Chapter 3 – Liberalism, Pt 3
The Beginnings of Welfare Liberalism
By the 1850s, classical liberalism was unable to protect
workers and children from industrial exploitation and
oppression
Utopian Socialism and Marxist Socialism emerges to
critique classical liberalism & neo-classical economics
In response to the Socialist and Marxian criticisms of the
mid 19th century, Liberalism begins to critique itself:
immanent critique
Liberalism splits into two discourses after 1880
Welfare Liberalism (New Deal Liberalism) – Theorized
“positive” liberty to attempt to empower individuals to
be able to triumph over obstacles such as poverty,
illiteracy, and ignorance.
“Neo-classical” Liberalism – Those who wished to
continue the course of minimalist government and
negative liberty
Rejection of Social Darwinism
In the late nineteenth century, William Spencer & William
Grant Sumner proposed Social Darwinism (SD)
A non-scientific application of evolutionary theory to social
life. Tried to argue that only the most fit individuals in
society should survive
Charles Darwin (1809-1882), the foundational thinker for
modern evolutionary biology, strongly rejected this social
application of his work. Darwin believed:
People are able to learn from their environment,
improve, & reform their ways
People can & should develop moral systems that reject
“leaving a drunkard in the gutter”
Neo-classical Liberalism (small state with social safety net)
is a rejection of Social Darwinism
Negative vs Positive Liberty
Negative Liberty – Freedom from
Individual freedom from governmental authority or
regulations, from the Church, or from ascribed
class status
Positive Liberty – Freedom to
Individual freedom seen in terms of capabilities.
Freedom to compete successfully in job market
(through education, etc.). Freedom to live a
healthy life without poverty or lack of medical care.
• Insurance programs, New Deal empowerment programs
• Full extension of the franchise to women (1920 – 19th
amendment) blacks (1965 – Voting Rights Act)
Welfare Liberalism
Welfare liberals argued for the importance of
“nurture” over “nature”
Because we are social creatures, our abilities
and skills are cultivated by social institutions
like schools, workers cooperatives, unions.
Government can help to liberate or “create”
more freedom.
Welfare Liberalism
Keynesians articulated a response to the
excesses of laissez-faire capitalism in the
Anglo-Saxon countries.
Keynesians were (are) a type of welfare
liberal who advanced fiscal policy as a
way of managing economic cycles.
On the continent, Socialism gained
widespread appeal to deal with substandard working conditions, worker
exploitation, and economic depression.
Liberalism
In popular discourse, “liberal” tends to refer to
liberalism on the left after 1932
Post World War II liberalism:
Civil Rights
• Positive Liberty
• Left Liberal Movement
The New Left (Students for a Democratic
Society)
• Positive Liberty
• Left Liberal Movement
• Argued for active, participatory democracy
John Rawls and the Liberal Tradition
A Theory of Justice, 1971
A philosophical defense of the welfare state: how
can we maintain liberty while still providing for the
maximization of everyone’s well-being, including
society’s worst-off members?
If unequal distribution of resources and wealth
can be shown to increase everyone’s well-being,
we can philosophically tolerate inequalities of
wealth.
This is a philosophical refutation of socialism
and communism
A philosophical defense of liberalism, welfare
liberalism.
The Response from the Right:
Neoclassical Liberalism
Nozick, Hayek, and Friedman were twentieth
century classical liberals who felt that
redistribution of wealth through taxes or
subsidies reduced incentives
People would not be motivated to take risks
and create wealth if the advantages to risk
taking were minimized by high taxes – or by
subsidies to less successful ventures.
Thatcher and Reagan advanced this system
of classical (or neo-classical) liberalism in
the 1980s as a result of economic stagflation
in the 1970s.
Libertarianism
After 1980, many supporters of Reagan
and Thatcher (and by extension Hayek,
Nozick, and Friedman) call themselves
civil-libertarians.
React to what they perceive as the
excesses of welfare liberalism
Liberalism after 1992
The Third Way: By 1996, the Democratic
Party and the Labour Party jettisoned
much of their welfare liberalism and
moved to a compromise with modern
conservatism (neo-classical liberalism).
Since the mid 1990s, an uneasy third way
consensus has been achieved – between
welfare liberals and classical liberals.