveling of  conditions for all. (In practical terms, this typically means pulling the successful down to the level of those who are not as talented or industrious.) In so doing, they enjoy a level of power and dominance which it is inconceivable for a true liberal to justify.
 
Modern liberals are statists, pure and simple. The source of their position is the idea of the General Will, bequeathed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and augmented by other statist writers through the ensuing centuries.
 
The source of their power is that they are the valid discoverers and interpreters of the General Will. The evident benevolence of their position allows them to undertake their efforts with whatever level of ruthless they find comfortable.
 
This matter of the General Will is essential in understanding statism, I believe.
 
Liberalism and statism are indeed two separate streams of thought, which have existed since Western civilization has existed (see my article on "The Two Streams of Western Civilization" in the current, Winter issue of Orbis magazine).
 
A certain amount of commonality can at times be found between people in both of these movements, but a basic disagreement on human nature and the function of the Social Contract is always going to be very difficult to overcome.
 
That is the real reason for the disagreement between those who follow classical liberalism and those who adhere to the modern variety. The former are true liberals, whereas the latter are statists.