One of the most important distinctions between socialism and modern liberalism is that the former ideology has an actual definition and revolves around a set of basic principles while the latter does not. Modern day liberalism (and modern day conservatism) is an inconsistent, incoherent ideology. Ask ten self-professed liberals what it means to be liberal, and you will get several different answers–some of them contrary to each other. Ask ten self-proclaimed conservatives what it means to be liberal, and you will get answers that not any differ substantially from those given by liberals but will also different substantially from other conservatives.

“Liberal” and “conservative” have become meaningless terms–mere epithets directed at political opponents without bothing to explain what makes that person liberal.

There was a time when the term “liberal” actually meant something. It was a time when any two people– regardless of their political beliefs–could use the term and know what they were referring to. Back in the 19th century, the term “liberalism” referred to a political ideology that we now refer to as “classical liberalism”, which is more-or-less equivalent to modern libertarianism of the minarchist strain (as opposed to the anarchist strain). In those days, liberals recognized government as a “necessary evil”, meaning that while it had a legitimate function of protecting the lives, liberties, and properties of its citizens, it should avoid attempting to manage the economy and most aspects of individuals' lives.

One might ask how the term “liberalism” went from a term synonymous with minarchism to what we have today. The answer is probably far more complex than anyone of us could answer in a single blog post, but part of it a gradual shift in political thought that accompanied the rise of democratic socialism in Europe and “progressivism” at the turn of the twentieth century. The reason was the misappropriation of the term “liberalism” by popular political figures during the era of the New Deal. Probably no one did more to redefine the term “liberalism” than President Frankling D. Roosevelt who adopted many of the tenets of democratic socialism and then relabeled them as “liberalism” despite the fact that many of these tenets ran contrary to commonly accepted definition of “liberalism” prior to the New Deal.

What we call “liberalism” today should more accurately be referred to as “progressivism”, since it has shares more in common with the Progressive Movement of the 1890's-1920's than it does with Classical Liberalism.

The problem with assigning any label, however, is that modern-day liberalism is more the reflection of the mood the the Democratic Party than any consistent, coherent political ideology. The Democratic Party, I would ague, has no political ideology. Its rise to power during the 1930's afterall, was built upon a disparate coalition of groups which had very different view–particularly on issues of race/civil rights and personal freedom/civil liberties.

There remains a strain of civil libertarianism–perhaps a remnant of its classical liberal past–in modern day liberalism–but it is overshadowed by fiscal populism/progressivism, an ideology which argues for more government intervention in economic/fiscal matters and is more sympathetic towards the big government nannyism that civil libertarians oppose.

No, I don't think one can really define modern day liberalism. It is–like modern day conservatism–an incoherent, inconsistent, self-contradictory political movement. We don't often recognize this, which is because we have the Democratic and Republican Parties, whose existence, I am convinced, is not to advance any coherent political ideology, but to brainwash their supporters into believing that they actually all believe in the same political ideology so that they can corral them all into the voting booths to vote against their Republican and Democratic opponents, who–with few exceptions–having no coherent political ideology of their own.

Because in the end, the goal of both political parties is to maintain political power. And that their politicians spout off political rhetoric to their political base is only a means to an end.

More on this subject can be found in a previous essay that I wrote on my former blog.

I'll just add one more note that while everyone knows who Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., is (or was), few seem to know who Rexford Guy Tugwell was — he was a master architect of the New Deal, was involved in political awareness since the capital-P Progressives, and worked with Harrington, Robert Heilbroner, and other modern liberals (to radicals) at the Center for the Study of Democratic [Socialist] Institutions in Santa Barbara during the 1960s. Copies of “The Center” Magazine would be great reading for anyone who is interested, along with Tugwell's numerous books. I own three of them — one a biography of FDR, one a book about what FDR would have gone on to do and what liberalism would have tried to do had FDR not died in the 1940s (“Roosevelt until 1952, at least, and perhaps until 1956!”), and the third being Tugwell's magnum opus on what has been replacing constitutional federalism decade by decade, and what Tugwell would like to see in a new constitution for the USA and associated kind of government (which would include planning, of course, a big deal to elites then even more than now). (Tugwell is famous for his poem that includes the lines, “I have fashioned my tools and my charts. I shall roll up my sleeves — work America over!”) Sadly, few people know or care about Tugwell, though he dwarfs famous liberals like Schlesinger, and Tugwell's proposed new constitution and related form of modern government in Washington has been relegated to fringe right-wing Web sites, mainly. (His biggest and best work, which includes the new constitution as an appendix, called “The Emerging Constitution,” is actually over 700-750 pages long.)

See related discussion here,

(“Tugwell argued that a governmental system designed for an agrarian republic worked much less adequately for an industrial democracy. Moreover, the framers' reluctance to concentrate sufficient power in a central authority resulted in a system of checks, balances, and separated powers that left the national government too vaguely emplowered and inefficient to function properly in a world transformed by economic dislocation and potentially disastrous international problems.”)

http://books.google.com/books?id=sG6Kz-f30qUC&p…

and see fringe site here, for example, to review Tugwell's constitution proposal.

http://www.sweetliberty.org/issues/concon/newst…

The Center

http://www.library.ucsb.edu/administration/deve…

http://www.independent.com/news/2009/may/28/cen…

And Norman Thomas, etc.

Interestingly, the book I own about the guaranteed minimum income (often nowadays called the Basic Income Guarantee, or BIG, though the payments would be smaller in practice than some would hope) quotes from someone (Lady Rhys-Williams, in a book “Something to Look Forward To” ["A Suggestion for a New Social Contract"]) who was echoing what else, the Fabians' legacy in Britain at the end of World War II (formation of National Health Service, “Freedom Through Planning,” and such things), where the new relation between the state and the subject, or individual, was essentially a flowery variation of what Marx himself said: The state will care for as well as protect the individual, from cradle to grave, while the individual will recognize that he or she has a reciprocal duty to work to provide for the state (society) what the individual can and should provide.

This does not follow from what you have written earlier. However, there is an element of truth in this that should be addressed: Modern liberalism and socialism are similar; modern liberalism began its change from “classic liberalism” (libertarianism, now) in the capital-P Progressive era, at about the same time that many developed the “fatal conceit” that the economy, society, everything could be engineered and problems corrected and ideal states achieved through government interventionism, planning, direction, and control. (The scope of this extends far beyond crusades against the problems of the late 1880s with urbanization and industrialization, corporate abuses, and hatred of the Robber Barons.)

Still another very nice piece.