In defense of a liberal agenda By RONALD MEINARDUS MANILA

In defense of a liberal agenda

By RONALD MEINARDUS

MANILA -- Today, hardly another political term is as misapprehended and misrepresented as is "liberal." A case in point is the United States in the runup to the presidential elections. For partisan reasons, the Republicans and the so-called neoconservatives have gone on a rampage to discredit liberalism. If you listen to President George W. Bush's campaign speeches, you get the impression that "liberal" is a four-letter-word.

The absurdity of this political onslaught becomes apparent when the conservatives portray themselves as the champions of freedom, thereby usurping the very basic ideological concept liberals invented some three centuries ago and have fought for ever since. Liberalism started out as a set of ideas and principles that influenced political movements and governments, and eventually transformed societies and their constitutional orders more or less everywhere in the world.

In historical terms, the great liberal achievements have been the spread of democracy, the establishment of the rule of law, the respect for human rights and the expansion of the market economy. Conceptually, these principles may be termed "intellectual property" of the liberal movement. Only recently have these principles been adopted by other political mainstreams -- such as the conservatives and, today, even the socialists. While the "liberalization" of these two traditionally antiliberal political ideologies is a positive development, it has also caused ideological confusion. In the U.S., liberalism-bashing by the conservatives has become so powerful that some liberals have changed their identity and prefer to be called "libertarians." This said, it may be instructive to go back to the roots and discuss the substance of what constitutes a liberal agenda of government.

As liberalism is the concept of freedom, liberal governance always strives to promote and increase the freedom of all members of society. It aims at establishing a framework that permits the citizens to manage their lives according to their own preferences. Government should refrain from controlling the citizens; instead, it should respect and defend individual rights. Liberal governance implies that everyone be treated equally regardless of race, social status, views and beliefs or other personal preferences. Here, the religious factor comes in, arguably a most disruptive element in many parts of the world. In a liberal order, state and religion are separated. Liberals don't want government to interfere in religious matters. Religious neutrality of the state and tolerance are (and always have been) cornerstones of the liberal agenda. They are also suitable responses to religious fundamentalism, a major challenge to the liberal order.

Where political power is exercised there is a need to limit its reach. In addition to their call for small government, liberals want government decisions to be made as close to the citizens as possible. Liberal governance is decentralized governance. Liberals support local autonomy and, where applicable, federalism. Local and regional authorities should be given the powers to decide on all matters relevant to their constituencies. One major merit of federalism lies in its capacity to accommodate diversity. When a country is subdivided in sufficiently small and autonomous subunits, different religious, ethnic or cultural groups may arrange their affairs according to their own preferences. In more than one country, federalism has proven a suitable mechanism to regulate conflicts in a democratic and peaceful manner. The preference for decentralization and small government influences also the economic-policy agenda. Government should stay out of the economy as much as possible. Interventions should be minimized.

It is a myth that the liberal state is necessarily a weak state. While government should, indeed, be small (and not wasteful), it should also be strong and efficient. In the economic field, government's main purpose is to uphold the rule of law and a legal framework that safeguards competition, prevents monopolies and eliminates corruption. Experience shows that societies that keep government small and limit state interference are more successful (and richer) than those with bloated bureaucracies. Empirical data provides evidence that economic freedom fans economic growth. Free markets are the best way to produce wealth.

In many parts of the world, alleviating mass poverty remains the one major challenge. Liberals reject the concept of "investing" scarce public resources in huge government handouts and other populist programs. They would rather invest in modern health care and universal education that empowers people. t is one of the great ironies of modern history that those regimes that set out to create communism, and with it the most egalitarian of all social orders, have produced the most repressive and unequal societies. China and North Korea are but two examples.

On the other side of the ideological spectrum, it remains a challenge for liberals that two East Asian societies regularly rated as having the most economically free systems on Earth, namely Hong Kong and Singapore, are far away from being democracies in a political sense. These capitalist systems aren't models of liberal governance. Freedom is not dividable. Liberals want to promote freedom in all spheres of life. They are certain that, once implemented, their formula will bring a better quality of life to all members of society.

Ronald Meinardus is a resident representative of the Friedrich-Naumann-Foundation in the Philippines and a commentator on Asian affairs.