A Conjecture: Liberalism and Social Democracy

Image credit. Continued from here.

I have received a letter from a good friend. In my reply to it, I had occasion to explain why I consider a separate chapter on "The State" paramount for the purposes of my Attempts at Liberty.

In my answer, I emphasise - see German version below - that classical liberalism was not a predominantly anti-state philosophy; to the contrary, it did attach great weight to a strong state - in fact, the idea that guided it was that in order for a state to be strong it needs to be limited - limited, not minimal. An unconstrained state cannot be as effective as one bound to sensible constraints. The ideal of limited government is therefore actually opposed to the propagandistic concept of a small state. Big government is fine; it is needed for freedom to spread. In order to understand why, it is necessary to look more deeply into the history, the nature and the theory of the state.

And here is the hypothesis that particularly spurred me on to write this post: in placing appropriate emphasis on the state as a condition of freedom, the classical liberals encouraged other history-shaping forces - especially social democracy - to intellectually accept and implement liberalism.

This hypothesis would go a long way toward explaining the paradox of freedom, which I define as the opposed trend whereby from 1850 onward

• freedom advances at the same time that 

• liberalism declines and its opponents (especially social democracy) are on the ascent.

This is what I wrote to my friend:

Es zeigt sich, dass ein separates Kapitel zum Thema "Staat" durchaus gerechtfertigt ist, denn meine Vorarbeiten in "Freiheit verstehen" geben diesbezüglich viel her - schließlich ist es mir wichtig, mit einigen Vorurteilen aufzuräumen und zu denen gehört die Idee, dass die großen Impulse des Ur-Liberalismus einseitig antistaatlicher Natur waren. Keineswegs. Keine Freiheit ohne Staat. Der Ur-Liberalismus maß dem Staat großes Gewicht bei - einer der Gründe, warum der Liberalismus von anderen geschichtsgestaltenden Kräften - allen voran der Sozialdemokratie - verinnerlicht und verwirklicht werden konnte. Um das zu verstehen, ist es hilfreich Geschichte, Wesen und Theorie des Staats besser kennenzulernen.

See also Average Freedom (1), and A Note on Social Justice.