Liberal = Left?

[Scott Sadowsky]

On 3/19/2002 14:42, James A. Landau wrote the following:

>Ever since the left wing/right wing political metaphor came into existence
>in the First French Republic, "liberals" (with or without the capital "L")
>have usually been considered a subset of the Left.
>Has anyone else observed "economic liberal" or "liberal" meaning advocate
>of privatizing industry, cutting taxes, etc?

FWIW, this meaning has existed in Spanish for some time now.  However, its
semantic competition is not "liberal" in the sense of moderately
left-leaning, which does not exist in any Spanish dialect I am familiar
with, but rather the "liberal" of the "Liberal Party" which is or has been
a feature of many Latin American countries over the last two centuries.

In the case of such parties, the use of the word "liberal" seems to have
come about in simple opposition to the rival "conservative" parties that
they competed with.  It denotes neither leftist politics (both sets of
parties represented the interests of the ruling oligarchy) nor neo-liberal
economics (which it predates).

The reason I mention this is that I strongly suspect that the Spanish
"liberal" with the meaning "pro-privatization", "pro-free market", etc., is
a borrowing from English (in Spanish, "liberal" and "neoliberal" are in
competition as terms for referring to this ideology).  And I'm will to bet
that it was introduced by the hordes of young Latin American economists who
did their graduate and post-grad studies in the US, frequently at the
University of Chicago, but also at Harvard and other Ivy League schools.

In the 1970s, these economists teamed up with many Latin American dictators
(Chile's Pinochet being the first) who, not having the slightest clue about
economics, virtually ceded their countries' economic policies to them (in
Chile, incidentally, they are known as the "Chicago Boys").  Since they had
virtually unrestricted power, and made use of the apparatus of the state to
crush or exterminate opponents to their policies (typically people reduced
to abject poverty by them), their influence has been profound and
long-lasting, and much of their jargon has become part of every-day
educated speech.

So my guess is that this meaning of "liberal" in English filtered down from
US economists' usage to the general public.  The fact that Friedman uses
the term thusly seems to reinforce this idea.

Cheers,
Scott

_____________________________________________________________
Scott Sadowsky  --  Spanish-English / English-Spanish Translator

sadowsky at spanishtranslator.org · sadowsky at bigfoot.com
http://www.spanishtranslator.org
_____________________________________________________________
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