"How is it that Liberalism, getting more and more into power, has grown
more and more coercive in its legislation? … How are we to explain this
spreading confusion of thought which has led it, in pursuit of what
appears to be public good, to invert the method by which in earlier days
it achieved public good? … [W]e may understand the kind of confusion in
which Liberalism has lost itself: and the origin of those mistaken
classings of political measures which have misled it — classings, as we
shall see, by conspicuous external traits instead of by internal
natures. For what, in the popular apprehension and in the apprehension
of those who effected them, were the changes made by Liberals in the
past? They were abolitions of grievances suffered by the people…. [T]his
was the common trait they had which most impressed itself on men's
minds…. [T]he welfare of the many came to be conceived alike by Liberal
statesmen and Liberal voters as the aim of Liberalism. Hence the
confusion. The gaining of a popular good, being the external conspicuous
trait common to Liberal measures in earlier days (then in each case
gained by a relaxation of restraints), it has happened that popular good
has come to be sought by Liberals, not as an end to be indirectly
gained by relaxations of restraints, but as the end to be directly
gained. And seeking to gain it directly, they have used methods
intrinsically opposed to those originally used"
~Herbert Spencer
"In short, Spencer's analysis is that liberals came to conceptualize
liberalism in terms of its easily identifiable effects (benefits for the
masses) rather than in terms of its essential nature (laissez-faire), and so began to think that any measure aimed at the end of benefits for the masses must count as liberal, whether pursued by the traditional liberal means of laissez-faire
or by its opposite, the traditional Tory means of governmental
compulsion. In short, liberalism became the pursuit of liberal ends by
Tory means." ~ Roderick T. Long
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