Awhile ago I asked on facebook if anyone knew the difference between a conservative and a liberal and no one that answered knew what to say. Here is one explanation at least in modern American usage.
Political differences are generally determined by a combination of 2 main beliefs concerning the following:
1. Appropriate level of government intervention in the market
2. Appropriate level of government intervention for moral reasons
Here are the 4 categories of political thought as defined in modern terms.
Populist: Intervene in the market; Intervene for moral reasons
Liberal: Intervene in the market; No intervention for moral reasons
Conservative: No intervention in the market; Intervene for moral reasons
Libertarian: No intervention in the market; No intervention for moral reasons
On the left we group Liberals and Populists.
On the right we group Libertarians and Conservatives.
But there are some problems with these definitions since fascism is termed as right wing and communist is left wing. Fascism ought to go on the left with Liberals and Populists since it involves high intervention in the market like communism. On the right should be anarcho-capitalim since Libertarians and Conservatives want no intervention in the market.
Another problem is that the word conservative means to preserve the past. The whole world at any 1 time or location has mostly if not all lived under large governments. Which means that the vast majority of humanity has lived under liberal or populist idealogy. No conservative wants to preserve this. Freedom has been the exception. Conservatives want to fight the natural trend that mankind has towards large governments and therefore should be called Liberal.
What we call Liberals today want to preserve the past. They want to preserve the New Deal and large government and follow down the path that every other nation in the world has followed which is bigger government. They should be called conservative.
I am a liberal in the sense that I believe in escaping the past trends of larger government, but in modern terms I am more conservative since I believe that government intervention in the market is evil since it takes away freedom. And, I believe that intervention for moral purposes is virtuous since it protects freedom and life.
Political differences are generally determined by a combination of 2 main beliefs concerning the following:
1. Appropriate level of government intervention in the market
2. Appropriate level of government intervention for moral reasons
Here are the 4 categories of political thought as defined in modern terms.
Populist: Intervene in the market; Intervene for moral reasons
Liberal: Intervene in the market; No intervention for moral reasons
Conservative: No intervention in the market; Intervene for moral reasons
Libertarian: No intervention in the market; No intervention for moral reasons
On the left we group Liberals and Populists.
On the right we group Libertarians and Conservatives.
But there are some problems with these definitions since fascism is termed as right wing and communist is left wing. Fascism ought to go on the left with Liberals and Populists since it involves high intervention in the market like communism. On the right should be anarcho-capitalim since Libertarians and Conservatives want no intervention in the market.
Another problem is that the word conservative means to preserve the past. The whole world at any 1 time or location has mostly if not all lived under large governments. Which means that the vast majority of humanity has lived under liberal or populist idealogy. No conservative wants to preserve this. Freedom has been the exception. Conservatives want to fight the natural trend that mankind has towards large governments and therefore should be called Liberal.
What we call Liberals today want to preserve the past. They want to preserve the New Deal and large government and follow down the path that every other nation in the world has followed which is bigger government. They should be called conservative.
I am a liberal in the sense that I believe in escaping the past trends of larger government, but in modern terms I am more conservative since I believe that government intervention in the market is evil since it takes away freedom. And, I believe that intervention for moral purposes is virtuous since it protects freedom and life.
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