I agree with you, but with caveats. There are plenty of liberals who are really democratic socialists, and they constitute a strong presence in the Democratic Party. Among them are Michael Walzer, Barbara Ehrenreich, and John Judis, all of whom have contributed regularly to The New Republic over the years. Some of them are strong anti- Communists (Communists are the real equivalent to Fascists), and some are fellow travellers, but all are politically liberal, and economically socialist in aspiration. However, a number of people who are not socialist also call themselves liberals. They are the Welfare Staters, more or less equivalent to the right wing of European Social Democratic parties, who understand that capitalism is the goose that lays the golden egg, but want more government involvement in handing out favors to the masses. There is a big confusion, at this point, because certain measures which socialists once espoused as incrementalist reforms are now integral parts of the Welfare State.
Now, on the conservative side, most conservatives are Safety Netters, that is, they think that government should have a limited role as insurer of last resort, as it were, to help the needy, but are hostile to increasing middle class entitlements. Moderates vacillate between a Welfare State model, and a Safety Net model of government. Then, of course, there are the libertarians, some pure, some not, who are iffy about the Safety Net, and want, at least, to be very restrictive about it....... |
