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"There's this odd commingling of the concepts of socialism and liberalism in the general populace's minds, for some reason. The two could not be more antithetical."

The reasons for this are historical. What you call the "socialist" elements result from the idea that part of being truly "free" (i.e, liberty) requires that people be treated equally, thus liberals in this sense have a focus on social justice. (See this on "positive liberty": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_liberty .) You can get good summary of differences between meanings of "liberal" in other Wikipedia articles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism#Classical_and_modern

Because of the way the word's meaning has developed historically, you really need to be aware of the context where it's being used. But there are nevertheless strands connecting all the meanings, namely focus on "freedom" and "equality".

Indeed - perfectly familiar, have read my share of Tocqueville, Hayek, Hobbes and all the rest, but the fundamental point that divides socialism and liberalism is that of freedom of people, vs. freedom of the people - i.e. individualism vs. socialism.

Liberalism has always been about social justice, and the idea that each and every human should be free to run or ruin their own lives (Positive vs. Negative freedom), with a slant towards the positive through regulation and the rule of law.

It is individualism vs collectivism.

Socialism is a set of collectivist policies desired or in force while a capitalist society is being consumed (i.e., distribution of goods and services by society's collective dictates).

Capitalism "solves the problem" of production by producing what returns profit (in a market of demands and supplies). Once profit is stamped out, production is unguided except by "society" commanding it (i.e., a command "economy"). Even if this guidance were democratic, it would still be subject to the tyranny of the majority (the bulk of the collective).

Aye, meant collectivism, not sure how I managed that, sorry!

Agree that the tyranny of the majority still applies in the case of democracy - see the UK EU in-out referendum impending mess.

Yeah, wasn't so much a rebuke, more of a clarification. Know thine enemy's nature, not just its current appearance :-)

Alas, individualism will never be a mass movement!

Couldn't agree more. However I would also add that from a truly liberal perspective the logic behind government intervention is market-driven as opposed to primarily humanitarian. Recognising that markets have failures is a key part of capitalist liberalism, and it is that failure of recognition that makes libertarianism such an unstable and unworkable political philosophy.

Classical liberalism (what you call "true" liberalism) focused on negative freedom. Modern liberalism (what you call "socialism" although it's not: modern liberals are still in favor of regulated but mostly free markets) focuses on ensuring positive freedom. Again, no big deal as long as we understand what each person means when they're talking about being a "liberal". In contemporary world, however, calling yourself a "liberal" in sense of classical liberalism tends to indicate you're that you're an academic, a libertarian, or some variety of free-market capitalist. In contemporary world, the usual meaning when someone says they're a "liberal" is that they're socially liberal, focus on equality and positive liberty. And the usual meaning is entirely correct, even though you apparently want to restrict use of the world to its meaning in classical liberalism.

No, I think people that call themselves Classic Liberals believe freedom (liberty) only means "free".

"Obamacare" is not socialist, it's liberal, as a core concept of liberalism is that the state should fund things that people cannot or will not fund for themselves, like roads and healthcare.

"More doubtfully compatible with the liberal conception of equality is another measure which also gained wide support in liberal circles, namely the use of progressive taxation as a means to effect a redistribution of income in favour of the poorer classes. Since no criterion can be found by which such progression can be made to correspond to a rule which may be said to be the same for all, or which would limit the degree of extra burden on the more wealthy, it would seem that a generally progressive taxation is in conflict with the principle of equality before the law and it was in general so regarded by liberals in the nineteenth century."

- Liberalism, F. A. Hayek

Why are you conflating Obamacare with progressive taxation? Incredibly misleading. Hayek was clearly fine with social insurance programs.

"Where, as in the case of sickness and accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the provision of assistance – where, in short, we deal with genuinely insurable risks – the case for the state’s helping to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong. There are many points of detail where those wishing to preserve the competitive system and those wishing to super-cede it by something different will disagree on the details of such schemes; and it is possible under the name of social insurance to introduce measures which tend to make competition more or less ineffective. But there is no incompatability in principle between the state’s providing greater security in this way and the preservation of individual freedom." -- The Road to Serfdom, F. A. Hayek

It's probably because he forgot what he was arguing about and defaulted to attacking transfer payments. Isn't that what they (the Hayek quoters)all do - when all else fails, go after 'handouts' because it can always be framed as a moral issue?

Thanks, that's precisely the passage I was thinking of.

Because Obamacare is funded by progressive taxation, as are most programs in the U.S., and the benefits of Obamacare are not equally distributed - an example of the very inequality Hayek was admonishing against in the first quote I posted.

Honestly, who cares what it's called and how it falls into other categories? I think by fighting over what terms to use, we're missing the forest for the trees.

In living in the SV sandbox/bubble, it seems we forget about some of our global compassion. Nobody says we need to be 100% charitable in our actions, or follow some strict socialist regimen, but I think it's useful to acknowledge that we do overlook some of the problems at our doorstep. If we cared, we could definitely create solutions to some of them, and some of those solutions might even be profitable.

It's ironic that during a rant on the populist meaning of 'liberal' overwhelming the classic one, you do the exact same thing with 'corporatist'.

Corporatism isn't a nation with a lot of powerful business corporations, it was a proto-fascist ideological movement in the syndicalist tradition.

Ref: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/138442/corporatism

I agree with agriculture, but how are banks unprofitable?

EDIT: I should say "unprofitable without legislation"

In a recent timescale, there was a multi-billion dollar bailout of failed institutions. It was pretty big news. Most of the banking sector would have gone bust without it, which would, as happened in Iceland, have left verdant territory for a new breed to spring up in.

In a more general scale, the entire banking sector is propped up by protectionist policies that allow:

> Fractional lending (this is called reserve banking) on a minimal reserve. It's pretty odd that banks can do this, but, say, you, can't.

> Setting of core econometric KPIs by people who stand to benefit directly from those KPIs. LIBOR and EURIBOR are recent examples of this, but market fixing has been going on since forever, and is endorsed passively through a lack of legislation to do anything about it, and a lack of will to prosecute.

> No other banks to exist, without jumping through serious hoops, and tying themselves in a death-grip to one of the "special" banks.

> Immunity to prosecution for bad actors. Corporate personhood is applied with amazing selectivity. If you're a juggernaut, no worries. If you're a small guy, enjoy federal prison.

> Indiscriminate money laundering and funding of illegal activities overseas. HSBC just got busted for proactively helping out the cartels in Latin America, and got a slap on the wrist. They're not alone in this kind of thing - look at Brown Brothers Harriman. They funded Nazi Germany. Prosecution? Nah. Wild profits that span generations.

I could go on and on and on, but the moment that you treat any particular person or entity "specially", you're on the road to hell, as you've just interfered with a self-regulating system, as free (but blanket regulated) markets are, and you'll need to interfere more, and more, and more, and suddenly you're telling factories that they should only make size seven shoes for the next two years to fulfil their quota.

Can't speak for anyone else, but I'd have rather taken Iceland's approach and let them fail... their assets would have been redistributed and bought out, and things would have probably recovered much faster, though a harder short term. Which may well have been better than what seems to be a long drawn out recovery.

I'm also against a lot of the subsidies that are out there.. if we really want available food for the poor, then those expenses directed at the farmers directly are the wrong place. I mean we have food stamp programs, and school lunch programs that could be expanded to cover more people, or even everyone domestically.

I'm against the expanded protectionisms in copyright and patents as well. I think they are important to have, but the terms are far to broad and lopsided. Corporate personhood is a directly related problem... I'd much rather see corporations far more limited, including requirements on distributing profits to shareholders, and not being able to make corporate donations to charities (especially politically driven ones) or for that matter employ lobbyists. If an investor wants to directly employ a lobbyist more power to them, the protection of a corporate vail is definitely abused.

I believe personal freedom and ensured competition are key to advancement of society, and protectionist corporatism is just as bad as outright communism, or extreme/fascist socialism for that matter. Then again, people often confuse what it means to be pragmatic, or a libertarian for that matter.

Oh man, agricultural subsidies. Farm bills in the US, CAP in the EU. They're criminal, and socialist in form and nature. They're designed to protect the livelihood of farmers who wouldn't be otherwise economically productive and would fail in the face of labour from other regions which are cheaper, in other countries. This not only impedes development, but results in people selling subsidies to one another, buying agricultural land en masse in order to claim vast subsidies to grow nothing (see Tate & Lyle in the UK - over £1bn a year), and vast amounts of food being burned and buried because it exceeds quota. This is positively insane, even though the rationale (price control - equally insane) makes sense in an obtuse protectionist sort of fashion. Some farmers will fail. Others will prosper. Food won't magically disappear overnight and leave us all starving.

Competition is essential, but so is cooperation. Again, though, you need the rule of law to set universal finite bounds on both phenomena, otherwise you end up with cancer in your soda and PMCs in your back yard, even more than already happens in the US.

I suppose that at least we live in interesting times.

I'm not saying we should eliminate regulation, or outright allow crap in our food (which to a large extent we do), only that we should really limit out spending/subsidies and gear our regulations toward increased competition, not less.