Classical Liberalism Reconsidered: A Symposium

to mark the publication of a new edition of Liberalism by Ludwig von Mises FEE is pleased to announce a new publication of Liberalism: In the Classical Tradition by Ludwig von Mises. It is an important book, worthy of serious consideration in various aspects. We asked several authors to comment on different facets of classical liberalism. The result is the symposium which follows. The new edition of Mises' Liberalism is now available from FEE, in attractive paperback, at $9.95. For order details see page 683. 667 668 THE FREEMAN November The Meaning of Liberalism from the new preface by Bettina Bien Greaves THE TERM "liberalism," from the Latin "liber" meaning "free," re ferred originally to the philosophy of freedom. It still retained this mean ing in Europe when this book was written (1927) so that readers who opened its covers expected an analy sis of the freedom philosophy of clas sicalliberalism. Unfortunately, how ever, in recent decades, "liberalism"

has come to mean something very dif ferent. The word has been taken over, especially in the United States, by philosophical socialists and used by them to refer to their government in tervention and "welfare state" pro grams .... This view of liberalism was so prev alent in 1962, when the English translation ofthis book appeared, that Mises believed then that to translate literally the original title, Liberalis mus, would be too confusing. So he called the English version The Free and Prosperous Commonwealth. By the following year, however, Mises had decided that the advocates offreedom and free markets should not re linquish "liberalism" to the philo sophical socialists. In the Prefaces of both the second (1963)and third (1966) editions of his magnum opus, Human Action, Mises wrote that the advo cates ofthe freedom philosophy should reclaim "the term 'liberal' . . . be cause there is simply no other term available to signify the great political and intellectuai movement" that ush ered in modem civilization by foster ing the free market economy, limited government and individual freedom.

It is in this sense that "liberalism" is used throughout this book.... In Liberalism Mises not only offers brief explanations ofmany important economic phenomena, but he also pre sents, more explicitly than in any of his other books, his views on govern ment and its very limited but essen tial role in preserving social coopera tion under which the free market can function. Mises' views still appear fresh and modern and readers will find his analysis pertinent .... In fact, the only hope of keeping the world from plunging still further into international chaos and conflict is to convince the people to abandon gov ernment intervention and adopt lib eral policies. ~ Mrs. Greaves, a member of FEE's Senior Staff, attended Mises' NYU Seminar for many years. She is also the translator ofthe Mises works included in On the Manip ulation ofMoney and Credit.