Labels and Llosa

David Boaz, at the Cato blog, has an interesting post on the Nobel prize winner in literature, entitled "The Politics of Mario Vargas Llosa". Interesting, because of what he calls a "missing word" -- "liberal". That's the political label that is never used by others to describe Llosa's views, though they might resort to such various terms as right-wing, conservative, or even -- the latest scarecrow put up by the atavistic left -- "neoliberal", but never simply "liberal". Yet, curiously, that's the label that Llosa himself uses. Why? No doubt part of the answer would involve the international context of his politics, as distinct from the more parochial and peculiar usages that have come to prevail in the US. But the more important part, the reason that underlies that globalized context, is that he refuses to to abandon the meaning that made the label such a powerful political force from its origins -- that "liberalism" is, as Boaz quotes from the Encyclopedia Brittannica, the "Political and economic doctrine that emphasizes the rights and freedoms of the individual and the need to limit the powers of government", or, as Llosa himself puts it, with a little more economy and force, a liberal is "a lover of liberty, a person who rises up against oppression".

Here's a little more from Llosa on true liberalism:

...the liberal I aspire to be considers freedom a core value. Thanks to this freedom, humanity has been able to journey from the primitive cave to the stars and the information revolution, to progress from forms of collectivist and despotic association to representative democracy. The foundations of liberty are private property and the rule of law; this system guarantees the fewest possible forms of injustice, produces the greatest material and cultural progress, most effectively stems violence and provides the greatest respect for human rights. According to this concept of liberalism, freedom is a single, unified concept. Political and economic liberties are as inseparable as the two sides of a medal.

...

Political democracy and the free market are foundations of a liberal position. But, thus formulated, these two expressions have an abstract, algebraic quality that dehumanizes and removes them from the experience of the common people. Liberalism is much, much more than that. Basically, it is tolerance and respect for others, and especially for those who think differently from ourselves, who practice other customs and worship another god or who are non-believers. By agreeing to live with those who are different, human beings took the most extraordinary step on the road to civilization. It was an attitude or willingness that preceded democracy and made it possible, contributing more than any scientific discovery or philosophical system to counter violence and calm the instinct to control and kill in human relations. It is also what awakened that natural lack of trust in power, in all powers, which is something of a second nature to us liberals.

 And here is his description of collectivism, or the anti-liberal:

Collectivism was inevitable during the dawn of history, when the individual was simply part of the tribe and depended on the entire society for survival, but began to decline as material and intellectual progress enabled man to dominate nature, overcome the fear of thunder, the beast, the unknown and the other--he who had a different color skin, another language and other customs. But collectivism has survived throughout history in those doctrines and ideologies that place the supreme value of an individual on his belonging to a specific group (a race, social class, religion or nation). All of these collectivist doctrines--Nazism, fascism, religious fanaticism and communism--are the natural enemies of freedom and the bitter adversaries of liberals. In every age, that atavistic defect, collectivism, has reared its ugly head to threaten civilization and throw us back to the age of barbarism. Yesterday it was called fascism and communism; today it is known as nationalism and religious fundamentalism.

Which, to speak of another political usage often mentioned alongside "liberalism", is the reason I always try to put "progressivism" in scare quotes -- given its tendency to share in that "atavistic defect, collectivism", it would be far more accurate and honest to label it "regressivism".