Martin Gottlieb: LIBERAL, CONSERVATIVE -- Terms of Debate need Definition (insurgent warning)

TERMS OF DEBATE NEED DEFINITION So what are liberals and conservatives, anyway? Martin Gottlieb Published: Wednesday, February 19, 2003 Dayton Daily News

A reader writes: "I wonder if . . . Gottlieb would consider pub- lishing a list of criteria by which we could determine if an individual is 'liberal' or 'conservative.' I frankly admit that I am confused by the issue; too, are there degrees? . . . Since the DDN pays Mr. Gottlieb to write about the subject, surely he can enlighten the rest of us?"

This sounds like a complaint that Gottlieb uses these words without defining them, which is true, and which merits a complaint. A few years ago, a journal called Public Opinion Quarterly reported on a poll in which people were asked to describe themselves as liberal, conservative or moderate. Then these people were asked questions about various policy issues. For example: Do you think the government should make sure that everybody has a job, even if that means being the employer of last resort? A substantial percentage of the people who called themselves "conservative" said yes. Such people are absolutely, positively not conservative in the way the word is used by journalists and other political types.

So it is probably worthwhile to slow down occasionally and explain the way we are using terms. The first thing to be said about the words liberal and conservative is that some people are neither. Actually, my experience has been that when people are told the prevailing definitions, they don't hear themselves being described. (And adding "moderate" to the options doesn't help much.) The words just describe the way political activists and people with strong political opinions tend to line up in this particular time and place. Definitions of the words are themselves controversial. The definitions offered here will be widely rejected.

Nevertheless (and keeping in mind that, yes, there are degrees): A liberal is a person with an unusually well-developed sense of the importance of luck in determining our circumstances in life. He or (more often) she wants the government in there someplace, combating the effects of bad luck.

A conservative is a person with an unusually well-developed sense of the importance of merit in determining our circumstances in life. He or (OK) she worries that the government will go to bat for the unmeritorious. (A normal person says, "Luck. Merit. They're both important. Leave me alone.")

It has also been said, defensibly, that a liberal is a person who frets that somewhere, somehow, somebody is getting screwed. A conservative is a person who frets that somewhere, somehow, somebody is getting something for nothing. The modern liberal-conservative (Democratic-Republican) split dates pretty much from the 1930s and the New Deal, when the big issues were economic ones. The country was gripped by the Great Depression, and people were newly unemployed by the millions. President Franklin Roosevelt created jobs programs. He fostered new levels of government regulation. He fostered Social Security. He spent money as it had never been spent before by government. The people who basically supported his approach were called liberals. The people who basically opposed it were called conservatives. Don't ask why. It doesn't matter. But if it helps to think of conservatives as conservative in the sense of opposing change, and liberals as people who were liberal with money, fine. Just keep in mind that these days the change issue is all muddied up, because, in fact, the New Deal ethic ruled over several decades. These days, when conservatives fight against "big government," high taxes and over-regulation, they often favor a lot of changes. In the 1960s, there flowered a foreign-policy tangent to the whole liberal-conservative thing.

Liberals were more likely than conservatives to oppose the Vietnam War. One reason was that they were more likely to be concerned that the war was draining money from domestic programs. And conservatives saw a war against communists as a war against the biggest-government people, which couldn't be all bad. There were other reasons for the split. As a result, today we think of the liberals as more likely to oppose war. It's not always true, but it seems to be holding pretty much true in this particular year.

Besides economic and foreign policy issues, there's the realm of "social issues" or "lifestyle" issues: abortion, gun control, prayer in the schools, gay rights. Here the big-government/little-government divide disappears. The conservatives want more government on abortion and more government involvement in religion (through government-run schools). Liberals want less. The social-issues divide can be seen as about traditionalism. Abortion being illegal, guns being unregulated, schools having prayers and gays staying in the closet were the old ways and are generally favored by the people called conservatives.

Members of Congress, whether liberal or conservative, tend to be that way across the board. But no rule says a person has to be, and there are exceptions. At every point in American history during at least the last 40 years, somebody has predicted the demise of the liberal-conservative split as the defining one in American politics. From the point of view of a political journalist, this demise would be nice. A little variety. Alas, it never happens.

Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News. He may be reached at 225-2288 or by e-mail at mgottlieb@coxohio.com.

Americans, more than anyone are to blame in this matter, as the adulteration of the term "liberal" arguably started in America circa FDR era. American socialists decided to usurp the honorable meaning of liberalism to somehow obfuscate the issue.

This may be true to some extent. However, the Christian right isn't liberal in the classic sense, either.

Modern american Conservativism is abhorent. I call it "New-Conservatism" since I choose not to associate the massive welfare state which we live in thanks to the destruction of the 10th Amendment and Madisons dream of a small government with true historic conservatism.

You do sound like a libertarian! By the way, I found a few links regarding Murray Rothbard, to whom your screen name refers:

Murray N. Rothbard: A Legacy of Liberty
Rothbardian Ethics

I say its high-time us pro-capitalists reclaim this word "liberal" for ourselves. This latin word, derived from liber and also liberalis, existed long before the socialists and wanna'be conservatives usurped the term for their own evil skewed purposes. Why should we capitalists be forced to rename our beliefs "Classic Liberalism" when we had the term first?

"quadrivial compass"

I'll dare to require a further definition of the term liberal. In universities, the liberal arts refer to the both fine and creative arts such as painting, writing, and so forth. But they also refer to philosophy, history, and even sometimes mathematics. A Merriam-Webster definition is in order:

Main Entry: liberal arts
Function: noun plural
Date: 14th century
1 : the medieval studies comprising the trivium and quadrivium
2 : the studies (as language, philosophy, history, literature,
abstract science) in a college or university intended to provide
chiefly general knowledge and to develop the general intellectual
capacities (as reason and judgment) as opposed to professional or
vocational skills

According to the free Encyclopedia Wikipedia, the liberal arts consisted of "the three ways," (the Trivium) which were grammar, rhetoric, and logic, as well as "the four paths," (Qadrivium) which were arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. In other words, a classical education. In addition to the Reformation and the advent of the printing press, these courses of study established in Roman times would become the basis of the Enlightenment. Our nation's foundations, including the concepts of capitalism, individual liberty, and freedom of conscience are all to be found in the liberal tradition -- in the older meaning of the word liberal.

Even in England, the term "liberal" still often retains [its] original glorious pro-capitalist meaning. At least to those who are educated and understand it's history.

Good points!

Thanks for the ping. No discussion of Rothbard can be complete without an excerpt of von Mises:

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The Aim of Liberalism

There is a widespread opinion that liberalism is distinguished from other political movements by the fact that it places the interests of a part of society-the propertied classes, the capitalists, the entrepreneurs-above the interests of the other classes. This assertion is completely mistaken. Liberalism has always had in view the good of the whole, not that of any special group. It was this that the English utilitarians meant to express-although, it is true, not very aptly-in their famous formula, "the greatest happiness of the greatest number." Historically, liberalism was the first political movement that aimed at promoting the welfare of all, not that of special groups. Liberalism is distinguished from socialism, which likewise professes to strive for the good of all, not by the goal at which it aims, but by the means that it chooses to attain that goal.

If it is maintained that the consequence of a liberal policy is or must be to favor the special interests of certain strata of society, this is still a question that allows of discussion. It is one of the tasks of the present work to show that such a reproach is in no way justified. But one cannot, from the very outset, impute unfairness to the person who raises it-, though we consider his opinion incorrect, it could very well be advanced in the best of faith. In any case, whoever attacks liberalism in this way concedes that its intentions are disinterested and that it wants nothing but what it says it wants.

Quite different are those critics of liberalism who reproach it for wanting to promote, not the general welfare, but only the special interests of certain classes. Such critics are both unfair and ignorant. By choosing this mode of attack, they show that they are inwardly well aware of the weakness of their own case. They snatch at poisoned weapons because they cannot otherwise hope for success.

If a doctor shows a patient, who craves food detrimental to his health the perversity of his desire, no one will be so foolish as to say: "The doctor does not care for the good of the patient; whoever wishes the patient well must not grudge him the enjoyment of relishing such delicious food." Everyone will understand that the doctor advises the patient to forgo the pleasure that the enjoyment of the harmful food affords solely in order to avoid injuring his health. But as soon as the matter concerns social policy, one is prone to consider it quite differently. When the liberal advises against certain popular measures because he expects harmful consequences from them, he is censured as an enemy of the people, and praise is heaped on the demagogues who, without consideration of the harm that will follow, recommend what seems to be expedient for the moment.

Reasonable action is distinguished from unreasonable action by the fact that it involves provisional sacrifices. The latter are only apparent sacrifices, since they are outweighed by the favorable consequences that later ensue. The person who avoids tasty but unwholesome food makes merely a provisional, a seeming sacrifice. The outcome—the nonoccurrence of injury to his health—shows that he has not lost, but gained. To act in this way, however, requires insight into the consequences of one's action. The demagogue takes advantage of this fact. He opposes the liberal, who calls for provisional and merely apparent sacrifices, and denounces him as a hard-hearted enemy of the people, meanwhile setting himself up as a friend of humanity. In supporting the measures he advocates, he knows well how to touch the hearts of his hearers and to move them to tears with allusions to want and misery.

Antiliberal policy is a policy of capital consumption. It recommends that the present be more abundantly provided for at the expense of the future. It is in exactly the same case as the patient of whom we have spoken. In both instances a relatively grievous disadvantage in the future stands in opposition to a relatively abundant momentary gratification. To talk, in such a case, as if the question were one of hard-heartedness versus philanthropy is downright dishonest and untruthful. It is not only the common run of politicians and the press of the antiliberal parties that are open to such a reproach. Almost all the writers of the school of Sozialpolitik have made use of this underhanded mode of combat.

That there is want and misery in the world is not, as the average newspaper reader, in his dullness, is only too prone to believe, an argument against liberalism. It is precisely want and misery that liberalism seeks to abolish, and it considers the means that it proposes the only suitable ones for the achievement of this end. Let whoever thinks that he knows a better, or even a different, means to this end adduce the proof. The assertion that the liberals do not strive for the good of all members of society, but only for that of special groups, is in no way a substitute for this proof.

The fact that there is want and misery would not constitute an argument against liberalism even if the world today followed a liberal policy. It would always be an open question whether still more want and misery might not prevail if other policies had been followed. In view of all the ways in which the functioning of the institution of private property is curbed and hindered in every quarter today by antiliberal policies, it is manifestly quite absurd to seek to infer anything against the correctness of liberal principles from the fact that economic conditions are not, at present, all that one could wish. In order to appreciate what liberalism and capitalism have accomplished, one should compare conditions as they are at present with those of the Middle Ages or of the first centuries of the modern era. What liberalism and capitalism could have accomplished had they been allowed free rein can be inferred only from theoretical considerations.

Liberalism and Capitalism

A society in which liberal principles are put into effect is usually called a capitalist society, and the condition of that society, capitalism. Since the economic policy of liberalism has everywhere been only more or less closely approximated in practice, conditions as they are in the world today provide us with but an imperfect idea of the meaning and possible accomplishments of capitalism in full flower. Nevertheless, one is altogether justified in calling our age the age of capitalism, because all that has created the wealth of our time can be traced back to capitalist institutions. It is thanks to those liberal ideas that still remain alive in our society, to what yet survives in it of the capitalist system, that the great mass of our contemporaries can enjoy a standard of living far above that which just a few generations ago was possible only to the rich and especially privileged.

To be sure, in the customary rhetoric of the demagogues these facts are represented quite differently. To listen to them, one would think that all progress in the techniques of production redounds to the exclusive benefit of a favored few, while the masses sink ever more deeply into misery. However, it requires only a moment's reflection to realize that the fruits of all technological and industrial innovations make for an improvement in the satisfaction of the wants of the great masses. All big industries that produce consumers' goods work directly for their benefit; all industries that produce machines and half-finished products work for them indirectly. The great industrial developments of the last decades, like those of the eighteenth century that are designated by the not altogether happily chosen phrase, "the Industrial Revolution," have resulted, above all, in a better satisfaction of the needs of the masses. The development of the clothing industry, the mechanization of shoe production, and improvements in the processing and distribution of foodstuffs have, by their very nature, benefited the widest public. It is thanks to these industries that the masses today are far better clothed and fed than ever before. However, mass production provides not only for food, shelter, and clothing, but also for other requirements of the multitude. The press serves the masses quite as much as the motion picture industry, and even the theater and similar strongholds of the arts are daily becoming more and more places of mass entertainment.

Nevertheless, as a result Of the zealous propaganda of the antiliberal parties, which twists the facts the other way round, people today have come to associate the ideas of liberalism and capitalism with the image of a world plunged into ever increasing misery and poverty. To be sure, no amount of deprecatory propaganda could ever succeed, as the demagogues had hoped, in giving the words "liberal" and "liberalism" a completely pejorative connotation. In the last analysis, it is not possible to brush aside the fact that, in spite of all the efforts of antiliberal propaganda, there is something in these expressions that suggests what every normal person feels when he hears the word "freedom." Antiliberal propaganda, therefore, avoids mentioning the word "liberalism" too often and prefers the infamies that it attributes to the liberal system to be associated with the term "capitalism." That word brings to mind a flint-hearted capitalist, who thinks of nothing but his own enrichment, even if that is possible only through the exploitation of his fellow men.

It hardly occurs to anyone, when he forms his notion of a capitalist, that a social order organized on genuinely liberal principles is so constituted as to leave the entrepreneurs and the capitalists only one way to wealth, viz., by better providing their fellow men with what they themselves think they need. Instead of speaking of capitalism in connection with the prodigious improvement in the standard of living of the masses, antiliberal propaganda mentions capitalism only in referring to those phenomena whose emergence was made possible solely because of the restraints that were imposed upon liberalism. No reference is made to the fact that capitalism has placed a delectable luxury as well as a food, in the form of sugar, at the disposal of the great masses. Capitalism is mentioned in connection with sugar only when the price of sugar in a country is raised above the world market price by a cartel. As if such a development were even conceivable in a social order in which liberal principles were put into effect In a country with a liberal regime, in which there are no tariffs, cartels capable of driving the price of a commodity above the world market price would be quite unthinkable.

The links in the chain of reasoning by which antiliberal demagogy succeeds in laying upon liberalism and capitalism the blame for all the excesses and evil consequences of antiliberal policies are as follows: One starts from the assumption that liberal principles aim at promoting the interests of the capitalists and entrepreneurs at the expense of the interests of the rest of the population and that liberalism is a policy that favors the rich over the poor. Then one observes that many entrepreneurs and capitalists, under certain conditions, advocate protective tariffs, and still others—the armaments manufacturers—support a policy of "national preparedness"; and, out of hand, one jumps to the conclusion that these must be "capitalistic" policies.

In fact, however, the case is quite otherwise. Liberalism is not a policy in the interest of any particular group, but a policy in the interest of all mankind. It is, therefore, incorrect to assert that the entrepreneurs and capitalists have any special interest in supporting liberalism. Their interest in championing the liberal program is exactly the same as that of everyone else. There may be individual cases in which some entrepreneurs or capitalists cloak their special interests in the program of liberalism; but opposed to these are always the special interests of other entrepreneurs or capitalists. The matter is not quite so simple as those who everywhere scent "interests" and "interested parties" imagine. That a nation imposes a tariff on iron, for example, cannot "simply" be explained by the fact that this benefits the iron magnates. There are also persons with opposing interests in the country, even among the entrepreneurs; and, in any case, the beneficiaries of the tariff on iron are a steadily diminishing minority. Nor can bribery be the explanation, for the people bribed can likewise be only a minority; and, besides, why does only one group, the protectionists, do the bribing, and not their opponents, the freetraders?

The fact is that the ideology that makes the protective tariff possible is created neither by the "interested parties" nor by those bribed by them, but by the ideologists, who give the world the ideas that direct the course of all human affairs. In our age, in which antiliberal ideas prevail, virtually everyone thinks accordingly, just as, a hundred years ago, most people thought in terms of the then prevailing liberal ideology. If many entrepreneurs today advocate protective tariffs, this is nothing more than the form that antiliberalism takes in their case. It has nothing to do with liberalism.

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