- Aug 19, 2008
- 11,039
- 3,895
- 315
Wow, this is a REALLY weird discussion. First off, the roots of Liberalism are in the liberal movement that developed in Great Britian starting at the end of the 18th century. I was a movemnet that believed that it was the obligation of the governement to offset the economic inequality that existed by government (and privately) funded charity to the poor and needy.
Welfare IS an example of CLASSIC Liberalism, but so is public education Social Security and medicare.
Today what the 'liberals' are pushing for isn't classic liberalism anymore. That approach has both been successful and a failure at the same time - and most 'liberals' know it.
What we have today is a form of neo-liberalism that we're calling 'Progressive'. It's a lot of things to a lot of people - there's no clear definition and no single guiding philosopher.
It maginally retains the idea of governement funded programs for the extremely needy, but also supports the education and training of the same whenever possible. Progressives are not either socialist or anti-socialist. Some believe in limited socialism - either as an emergency management mechanism or as being appropriate a small number of vital industries that by their very nature should be controlled by government in order to insure the economic freedom of the majority of the American people (like the military). Sometimes public private partnerships are preferable, sometime regulaged capitalism, some free market capitalism - it depends on the industry and the current circumstances.
But what also defines the current progressives is interest in topics that are outside the traditional political sphere, but are important to the health of the American people as a whole and to the healthy evolution of our soceity in general.
Examples of these are Global Warming, Health Care, Energy Conservation, Racial equality, Education etc...
The progressive movement has outgrown 'Liberalism' and evolved into much, much more.
Welfare IS an example of CLASSIC Liberalism, but so is public education Social Security and medicare.
Today what the 'liberals' are pushing for isn't classic liberalism anymore. That approach has both been successful and a failure at the same time - and most 'liberals' know it.
What we have today is a form of neo-liberalism that we're calling 'Progressive'. It's a lot of things to a lot of people - there's no clear definition and no single guiding philosopher.
It maginally retains the idea of governement funded programs for the extremely needy, but also supports the education and training of the same whenever possible. Progressives are not either socialist or anti-socialist. Some believe in limited socialism - either as an emergency management mechanism or as being appropriate a small number of vital industries that by their very nature should be controlled by government in order to insure the economic freedom of the majority of the American people (like the military). Sometimes public private partnerships are preferable, sometime regulaged capitalism, some free market capitalism - it depends on the industry and the current circumstances.
But what also defines the current progressives is interest in topics that are outside the traditional political sphere, but are important to the health of the American people as a whole and to the healthy evolution of our soceity in general.
Examples of these are Global Warming, Health Care, Energy Conservation, Racial equality, Education etc...
The progressive movement has outgrown 'Liberalism' and evolved into much, much more.
