Defining liberalism, a political issue

Liberal thinkers is an anthology composed by Alain Laurent and Vincent Valentin, two authors recognized for their work on the subject. Like any collection refusing to be reduced to a catch-all compilation, this one draws its quality from the fact that the choice of texts is guided by theoretical reflection. What the authors mean by liberalism is in fact the subject of precise elaboration, expressed with clarity in a rich critical apparatus.

The collection of texts itself extends over 650 pages. It is generally structured into three main chronological stages: the emergence of liberalism in XVII^e And XVIII^e centuries, its affirmation in XIX^e century, its revival in XX^e century. Within these stages, the extracts are classified according to various thematic articulations: religious tolerance, political freedom, economic freedom, utilitarian current, libertarian current, etc. The critical apparatus occupies no less than 270 pages, not counting brief presentations at the beginning of each text and a few annotations. It consists of a copious general introduction to “ The liberal idea and its interpreters », an unpublished genealogy of the word liberalism, a dictionary of authors, a dictionary of concepts, a bibliography and index. The main objective of these comments is to establish a unambiguous definition of liberalism, then to develop the details and draw the consequences.

Risk of dogmatism and political issue

However, such an enterprise of unequivocal definition runs a significant risk: that of dogmatism, of the arbitrary reduction of a plurality of thoughts to a single ideology. Can we really circumscribe in a unified way a term whose meanings are so multiple? ? Can we unearth a common root in branches apparently as different as economic liberalism and political liberalism, classical liberalism and neoliberalism, rationalist liberalism and evolutionary liberalism, jusnaturalist liberalism and utilitarian liberalism, ordoliberalism and ultraliberalism, etc.? ? This risk of dogmatism can also be formulated, from a historical point of view, as a risk of anachronism. Is there not a retrospective illusion in wanting to identify a continuity of liberalism since the XVII^e century, while the term only made its debut in a vaguely defined way in the middle of the XIX^e century, and continues to remain imprecise until the beginning of XXI^e century ?

This double risk of dogmatism and anachronism has inspired a certain theoretical or methodological caution in many interpreters of liberalism. A. Laurent and V. Valentin are also fully aware of the problem, to which they devote insightful lines (p. 10, 12). But they are determined to take up the challenge of a unambiguous definition of liberalism because of the very stake that they have chosen to give to their work. This issue is not only theoretical, it is also and perhaps above all political. It is not only a question of advancing academic knowledge of liberalism, but also and above all of nourishing democratic debate in practice: “ The vitality of the democratic debate requires that a pure conception of liberalism be maintained, in the face of a pure conception of socialism. » (p. 87). Thus the definition of liberalism must be unambiguous in order to clarify political positions, and even to decide them in order to avoid consensual indifferentiation: “ Here lies the challenge of defining liberalism (…): refusing the impoverishment of the political debate by its confinement in a false ‘modern’ consensus (…), maintaining the originality of the liberal model of achieving freedom in order to guarantee the fruitfulness of its dialogue with the opposing tradition » (p. 27).

Definition of liberalism

So what is this unequivocal definition that is proposed to us? ? Let us present it in two successive formulations, one strictly conceptual and the other more historical.

The first consists of saying that liberalism is a conception of society for which individual freedom is “not not just an end but a means » (p. 27), is not only considered as “ a goal ” but “ as the best solution » (p. 28). This distinguishes liberalism from conceptions which do not have individual freedom as their end and which can aim, for example, at the collective freedom of the people. But this also distinguishes it, on the other hand, from conceptions which have individual freedom as an end but not as a means. While the latter rely on state intervention to help individuals become free, liberalism relies instead on voluntary cooperation, competition and pluralism in all types of social relations.

This first formulation can then be transposed into the framework of a historical interpretation of political modernity. If we concede that the latter is characterized by a program of promotion of human rights and democracy, then we can consider that the original liberalism historically posed the “ base » or the “ frame » (p. 17). But, subsequently, the progressive realization of this program could take the form of state intervention shaping society, and this is “ the path to socialism “, or of the free rein given to individual freedom, and it is “ the path of liberalism » (p. 26). From this perspective, liberalism appears both as “ the basis of modernity and one of its possible developments » (p. 17), this development consisting of “ an individualist interpretation of modernity » (p. 84) as opposed to a collectivist interpretation.

These two formulations are entirely consistent with each other. Liberalism as the basis of modernity poses individual freedom as an end, while liberalism as an interpretation of modernity poses individual freedom as a means. We are here in the presence of a univocal definition of liberalism, encompassing freedom of conscience, political freedom and economic freedom.

Liberalism and socialism, enemy brothers

The main consequence, indissolubly theoretical and political, that the authors draw from such an unequivocal definition, is to designate socialism as the enemy brother of liberalism. If communism or fascism are also its enemies, they do not belong at all to the same family of thought. Only socialism finds itself in a position of symmetrical opposite of liberalism, because they are two doctrines aiming at the same end but without using the same means, two ways of carrying out the program of modernity but interpreting it differently. Minimizing the opposition between liberalism and socialism would therefore deprive democracy of its most fruitful current debate: “ Considering them as a trivial divergence between friends would mean that once communist and fascist projects have been ruled out, no debate divides the democrats. This would obviously be a political absurdity and a theoretical impasse » (p. 23). In this sense, the greatest risk that threatens contemporary democratic debate is a “ single thought ” Who “ would weaken, even eliminate, in each of the two movements, what is the most original, the most essential, and also the most stimulating » (p. 87).

This is why, if the present anthology presents texts ranging from the most individualist fringe of liberalism (American libertarianism) to a version of the market economy demanding rules constitutionalized and guaranteed by the State (the German ordoliberalism), it makes it its duty to reject any attempt at a synthesis between liberalism and socialism. We will not find any text by John Rawls, nor by any other author who in the United States is called the liberals. Rawls and the latter are nothing other, according to this analysis, than partisans of “ reformist socialism » (p. 23), and the fact that they are given the label of liberalism can only be explained by an American vocabulary and cultural context which evolved very differently from those of Europe. Moreover, if we consider the characterization of liberalism given by one of the main introducers of Rawls in France, Catherine Audard, we will see to what extent the definition developed by A. Laurent and V. Valentin seems designed to oppose its category of “ social liberalism “. And it is even more that it seems designed to revoke the category of “ liberal socialism », proposed in particular by Monique Canto-Sperber to reform the non-Marxist left.

The work of A. Laurent and V. Valentin will perhaps put off those who are looking for a middle path between liberalism and socialism. But he can only attract the attention of both liberals and their adversaries, because he does everything to methodically organize their confrontation, by refusing with them what he disdainfully calls social-democratic single thought or false consensus. of modernity (p. 27). While liberalism is often accused of having the effect of depoliticizing society by replacing democratic deliberation with constitutional neutrality or market exchange, here is a proposal to use liberalism to, paradoxically, repoliticize the debates.