Liberalismo como princípio ético, não como o que quer que nos apeteça que seja

Sexta, 07/12/2007 - 00:28 — Igor Caldeira

No rescaldo da recente agitação que se abateu no espaço blogosférico, trago um texto que li há uns meses e que, creio, ajuda estabelecer algumas fronteiras.

Classical liberals largely seem to miss the point that a man’s liberality is not determined by how low they want taxes to be, nor one’s belief in the working’s of markets, but has far more to do with the workings of mankind. If liberals believe in a free market, it is not because they believe that it is the greatest way to prosperity, but rather that it is because mankind is capable of embracing and making its own economic decisions.
[...]

And there we have the crux of the matter. So-called ‘classical liberals’ have themselves failed to understand what liberalism truly means by believing that economics and ideology are inseparable, or at most one and the same. They see the glorious days of Ricardo, Malthus and Adam Smith as the days of true liberalism, when it meant what it said on the tin. Free trade was the conventional wisdom, and the evils of government intervention were negligible. To them this is liberalism, a free market, a small government and the public sorting public problems out themselves. Many within our party (and even more so within the conservative party) would agree. How wrong they all are.
Liberalism has never been about method, it is about fundamental beliefs in humanity that human beings are capable of making their own decisions in life, that they generally know what is good and bad for themselves and society - and are therefore capable of taking economic, political and social decisions themselves - combined with distrust for traditional and powerful elites (whether aristocratic, governmental or corporate).
‘Classical liberals’ place all their liberal faith in economic beliefs and none in the social or political ones, believing they can dilute humanity down to economic self serving machinations. Let me ask one question: if people are so capable of making their own economic decisions, then why are they so incapable of making political or social ones?

John Dixon (jovem militante do LibDem e autor do blog A Radical writes...) em LibDemVoices