America's Liberal Dilemma

America's use of the term "liberal" is annoying, but its abandoning of liberalism is disturbing.

Declaration of Independence, John Trumbull (1819), Wikimedia Commons

Every time an American uses the term “liberal” the rest of the world cringes. Well, maybe not the entire world – as the absurd use of the word has unfortunately crept into political commentary outside of the United States – but still a large chunk of us find this usage jarring and exasperating.

The (mis)use of the term reminds me of Giorgos Lanthimos’s disturbing 2009 film Dogtooth. The film portrays a deranged and isolated family trapped inside the father’s linguistic prison, where language is restricted and words are misaligned from their actual meaning. Similarly, I feel that America has taught itself a political lexicon that bears little resemblance to definitional accuracy. 

Unlike the film, this may not entirely render the U.S incapable of navigating the world outside of home – although Americans’ poor awareness of the rest of the world is a standard joke throughout it. However, due to its position as the global hegemon, it does mean that we often have to adjust ourselves to nonsensical sentences whilst reading American publications.

The primary usage of the term “liberal” in the U.S is as a synonym for “left-wing”. Through this framing, Bernie Sanders is “more liberal” than Joe Biden, but “not as liberal” as Joe Stalin. Conceptions that are utterly perplexing to those outside of America, and would have been appalling to anyone inside the Soviet Union (or anyone with a position of power within it).  

Due to its high stakes and global implications, outside of the U.S we often follow American politics more closely than our own. I subscribe to more American publications than Australian, and while I mostly listen to the BBC, the New York Times is the first site I read in the morning. Making this distinctive use of “liberal” difficult to avoid. Even the outward facing American publications like Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs and to a certain extent The Atlantic (as a semi-outward facing magazine), still suffer from this terrible linguistic affliction. So where has it come from? 

For starters there is the unique nature of American politics. Its strict two party system, incessant partisanship and siloed media are not replicated in other Western countries. The strong personal party identification, where non-politicians call themselves “a Republican” or “a Democrat” – and you register to vote as one of these, rather than as a citizen – is also odd. As is the politicisation of seemingly every position within the state – prosecutors with party affiliations is, frankly, sheer lunacy. 

The cumulative effect of these structures has been a rigid binary language of political discourse. One that sits alongside the simplistic - and absurdly out-dated – left-right spectrum.

To facilitate this unrelenting partisanship the country settled on the terms liberal and conservative. While the former is a set of principles, the latter is a disposition. Neither of America’s two political parties neatly map themselves on these, and ideally both principles and dispositions should be reserved for describing ideas, rather than teams. 

So what is liberalism? And why if you are “more liberal” you are definitely not “more left-wing”? 

Liberalism is the commitment to individual freedom. To advance this cause, liberalism promotes market-based economies, rule of law, limited government, freedom of speech, assembly and religion, a defence of human rights, striving towards equality of opportunity, and an adherence to the restraints of constitutionalism. It also has a symbiotic relationship with democracy. 

Internationally, liberalism supports cooperative institutions, clear rules that guide states’ behaviour, free cross-border trade, and the forging of alliances and partnerships. In principle it rejects a “might makes right” world, although liberal states haven’t always committed themselves to this – and the concept of “liberal interventionism” is a fraught one. 

However, advancing these principles is subject to a great deal of interpretation. These principles can be understood and applied in a more conservative manner – as has traditionally been the approach of the Liberal Party of Australia (although its commitment to liberalism is weakening). Or more progressively – as is the current iteration of the Liberal Party of Canada. Scandinavian liberal parties tend to be more conservative in disposition, while the Liberal Democrats in the United Kingdom – having formed from a merger between the Liberal Party and Social Democratic Party – are more progressive. 

Liberalism’s key attribute is its flexibility. Its primary insight into the human condition has been the recognition of its pluralism of culture and values, and the potential conflict that arises when these attributes are not respected. By seeking to maximise individual liberty this allows us to pursue our own conception of the good as long as doing so doesn’t infringe on others’ right to do likewise. 

To liberalise is therefore to seek greater individual freedom. How this is achieved is complex, but in the distinct paths to pursue this aim we can find the seeds of America’s unique use of the term “liberal”.

In a lecture from October 1958, the philosopher Isaiah Berlin posited that there were broadly two types of liberty - negative and positive. Negative liberty is understood as being free from coercion or interference from the state – or others – and of being able to make individual choices to pursue a good life how one best sees fits. Positive liberty, on the other hand, is having the actual means to pursue a good life. This can include being afforded a good education and access to healthcare – things the state provides in order to have the means to enjoy freedom in the practical sense. Positive liberty also recognises the advantages of collective public goods (we all benefit from educated and healthy societies). 

These two types of liberty are not absolutes. They can work in conjunction with each other, and one perspective can be advantageous over the other in certain social and political circumstances. Seeking to find the right balance between the two in order to  maximise human flourishing – what Daron Acemoglu has called “the narrow corridor” – is the permanent struggle of liberal democracies. 

As a country born of a liberal revolution, the United States’ Declaration of Independence is one of the great liberal documents. Even if the ideals expressed in the document were not – and may still not – be entirely practically applied. Yet its influence made both current American political parties liberal in nature. 

Broadly, the Republican Party has traditionally been more concerned with negative liberty, while the Democrats privileged positive liberty. Although since the Trumpian revolution, the Republican Party is now concerned with neither. It has become unambiguously authoritarian – liberalism’s opposite.

The Democratic Party remains a liberal party seeking to find the narrow corridor between positive and negative liberty. However, given the need for big - or massive - tent politics in a country so racially, culturally, geographically and financially diverse there are a number of different political ideas and interests influential within the party. Social democratic ideas remain a strong force, as well as more radical forms of modern progressive politics (which, I would argue, are products of our current economic and social upheavals and cannot be mapped, neatly, onto pre-existing ideologies).

Social democracy has made its peace with liberalism, and parties like the Australian Labor Party are now generally concerned with positive liberty. Although both sets of political ideas have quite distinct philosophical roots. In addition, social democracy is also distinct from socialism, but shares some common assumptions about the nature of free markets and the need for collective action. Despite an adherence to positive liberty in practice, a modern social democrat would still be less inclined to mentally wrestle with the balance between positive and negative liberty in the way a liberal would. Instead seeing the state as the most direct tool to advance people’s agency.

This confusion between positive liberty, social democracy, socialism and modern progressive politics forms the basis of America’s use of the word “liberal”. The word acts as an umbrella term for these distinct political ideas and dispositions. It has become a means to condense a great variety of thought into a two-party system and an incessant binary discourse. In doing so Americans have forgone – to their detriment – a comprehensive political lexicon that explains the actual complex multitude of political ideas.

To be fair to Americans there is a space where these ideas do intersect. This is the belief that all societies should be rationally striving for progress and development. However, liberalism is cautious of any utopian ideals and sceptical of human perfectibility. The improvements it seeks are motivated by reason, but grounded in pragmatism, recognising reason’s limits. Liberalism – unlike other political and social frameworks – delegates the responsibility of maturity and discipline to the individual. Tying individual agency to the cultivation of character, and recognising the importance of voluntary forms of organisation in civil society. 

It is the distinction of the separate realms of human endeavour that is important to liberalism and less so to socialism. Instead socialism seeks to concentrate ideas of “the good” into the state (in practice, if not in theory) – and tends to foster leaders who are deemed to be holders of the singular truth, something it shares with other forms of authoritarianism (see Trumpism). These are modes of operation that stifle individual freedom, and inhibit, rather than manage, pluralism. 

Liberalism’s decentralisation of “the good” makes a commitment to free markets a fundamental aspect of it. There is no liberalism without the ability of individuals to exchange freely. Freedom of exchange springs from the same philosophical well as freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. It is essential to placing trust in the individual. To liberalise economic activity is therefore to reduce its constraints.  

However, liberalism’s flexibility also gives it the ability to recognise market failures – and repugnant markets – and seek interventions in the name of both positive liberty and general human decency. This is not the same as a wholesale suspicion of free markets. However, to those who favour an extreme form of negative liberty (as many in America do), markets simply don’t fail and there is no market that is ethically or morally suspect. It is through this lens the U.S is more liberal than other wealthy countries in its failure to provide universal healthcare and its extraordinary tolerance for gun violence. 

Part of the problem with America’s unique linguistic choices may also have to do with the bastardisation of liberalism in the 20th Century. As social democratic parties rose and adjusted to the responsibility of governing, and new conceptions of conservatism took hold that sought to conserve (and advance) many liberal ideas, liberalism got split in two. A commitment to human rights and equality of opportunity became “progressive”, and the promotion of free markets became “conservative”. A holistic conception of liberalism lost its narrative power. Or was described as “centrist” (a terrible term no-one should ever use). 

In the U.S, what were considered the “progressive” aspects of liberalism inherited the name in total. Yet as America’s party system forced these aspects to be melded with other less liberal political ideas, there has been an overlooking of liberalism as far more subtle than simply the box ticking of prescribed outcomes. 

Alongside a set of principles, liberalism is also an approach to politics, a set of mannerisms, where the decentralised and rigorous methods to achieve positive improvements are as important as the outcomes themselves. This differentiates it from illiberal forms of progressive politics, which are more focused on direct and rapid forms of change. Often pole vaulting Chesterton’s Fence – the consideration of second-order issues – in the process. 

This distribution of liberal ideas across political parties, and the odd allocation of terms that has followed it in the U.S, has disrupted our ability to read American publications without a wry irritation. However, in surveying liberalism, and seeking to understand how America arrived at its unique terminology, there is something far more serious to acknowledge than definitional accuracy. This is how liberalism’s 20th Century bifurcation created a failsafe within liberal democracy.  

As long as both parties committed to at least some aspects of liberalism there was enough impetus to protect the system as a whole. Now that the Republican Party has entirely abandoned its part of this grand bargain the country has become increasingly unstable – with liberalism’s role of managing pluralism and preventing conflict becoming less certain. The illiberal forces that pull on the Democratic Party makes their new role as liberalism's sole defender more difficult. 

Part of liberalism’s handicap in defending itself is its inability to hit the emotional notes of other ideologies. It lacks romance and verve, and as a result often cannot inspire action in its defence. Liberalism also remains nebulous, a floating set of principles that often appear too abstract to gain practical traction. These traits may be liberalism’s point – to manage passion by disconnecting it from state power – but it is a weak hand in an era of heightened anxiety. 

Liberalism’s weakening only serves to exacerbate this anxiety. And this may be the more pressing concern. For as annoying as America’s unique political lexicon is, how the country uses the word liberal is far less important than whether it remains a liberal country.