Liberalism is deeply rooted in American soil, so much so that in the years after World War II, many historians and social scientists regarded the liberal project and the American civic creed as more or less the same. The proposition that each of us has a right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” remains as good a definition as anyone has ever come up with of liberalism’s first principle and America’s historic promise. For some time, however, contemporary liberalism has been under political siege in the United States, and even liberals have at times appeared uncertain about what they stand for. In recent decades, national political leaders who are unquestion-ably liberal have often been unwilling to say so and unable to articulate a compelling public philosophy, while public-opinion surveys show that many Americans who support liberal posi-tions do not identify themselves as liberals. Lately, though, the right has been facing its own loss of confi-dence. No one, not even conservatives, doubts that conservatism is now in deep trouble: divided, uncertain of itself, and with a lot of explaining to do for the fiasco in Iraq. Yet the exhaustion of conservatism is not tantamount to a liberal revival. The Bush administration’s manifest failures and the Democrats’ triumph in the 2006 elections have created a new opening for liberal argument. The question is now whether liberals can make their case not just for specific policies and candidates but for an alternative public philosophy. The Bush years have left America with more than just the disaster in Iraq to resolve. Conservative political leadership has failed to confront, and in critical respects has contributed to, some of our most serious long-term problems: growing economic inequality and insecurity, structural deficits in the federal budget, grave threats to the global environment, and increased hostility abroad toward the United States. America needs a different approach rooted in the inclusive, democratic partnerships that are central to the modern liberal tradition—a partnership at home built on the basis of a shared prosperity, and an international partnership in power built on the basis of a cooperative framework of security. At its heart, the aim of the liberal project is today what it has always been: to build a free, fair, and prosperous society. But lib-eralism ought never to be confused with mere high-mindedness; it calls for a practical politics, whose ways and means necessarily evolve in response to new conditions and new understandings. A readiness to confront new conditions and absorb the lessons of experience is all the more necessary in a philosophy that asks to be judged by its real effects on human freedom and happiness and the power and peace of nations. Liberalism stands not only for the principle that we all have an equal right to freedom but also for the hypothesis that this is a workable ideal, and that a politics based on liberal principles can produce the power and wealth that make a free society more than a dream. Liberalism is notoriously difficult to define. The term has been used to describe a sprawling profusion of ideas, prac-tices, movements, and parties in different societies and his-torical periods. Often emerging as a philosophy of opposition, whether to feudal privilege, absolute monarchy, colonialism, theocracy, communism, or fascism, liberalism has served, as the word suggests, as a force for liberation, or at least liberaliza-tion—for the opening up of channels of free initiative. As a political philosophy in the Anglo-American world, liberalism has two primary senses. In its broader meaning, it refers to the fundamental principles of constitutional gov-ernment and individual rights shared by modern liberals and conservatives, though often differently interpreted by them. This tradition of constitutional liberalism—classical political liberalism—emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries, culminated in the American and French revolutions, and continues to pro-vide the foundation of the modern liberal state. The classical liberals generally stood for religious liberty, freedom of thought and speech, the division of governmental powers, an indepen-dent civil society, and rights of private property and economic freedom that evolved in the 19th century into the doctrine of laissez-faire. Modern democratic liberalism developed out of the more egalitarian aspects of the tradition and serves as the basis of contemporary liberal politics. The relationship between liberal-ism in these two phases has been predominantly cumulative: Why Liberalism Works Conservatism is in shambles; liberals have a new opportunity. But what do they stand for? Not mere high-mindedness. Liberalism is a practical strategy for a free society—and for solving the mess conservatives will leave behind. While rejecting laissez-faire economic policy, modern liberal-ism continues to take the broader tradition of constitutional liberalism as its foundation. That is why it is possible to speak not only of the two separately but also of an overarching set of ideas that unites them. Yet even within the Anglo-American liberal tradition, intel-lectuals and reformers have started from different premises about human nature, society, and history and have held dif-ferent views about many matters of deep importance to them, including religion. Historically, liberalism has been defined by a shared, albeit evolving, body of political principles rather than by agreement on the ultimate grounds on which those principles rest. One of those shared political principles is an equal right to freedom, where freedom has been successively understood dur-ing the past three centuries in a more expansive way: first, as a right to civil liberty and freedom from arbitrary power; then, as a right to political liberty and a share in the government; and finally, as a right to basic requirements of human development and security necessary to assure equal opportunity and personal dignity. Although I have described these ideas as a series of rights, they imply correspond-ing responsibilities that a liberal society expects of its members, individually and collectively. Inasmuch as individuals enjoy rights to civil liberty and freedom from arbitrary power, they are responsible for their own actions and what they make of their lives. Inasmuch as citizens enjoy a right to political liberty and a share of their government, they have the responsibilities of citizenship to make democracy work. And inasmuch as the members of a liberal society have a right to basic requirements of human development, such as education and a minimum standard of security, they have obligations to one another, mutually and through their government, to ensure that conditions exist enabling every person to have the oppor-tunity for success in life. The liberal project may be defined as the effort to guarantee these freedoms and to create the institutions and forms of char-acter that will lead a people to assume responsibility, not as an external burden imposed upon them but from a force within. This is only a preliminary definition, however, because liberties come into conflict with one another and with other interests, and there must be a way of adjudicating among them that is consistent with the deepest interests in freedom and the public good. Moreover, liberalism consists of principles not only for a just society but also for the design of a state capable of sustain-ing that society in a world that is far from ideal. This concern for creating a capable and effective state is criti-cal to understanding how and why liberalism works. Constitu-tionalism itself, and even more so a liberal constitution with its emphasis on the protection of individual rights, is a system of enabling constraints. The constraints shield individuals from tyranny, but they also strengthen the state’s power to act on behalf of its citizens. Checks and balances, requirements for transparency in decision making, and public accountability for performance reduce the odds of capricious, reckless, or self-interested decisions by those in power. Public discussion invites ideas and information that autocrats do not receive or are unlikely to heed. A constitutional state that observes the rule of law is more likely to abide by its promises, pay its debts, and enjoy better credit and lower interest rates. Guarantees of rights, including property rights, enable individuals to make long-term plans and investments and create a more productive economy that redounds to general advantage. Guarantees of religious freedom allow people of different faiths to cooperate under a political order that does not threaten to extinguish any of the various theological doctrines they support. In short, it is an error to see guarantees of liberty as a source of state weakness. From its beginnings in 17th- and 18th-century England and America, constitutional liberalism contributed to the development of states that proved not only economically but also militarily successful, even when challenged by regimes more devoted to martial values. The classical liberal tradition, however, had severe limitations. The liberalism of the 18th and early 19th centuries was not democratic in a sense we would recog-nize today: The majority of people—men without property, racial minorities, and women—were denied political rights and full citizenship. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, laissez-faire economics provided a framework of law and policy for industrial capitalism’s dynamic growth, but it left most work-ing people in insecurity and poverty. In the same era, while often favoring social reform at home, liberal imperialists supported Western colonialism. The resulting conflicts and disasters nearly brought liberalism to ruin. The old liberal order of limited government, classical economics, and colonialism went up in flames amid total war and the Great Depression, and fascism or communism could easily have emerged from the wreckage to dominate the world. Modern liberalism, however, transformed its classical inheri-tance into a genuinely democratic politics that proved stron-ger and more effective in both war and peace than its critics expected. Liberals now called for true political equality for all, aimed to bring raw capitalism under control in the interests of an expanded circle of opportunity, and supported national self-determination for all peoples and new forms of coopera-tion among states to promote democracy, human rights, and international peace and security. Every step of the way, conservatives objected to these move-ments toward a wider democratic partnership, but as of the mid-20th century, liberals had won the argument decisively and had built an electoral majority in support of it. The prevailing view in the liberal democracies held that the extension of politi-cal and social rights and economic regulation was not only just but also the basis of a more productive society. And cooperative international organization, far from being a naive delusion, was plainly necessary to meet the twin threats posed by communism, on the one hand, and nuclear extinction, on the other.
Liberalism is deeply rooted in American soil liberal project and the American civic creed as more or less the same contemporary liberalism has been under political siege Lately, though, the right has been facing its own loss of confi-dence Yet the exhaustion of conservatism is not tantamount to a liberal revival the aim of the liberal project is today what it has always been: to build a free, fair, and prosperous society it calls for a practical politics, whose ways and means necessarily evolve a philosophy that asks to be judged by its real effects on human freedom and happiness and the power and peace of nations Often emerging as a philosophy of opposition liberalism has served as a force for liberation Conservatism is in shambles; liberals have a new opportunity. But what do they stand for? Not mere high-mindedness. Liberalism is a practical strategy for a free society—and for solving the mess conservatives will leave behind. an equal right to freedom imply correspond-ing responsibilities that a liberal society expects of its members, individually and collectively The liberal project may be defined as the effort to guarantee these freedoms and to create the institutions and forms of char-acter that will lead a people to assume responsibility, not as an external burden imposed upon them but from a force within. liberalism consists of principles not only for a just society but also for the design of a state capable of sustain-ing that society in a world that is far from ideal a system of enabling constraints ld individuals from tyranny, but they also strengthen the state’s power to act on behalf of its citizens. The classical liberal tradition, however, had severe limitations while often favoring social reform at home, liberal imperialists supported Western colonialism Modern liberalism, however, transformed its classical inheri-tance into a genuinely democratic politics that proved stron-ger and more effective in both war and peace than its critics expected the extension of politi-cal and social rights and economic regulation was not only just but also the basis of a more productive society. cooperative international organization was plainly necessary