Jacob T. Levy a1 a1 Political Science, University of Chicago
For most of the century and a half that began roughly with the
later works of John Stuart Mill, the most important divide within
liberal political thought was that between classical (or market, or
libertarian) liberalism and welfare (or new, or redistributionist)
liberalism. The questions that were important to the socialist/liberal
debate also became important for debates within liberalism: What is
the relationship between property and freedom? Between free
trade and freedom? Is freedom of commercial activity on a moral
par with other sorts of freedom? Is the alleviation of poverty
or material need a more important political goal than freedom?
How do freedom and equality fit together in a liberal understanding
of justice? What degree of state economic planning, or state
taxation and expenditure, is compatible with liberal freedom?
