The_Guardian_-_2016-12-29

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Politics
Liberal values and the growth of inequality
Many people in post-industrial Stoke-on-Trent feel ‘dismissively stereotyped’ by metropolitan elites,
says Professor Linden West. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Letters
Wednesday 28 December 2016 18.40 GMT Last modified on Wednesday 28 December 2016
22.00 GMT
Jonathan Freedland cites compassion for victims of war, the peaceful resolution of international
disputes, Enlightenment values and a free press as the hallmarks of liberalism (Don’t fall for these
dishonest attacks on the ‘liberal elite’, 24 December). But what of free trade and free markets? Low
tax, the small state and deregulation? These too are hallmarks of liberalism in its “neo” form.
Liberalism stands for the freedom of the individual and the sanctity of individual liberties – as well
as the openness and plurality that Freedland prefers to celebrate. The right of the individual to
freedom from regulation or restraint is the notion that has driven globalisation, market fundamentalism
and our present, unfettered, toxic form of capitalism. And those are the forces that have stripped many
of the Trump voters in the rust belt and Brexit supporters in the north of England of their security, their
dignity and their hope for their kids. Clinton (both), Blair, Cameron, Obama, all social liberals, all
drank the neoliberal Kool Aid. The failure of progressives to sever social liberalism from its
economic counterpart has led us to this crisis (Clegg, take note). Brexit and Trump are in many ways
the fruits of liberalism.