Tuesday 2 May 2006

Machan attacks Galbraith's obit writers about the 'l' word

Tibor Machan takes issue with many of yesterday's obituaries of John Keneth Galbraith, including mine. "None of the obituaries made any mention of Galbraith the socialist. Instead every one I read called him a liberal. Why?" asks Tibor, who explains that modern liberals are those for whom
it became kosher to say that someone who wants the government to steal from Peter to enable Paul to get rid of his headache or buy a home is, well, a liberal, a supporter of a certain sort of liberty or freedom, very different from what used to be meant by “liberal.” All sorts of statists jumped at the chance to call themselves liberals henceforth, thus eschewing the dirty word “socialist” which came to be associated with dictatorial regimes such as the Soviet Union.

...these liberals, including Galbraith, advocated massive government intervention into the lives of citizens, with the delusional belief in how pure of heart and bright of mind politicians and bureaucrats are, in comparison to you and me and the rest of us simple and mean blokes doing work in markets. Not one of the obituaries, however, pointed this out about Galbraith but made him out to be a grand champion of human liberty, an unqualified liberal!
Well, at least that lets my own obituary out of Tibor's firing line. Read on here.

LINKS: Galbraith's obituary distortions - Tibor Machan, SOLO Passion
Death of big-government liberal economist John Kenneth Galbraith - Peter Cresswell

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TAGS: Economics, History-Twentieth_Century, Obituary, Socialism

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Indeed. I always make a point of correcting Leighton Smith and/or his callers when he/they refer to lefties as 'liberals'.

And I continue to do so even though he routinely responds that the word is now associated with the left whether I like it or not.

My point is that if the meaning changed (or was hijacked) in the first place, then the process can be reversed - with perseverance.