Michael Knox Beran also tackles liberalism in National Review‘s cover story. He makes the case that among modern-day liberals the classical liberalism of Jefferson and Jackson has lost the fight against the “social liberalism that derived from the theories of 19th-century social philosophers”:
The social reformer inspires in many Americans today the same dread he once inspired in John Stuart Mill, who in 1855 wrote that almost “all the projects of the social reformers in these days are really liberticide ? Comte, particularly so.” Such projects, Mill predicted, would lead to “a despotism of society over the individual, surpassing anything contemplated in the political ideal of the most rigid disciplinarian among the ancient philosophers,” and stood “as a monumental warning to thinkers on society and politics, of what happens when once men lose sight in their speculations, of the value of Liberty and Individuality.”
Liberals dismiss such fears as mere right-wing hysteria. They have left the work of maintaining the integrity of the “Lockian” safeguards of freedom in America to Republicans and conservatives; it is no longer their responsibility or their shtick. Rather than try to revive the classical-liberal strain in their politics, they have devised new justifications of the managerial authority of the social expert, the master planner of public privilege.
For more on the mindset of the “master planner,” be sure to read Michael Sanera’s glossary of government planning jargon.
