Meaning of "liberal"

From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Tue May 27 2003 - 18:15:27 MDT

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    In reading Hayak's "The Road to Serfdom", he stresses what a
    disaster it was for the Americans to lose the terminological
    fight to the socialists, and allow the word "liberal" to be
    adopted as describing socialistic or quasi-socialistic programs.

    This, I think, is what some of our foreign correspondents on
    this list have said in so many words; though I am unsure of the
    exact equivalence.

    He also appears to have a long chapter on the socialist component
    in Nazism. Now of course, "Nazi" stands for German Nationalist
    Socialist workers party, and without yet having got to what Hayek
    has to say, I do note that except for the Nazis, none of the usual
    suspects we associate with the right-wing---from the KKK to the
    militia movements---have anything to do with socialism. Therefore,
    the propriety of placing the Nazis entirely on the right wing may
    be questioned. Admittedly, in their nationalism, elitism, and even
    in their version of eugenics, the Nazis were right-wing; but in
    their collectivism and theory of government, they were clearly
    left-wing.

    Lee



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