Liberalism Then and Now...
by: Les Carpenter Rational Nation USA Liberty -vs- Tyranny True 18th century Classical Liberalism, the basis of a limited central government, individualism, and property rights is at great odds with modern liberalism. The following from reason.com points up the essential differences quite well. In The Future of Liberalism (2009), Alan Wolfe writes that the true heirs to the liberalism of John Locke, Adam Smith, and Thomas Jefferson are not today’s classical liberals ( libertarians (emphasis mine) ), but rather the other kind of liberals, those who would use government power to assure autonomy and equality for all. Such “modern liberalism,” for Wolfe, is simply an updating of the original: In the eighteenth century, political power crushed autonomy and equality, requiring a free market as the antidote; now private corporate power under capitalism does the same, but this time the remedy is active government. Early in his book Wolfe writes: The core substantive principle of li...