LIBERAL VALUES AND SOCIALIST VALUES

Anthony Arblaster

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THE question of the relation of socialism to liberalism can hardly be regarded as a matter of purely academic, or even of purely theoretical, interest. It crops up in the daily experience of socialists in many parts of the world. At the verbal level we find that the word “liberal” is used by many people on the Left as a term of dismissal, abuse or criticism, as it is also by demagogues of the Right, such as America’s Vice-President Agnew. Liberal attitudes, liberal causes and policies are implicitly contrasted with their radical or socialist opposites. ”~iberalism’; has become a dirty word on the Left, and it is not hard to see the reasons whv. Most Western liberals. for example, were happy to accept the identification of liberalism with anti-Communism, and this sleight-of-hand led not only to such miserable episodes as the failure of so many of them to resist the h4ccarthyi& attacks on intellectual and political freedom, but also to the major tragedy of the extended American war on Vietnam…

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