American Liberalism: An Interpretation for Our Time

H. Eugene and Lillian Youngs Lehman Series

by John McGowan

Americans live in a liberal democracy. Yet, although democracy is widely touted today, liberalism is scorned by both the right and the left. The United States stands poised between its liberal democratic tradition and the illiberal alternatives of liberalism's critics. John McGowan argues that Americans should think twice before jettisoning the liberalism that guided American politics from James Madison to the New Deal and the Great Society.

In an engaging and informative discussion, McGowan offers a ringing endorsement of American liberalism's basic principles, values, and commitments. He identifies five tenets of a commitment to liberty and equality, trust in a constitutionally established rule of law, a conviction that modern societies are irreducibly plural, the promotion of a diverse civil society, and a reliance on public debate and deliberation to influence others' opinions and actions.

McGowan explains how America's founders rejected the simplistic notion that government or society is necessarily oppressive. They were, however, acutely aware of the danger of tyranny. The liberalism of the founders distributed power widely in order to limit the power any one entity could exercise over others. Their aim was to provide for all an effective freedom that combined the right to self-determination with the ability to achieve one's self-chosen goals. In tracing this history, McGowan offers a clear vision of liberalism's foundational values as America's best guarantee today of liberty and the peace in which to exercise it.

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What are the basic values and commitments of American liberals? John McGowan sets out to answer that question in this lively and provocative book. Tracing a tradition that extends from James Madison through Franklin Delano Roosevelt to today, McGowan emphasizes liberalism's distribution of power throughout society in order to secure freedom and equality. Liberals locate the effort to achieve legal, political, and social equality as central to securing a just and stable society. They also insist that only an "effective" freedom that includes the capacity to achieve one's self-chosen goals deserves the name of liberty. By presenting the history of the much-contested values of freedom, equality, and social justice, McGowan offers a clear vision of liberalism's ambitious and inspiring vision for these United States.
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Genres: Politics

288 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2007

Reviews

[Tovis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit dry as expected but incredibly interesting.

[Mary Ronan Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally! A serious book by a liberal about liberalism. McGowan has read the conservative theorists (Kirk, Hayek, etc), explains their viewpoints fairly, then counters them with the liberal argument.

I might have given the book five stars except for the strong emphasis the author puts on the difficulty of changing Washington and the tiny number of incumpents who lose in most elections. The book was published in 2007 and was apparently being written before the 2006 election because 2006, 2008, and especially 2010 were "wave" elections. Large numbers of incumbents lost their seats in those years, so one of his major points is no longer valid - especially after 2010.

This is a "popular" book but it's published by the University of North Carolina press and is not easy going. I'm willing to bet the author has had a rigorous classical education because the book is so well structured and his paragraphs are sublime. (The English teacher in me approves. He is, by the way, not a political scientist but an English teacher at Chapel Hill.)

The introduction and conclusion are models of their kind. McGowan writes that the difference between liberals and conservatives comes down to this: liberals favor equality and conservatives favor inequality. Depending on how you define these terms (and he does define his terms), this is a valid point. Liberals want the government to redistribute wealth and power. Conservatives point out that such attempts in the past(think Communism) have led to deeper inequality and to bloodshed. Never has there been nor will there ever be real equality of outcome and democracy and capitalism are historically the fairest means of apportioning "goods."

The appendices have valuable statistics that show what both liberals and conservatives can agree are problems. The ratio of employee to CEO pay in the US is 475:1, vs Japan where it's 12:1. There is a large and increasing disparity of income in the US. Skyrocketing campaign costs and increase in lobbying are not good.

Ultimately McGowan makes the claim that liberals are the party in favor of less government, not the conservatives. But all of his solutions to social problems (and he sees many things that conservatives do not think are problems at all) are solved by government intervention in the society and the economy. He doesn't seem to recognize that increased government regulation means larger government and that government taking over things like health care and transportation produce larger government. I thought that was a bit amusing.

But aside from a few holes in his argument McGowan describes the liberal and conservative approaches to politics and economics without raising his voice. His arguments are sometimes based on sentimentality rather than logic and historical evidence, but this is a fair and balanced book.

[Dave Pier]

I found this book really convincing. In leftist academia, where I am situated, "liberal" is often used as a epithet, same as on the right. This has become even more the case with the rise of the term "neoliberalism." I have kind of gone along with this, without questioning my own thoughts about what liberalism actually means, and what the alternatives might be. In the end, I'm inclined to think that many leftist supposed attacks on "liberalism" itself, are actually attacks on failures to meet liberalism's ideals, and would better be phrased as such. My one wish is that this book had dealt more with the leftist arguments, rather than the ones from the right, which seem too easy to dispatch.