Talk:Liberal socialism

Mixed economy

The article states: "Liberal socialism fully supports a market economy". I think it would be more correct to state that is supports a mixed economy. Stating that it fully supports a market economy makes it seem that it is supportive of laissez-faire liberalism, which it is clearly not! --Oddeivind (talk) 05:24, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Request Deletion

This article doesn't have anything to do with socialism, it even explicitly says it does not wish to abolish capitalism right at the entry. This article should be split up among the Liberalism series and Social Democracy.

SpaceMilk (talk) 20:56, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Request Deletion

This is a bullshit article, this literally has nothing to do with socialism at all. Do the editors have any idea what they are talking about??? Everything here should be deleted or moved to the Social Democracy page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.141.132.96 (talk) 20:58, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

What is the difference between Liberal socialism and Social democracy?

This page mentions both welfare and socialism.

The two are not the same as the former is about social democracy and the latter about socialism in the sense of group ownership of production in the economy.

There seems to be confusion here. Is there actually such a thing as liberal socialism? --JamesPoulson (talk) 05:23, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

The article uses a reference that Hobhouse called his version of liberalism "liberal socialism." (It is not clear from Hobhouse's book that he did.) Whatever he called it, it is generally known as social liberalism. The rest of the article is about relatively liberal versions of socialism, whether or not the sources called them that. Unfortunately a poorly written AfD led to a speedy keep. TFD (talk) 06:24, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Ideologically speaking liberal socialism would be about applying liberal principles to a socialist economy. Am not sure that is possible as that may be antagonistic but the term may have been used in the past to mean something different.

Looked at references and the quote under the 5th reference says:

Liberal socialism, for example, is unequivocally in favour of the free market economy and of freedom of action for the individual and recognizes in legalistic and artificial monopolies the real evils of capitalism.

This does sound like social liberalism (in favour of liberal or free market principles) with the added wish of tempering the excesses of a market economy, such as with abusive monopolies, and is not socialist in any way unless one is using an umbrella term for anything "social".

Again, it does seem to be confusing many things and content may be able to go into other existing pages. --JamesPoulson (talk) 22:09, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

confusion with social-liberalism

Many references belong and are already mentioned in the social-liberalism article. A massive cleanup is required. I've added a misleading tag. --88.188.131.139 (talk) 08:59, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Please offer some examples. --Omnipaedista (talk) 03:45, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

Differences with social democracy

In the lead paragraph, this article states: " Liberal socialism has been compared to modern social democracy…" The article should have more details about the differences between the two ideologies because right now, it's not clear that they are not one and the same. Ezhao02 (talk) 14:35, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Ezhao02, they are two different yet related traditions. Social democracy goes back to 1860s Germany with the Lassalleans and especially the Marxists, including revolutionary socialists and communists, while liberal socialism goes back to John Stuart Mill. Another thing may be that liberal socialism is more open to market solutions. Davide King (talk) 21:54, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. Ezhao02 (talk) 00:56, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

The sentence that defines the topic is sourced to the Handbook of Political Theory which uses the term once and says in a footnote, "In his celebrated Liberalism (1994:87), Hobhouse calls his new liberalism 'Liberal Socialism.'"[1] This ideology however is more commonly called social liberalism and there is an article about it.

The lead then moves on to a definition taken from an introductory political science textbook by Ian Adams which defines the term to refer to the post-WW2 UK Labour Party. While nominally socialist, it fully embraced capitalism.[2]

Next is a book about Carlo Rosselli, who advocated a liberal socialism as an alternative to Stalinism.

The next source, Political Economy and the Labour Party: The Economics of Democratic Socialism, 1884–2005 (2nd ed.), uses the term to refer to the right-wing of the Labour Party in the late 1970s that advocated a more free market direction for the party.

That's clearly four distinct topics that have been mixed together. I suggest we merge the article into Social Liberalism.

TFD (talk) 03:05, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

The Four Deuces, I thought their relationship was more like Conservative liberalism and Liberal conservatism, with liberal socialism representing socialists influenced by liberalism and social liberals representing liberals influenced by social democracy or the left-wing of liberalism. Davide King (talk) 15:12, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

In that case social liberalism would be a form of liberalism that adopted social policies while liberal socialism would be a form of socialism that adopted liberal policies. If so, we should remove reference to Mill and Hobhouse, since they were social liberals. The problem with the second definition though is that "liberal" has several different meanings. It can mean pro-capitalism {social democracy}, pro-extreme capitalism (Third Way) or kinder, gentler (socialism with a human face). The examples are post-WW2 Labour, Blairism and the Prague Spring. But we already have articles on those concepts and they are rarely called liberal socialism. TFD (talk) 15:50, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

We should not remove references to Hobhouse and Mill; they are cited as being influential on liberal socialism, not being liberal-socialists themselves. – neither were social-liberals either despite equally influencing the ideology of social liberalism.--Autospark (talk) 15:55, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

The source used in this article says, "In his celebrated Liberalism (1994:87), Hobhouse calls his new liberalism 'Liberal Socialism.'"[3] If you think the source is wrong, that Hobhouse did not consider himself a "liberal socialist" and the liberal socialism is something different from "new liberalism," then please provide another source. TFD (talk) 18:09, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Hobhouse doesn't say that. "Liberal Socialism" doesn't even appear on page 87 of the 1994 edition of Liberalism, which I have beside me as I type. On page 55 he says, of John Stuart Mill " In middle life voluntary cooperation appeared to him the best means to this end, but towards the close he recognized that his change of views was such as, on the whole, to rank him with the Socialists, and the brief exposition of the Socialist ideal given in his Autobiography remains perhaps the best summary statement of Liberal Socialism that we possess", and on page 80 he says "But a word like Socialism has many meanings, and it is possible that there should be a Liberal Socialism, as well as a Socialism that is illiberal", and on page 83 he says "If, then, there be such a thing as a Liberal Socialism — and whether there be is still a subject for inquiry — it must clearly fulfil two conditions. In the first place, it must be democratic". So no, Hobhouse, in his celebrated Liberalism did not call himself or his new liberalism 'Liberal Socialism'. DuncanHill (talk) 13:10, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Unattributed quotation

The quote-marked phrase in the following line, if not a quotation from a specific source, is in scare quotes that should be deleted. Or if it is an actual quotation, it should be attributed: “While some socialists have been hostile to liberalism, accused of ‘providing an ideological cover for the depredation of capitalism’ . . . “

Also of note here, the grammar is dodgy: The referent of ”accused” is ambiguous (“which they accuse” would be better), and “the depredation” is dubious, perhaps a typo for “the depredations.” 74.75.123.81 (talk) 13:18, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Notes

There's a section marked "Notes" with numbers then reflinks and then quotations. It is unclear what the numbers mean, and what text these notes are meant to support. DuncanHill (talk) 12:48, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

I've removed them. It looks like someone "tidied" up some references a few years ago and managed to detach quotations from the references they were part of. Since then reference numbers have changed, and some references have been replaced by others. Now the section added nothing useful and merely served to confuse the reader. DuncanHill (talk) 12:57, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Mutualism

Sorry if I'm misunderstanding something but Proudhon advocated for the abolition of private property and the state (i.e. mutualism) which seems to contradict liberal socialism. Most definitions of liberal socialism I've heard of describe it as supporting state interventionism and at the very least maintaining a 'liberal democracy', both of which require a strong state unlike Proudhon's mutualism. The article itself describes liberal socialism as "refus[ing] to abolish capitalism with a socialist economy and support[ing] a mixed economy that includes both social ownership and private property in capital goods". Proudhon strongly advocated for the complete abolition of capitalism and private property. It's important to add that including personal property within that definition of liberal socialism would greatly expand the scope of the article, considering many socialists that are rarely called liberal socialists made similar distinctions ("The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property", The Communist Manifesto) ("The revolution abolishes private ownership of the means of production and distribution, and with it goes capitalistic business. Personal possession remains only in the things you use. Thus, your watch is your own, but the watch factory belongs to the people", The ABCs of Communist Anarchism). Including any socialists opposed to the state or private property on this list seems a bit contradictory so I propose they be removed if that makes sense. AethyrX (talk) 22:56, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

@AethyrX: You may be interested in reading one of the cited sources, Proudhon, the First Liberal Socialist by Monique Canto-Sperber. It discusses how Proudhon's ideas influenced liberal socialism, but also how "many themes of liberal socialism do not adhere to the Proudhonian line of thought and even call it into question." Iain McKay also mentions how his different usage of the terms 'state' and 'government' throughout his ouvre "rais[ed] the possibility that he moved from libertarian to liberal socialism."

Proudhon's connection to liberal socialism is also discussed by Dale 2016 and Vincent 1984, although it appears many of the other cited sources (Boyle 1912, Gray 1963, Guérin 2006, Hargreaves 2019, Proudhon 1989) never verifiably reference "liberal socialism" in relation to Proudhon or even at all. I've gone ahead and removed that latter sources and content cited to them, as they're clearly irrelevant to the subject of this article.

Proudhon himself is definitely relevant to this article, but the section about him could probably do with some work to clarify this. --Grnrchst (talk) 12:44, 20 July 2024 (UTC)