{"id":15518,"date":"2013-12-14T13:12:55","date_gmt":"2013-12-14T18:12:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/?p=15518"},"modified":"2013-12-14T13:12:55","modified_gmt":"2013-12-14T18:12:55","slug":"gaius-publius-liberalism-doesnt-carry-the-critique-of-capitalism-that-progressivism-does","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/2013\/12\/14\/gaius-publius-liberalism-doesnt-carry-the-critique-of-capitalism-that-progressivism-does\/","title":{"rendered":"Gaius Publius: `Liberalism Doesn`t Carry the Critique of Capitalism that Progressivism Does`"},"content":{"rendered":"

Naked Capitalism<\/em> has the article Gaius Publius: `Liberalism Doesn`t Carry the Critique of Capitalism that Progressivism Does`<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been fascinated lately with the meaning of the terms \u201cliberal\u201d and \u201cprogressive.\u201d It\u2019s clear that what we now call \u201cliberalism\u201d is really a variant, a side branch of the real thing, and should be more properly named \u201cFDR liberalism\u201d or \u201csocial liberalism.\u201d Today\u2019s \u201cliberalism\u201d \u2014 FDR-liberalism \u2014 is an offshoot of pre-FDR liberalism that diverges from its original meaning in a rather important way, by including a role for government. Prior to FDR, \u201cliberalism\u201d just meant basic free-market capitalism.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why so-called modern (Clintonian) \u201cneoliberals\u201d are so different from FDR liberals, and why they\u2019re so similar to Milton Friedman free-market conservatives.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That last sentence really piqued my interest.\u00a0 The rest of the article and the links provided are really great.\u00a0 One of those links is to a podcast at Virtually Speaking.<\/p>\n

I am reading the book \u201cDeath of the Liberal Class<\/strong><\/a>\u201d by Chris Hedges. It is very interesting to compare the discussion in the Virtually Speaking podcast with what is in the book. I think the two complement each other and fill in some of the holes in each presentation. Hedges highlights the evil intent during the run up to WW I and afterwards a little bit more than the discussion in the Virtually Speaking podcast.<\/p>\n

Reading the book, the Naked Capitalism blog post, and listening to the podcast helps me clarify my own views and where they come from.<\/p>\n

I guess I am truly liberal in ways that I did not understand before. I do believe that big government is not desirable except for the fact that it needs to be big enough to reign in big capitalism. Of course there is also a role for making the investments in society that no other entity can make but (big) government.<\/p>\n

In general, I believe that big concentrations of power are dangerous, but I do not subscribe to the naivete of libertarians that if one side disarms, all will just turn out peachy. When the power of one side gets too large compared to the power of the other side, then their needs to be an effort to rebalance. I don\u2019t know how to avoid the inevitable ratcheting up of concentrated powers balancing against each other that merely rebalancing seems to achieve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Naked Capitalism has the article Gaius Publius: `Liberalism Doesn`t Carry the Critique of Capitalism that Progressivism Does`. I\u2019ve been fascinated lately with the meaning of the terms \u201cliberal\u201d and \u201cprogressive.\u201d It\u2019s clear that what we now call \u201cliberalism\u201d is really a variant, a side branch of the real thing, and should be more properly named […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[166],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15518","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-stevegsposts","7":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15518"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15519,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15518\/revisions\/15519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}