Liberty Demands a Strong State - The Role of Capabilities

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From my comment here:

A strong state is the prerequisite of liberty, and to become strong it is necessary for the state to bind itself to rules and institutions capable of controlling and constraining it. This theme, pioneered by the 16th century thinker Bodin, can be found throughout the history of liberty in modern times and at different stages in the development of living liberalism (Hobhouse, Dewey).

In my view, social democracy belongs in this tradition, being a liberalism updated to deliver capabilities that were unthinkable or hardly within reach when the modern state and liberalism were still in their infancy (though liberals were friends and supporters of the enlightened state from the outset).

A mature liberalism inevitably becomes a social democratic enterprise, a development that has taken place in the 19th and 20th century, and we are lucky to partake in it (though nowadays social democratic parties are hard at work destroying classic social democracy).

Indeed, it is the great irony of my research into freedom (initiated from a libertarian point of view) that it would ultimately convince me of the virtues of social democracy at a time when social democrats have given up their core convictions, having become hangers-on (like other traditional parties and the Catholic Church) of a new religion, the culturally dominant green mythology.

Anyone interested in the connection between the strong state and (getting the best from) liberty ought to read the absolutely magnificent book by Stephen Holmes: "Passions and Constraints. On the Theory of Liberal Democracy".