The Liberal Galaxy
Marco Pannella, in order not to leave any shadow on his political beliefs, used to define himself as "liberal, liberal, libertarian", terms to which he often associated that of libertine. In this way he captured all the meanings of being liberal, which is a word that truly encompasses a galaxy of ideas, movements and organizations. Liberal, libertarian and liberal then became the motto of the Italian Radicals which is completed with "constituent of the Nonviolent, Transnational and Transparty Radical Party". It is perhaps one of the boldest definitions of XNUMXst century liberalism.
The liberal galaxy includes American liberals who are half-socialists, defenders of the welfare state and European liberals who instead would like to limit the welfare state to enhance individual responsibility and the civil associations through which it is expressed. In Italy the liberals played a fundamental role in state building and the 50 years of the liberal state were perhaps the best in the history of a united Italy. The incapacity of the liberal ruling class in the first post-war period to manage the consequences of a victorious war, the Russian revolution and the resulting political radicalization, led to its disintegration, leaving a void immediately filled by fascism. After the ruinous fall of Mussolini, the tradition of liberal thought and action was carried forward, on the one hand, by great public intellectuals, in magnificent isolation, and, on the other, by marginal but visionary political formations which stole some issues related to civil rights, personal freedoms and the market economy by removing them from the suffocating embrace of the two dominant cultures of the Cold War period, the Catholic and the Communist. In these cultures the word individual was almost anathema.
Anyone curious to know a few names from the Italian liberal tradition (at the moment very few come to mind, but there are, and how!) can consult the indispensable two volumes of the Dictionary of Italian liberalism edited by Rubettino.
Progressive, but are we sure?
But we are now talking about rather distant events that recur little in the public debate. Perhaps the only thing that truly unites all liberal experiences is secularism and faith in progress and democracy, something that is starting to crack in many parts of the world.
Hillary Clinton herself prefers liberal to the term liberal which is even more lateral: more than anything else it designates a state of mind, rather than an idea or a political programme. Even an important and controversial liberal egghead like Larry Summers, in his illuminating speeches on economic and social policy in the era of the great recession, never talks about liberal policies or politicians, but always uses the term progressive.
In Italy, which is teaching America many things in terms of forerunner political experiments seen with disdain and contempt from across the Atlantic, there really were the Progressives. In 1994 Achille Occhetto tried to use the term "progressives", after the fall of the Berlin Wall and Clean Hands, to define a political coalition (Alliance of Progressives), which he himself defined as a "glorious war machine". Not so much, however, at the 94 policies he was, surprisingly for him, beaten by a rookie Berlusconi in his most liberal variant. Berlusconi's watchword in 1994 was precisely Gobetti's "Liberal Revolution", even if he thought more of Reagan than Gobetti. Back then liberal worked more than progressive. Then the real liberals abandoned Berlusconi to disappear, again, into thin air. And from that moment the "Economist", the custodian of the liberal Holy Grail, began to badly beat the "liberal" Berlusconi for the conflict of interest and the cynical policy of occupation of power that had very little liberal.
Here is precisely the "Economist" tells us why the word liberal is disappearing from contemporary political jargon. Below we offer our readers the translation of the article that appeared in the Johnson column entitled Liberal Blues (Paturnie liberali). Good fun!
Liberal to whom?
American politics reached its peak in July with the conventions of the two main parties meeting to nominate the candidate for the presidency of the United States. One word was missing in the great blabla: “liberal”. Liberal is disappearing in America and everywhere. The word liberal once stood proudly on the Democrat banner and was the bogeyman of the Republicans. Pat Buchanan, an up-and-coming conservative Republican, in a fiery speech at his party's 1992 Convention declared a "culture war" on "liberals and radicals." Franz Luntz, adviser to the Grand Old Party, proposed using the word "liberal" in combination with crap, corruption and treason together to sully the Democrats.
Seasoned liberals still love the term: Paul Krugman, an economist, blogs in the New York Times with the slogan "a liberal's conscience," and Thomas Frank wrote a book called Listen, Liberal criticizing Democrats. for losing sight of the blue collars (who are now in the camp of Trump, Brexit and Mrs Le Pen) in favor of the middle class.
When Hillary Clinton introduced Tim Kaine (picked up as vice presidential candidate) she was well aware of the word militants wanted to hear: "Tim is a longtime fighter for progressive causes." Progressive is rapidly taking the place of liberal. There are only Republicans left to still use the term liberal with their repeated grievances about "liberal media" or "liberal values."
The many senses of liberal
Liberal has meant many different things throughout history. The first politicians to declare themselves liberal were the Spaniards who, in 1814, opposed the suspension of the constitution by the King. Then the word from Spain spread to France and Italy. But it took deep roots in England in philosophy, with the thought of John Stuart Mill, and in politics with the Liberal Party (Liberal Party). James Wilson, the founder of the Economist, was a Liberal Party MP from 1847 to 1859. This type of liberalism, the one that this newspaper still advocates today, emphasizes individual freedom, the free market and a limited state. .
It happened that over time the word took another direction. In French- and Spanish-speaking countries, liberal, now often accompanied by the prefix “neo-,” is a controversial word that has exactly the opposite meaning of what it does in America: it describes a ruthless economic philosophy devoid of public regulation and a global order in which the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are bossing poor countries around forcing them to adopt austerity and market economic policies. In America, however, liberal is associated with state intervention, not its absence, in the footsteps of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal.
In some countries the word liberal does not seem to have any meaning. In Japan, the governing party, the Liberal Democratic Party, is moderately conservative and markedly nationalist. In Russia the party of the same name is openly fascist. The British Liberal Democrats, now in an identity crisis, and the governing party in Canada, Justin Trudeau's Liberal Party, are among the very few parties to have kept the name and the liberal DNA.
The impossibility of a definition
Liberal has a double etymology, it derives from freedom and liberation. There are many who use liberation without being liberal at all: Donald Trump, in Cleveland, scowled that his program is to "free people from crime, terrorism and lawlessness." This is a classic conservative law enforcement agenda that no one but Trump would in any way confuse with any meaning of the word free.
Such a great confusion about the term liberate has produced everything and its opposite. Many liberal party names are totally misleading: The Danish governing party is called “Venstre” (Left), although in fact it is a centre-right liberal party. In other countries, such as France and Italy, liberals have also taken the name of "Radicali", something that echoes the era in which a government with limited intervention was truly radical.
Since 1960, in Western countries, the discussion on how to distribute national wealth has brought out themes typical of post-industrial societies such as the environment and women's rights. The parties that have made these issues the center of their action are called "green", not liberal. Those who prioritize privacy and the right to be left alone by the state call themselves "libertarians" by combining the two ancient words "liberal" and "freedom." To add another twist, left-libertarians sometimes like to jokingly refer to themselves as “libertarians.”
It's not easy to define “liberal,” it's easier to narrow down rival terms like authoritarianism or fundamentalism of any kind. Whatever confusion there is about what liberal means, one of its hallmarks has always been optimism. Even if the word itself tends to disappear, the faith that sustains it will not die out.
Perhaps the most suitable word to define "liberal paturnies" is suggested by the visionary Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari when he defines his being vegan, veganish, that is vaguely vegan, because he does not refuse a sweet with eggs and butter cooked by a friend or his mother hosting him for dinner. A similar neologism could be used for liberal, that is, liberish, vaguely liberal.
At this point Liberish is truly liberating from any paturnia.
