The Word that Was

I recently ran a search on the history of liberalism and stumbled upon a question/answer forum where one user asked what the word 'liberal' meant.

A revised version of my answer follows here. Since it is crucial that words have shared meanings, I think it's important that we pause and take a real short look at the life and times of the word 'liberal', may it rest in peace...

In the case of ‘liberalism’ or ‘liberal’, the etymology gives us a foreshadowing of our recent past. The original french word came into use in the 14th century, meaning ‘free’ or ‘pertaining to free men’ (as in 'liberty!'), then later began appearing as ‘generous’ (as in, a ‘liberal helping of soup, please’)

It turns out that is also a good summary of what happened to the word ‘liberal’ in not-so-distant United States politics.

From its inception, liberalism meant economic and personal freedom from the rule of local sovereigns and governments of any kind. It grew out of a middle-ages Europe that had begun technological advancement, but not-yet formed large nation-states. It was in essence little more than the simple observation of the advantages of an inoffensive duke, who took little from his subjects or from passing traders, in comparison with a neighboring one just a few kilometers away, who plundered his lands, visitors and people.

But with the close of the 19th century the memes of european socialist thought had begun to spread to the new world and found nourishment as an extension to the idea of creating order in society. 'Liberal' was increasingly finding use as an adjective for policies that promised to be scientific, to be utilitarian and to be liberally generous. … with other people’s money.

What once meant ‘free’ as in speech (and action) was now supposed to mean ‘free’ as in ‘free lunch’. Why, one wonders, did this transformation / inversion occur in the USA and not in Europe? It seems to me one of the great ironic tragedies of the twentieth century, that this complete inversion of the meaning of ‘liberal-liberty’ to ‘liberal-slavery’ (yes, slavery as in 'bondage to the government', whether as taxpayer or as dole recipient) was accomplished in the land that created (for non-slaves) the world’s freest known republic in 1776.

Having suffered being turned inside out like a skinned rabbit, the poor word that once stood for the doctrine of freedom was now to be roasted to a cinder.

In more recent times – 1980s and 90s, conservatives and/or Republicans launched the well known and reported attack on ‘liberals’. You see “Liberalism” was now going to be revealed for what it was – the code-word for socialism.

But no mention of the theft. No. Republicans accepted the wrong definition of ‘liberal’, so they could force the Left to repudiate it and thus exterminate it for all time. No Democrat OR Republican would EVER refer to themselves as advocating liberalism again… the word that once meant “freedom”.

1) Among the many fine resources on the web, the Mises Institute (with the amazing mises.org library), stands out as the best free source on the liberal tradition in economics and public policy.