Some Present-Day Critics of Liberalism

“Liberalism” is a late modern word, appearing first (along with “conservatism,” “socialism,” and “communism”) in the early nineteenth century. Its basic ideas are old. The particular freedoms called for have changed as the denials of freedom have changed. The demands have been for liberation from oppressive political rule or intolerant ecclesiastical authority; or from a status of slavery or serfdom; from restraints embodied in laws and customs that hamper the rise of new productive forces, or from limitations on equal opportunity resulting from narrow concentrations of private economic power; from limitations on voting rights and from interferences with freedom of religion, speech, and association. The constant concern has been with pleas for deliverance from restraints which, although perhaps widely regarded at a given time as a normal part of life, have come to be regarded, by some in the community, as unnatural and intolerable.