This is an... intriguing... effort. "Liberalism unrelinquished", organized by Kevin Frei and Daniel Klein.
"Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." - Orwell, 1946
I know it can be tacky to use this essay of Orwell's to criticize people. But what else are we really to make of this? It is an effort to manipulate language to purge political opponents out of respectability (if they are not liberals presumably they have an illiberal perspective?) and to obscure the liberal tradition in order to align it with more specific political ends of the signatories. I don't think it's particularly dangerous (or that it will be effective) but it's not encouraging to see either.
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Agree, this is creepy and gross. Go ahead and delete but yes you're right. Also, what's up with the attack on the spontaneous evolution of the meaning of the word liberal? He's trying to change it by central fiat?
ReplyDeleteNah, you're fine - no deleting. Haven't had big problems with anonymous trolling lately.
DeleteI would say two things - first, it's not even a spontaneous evolution of the word. I mean sure depth has been added to liberal ideology over time, but it's not like the word has *changed* to include non-libertarians. Libertarians and various-left liberals as well as many conservatives are all "liberals" in the liberal tradition/classical liberal sense of the word, and they always have been. If anything the problem with liberal meaning left-liberal in the U.S. is not that it's wrong, it's that it's too narrow.
I also don't think they're trying to change it by central fiat, of course. I'm not even sure how that would be done. But they are trying a more grassroots approach at distorting the use of the word, and for obvious reasons - if libertarians can capture the whole liberal tradition for themselves in peoples' minds that would be an enormous coup for them. I don't think it's going to happen, of course.
Hi Daniel, thank you for posting about this! I guess I ought to clarify a little the motivation behind this project.
DeleteSome people make the argument that modern liberalism is really consistent with the earlier liberal tradition, but I think the general consensus is that modern liberal theory is really social democratic theory, and modern "classical liberalism" is much more in line with liberalism as it was understood in the 19th century. This is an initiative about classical liberals trying to reclaim their label.
Most people don't know what a classical liberal is, so classical liberals tend to refer to themselves as libertarians. But "libertarian" has a lot of extreme connotations. Within the libertarian umbrella there is a hardcore variety (Ayn Rand, Rothbard, etc) and a more moderate classical liberal variety (the ones who win Nobel Prizes in economics). So classical liberals have always been a little uncomfortable about the libertarian label, and many of us would prefer that libertarianism is a subset of liberalism, rather than the other way around.
Words evolve all the time, of course, but there's no law of linguistics that words can't revert back. With the word "progressive" currently coming back in vogue among the Left, it seems like a ripe time for classical liberals to assert their claim to "liberal" and try to carve out a spot for themselves in the political discourse.
Freedom of contract and freedom of association were centerpieces of 19th century liberalism, and it's a stretch to rectify those values with the labor regulations and other policies associated with modern liberalism. So I do think it's fair to say that the meaning of the word changed - at least, that is what all the signers are asserting. I guess you could say we're all liberals in the very broad sense that we're not monarchists or communists, but I think the term has a little more precision than that.
Anyway, I appreciate you engaging on this issue!
Oh, what the HELL. "Liberal" was NEVER this monolithic idea of freedom and liberty and happiness and kittens that they're trying to imply. Even early libertarian thought was more focused on controlling robber barons and factory owners than it was about any kind of government influence. Can we all just agree that instead of labels, we ought to concentrate on ideas and arguments and actually understanding history?
ReplyDeleteThe entire point of liberalism (at least classically) is built on skepticism and a distrust for authority. Modern day liberals advocate for more centralization and more power to be handed to bureaucrats, central planners, and authority in general. That is a contradiction. To see how fucked up liberalism has gotten, just look at how modern day liberals make decentralization as an idea of the right. Decentralization is a very left wing idea that modern day liberals paint as an idea of the far right. That right there shows how fucked up modern liberalism is.
Deletedave what in the world are you talking about? the libertarian socialists? the libertarians from the era you are referring to are part of the old right.
DeleteMy understanding of early libertarian thought is that it grew out of some of the anarchist thought from the late 18th century, much of which was focused on freedom from all authority. The most strongly-felt authority for many at that time was not so much from governmental authority, but from the authority of factory owners and such. I may have made too strong a claim in my original post, and I retract that; my main point here is that terms change and evolve and do weird things over time; this effort to reclaim the word "liberal" is really just silly.
DeleteDave, in a country like the US which was highly decentralized, the workers got more than they did in countries with more centralized systems. The stuff that you've said is a bunch of lies which have roots in modern liberal propaganda. I hope you do recognize that the US had the world's highest wages in the 1870's. In a centralized governmental system, the big boys simply buy out all of the politicians and bureaucrats (or cronies in a more traditional empire). In the US, workers always got the better end of the deal than they did in Europe. Actually, a key tenant of American economic policy of the time was to target high wages to support a strong internal demand. This was one of the key parts of the American School of Economics, which basically started with Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton even wrote a report to Congress detailing this economic policy. It called for high wages to support strong internal demand, tariffs to encourage the development of industry, and internal improvements (a.k.a. infrastructure and public works).
DeleteSomething that may be important to note is that when Alexander Hamilton announced his view for American economic policy, he wanted to get a central bank through so that various projects could be funded on the nation's credit. However, he had to buy votes in Congress and ended up making half of Congress shareholders in the First Bank of the United States in order to get the First BUS through.
Here's a quote from one of Abraham Lincoln's speeches if you don't happen to believe me.
"Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital producing mutual benefits. The error is in assuming that the whole labor of community exists within that relation. A few men own capital, and that few avoid labor themselves, and with their capital hire or buy another few to labor for them. A large majority belong to neither class--neither work for others nor have others working for them. In most of the Southern States a majority of the whole people of all colors are neither slaves nor masters, while in the Northern a large majority are neither hirers nor hired. Men, with their families--wives, sons, and daughters--work for themselves on their farms, in their houses, and in their shops, taking the whole product to themselves, and asking no favors of capital on the one hand nor of hired laborers or slaves on the other. It is not forgotten that a considerable number of persons mingle their own labor with capital; that is, they labor with their own hands and also buy or hire others to labor for them; but this is only a mixed and not a distinct class. No principle stated is disturbed by the existence of this mixed class."
Isn't it funny that in a more decentralized economic and political system, workers actually ended up with a much better deal than they did in countries with a more centralized economic and political system? The reason is because the battles between workers and capitalists was mainly handled by the states in the 19th century US and workers weren't prevented in their ability to organize because their right to organize is protected by the First Amendment. In Europe, you had the big business owner simply become one of the cronies of the government who used the state to protect his oppression of the workers (it did happen in the US, but to a much lesser extent).
Contrary to modern liberal propaganda, it is possible to have high wages, an economy built on strong internal demand, and a strong set of infrastructure where much of investment is socialized with a decentralized economic and political structure. I'd actually argue that it's easier to have those things with decentralized political and economic systems.
Having spent a long time in Europe and being called "liberal" (I'm libertarian) there in not exactly the most approving of tones, I would have a hard time believing such a word with a long history and dispersion across several languages could have but one meaning. I have many friends that I would classify as basically liberal, and they range all across the political spectrum. The interesting thing about trying to claim a word for one group is it betrays, I think, base tribalism and a surprising lack of insight from Hayek and many linguists -- the meaning of words is a complex phenomenon that cannot be controlled top-down. Even if you could redefine and unleash the word anew, once society and culture got a hold of the word, it would immediately take on new meanings and nuances. One would think a libertarian of all people would understand this. Alas, I believe tribalism is inherent in every political movement (emphasis on political, as opposed to intellectual). Words change meaning, and that is okay. Pay attention to the use of "momentarily" on airplanes. Clearly, the pilot does not mean "for a moment," but the meaning has morphed over time. Ideas change, develop, grow, regress. This is all okay. I'm not even sure we can ever truly understand what "liberal" meant long ago without being alive and well in the culture that bred that term. It seems more like a political ploy than an intellectual pursuit. A better pursuit would be figuring out why libertarianism has struggled to take hold. Changing definitions of words does not strike me as the correct answer to that problem.
ReplyDeleteI'll emphasize a point I made above that I think there are a couple things going on here. First, there's this whole thing about signing petitions about how to use language which is inherently a little strange, and to do it for political ideology ends like this starts to move from strange to creepy.
DeleteBut aside from that I also don't want to lose the major point (well, at least my major point), that it's simply wrong. Libertarians are not the only ones in the Smithian tradition or any of the older liberals referenced. As you note, it's tribal to think that, it's inaccurate, and they are actively dismissing proponents of liberal ideas as being in the liberal tradition which does not seem to promote liberalism to me.
I agree, and isn't a bit ironic that to stop the association of the word "liberal" with the governmentalization of society, we have to governmentalize the word itself? Language is communication "trade," not central planning of the meaning of one word. You are right, of course, that it does not strike me as very liberal to exclude other definitions of liberal, which is really meant to exclude political opponents.
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DeleteI don't really care about words - I'm too much of a nominalist to want to sign that petition. But I don't think this is about wanting to call everyone who isn't libertarian "illiberal." There's an historical attraction to the world "liberal" in the classical sense, but if libertarians say they are liberal, to most people they associate that with progressives.... and there's a certain amount of frustration with that.
ReplyDeleteIf I were to invent whatever labels I want and use those, I would probably want to be identified as liberal, and you would be on the edge of liberal and progressive. If it makes you feel any better, I would call most people on the right Straussians.
Daniel,
ReplyDeleteI signed the petition largely because, as a Hayekian liberal who in the field of Education is almost always labeled a 'conservative,' - I want simply to challenge the left-right political spectrum that exists today (that liberal is what Obama and Bernie Sanders are while conservative is what Bush and Sarah Palin are). It is inadequate. So, it is not so much that I want to 'reclaim' the word, but that I want others to be aware that the word 'liberal' can just as easily be applied to folk like Mark Pennington or Frederich Hayek (who can only be called 'conservatives' if we cram them into that label.)
I don't mind the evolution of language or using the word 'libertarian,' except that when I do, no one who thinks I am a conservative (most people in the field of education) have no idea what to do with that word - how to graft it onto the left-right spectrum EXCEPT to see it as a sort of really extreme conservatism. And then the problem becomes that because I am mapped as a conservative, now I get to answer all sorts of great question about how "you people" can support such things as standardization movements and merit pay movements, neither of which are terribly libertarian positions (but are conservative ones).
All I particularly want is for others to be aware of why I and many others believe the word 'liberal' is a more accurate 'home' for where libertarianism falls than 'conservative' - that we are in many ways more liberal than modern liberals (even though in other ways. So, maybe the poll's seems to be an attempt to redefine a word in an Orwellian manner, but I see it as a way to get "left liberals" to appreciate why a great many of us HATE being mapped on the conservative side of the political spectrum.
As someone who is proudly "illiberal," I endorse Daniel's point: he and D. Klein are certainly both equally worthy of the label "liberal."
ReplyDeleteDaniel, I have no problem if you want to criticize/guffaw at libertarians trying to centrally plan language. Fair enough. (And I wouldn't sign a petition like this if for no other reason than I in general oppose such things.) But you're acting like it's totally crazy? Don't you see that there is a very real sense in which the terms conservative and liberal have come to mean almost exactly the opposite of what they did in the 1800s, at least in several key respects?
ReplyDeleteIf Bastiat came back today, I am not saying he would call himself an anarcho-capitalist, but I'm pretty sure he would not be a "liberal" in the way Rush Limbaugh and Rachel Maddow use the term.
Dan and I hatched this plan over email a few months ago. I made the site on wordpress and emailed a bunch of professors using mailchimp. It sure hasn't felt centrally planned haha. Linguistic change may be emergent, but somebody has to emerge it! ;)
DeleteWell, I'd kinda like to be able to call myself a (classical) liberal. It has a nice ring. I'd like to call myself "handsome" too, but words have meaning. When you start a Handsome Ken B petition I'll think about signing this one.
ReplyDeleteLots of words have changed meaning dramatically over time. Vicious means nothing like what it meant to Trollope or Dickens, to whom it was a delicate way of saying poxed. Shall we call AIDS patients vicious?