What are the different kinds of Liberal?

[Knives]

What are they!?

[H. Ross Peron]

Theological or political?

[Knives]

Theological or political?

Politically.

[The Mikado]

...This could easily be a 10-15 page essay.

[Knives]

Better get cracking.

[H. Ross Peron]

Classical liberal-The oldest variety of liberalism supporting limited government in both social and economic matters. Some overlap with libertarianism, although classical liberals weren't as passionately anti-state as libertarians are to-day.
Conservative liberal-Offshoot of classical liberalism that is more amenable to government welfare programs and regulations but still generally support free-market policies. A good example is the German Free Democratic Party.
Neoliberal-Similar to conservative liberalism but far more vigourous in cutting spending and deregulating. Good examples include Thatcher in England, and Reagan in the USA.
Social liberal-Liberals who strong a strong hand of government in the economy and an extensive welfare state while still supporting liberty in personal matters. The ideology of the Democratic Party.

[The Mikado]

This is all a gross oversimplification for space.

Liberalism has its earliest philosophic roots with thinkers like John Locke and his Enlightenment heirs who believed that mankind had an unlimited set of rights from birth in the state of nature and surrendered certain rights to live in society (the social contact) and that governments only had the legitimate ability to restrict rights that infringed upon others (my "right" to murder you infringes on your right to live).  Philosophers like Rousseau elaborated on Locke's social contract and propounded a doctrine that government should be based on consent of the governed rather than divine right.  This dovetailed nicely with the lessons of England's 1688 "Glorious Revolution," a rejection of Stuart Absolutism, which culminated in the English Bill of Rights.  (This is a very positive view of these events, which were actually far more complicated and ambiguous, but I'm skimming).  Enlightenment projects like Cesare Beccaria's campaign to ban torture dovetailed nicely with this viewpoint.  Radical attempts by thinkers like Mary Woolstonecraft and Olympe de Gouges to lay claim to the liberal intellectual tradition in favor of equality for women met sharp ends (literally in Olympe de Gouges' case).  Against this doctrine, Edmund Burke would lay down his theory that rather than illusory fundamental rights, people should look towards their privileges granted in a murky medieval past and attempt to revive ancient privileges rather than destroy the order of society around them: Burke's reaction to the French Revolution was the founding of intellectual conservatism.

In the late 18th century, the followers of Adam Smith rejected the Mercantilist economic dogma that had dominated the 18th century.  Smith rejected the idea that there was a finite amount of wealth in the world and that economics was a zero-sum game of trying to amass the most gold bullion into your own treasury in favor of the idea that trade and mutual competitive advantage could leave both parties richer.  Smith's free-trade economic dogma, refined by David Ricardo in the early 19th century, merged with the political ideas of the Social Contract Theory to form the Classical Liberalism package: free markets and free men.  Jeremy Bentham and James and John Stuart Mill furthered the intellectual side of Liberalism into a new doctrine called "Philosophic Radicalism" which merged Liberalism's tenets with Bentham's moral philosophy of Utilitarianism, seeking the greatest good for the greatest number.  Philosophic Radicalism, at its worst, embraced a Malthusian disregard and contempt for the poor (Social Darwinism) and the notion that any recreational activity for the poor should be balanced with pain to encourage hard work in that group.  All the same, Mill advocated for religious tolerance and extension of political rights and female emancipation.

In most of Europe, Liberalism aped its British form, arguing for free trade and lassiez faire capitalism and against the privileges of the traditional aristocracy.  It had great appeal among the rising bourgeois orders and its promise of extended political rights appealed somewhat to the masses, but the rise of Social Democratic parties in the late 19th century came mostly at the expense of Liberalism's support among the working classes, and Conservatives also rapidly adapted to mass politics and did not suffer nearly as much from the increasing democratization of politics as Liberalism's (and Socialism's) partisans had assumed.

In the USA, Liberalism originally mostly shared that definition.  The word was associated with abolitionists and free traders alike (movements like the Free Soil Party, with its claims of Free Trade, Free Land, and Free Soil being as Liberal as a platform could get).  In the post-Civil War era, as the GOP embraced Protectionism, the Democratic Party, despite being opposed to many other tenets of Liberalism, fully embraced Free Trade and became associated with Liberalism as a result.  When Woodrow Wilson was elected president, he was a self-proclaimed liberal who was a firm believer in free trade, but was also a believer in massive government reform projects including the foundation of a central banking system.  Franklin Roosevelt took the word liberal with him when he assumed the Presidency, and it's under his administration, that greatly increased the size of the Federal government, that made it what it is today in the USA.  Liberalism became a light form of social democracy in the USA as a result of the "liberal" Roosevelt being a light social democrat and leaving such a huge imprint on American politics.

In Europe, the aftermath of World War I and the subsequent Depression had left lassiez faire economics and the liberal political order both borderline discredited, as solutions relying more on planned economies and dictatorial fiat became more and more attractive.  Even in Britain, the Liberal Party nearly died in the 1920s as its nature of being "Conservatives but anti-tariff" simply wasn't enough to maintain broad popular support outside of a few minor demographics.  Until the 1980s (when it was reborn as neo-liberalism), the lassiez-faire liberal idea in Europe made way in the democratic ideological scene for social democracy on the left and a heavily government-oriented Christian Democratic/Gaullist ideal on the right.

In the USA, the turmoil of the 1960s on race and the war in Vietnam left the traditional liberal political class, with their faith in the government's ability to solve any economic or social problem, seriously discredited.  Many in the liberal government class like Daniel Patrick Moynihan embraced the social ideals of conservatism without losing their faith in government as a major transformative actor and agent for their ideals: they would be the pioneers of "neoconservatism" (a word that's since been majorly trashed...Moynihan wouldn't embrace that label today if he were still alive).

Neoliberalism, arising in both Europe and the USA, was a reaction to the Keynesian consensus and argued that the most deregulated and unfettered global economy would be the most productive one.  Following the collapse of the USSR, neoliberal economists had disastrous spells as advisers in several Eastern Bloc countries, overseeing the firesale divestment of those states' huge public sectors and the creation of bandit billionaires all over the former Communist Bloc.

[Mr. Morden]

Neoliberal-Similar to conservative liberalism but far more vigourous in cutting spending and deregulating. Good examples include Thatcher in England, and Reagan in the USA.

That's the so-called European definition of neoliberalism, as a description of what in the American context is right wing economic policies.

There's a completely separate use of the term "neoliberalism" in the American political context, which isn't used much anymore, but was very big in the 80s, and is meant to describe a strand of politics within the Democratic Party that was trying to take something of a "fresh approach" to New Deal liberalism, that shaved off some of the rough edges and made it less beholden to individual interest groups within the party.  Within the context of the intramural fights within the Dem. Party in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, "neoliberalism" under this definition came to describe the "wine track" candidates like Gary Hart and Paul Tsongas, in contrast to the "beer track" candidates, who would appeal more to blue collar workers.  It also described the views of many of the writers at The New Republic and The Washington Monthly, and there was a famous Charles Peters essay in The Washington Monthly titled "A Neoliberal's Manifesto":

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/1983/8305_Neoliberalism.pdf

Mickey Kaus also tries to explain what the American definition of "neoliberal" means here:

http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/1127?in=50:55&out=52:55

though whether it ever really had a coherent definition is debatable.  (More on its incoherence here: http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/1126?in=34:31&out=38:40 )

But then "neoconservative" is also a fairly incoherent term, so there you go.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Liberalism as a coherent ideology clearly attached to a political movement died on the 28th of June 1914, but liberalism in a looser and more diffuse sense survived, but continued to develop and fragment in different ways in different places.

[Mr.Bakari-Sellers]

Secularism found in most western governments, supporting programs offer assistance to needy. Marx found in communist and the Eastern Europe government. Persons that are needy totally need govt support. But are subject to dictators. Everyone is on a level playing field. In us minorities tend to fall into Marx, underprivileged.

[LastVoter]

Classical liberal-The oldest variety of liberalism supporting limited government in both social and economic matters. Some overlap with libertarianism, although classical liberals weren't as passionately anti-state as libertarians are to-day.
Conservative liberal-Offshoot of classical liberalism that is more amenable to government welfare programs and regulations but still generally support free-market policies. A good example is the German Free Democratic Party.
Neoliberal-Similar to conservative liberalism but far more vigourous in cutting spending and deregulating. Good examples include Thatcher in England, and Reagan in the USA.
Social liberal-Liberals who strong a strong hand of government in the economy and an extensive welfare state while still supporting liberty in personal matters. The ideology of the Democratic Party.

Joke Poster?

[barfbag]

Without getting into a 10 page term paper, one is a contemporary term and another is classical.

Liberal- basically what we consider to be Libertarian in 21st century American politics
liberal- one who holds a big government involvement in the private sector of the economy