Enacting progressive taxation, punishing white collar crime, establishing strong environmental protections, establishing a strong social safety net, ensuring high quality universal healthcare, enforcing anti-trust legislation, and enacting electoral finance reforms are all things that liberals support
Those are all things that the liberals of old supported. But the parties that call themselves “liberal” today are usually strictly neoliberal. So that’s what people have come to associate with the term.
In Germany, where I’m from, FDP (“die Liberalen”) is a prime example. They are notorious for campaigning on civil liberties issues and then, once in government, dropping most or all of them in favor of radical deregulation and tax gifts for rich people.
Those are all things that the liberals of old supported. But the parties that call themselves “liberal” today are usually strictly neoliberal. So that’s what people have come to associate with the term.
Which parties call themselves liberal, but are actually neoliberal?
In Germany, where I’m from, FDP (“die Liberalen”) is a prime example. They are notorious for campaigning on civil liberties issues and then, once in government, dropping most or all of them in favor of radical deregulation and tax gifts for rich people.