Communism probably also provides intellectual resources that would enable you to condemn most of the many very bad things communists have done, but that doesn’t mean that those outcomes aren’t relevant to assessing how good an idea communism is in practice.
But much less clearly so than classical liberalism. Communism lacks any clear rejection of violence, provides no robust mechanism for resolving disagreements or conflicts, and doesn’t advocate for universal individual rights. Lenin, one of its most influential theorists, explicitly advocated for a “desperate, bloody war of extermination”.
So it’s no surprise that communism almost always led to disaster and essentially never to a prosperous, flourishing society, in contrast to classical liberalism, which much more rarely led to disaster and much more often to flourishing.
Less clearly, sure. I’m mostly warning about complacency about liberals being safe from error just because you can use liberal ideas to criticize bad things liberals have done, rather than defending communism. Certainly lots of communists have, for example, attacked Stalinism in communist terms.
I don’t really understand why liberalism is getting the prefix “classical” here though. The distinction between “classical” and other forms of liberalism, like social liberalism, is more about levels of government support for the poor through the welfare state and just how strong a presumption we should have in favour of market solutions vs government ones, with agreement on secularism, individual human rights, free speech, pluralism, a non-zero sum conception of markets and trade etc. I also think that insofar as “liberals” have an unusually good record, this doesn’t distinguish “liberals” in the narrow sense from other pro-democratic traditions that accept pluralism: i.e. European social democracy on the left, and European Christian democracy, and Anglosphere mainstream conservatism 1965-2015 on the right. If anything classical liberals might have a worse record than many of these groups, because I think classical liberal ideas were used in the 19th century by the British Empire to justify not doing anything about major famines. Of course there is a broad sense of liberal in which all these people are “liberals” too, and they may well have been influenced by classical liberalism. But they aren’t necessarily on the same side as classical liberals in typical policy debates.
I’m mostly warning about complacency about liberals being safe from error
I can certainly agree with that. :)
I don’t really understand why liberalism is getting the prefix “classical” here though.
Mostly to reduce the chance of misinterpretation. In the US, “liberal” is often used interchangeably with something like “leftist”, “Democrat”, or “progressive”, and I wanted to make clear that I don’t want any of these connotations. I also wanted to emphasize the core principles of liberalism, and avoid getting bogged down in specific policy debates.
But much less clearly so than classical liberalism. Communism lacks any clear rejection of violence, provides no robust mechanism for resolving disagreements or conflicts, and doesn’t advocate for universal individual rights. Lenin, one of its most influential theorists, explicitly advocated for a “desperate, bloody war of extermination”.
So it’s no surprise that communism almost always led to disaster and essentially never to a prosperous, flourishing society, in contrast to classical liberalism, which much more rarely led to disaster and much more often to flourishing.
Less clearly, sure. I’m mostly warning about complacency about liberals being safe from error just because you can use liberal ideas to criticize bad things liberals have done, rather than defending communism. Certainly lots of communists have, for example, attacked Stalinism in communist terms.
I don’t really understand why liberalism is getting the prefix “classical” here though. The distinction between “classical” and other forms of liberalism, like social liberalism, is more about levels of government support for the poor through the welfare state and just how strong a presumption we should have in favour of market solutions vs government ones, with agreement on secularism, individual human rights, free speech, pluralism, a non-zero sum conception of markets and trade etc. I also think that insofar as “liberals” have an unusually good record, this doesn’t distinguish “liberals” in the narrow sense from other pro-democratic traditions that accept pluralism: i.e. European social democracy on the left, and European Christian democracy, and Anglosphere mainstream conservatism 1965-2015 on the right. If anything classical liberals might have a worse record than many of these groups, because I think classical liberal ideas were used in the 19th century by the British Empire to justify not doing anything about major famines. Of course there is a broad sense of liberal in which all these people are “liberals” too, and they may well have been influenced by classical liberalism. But they aren’t necessarily on the same side as classical liberals in typical policy debates.
I can certainly agree with that. :)
Mostly to reduce the chance of misinterpretation. In the US, “liberal” is often used interchangeably with something like “leftist”, “Democrat”, or “progressive”, and I wanted to make clear that I don’t want any of these connotations. I also wanted to emphasize the core principles of liberalism, and avoid getting bogged down in specific policy debates.