Thursday, January 27, 2011

The liberal challenge

There's been a (quite modest) discussion in Sweden regarding liberalism, and about who carries the liberal legacy, between representatives of the "traditional" liberal party (folkpartiet) and the socio-liberal green party (miljöpartiet). What stuck out to me was the question of whether state-owned businesses can be defended from a liberal point of view. Without actively labelling myself a "liberal" (although I guess in some ways I am) I would argue that the traditional view, that this is impossible, is flat-out wrong. Furthermore, it goes to show how the traditional view of liberalism is not just misguided, it is also highly conservative.