Publisher's Notes: Free Liberalism Defined

One of the things I’ve wrestled with over the last year is labeling the Free Liberal. We don’t really fit into the categories currently available.

For the last five years, I’ve referred to myself as a libertarian. But, “libertarian” has too often been defined in a very radical sense and is almost completely focused on reducing government as the end, without regard to other values people hold.

Liberty is a primary value for me, but it is not the only value. In order to win the ideological battle, we need a name that tells people what we believe in.
Moreover, there has been a desire for a better label or name for our team going back to the time of Friedrich Hayek.

He wrote in his essay, “Why I Am Not A Conservative” in 1960.
“In the United States, where it has become almost impossible to use ‘liberal’ in the sense in which I have used it, the term ‘libertarian’ has been used instead. It may be the answer; but for my part I find it singularly unattractive. For my taste it carries too much the flavor of a manufactured term and of a substitute. What I should want is a word which describes the party of life, the party that favors free growth and spontaneous evolution. But I have racked my brain unsuccessfully to find a descriptive term which commends itself.”

Classical liberal has been used by many, but this has a conservative connotation. The Cato Institute’s website notes the wrong tone of “classical liberal.”

“Classical liberal” is a bit closer to the mark, but the word ‘classical’ connotes a backward-looking philosophy”

Cato suggests “Market Liberal,” which in my opinion puts too great an emphasis on the marketplace. It suggests that whatever the marketplace generates is good. For example, if everyone spent twenty hours more a week paying for pornography on the Internet, rather than twenty hours with their family, or improving themselves, this would certainly be a function of the market, but few would agree it was “better.”

Others have suggested “neoliberalism,” a term that has not found currency in the United States, fails to describe what kind of “liberalism” it represents, and it sounds a lot like “neoconservative.”

At a recent anti-IMF/World Bank rally, I got into a discussion about my “Enjoy Capitalism” t-shirt with a tatooed, “anti-capitalist” protestor. I explained that capitalism wasn’t my goal, but my means to freedom and prosperity, he suggested that “Enjoy Freedom” might be a better slogan.

So, I would like to suggest the term, “Free Liberal” as the answer to Hayek’s dilemma. It reclaims the word liberal while emphasizing FREEDOM as the driving value.

It has precedent. The British Libertarian Party’s website refer to themselves the “Free Liberal” party. The German *Free* Democrats are classical liberals.
Please see my definition of Free Liberalism below. You should ask yourself, “Am I a Free Liberal?”

Free Liberalism is the bringing together of classical liberal or libertarian views on government, with modern liberal concerns about the public welfare, the environment, education, community-oriented behavior, privacy, egalitarianism, tolerance and diversity.

Free Liberals are generally in favor of the decentralization of decision-making. Big corporate bureaucracies make plenty of bad decisions just as does government bureaucracy. We are individual-oriented. Individuals are the ones who can make good decisions to benefit themselves and others. Bureaucracies tend to be hierarchical, non-responsive to constituent interests, and uninterested in diversity.

Free Liberals believe in:
-- Creating a better society by using liberty, personal responsibility, and personal growth as the means.

-- Taking a long-term view, with short term actions -- We know that our world cannot be turned around over night. The reduction of government must be preceded and accompanied by an awakening of the human spirit to innovate, take responsibility, and realize that the future is ours to choose. In the short term we should look to choose the best policies that move us forward towards a freer society.

-- Analyzing decisions and policies from both a utilitarian(utility-based) and a libertarian(rights-based) perspective. I was once asked, if you have to choose between a policy that works and a policy that is right according to principle, which do you choose? My answer was and continues to be, our policies should both work and be principled. If a principle cannot deliver positive results, is it a good principle? And shouldn’t we always look at the moral component of a decision, no matter how well it might serve an immediate need?

-- Synergizing multiple values. Often we are asked to choose between equality and liberty, or environmental protection and economic well-being. We believe that before looking at the few areas where these values may be in conflict, we should see that the greater areas of agreement. Liberty and Community are not at odds, they are synergistic and symbiotic. They compliment and enable each other.

-- Thinking multi-dimensionally: We recognize that things are far more complicated than the us vs. them, black and white, yes-no mentality. Our social and economic relationships exist in infinite dimensions. Understanding orthogonal relationships and that there are many paths to the same goals, and that we can move in a direction that addresses more goals rather than fewer.

Cheers,

Kevin D. Rollins