This mostly practical philosophy had as it's central tenets the ideas of individual freedom, universal rights and opposition to the State. Particularly in the United States liberalism was, at least during its early phase a radical voice of democratic reform and the domain of the "common man". Great ideas from the likes of Jefferson, Emerson and Thoreau helped to build the United States of America into one of the great free nations of the 19th century - a country which was the envy of the world. It was during this time that Alexis deTocqueville wrote his 'Democracy in America'. At the time, even radical anarchists like Kropotkin wrote about the United States as a successful experiment in Republican democracy. However liberalism as a 'force for freedom' was to be a short-lived affair - its greatest strength (the popular notion of opposition to the State) became it's Achilles heel; there was a fifth column growing within which would seal liberalisms death-warrant. This fifth column was the forces of concentrated capital (formerly known as robber-barons) and the State bureacracy - both monsters which liberalism is still unable to come to terms with today.
Perhaps in reality liberalism always was a sham. Even during it's heyday in the United States people like Benjamin Tucker, Josiah Warren and later, Albert J Nock percieved the fatal flaws inherent in liberalism, realising that it was not only the State, but the 'robber-barrons' which the State was in alliance with which were the enemys of liberty. If their observations were true then (during the early phase of capitalism), how much more true today when the 'robber-barrons' have been replaced by a system of giant multinational corporations, finance capital and the stockmarket? It is ironic that while liberalism in it's early days helped the growth of this new capitalist elite, the later (often well-meaning) efforts to control it only perpetuated the problem of centralised power - the 'merchant enterpisers' simply adapted, formed new alliances with new political elites, and continued on their merry way. From this perspective it is understandable to see why liberalism in America is easily portrayed by it's opponents as "socialist" and "elitist". Although the rhetoric of the neo-conservatives is equally dishonest, there is perhaps a grain of truth in it. This is why 'true' liberals today find themselves in an increasing dilemma everywhere in the 'free' west; why doesn't liberalism work anymore? Rather than look below the surface they will put the problem down to 'corrupt' politicians or the 'crisis in democracy' or 'economic rationalism'. It is an uncomfortable thought for well-meaning liberals that apart from in its early phase, it has mostly been a hypocritical sham - a basically dishonest ideology used as a tool by elites.
Liberalism is today bankrupt as a force for either opposition to power or a positive force for change. It is hindered not only by it's own philosophical limitations (a purely 'negative' concept of liberty) but also by it's own complicity in concentration of both political and economic power. What we are reaping today - rising social inequality, social fragmentation, environmental crisis, the creeping state - is, at least in part, a direct legacy of liberalism. Unable to free itself from the shackles of power or the logic of the market, it has begun to consume itself from within. The sooner it gobbles itself up the better - perhaps we can then 'move on'.
