Liberalism as a Word and a Symbol: The Struggle for a Liberal Brand in the United States
9.99 €
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Liberalism as a Word and a Symbol: The Struggle for a Liberal Brand in the United States
9.99 €
R. Rotunda (1945-2018) was a renowned American legal scholar and specialist in constitutional law. His short study, "Politics of Language: Liberalism as Word and Symbol," is perhaps the only one of its kind to explain how the meanings of the words "liberalism" and "liberals" came to be so mysteriously transformed in the United States. There, liberals strangely advocated comprehensive government intervention in the economy.
The author demonstrates that this did not happen spontaneously, but rather as a result of a deliberate substitution of concepts by Franklin Roosevelt, who was searching for a suitable verbal label for his program of economic regulation. For this, he chose the word "liberal," which was not commonly used in the United States but was prestigious and had only favorable associations.
It so happened that H. Hoover simultaneously laid claim to this brand, and the outcome of the dispute was decided during the election campaigns of 1932–1940. This story, which forms the central plot of the book, is preceded by the author's interesting reflections on the role of symbols in politics and a brief overview of the history of the use of the words "liberal" and "liberal" as a designation of a political program in England and the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries.
The author demonstrates that this did not happen spontaneously, but rather as a result of a deliberate substitution of concepts by Franklin Roosevelt, who was searching for a suitable verbal label for his program of economic regulation. For this, he chose the word "liberal," which was not commonly used in the United States but was prestigious and had only favorable associations.
It so happened that H. Hoover simultaneously laid claim to this brand, and the outcome of the dispute was decided during the election campaigns of 1932–1940. This story, which forms the central plot of the book, is preceded by the author's interesting reflections on the role of symbols in politics and a brief overview of the history of the use of the words "liberal" and "liberal" as a designation of a political program in England and the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries.
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