8. Democracy

Liberalism is therefore far from disputing the necessity of a machinery of state, a system of law, and a government. It is a grave misunderstanding to associate it in any way with the idea of anarchism. For the liberal, the state is an absolute necessity, since the most important tasks are incumbent upon it: the protection not only of private property, but also of peace, for in the absence of the latter the full benefits of private property cannot be reaped.

4. Equality

Nowhere is the difference between the reasoning of the older liberalism and that of neoliberalism clearer and easier to demonstrate than in their treatment of the problem of equality. The liberals of the eighteenth century, guided by the ideas of natural law and of the Enlightenment, demanded for everyone equality of political and civil rights because they assumed that all men are equal. God created all men equal, endowing them with fundamentally the same capabilities and talents, breathing into all of them the breath of His spirit.

5. The Inequality of Wealth and Income

What is most criticized in our social order is the inequality in the distribution of wealth and income, There are rich and poor; there are very rich and very poor. The way out is not far to seek: the equal distribution of all wealth.

6. Private Property and Ethics

In seeking to demonstrate the social function and necessity of private ownership of the means of production and of the concomitant inequality in the distribution of income and wealth, we are at the same time providing proof of the moral justification for private property and for the capitalist social order based upon it.

5. Liberalism and Capitalism

A society in which liberal principles are put into effect is usually called a capitalist society, and the condition of that society, capitalism. Since the economic policy of liberalism has everywhere been only more or less closely approximated in practice, conditions as they are in the world today provide us with but an imperfect idea of the meaning and possible accomplishments of capitalism in full flower.

6. The Psychological Roots of Antiliberalism

It cannot be the task of this book to discuss the problem of social cooperation otherwise than with rational arguments. But the root of the opposition to liberalism cannot be reached by resort to the method of reason. This opposition does not stem from the reason, but from a pathological mental attitude?from resentment and from a neurasthenic condition that one might call a Fourier complex, after the French socialist of that name.

4. The Aim of Liberalism

There is a widespread opinion that liberalism is distinguished from other political movements by the fact that it places the interests of a part of society-the propertied classes, the capitalists, the entrepreneurs-above the interests of the other classes. This assertion is completely mistaken. Liberalism has always had in view the good of the whole, not that of any special group.

Mainstream Economist Freaks Out

What does it suggest when Noah Smith, writing in Bloomberg, calls his critics “9/11 truthers
…enslaved by… brain worms?”

It suggests that he is very worried. He not only thinks the barbarians are at the gate. He thinks that his cozy citadel might actually fall.

And what does it tell us when he accuses his target, Austrian economics, of having “anti-Semitic overtones?”–and then documents this outlandish charge by linking to someone’s video on U-tube? Smith may not be just worried. He may be terrified if he has to resort to such nonsense.

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