If I Call You a Liberal

If I call you a liberal, I mean it in a specific sense.  Not to mean that you belong to a capital L political party, nor, as those on the American right do, to mean that you are somewhere to the left of wherever the speaker stands, nor do I mean that you are generous in some way.

Rather, I use it to mean that your position ignores the structural issues in the problem being discussed.  I use it to mean that you are seeing the problem in terms of individual behaviour rather than social construction.  I use it to mean you are missing some important systemic formation, such as class. Usually class.

For example, if you are complaining of media bias but are seeing that bias in terms of the individual behaviour of individual journalists, then your approach is liberal.  Here, Ed Herman explains why he and Chomsky believe a structural explanation is the one that’s needed. 

The liberal limits ideas to individual behaviour.  The liberal thinks that in order to free the media from bias, all that is needed is for individuals to behave better, more morally, more fairly.  While these aims may in themselves be laudable, they will have limited effect, as the structures will not have been tackled.  The liberal’s ideas therefore lack rigour.  If I call you liberal, I am saying your analysis lacks rigour.

This limiting lack of rigour defines the liberal response to the ills of capitalism for a reason.  Liberalism became a political expression of the capitalist class.  It offers a lack of rigour because it doesn’t want to overturn the privilege of the elite.  It limits the debate to a discussion of individual morality, because that way change itself is limited. Liberalism offers individual guilt that change has not come fast enough, but it does not offer real change.

If I call you a liberal, I don’t mean it as a compliment.