Getting the labels backward

              by Bradley R. Gitz   May 13, 2001

              A few years back, I happened to see a television
              interview with Nobel economics laureate Milton
              Friedman.
                  Asked to describe his ideological orientation,
              Friedman responded, "Libertarian," without a
              moment's hesitation. When asked to describe
              that of then-President Clinton, he responded
              equally quickly, "Socialist."
                  The interviewer was a bit taken aback, but probably
              shouldn't have been, for Friedman had hit the target with
              impeccable descriptive precision.
                  What the interviewer's pause also highlighted was the
              remarkable ideological confusion that characterizes American
              politics, a form of confusion which stems from our tendency
              to use political labels differently from, and incorrectly
              compared to, the rest of the world.
                  We didn't always have our understanding of basic
              ideological categories so backward. From the time of the
              American founding up until about the New Deal, Americans,
              as befits a people who created the world's "first liberal
              nation," used the term "liberal" pretty much the same way
              Europeans and others still do--to describe someone who
              believes in individual liberty, including property rights and
              free enterprise, through constitutionalism and limited
              government.
                  As the reader probably already noticed, someone who
              treasures such values above all others is much more likely to
              be called a conservative these days.
                  Conversely, those generally opposing such values, and
              emphasizing instead the expansion of governmental power as
              a means of curbing the social and economic inequalities that
              liberty causes, have somehow, in the American context at
              least, acquired the liberal label. One suspects that this has
              happened largely because the term that would be routinely
              and appropriately applied to one holding such views in other
              countries--"socialist," or at least "social democrat"--has
              always been something of an epithet in our own.
                  We should perhaps excuse those from abroad who
              experience difficulty in understanding American political
              terminology, including our tendency to call our liberals
              conservatives and our socialists liberals.
                  Genuine philosophical conservatism, that which extols
              tradition, hierarchy and privilege, has never been particularly
              relevant in the American context, and what little of it remains
              has been largely relegated to fringe strains of Southern
              agrarian populism and Confederate nostalgia.
                  The confusion only mounts when Americans of the left,
              i.e. socialists improperly labeled liberals, use the pejorative
              term "fascist" to attack those, generally liberals improperly
              labeled conservatives, who tend to resist their schemes. The
              use of the "fascist" label, connoting as it does worship of the
              state, state power and group identity, by people who tend to
              also worship the state, state power and group identity (albeit
              for different reasons) is always amusing.
                  And when such a term is used by such people with the
              specific intention of disparaging other people who cling to
              their liberal faith in limited government and individualism, the
              amusement both grows and alerts one to the existence of
              genuinely profound intellectual ignorance.
                  One would think that leftists caught using such terms to
              demonize the likes of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush
              might at least be entitled to a remedial course in political
              philosophy, one that would introduce them to the fact that the
              socialism they hold so dear has always had much more in
              common with fascism than either has ever shared with their
              great historical enemy, classical liberalism.
                  Such a crash course might also include some lectures on
              the "socialist" component in German "National Socialism";
              the socialist and syndicalist intellectual pedigree of Benito
              Mussolini and Italian fascism; and the remarkable structural
              similarities that developed between Hitler's fascist Third
              Reich and Stalin's socialist Soviet Union.
                  In terms of some more contemporary educational
              examples, they might even wish to take up the case of China,
              which has made a rather smooth and seamless transition
              (apart from that Tiananmen unpleasantness awhile back) from
              totalitarian socialism under Mao to a fairly traditional brand of
              authoritarian-bureaucratic fascism under his successors.
                  The probability that we will ever get our ideological labels
              straightened out, or at least make them somewhat more
              consistent with usage in other parts of the world, isn't very
              high, though. If anything, matters on this front seem to be
              getting worse, as if in fulfillment of Orwell's dictum that the
              corruption of the language comes before the corruption of all
              else.
                  After all, the people we now mistakenly call conservatives
              have largely, and out of frustration, given up their attempts to
              correct the record, while those we mistakenly call liberals are,
              given the world's rather dismal experience with socialism,
              quite content to be called something other than what they
              actually are.

                  Bradley R. Gitz teaches politics at Lyon College at
              Batesville.
 

              This article was published on Sunday, May 13, 2001
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette