Ralph Raico Is Mr. Classical Liberal by Walter Block

Ralph Raico Is Mr. Classical Liberal by Walter Block

Words are important in political economic philosophy. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that verbiage is all important in these fields, as they consist of nothing but utterances bandied about. He who controls them controls the dialogue, controls the debate.
Even the previous sentence, in most ways not controversial, is in one way an instance of this very contention, and very debatable. For it began with the word "he." In some quarters this is highly objectionable. The claim of the feminists is that I should have said, instead, "he or she," or "he/she," or better yet, "she or he," "she/he" and best of all, plain old "she." Perhaps, so as to have given no offense, I should have put this in the third person, "they."
To the extent they can make this stick, our friends on the left have gone a long way toward winning all the debates they have with their intellectual enemies. If the socialists can insist that we all use their language, they have won half the battle – if not more.
The trouble is, those of us who favor free enterprise, very limited government, private property rights, capitalism, etc., have been ceding all too many words to those on the other side of the aisle. It is all the more difficult to make our case if we must do so by using words demanded of us by our intellectual opponents. Capitalism no longer refers to laissez faire; it now invokes cronyism and imperialism. Leftists such as Noam Chomsky are even now trying to seize ownership of "libertarian" and John Dewey long ago made a run at "individualist."
But there is no word that has been stolen from us to a greater degree, or with more effect than "liberal." And then it has been trashed to such a degree that even the thieves have given up on it and now characterize themselves as "progressives." Surprising to many, this used to be one of our own possessions, and still is to some small degree as in "classical liberal."
We might as well call the author of the book now under review Ralph ("Mr. Liberal") Raico because he has done more than anyone else to rescue this verbiage back from its kidnappers, dust it off from the garbage they have piled up on it, and convince us that "liberal" has a long and very glorious pedigree, and, once again, thanks to him a very bright future.