Towards a Responsible Liberalism

Abstract

Liberalism has many faces, ranging from that which emphasises the laissez-faire approach of freedom from interference to the interventionist perspective on providing the conditions for people to exercise their liberty. In this essay, after summarising the arguments made by four prominent liberal scholars (namely, Keynes, Hayek, Buchanan and Sunstein) in essays where they asked themselves if they are liberal, that they are indeed liberal or why they are not conservative, I will suggest what I believe are necessary components for a responsible liberalism in contemporary democracies. Briefly, these are for a constitutionalist and pluralist form of liberalism that protects and advances institutional arrangements conducive to nurturing cooperation, reciprocity and mutual respect. State collective responses, which tend to be dismissed by laissez-faire forms of liberalism, are sometimes necessary to create the conditions for liberty that private markets cannot accommodate, but the aim of those responses should always be to serve the individuals within the collective, rather than the collective at the expense of individuals.