Let’s clear up the liberal mess

It appears there are as many liberalisms as there are liberals. To name just a few: libertarianism, classical liberalism, bleeding heart liberalism, economic liberalism, political liberalism, social liberalism, high liberalism, minarchism, objectivism, anarcho-capitalism, neoliberalism. And in international relations theory there is for example neoliberal institutionalism, liberal internationalism or embedded liberalism. Clearly this all amounts to a liberal mess. I attempt to sort it out in my forthcoming book Degrees of Freedom. Political Philosophy and Ideology (Transaction Publishers, April 2015).

Getting a decent grasp of liberal political thought does not have to be this complicated. You only need to keep in mind a perennial question in political philosophy: what is the just relation between the state and the individual? Roughly, there are three answers: the state should have (almost) no role in individual life, the state should have a limited role, or the state should have a fairly large role. The…