An Interview with Deirdre McCloskey, Distinguished Professor Emerita of Economics and of History, UIC
14th February 2019
The central misconception is to think that one can claim the honorable title of “liberal” if one approves of one form of liberty, such as mutual consent in sexual partners or the ability to drill for oil where you wish, but excludes the other form. Liberty is liberty, and is meaningless by parts. You are still a slave if only on odd days of the month.
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Yes, the so-called New Liberalism was slow socialism, as was an American Progressivism recommending the sterilization of defectives to improve the Aryan race and a minimum wage to drive non-Aryan immigrants out of the labor force, not to speak of carrying a big stick and joining a war to end all wars. The slow socialism took longer to implement than the fast versions in Bolshevism and Nazism. It was pushed along by the taking of powers by governments in the 20th-century wars, hot and cold. Calling it “modern liberalism” has always been an abuse of language. And it was an abuse of people to implement it.