In some places (notably the United States), “liberal” means “politically left”, which in turn pretty much refers to a package of political views held by those who oppose the “conservative” or “politically right”.
In other places, “liberal” retains its original association with concern for liberty, and is comparable to the American use of “Libertarian”.
This mostly happened for arbitrary historical reasons, but the easiest way to attach a story to it is as follows:
During the English Civil War and the French Revolution, those in support of popular rule (liberty/equality) were called “Liberals” and those in support of rule by the monarchy were called “Conservatives”. The French setup had the liberals sitting on the left and conservatives sitting on the right, thus creating the basis for the “spectrum” between left and right views. Of course, the common meanings of “conservative” and “liberal” were already in opposition (“he is liberal” means “he is free [with …]”) and so even when the “conservative” political view no longer referred to supporters of the monarchy, the “liberal” view was simply whatever opposed them.
Someone who insists political parties in the US have anything to do with ideology rather than simply being a combination of coalition and accident, might characterize modern “conservative” and “liberal” as representing the battle between “liberty” versus “equality” (respectively, ironically).
In other places, “liberal” retains its original association with concern for liberty, and is comparable to the American use of “Libertarian”.
I don’t really want to get into a mindkilling debate about this here, but is at least worth noting that some modern US liberalsdispute the libertarians’ claim to be the heirs to classical liberalism.
IIRC, liberalism itself has different meanings on the two sides of the Atlantic, even though I can’t remember what either of them was.
In some places (notably the United States), “liberal” means “politically left”, which in turn pretty much refers to a package of political views held by those who oppose the “conservative” or “politically right”.
In other places, “liberal” retains its original association with concern for liberty, and is comparable to the American use of “Libertarian”.
This mostly happened for arbitrary historical reasons, but the easiest way to attach a story to it is as follows:
During the English Civil War and the French Revolution, those in support of popular rule (liberty/equality) were called “Liberals” and those in support of rule by the monarchy were called “Conservatives”. The French setup had the liberals sitting on the left and conservatives sitting on the right, thus creating the basis for the “spectrum” between left and right views. Of course, the common meanings of “conservative” and “liberal” were already in opposition (“he is liberal” means “he is free [with …]”) and so even when the “conservative” political view no longer referred to supporters of the monarchy, the “liberal” view was simply whatever opposed them.
Someone who insists political parties in the US have anything to do with ideology rather than simply being a combination of coalition and accident, might characterize modern “conservative” and “liberal” as representing the battle between “liberty” versus “equality” (respectively, ironically).
I don’t really want to get into a mindkilling debate about this here, but is at least worth noting that some modern US liberals dispute the libertarians’ claim to be the heirs to classical liberalism.
That’s an odd claim. All the capitalist libertarians I know are Lockeans, and are well aware of those sorts of constraints.