Modern Liberalism Versus Liberal Democracy

I am a liberal democrat. My political ideology, however, has nothing to do with modern American liberalism and even less to do with the Democratic party. These two systems have become antithetical to the original ideals of liberal democracy.

During the 17th and 18th Centuries, Western political thought came of age when it acknowledged certain ideals: individualism, limited government, the social contract, freedom, and liberty, to name a few. We call this ideal of government liberal democracy: based on democracy and accountable to the people it represents. At the time, liberal democracy was quite radical in contrast to European monarchies. It gave power to the common person, broadly based on principles derived from classical Athenian and Roman democracy. The founders of the United States based the US government on the principles of liberal democracy, tempered with republicanism, and placed the new government before the world as a grand experiment.

Intellectuals of the 18th and 19th Centuries, especially in France, uncomfortable with the unregulated and (as they viewed) anarchistic society developed under liberal democracy, reacted against liberalism by favoring the ideology of socialism. Socialism has its roots from ancient times but the modern political manifestations began as a reaction against the liberalism of the French Revolution. "To [the socialist intellectuals,] socialism meant an attempt to 'terminate the revolution' by a deliberate reorganization of society on hierarchical lines and by the imposition of a coercive 'spiritual power.'" (Hayek, p. 76)1

The philosophical ideals of socialism took on many forms as politicians applied its principles to a variety of government systems. We're familiar with the extreme forms of socialism, embodied in the totalitarian Communist governments of the 20th Century. We're also familiar with the slower-growing statist forms applied in democratic socialism. Instead of sudden, and usually severe, takeovers of government, social democrats opted for gradualism, replacing liberalism bit by bit with, as F.A. Hayek put it, "hierarchical" government and "coercive spiritual power."

What this meant to European states, was the replacement of monarchies with welfare state governments which exercised control over its citizens while paying lip service to the ideals of democracy.2 Among the intellectual elite in the US, democratic socialism has nearly supplanted liberal democracy as the preferred system of government, yet the original ideals of liberalism still have a strong influence. The "spiritual power" of socialism has not yet taken hold over the original liberal ideology.

Modern liberalism, which originally called itself "progressivism" is the inheritor of socialist thought of the 18th and 19th Centuries. Socialism in this sense, is not necessarily Marxist (although his thought influences all modern socialism) but rather is considered a reaction against such liberal democratic ideals as individualism and liberty. As the socialist intellectuals of the 19th Century found liberal democracy dangerous, so also modern liberalism finds liberal democracy too individualistic, too liberal, too uncontrolled, and hence, too dangerous.

The 19th Century historian, Alexis de Tocqueville had this to say about the differences between liberal democracy and socialism: "Democracy extends the sphere of personal independence; socialism confines it. Democracy values each man at his highest; socialism makes of each man an agent, an instrument, a number. Democracy and socialism have but one thing in common - equality. But note well the difference. Democracy aims at equality in liberty. Socialism desires equality in constraint and in servitude." (Tocqueville)2

Of course, the servitude Tocqueville denounces can take on the forms from enslavement of the population (as Stalin did to his own people in the former Soviet Union) to subjugating the population to dependence on government, tied with a tenuous thread of taxation and welfare (as the US government does).

Because modern liberalism derives from 19th Century anti-liberalism, its ideology includes a distrust of liberal democratic principles. For example, individualism is at the heart of liberal democracy. The concept of individualism derives from deep roots in Western Civilization, based on the moral foundations of Christianity, the Greeks, and the Romans. This individualism expresses the ideal of absolute self-government – producing the prospect of a society with limited government which never interferes in self-regulation.

Admittedly, this presents an unattainable utopian ideal to liberal democrats, one which could very well lead to anarchy. Yet the principles of self-government have a human appeal and are deeply entrenched in the American psyche. These principles are also deeply entrenched in the formation of Western Civilization itself, creating the roots from which the US system emerged.

The economic manifestation of individualism - the free market - also appears dangerous to modern liberalism. To modern liberal thought, the unseen and uncontrolled forces of the market must be regulated under a "benevolent" government. Free exercise of the market produces too many variables, too many troughs which in turn can do harm. Rather than risk the free market, at the expense of individualism, modern liberalism prefers the safety net of government control.

This is not to say that some sort of government control isn't necessary. Far from it. If anything, socialism is pragmatic, finding solutions to economic and social problems. The cost for modern democratic socialism (modern liberalism) is the steady, increased intrusion of government into the lives of its citizens. The danger lies in the possibility of creating an authoritarian or totalitarian state, where the benefits of both social welfare and of liberal democracy are lost to government assumption of total control.

In a world where absolutist regimes, such as Russia and China, have "discovered" and implemented liberal democracy's free market principles and applied them with great benefit to their social and economic structures, does it make sense that the US should pursue a headlong advance into socialism? Does democratic socialism make sense when the European system pushed many countries in the EU to the brink of bankruptcy? Does it make sense to deny the deep roots of liberal democracy in the US in favor of a political system at odds with it and which holds the ideals of statism over self-government? And does it make sense to stifle the American spirit at the expense of our liberty?

Sources
1 F. A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2007).

2 Alexis de Tocqueville, “Critique of Socialism” found on The Forum at the Online Library of Liberty.

Notes
I speak of the welfare state in terms of socialist ideals which are based on the principles of equal outcomes rather than equal opportunity, the redistribution of wealth in the form of taxation to fund public programs, government regulation of the economy, and the reliance on public intrusion into private concerns.