What separates liberals and conservaqtives is that each represents a different stage in the larger development of liberalism. Those who do not like what liberalism has become in recent decades have not repudiated it as such but have tried instead to hold onto it and return it to an earlier form—one thought to be purer and closer to its original meaning.

In the American context the labels liberal and conservative are used in an ahistorical way—more as terms of opprobrium than as accurate designations for what people actually believe about political life. Liberals and conservatives alike differ less on fundamental principles than on who can better claim custody over the same principles—the principles of, well, liberalism.

The liberalism of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. Of Thomas Jefferson and John Stuart Mill. After all, the Declaration of Independence is a liberal document, unquestioningly accepting that popular consent stands at the origin of political authority. As Alasdair MacIntyre has put it, in the Western world there are conservative liberals, liberal liberals, and radical liberals, but all adhere to the basic principles of liberalism.

So what accounts for the differences between Democrats and Republicans, between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney? What separates them is that each represents a different stage in the larger development of liberalism. Those who do not like what liberalism has become in recent decades have not repudiated it as such but have tried instead to hold onto it and return it to an earlier form—one thought to be purer and closer to its original meaning. I believe liberalism can be traced through five stages of development.

1. The Hobbesian commonwealth

The English political philosopher Thomas Hobbes set forth an alternative story to the biblical redemptive narrative of creation-fall-redemption-consummation. For Hobbes, history consisted of a grand movement away from a chaotic state of nature and toward a civil order presided over by a sovereign capable of keeping the peace. The key to this change was a contract among individuals motivated by fear of a violent death to seek a more peaceful state. Only an all-powerful sovereign could put an end to the war of all against all and bring about more agreeable conditions. Hobbes’s sovereign could do no wrong legally and morally speaking, because he was the source of law. But there were real practical limitations on his power, for if he pushed his subjects too far they might decide to take their chances with the state of nature once again and try to unseat him.

2. The night watchman state

This second stage in liberalism’s development is most associated with John Locke, Adam Smith, and Thomas Jefferson. The narrative structure is still the same. According to Locke, the state of nature produces certain inconveniences that can be remedied only by individuals entering into a contract to establish a civil government. If the Hobbesian sovereign is established to protect life, the Lockean government is set up to defend life, liberty, and property—or, as Jefferson put it, the pursuit of happiness. Government remains small and allows sovereign individuals to pursue their own respective goods as they understand them. With respect to economic life, government limits itself to setting and enforcing the rules of the game, allowing the players to seek their own advantage. The net result will be a spontaneous order emerging, almost providentially, out of all this self-seeking.

3. The regulatory state

In reality, of course, self-seeking, while undoubtedly producing certain material benefits, did indeed lead to abuses, such as those engendered by the early factory system: excessively long work days and weeks, dangerous working conditions, and low wages due to a surplus of potential laborers in the marketplace. In its third stage, liberals call on government to rectify these abuses. Theodore Roosevelt is a paradigmatic figure, in so far as he brought the power of government to bear in checking an “industrial baronage” represented by the large corporate concerns. The U.S. Congress passed the Sherman and Clayton Antitrust Acts in 1890 and 1914 respectively as means of restoring competition to a marketplace now dominated by monopolies. The breakups of Standard Oil in 1911 and of AT&T in 1984 were motivated by this concern.

Read More