Liberalism

equality of opportunity. But they complained that liberal governments worked first and foremost to protect the economic interests of wealthy capitalist corporations. Although they agreed that these governments did take steps to improve the material circumstances of their people, the New Leftists charged that most people were reduced to the status of mere consumers when they ought to be encouraged to be engaged and active citizens. This led to the call for “participatory democracy,” a society in which average people would be able to exercise greater control over the decisions that most closely affected their lives.28

If welfare liberalism remains the dominant ideology and the dominant form of liberalism in the Western world—and as we enter the second decade of the twenty-first century it seems that it does—it has clearly not gone unchallenged. A particularly strong challenge, in the form of a mixture of neoclassical liberalism and conservatism, appeared in the 1970s and 1980s as first Margaret Thatcher in Great Britain and then Ronald Reagan in the United States became heads of government. Neither leader dismantled the welfare state, although both moved in that direction. But dismantle it we must, the neoclassical liberals continue to insist. So the contest within liberalism continues, with neoclassical and welfare liberals engaging in ongoing disputes at the philosophical as well as the political level.

Philosophical Considerations

The ongoing debate within liberalism is captured nicely in books by two influential philosophers: John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice (1971) and Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974).29

Rawls and Justice. According to Rawls (1921–2002), the classical liberal device of the social contract can help us to discover the principles of social justice. Rawls begins by asking the reader to imagine a group of people who enter into a contract that will set out the rules under which they will all have to live as members of the same society. Imagine, too, that all of these people are behind a “veil of ignorance” that prevents anyone from knowing his or her identity, age, gender, race, or abilities or disabilities. Although all act out of self-interest, no one will be able to “stack the deck” by fashioning rules that promote his or her personal advantage, because no one will know what is to his or her personal advantage. Thus the veil of ignorance ensures impartiality.

What rules will emerge from such an impartial situation? Rawls believes that the people behind the veil of ignorance will unanimously choose two fundamental principles to govern their society—the two principles of justice. According to the first principle, everyone is to be equally free. Everyone is to have as much liberty as possible, provided that every person in society has the same amount. According to the second principle, everyone is to enjoy equality of opportunity. To help ensure this, each person is to have an equal share of wealth and power unless it can be shown that an unequal distribution will work to the benefit of the worst-off persons. If an equal distribution means that each gets $10, say, it is more just than a distribution where half the people get $18 and the other half only $2. But if an unequal distribution would give everyone, even the worst-off person, at least $11, perhaps because of incentives that encourage people to work harder and produce more, then justice

requires the unequal distribution, not the strictly equal distribution in which each receives only $10.

Why does justice require this? Isn’t it just to pay or reward people according to their efforts and abilities, not their position at the bottom of the social scale? Rawls’s response is that the people who make the greatest efforts and display the highest abilities do not really deserve a larger reward than anyone else. Effort and ability are generally characteristics that people come by through heredity and environment. Someone may be an outstanding surgeon because she was born with superior mental and physical potential that she then worked hard to develop. But this person cannot take credit for talent she was born with, nor even for her hard work if her family instilled in her the desire to work and achieve. If justice requires us to give greater rewards to some people than to others, Rawls concludes, it is not because they deserve more but because this is the best way to promote the interests of the worst-off people in society. If justice requires us to pay physicians more than coal miners or barbers or secretaries, then it can only be because this is the best way to provide good medical care and thus promote everyone’s vital interest in health—including the vital interests of society’s worstoff members.

The significance of Rawls’s second principle is that it takes welfare liberalism in a more egalitarian direction. An equal distribution of wealth and resources is Rawls’s starting point, and an unequal distribution is justified only if it is better for those at the bottom of society. If the wealth and power of those at the top of the social scale do not indirectly benefit those at the bottom, then Rawls’s theory calls for a redistribution of that wealth and power in a more nearly equal manner. For people can enjoy neither equal liberty nor equal opportunity when there are great and unjustified inequalities of wealth.

Nozick and the Minimal State. Three years after Rawls’s Theory of Justice appeared, Robert Nozick (1938–2002) published Anarchy, State, and Utopia. There Nozick asserts that all individuals have rights that it is wrong to violate. But if this is true, he asks, can there ever be a government or state that does not violate the rights of its people? Nozick answers by drawing on another old liberal idea—the state of nature. Like Hobbes and Locke, Nozick wants the reader to imagine that there is no government, no state, no political or legal authority of any kind. In this state of nature, individuals have rights, but they lack protection. Some sharp-eyed entrepreneurs will notice this and go into the business of providing protection, much as private security guards and insurance agencies do. Those who want protection may sign on with a private protective agency—for a fee, of course—and those who do not must fend for themselves. Either way the choice is strictly theirs—a choice denied, Nozick says, to people who live under governments that make them pay for protection whether they want it or not.

When people subscribe to a private protective agency, in other words, no one violates their rights by forcing them to do something they do not want to do. But out of a large number of competing protective agencies, Nozick argues, one will grow and prosper until it absorbs the rest. This single protective agency, so large that it serves almost everyone in an area the size of a modern nation-state, will become for all practical purposes a state itself. And it will do so, Nozick claims, without violating anyone’s rights.

This new state, however, performs only the functions of a protective agency. Nozick claims that this “minimal state” is legitimate or just because no one’s rights are violated by its creation. But it is also the only legitimate state. Any state or government that does more than merely protect the people must violate someone’s rights and therefore must be unjust. The policy of using taxation to take money from some people for the benefit of others, for instance, is “on a par with forced labor.”30 Someone who earns $100 and has $20 taken in taxes probably has no complaint if that $20 goes to provide him or her with protection; but if, say, $10 goes to provide benefits for others—health care, education, unemployment compensation—then the worker is effectively forced to spend 10 percent of his or her working time working for others. This is the equivalent of forced labor, according to Nozick, and therefore a violation of individual rights.

Like other neoclassical liberals, Nozick holds that government should protect us against force and fraud, but otherwise should leave us alone to compete in an unrestricted free-market economy. Government should not forbid capitalist acts between consenting adults, as he puts it. Like other neoclassical liberals, Nozick defends the individual’s right to think, say, and do whatever he or she pleases—as long as no one else’s rights are violated. But the individual can enjoy these rights only if the state is a “minimal” one.

Nozick’s philosophical defense of neoclassical liberalism extends the arguments of several contemporary theorists, notably Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) and Milton Friedman (1912–2006). Ayn Rand (1905–1982) also gave fictional form to similar ideas in such popular novels as The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957). In the last thirty years or so, in fact, neoclassical liberalism has enjoyed a revival in both philosophy and politics under the name of libertarianism, playing an important part, as we have seen, in the “conservative” economic policies of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. Hayek and other neoclassical liberals, however, insist that they are not conservatives who want to preserve society’s traditional arrangements, but true liberals who are committed to protecting and extending individual liberty, even if that means upsetting customs and traditions.31 Inspired by Hayek, Friedman, Rand, and others, neoclassical liberalism in the United States has given rise to the Libertarian Party, which sponsors candidates who want to move the country in the direction of the minimal state. But for some libertarians, even the minimal state is too much government. In their view, true devotion to liberty demands that government be abolished altogether.

Libertarian Anarchism. In many respects libertarian anarchism is simply the most extreme extension of liberalism. Libertarian anarchists share the liberal belief in the value of individual liberty and equal opportunity. They also agree with classical and neoclassical liberals that the state is the major threat to individual freedom. But libertarian anarchists go beyond other liberals to argue that the state is an altogether unnecessary evil. Because it is both evil and unnecessary, they conclude, government ought to be eliminated. In their view, true liberalism leads to anarchy.

Although this position has never enjoyed broad popular support, it has had some articulate defenders, such as the American economist Murray Rothbard (1926–1995). Rothbard and other libertarian anarchists maintain that free-market anarchism is both

desirable and practical. It is desirable because when there is no coercion from government every individual will be free to live as he or she chooses. And it is practical, they claim, because anything governments do private enterprise can do better. Education, fire and police protection, defense, traffic regulation—these and all other public functions can be performed more efficiently by private companies competing for customers. Someone who wants police protection can “shop around” to find the company that provides the right level of protection at the best price, just as consumers nowadays can shop for a car, house, or insurance policy. Roads can be privately owned and operated, just as parking lots are now; all schools can be private, just as some are now; even currency can be provided by private enterprise, just as credit cards are now. There is, in short, no good reason to retain the state. Once enough people recognize this, the libertarian anarchists say, we will be on the way to a truly free and truly liberal society.32

THE LIBERTARIAN VISION

Most libertarians are not anarchists. In their view, government is necessary to a secure and orderly society, but it should be a government that does little or nothing more than protect people against threats to their property and safety. But what would their libertarian society look like? There would be many fewer “public” things—libraries, schools, beaches, parks, and roads—and many more private ones as the result of “deregulation” and “privatization.” “Deregulation” means that government regulations in a variety of areas would be phased out entirely. For example, governmental rules regulating prescription drugs, workplace safety, health inspections at restaurants, and the like would be taken off the books. People are rational enough to look out for their own interests, the libertarians say, and diners would gravitate toward restaurants that have a reputation for cleanliness, and away from those that do not, just as they now gravitate toward those that have a reputation for serving good food. “Privatization” means turning public entities into private, and usually for-profit, enterprises. Thus public parks would be sold to developers who would determine whether it is more profitable to keep them as private parks or turn them into housing subdivisions, office parks, or shopping centers; all roads would become toll roads; libraries would be private, fee-charging businesses; all schools and universities would be private, some on a for-profit basis and others, such as church schools, as nonprofit institutions. Beaches and waterways would be privately owned, and swimmers and surfers would have to pay to use them. Government subsidies to support schools, hospitals, airports, subways, railways, docks and harbors, and so on, would be eliminated. Police protection might be provided, but probably not fire protection or emergency-medical services. In short, libertarians envision and work toward a market-driven society in which formerly public services would be bought and sold in presumably competitive markets.33

Advocates of privatization say that goods and services would be delivered more cheaply, abundantly, and efficiently under competitive market conditions. Critics contend that actual practice does not square with the theory. For example, formerly public utilities and services have been privatized in Great Britain and the United States, with mixed results. After California chose to get out of the business of generating and distributing electricity, prices actually went up, in some part because of Enron and

other corporate traders manipulating the market and inflating prices, but also because of other factors.34 Libertarians reply that manipulated markets are not the free and competitive ones that they champion. Critics respond that competitive markets are open to the machinations of manipulators like Enron and that public ownership or oversight of some goods and services is both desirable and necessary to keep costs down and quality up by preventing manipulation.

LIBERALISM TODAY: DIVISIONS AND DIFFERENCES

Now that we have traced liberalism from its beginnings to the present, what can we say about its current condition? Three points deserve special mention here. The first is that liberalism is no longer the revolutionary force it once was—at least not in the West. But in other parts of the world the liberal attack on ascribed status, religious conformity, or political absolutism still strikes at the foundations of society. This is most evident in Iran and other countries of the Middle East and Northern Africa, where liberalism has provoked a radical response from Islamic fundamentalists (see Chapter 10). Elsewhere, champions of change in communist and formerly communist countries have often claimed “liberalization” as their goal. In the Western world, however, the aims of early liberals are now deeply entrenched in public policy and public opinion. Here liberalism is no longer a revolutionary ideology but an ideology defending a revolution already won.

The second point is that liberals remain divided among themselves. Despite their agreement on fundamental ends, especially the importance of individual liberty, liberals disagree sharply over means—over how best to define and promote these ends. Welfare liberals believe that we need an active government to give everyone an equal chance to be free; neoclassical liberals (or libertarians) believe that we need to limit government to keep it from robbing us of freedom; libertarian anarchists believe that we should abolish government altogether.

The third point is that liberals are now wrestling with a set of very difficult problems that stem from their basic commitments to individual liberty and equality of opportunity. The first problem is, How far should individuals be able to go in exercising their freedom? Most liberals, welfare and neoclassical alike, accept something like Mill’s harm principle—people should be free to do as they wish unless they harm (or violate the rights of) others. When it comes to applying this principle, however, the difficulty of defining “harm” becomes clear. Many liberals say that “victimless crimes” like prostitution, gambling, and the sale of drugs and pornography should not be considered crimes at all. If one adult wants to be a prostitute and another wants to pay for his or her services, no one is harmed, except perhaps those who enter into this exchange. If no one else is harmed, government has no business outlawing prostitution. To this argument other liberals respond that “victimless crimes” are not as victimless as they appear. Pimps force women into prostitution and “loan sharks” take unfair advantage of people who borrow money at very high interest rates. Those who favor abolishing “victimless crimes” counter by arguing that the government can carefully regulate these activities if they are legal—as prostitution is in the Netherlands and parts of Nevada, for example. But the argument continues without a resolution. Despite their desire to separate the sphere of private freedom from that

of public control, liberals have found the boundary between private and public difficult to draw with any precision.

Part of the reason for this boundary problem is that liberals disagree about the proper role of government in helping people to lead a good or decent life. According to some, such as John Rawls, the job of government in a liberal society is to preserve justice and to protect the individual’s right to live as he or she sees fit. It is not the government’s business to promote one way of life or conception of the good— say, the life of the devout Christian—at the expense of others—say, the life of the devout Jew or of the atheist who thinks all religions are merely forms of superstition. Government should remain neutral with respect to these and other competing conceptions of the good life, according to Rawls, who refers to his position as political liberalism—that is, the belief that liberal governments should confine themselves, like a referee at a sports match, to limiting and settling conflicts without taking sides in disputes about how people ought to live.35 But other liberals insist that government neither can nor should be completely neutral in this way. Liberal societies depend upon citizens who are rational, tolerant, far-sighted, and committed to the common good, they argue, and a good government will necessarily encourage people to develop and display these desirable traits. As they see it, political liberalism betrays the liberal tradition by depriving liberalism of its concern for character and virtue.36

The second problem grows out of the liberal commitment to equal opportunity. For libertarians, this means simply that everyone ought to be free to make his or her way in the world without unfair discrimination. Only discrimination on the basis of ability and effort is justified. The liberal state should then outlaw discrimination on the basis of race, religion, gender, or any other irrelevant factor. By contrast, most welfare liberals maintain that government ought to help disadvantaged people enjoy equal opportunity. Thus they support public schools, medical care, and even financial assistance for those in need. But how far should this go? Should we try to distribute wealth and resources in a more nearly equal way, as Rawls suggests? Will that promote true equality of opportunity? And is it fair to those who have earned their wealth without violating the rights of others?

To overcome a legacy of discrimination against women and racial minorities, many welfare liberals advocate affirmative action programs. Such programs give special consideration in education and employment to members of groups that have suffered from discrimination. But how is this to be done? By providing special training? By setting aside a certain number of jobs or places in colleges and professional schools for women and minorities? But aren’t these efforts actually ways of discriminating against some people—white males—by discriminating in favor of others? Can this be justified in the name of equality of opportunity?

Another problem arises from the liberal commitment to individual liberty and individual rights. In the next chapters we shall see how conservatives, socialists, and fascists have often maintained that liberals give too much attention to the individual and too little to the community or society of which the individual is a part. In recent years this complaint has arisen within the ranks of liberalism as well. In this case the complaint is that liberals are so concerned with protecting individual rights and interests that they ignore the common good and the value of community. According to these communitarian critics, rights must be balanced by responsibilities. Individuals

may have rights against others, such as the right to speak or to worship in ways that others do not like, but individuals must also recognize that they owe something to the community that enables them to exercise these rights. The danger today, communitarians contend, is that countries like the United States are degenerating into a condition in which everyone is jealously guarding his or her rights against everyone else, which leads to a hostile, suspicious, “me first” atmosphere that makes it impossible to act for the common good. People will no longer be willing to make the small sacrifices—paying taxes, obeying burdensome laws—that are necessary to hold society together and secure individual rights.

To counteract this overemphasis on individual rights, communitarians want to place more stress on individuals’ responsibility to promote the good of the community. As one leading communitarian has said, “communitarians see a need for a social order that contains a set of shared values, to which individuals are taught they are obligated. Individuals may later question, challenge, rebel against, or even transform a given social order, but their starting point is a shared set of definitions of what is right versus what is wrong.”37

This emphasis on community was one of the themes of Bill Clinton’s successful campaign for the presidency of the United States in 1992 and of Barack Obama’s in 2008. In Clinton’s case, the communitarian slant is especially clear in the national service program that his administration implemented. By offering financial aid for college expenses to young people who agree to serve in various public service groups, this program aims to encourage the sense of civic responsibility among the volunteers. On a smaller scale, many colleges and universities are now offering academic credits to students who engage in community “service-learning” projects. A former community organizer, President Obama has proposed to continue and even to enlarge such programs.

To this point these public service programs have enjoyed widespread support among liberals. Such support may shrink, however, if national service becomes mandatory, as it is in some countries. Other attempts to strengthen community have already led to disagreement among liberals, largely because they raise the fear of the “tyranny of the majority.” Should cities or public schools be able to sponsor Christmas pageants or display nativity scenes? Do the members of a community, or a majority of them, have the right to limit freedom of speech by outlawing or regulating the distribution of pornography? Should the police be allowed to stop cars at random in order to detect drunken drivers? Or do these attempts to promote the public well-being amount to intolerable infringements of individual rights?

These and other questions of individual liberty and equality of opportunity are especially troublesome for liberals because their creed forces them to confront such issues head-on. There is, as yet, no obvious or agreed-upon “liberal” answer to these questions. Some critics see this as a serious or even fatal weakness—a sign that liberalism is near the end of its rope. A more sympathetic response might be that liberalism is still doing what it has always done—searching for ways to advance the cause of individual liberty and opportunity. Certainly anyone who agrees with Mill’s claim that flexing our mental and moral muscles is vital to individual growth will find plenty of room for exercise in contemporary liberalism—which is just as Mill would want it.

CONCLUSION

Liberalism as an Ideology

What can we conclude, then, about liberalism as an ideology? Given the rift between welfare liberals and libertarians, or neoclassical liberals, does it even make sense to speak of liberalism as a single ideology? We think it does, although the division between the two camps is deep and may be widening. At present, however, their differences are largely matters of emphasis and disagreement about means, not ends. A quick look at how liberalism performs the four functions that all ideologies perform should make this point clear.

Explanation. First, all ideologies purport to explain why things are the way they are, with particular attention to social, economic, and political conditions. For liberals, these explanations are typically individualistic. Social conditions are the result of individual choices and actions. Liberals recognize that the choices open to individuals are often limited and frequently have consequences that no one intended or desired. Yet despite the limits on their foresight and understanding, individuals still make choices that, taken together, explain why social conditions are as they are.

Why, for example, do economic depressions occur? Liberals generally believe that they are the wholly unintended results of decisions made by rational individuals responding to the circumstances in which they compete—or in some cases are prevented from competing—in the marketplace. Welfare liberals generally follow Keynes’s economic views and argue that the job of the government is to shape these choices, perhaps by lowering or raising taxes to give people more or less disposable income, in order to prevent or lessen economic distress. The neoclassical position is that the competitive marketplace will correct itself if left alone and it is wrong for government to interfere. Despite these different views of what should be done, however, both sides share the fundamental premise that individual choices ultimately explain why things are as they are.

Evaluation. When it comes to evaluating conditions, liberalism again turns to the individual. Conditions are good, as a rule, if the individual is free to do as he or she wishes without harming or violating the rights of others. The more freedom people have, liberals say, the better; the less freedom, the worse. What freedom there is must be enjoyed as equally as possible. Thus the liberal view of freedom requires that individuals have an equal opportunity to succeed. On this point all liberals agree. But they disagree, with welfare liberals going in one direction and libertarians in another, on how best to provide equality of opportunity. For both, however, a society in which individuals enjoy an equal opportunity to choose freely is clearly better than one in which freedom is restricted and opportunity unequal.

Orientation. Political ideologies also provide people with some sense of identity and orientation—of who they are and where and how they fit into the great scheme of things. Liberalism pictures people as rational individuals who have interests to pursue and choices to make. Liberals thus direct our attention to the characteristics that they believe all people share, not toward the differences that separate people from one another. Some liberals push this point much further than others, and Bentham and

the Social Darwinists perhaps furthest of all, but there is a tendency among liberals to believe that deep down all women and men are fundamentally the same. Differences of culture, race, religion, gender, or nationality are ultimately superficial. Our identity is an individual—not a group—identity. At bottom, most people are rational, selfinterested individuals who want to be free to choose how to live. Once we understand this, liberals believe, we will respect the right of others to live freely and will expect them to respect ours in return.

Program. As regards the programmatic function, liberals espouse programs for promoting individual liberty and opportunity. Historically this has meant that liberals have opposed religious conformity, ascribed status, economic privileges, political absolutism, and the tyranny of majority opinion. With these obstacles removed, individuals are free to worship (or not) as they see fit; to rise or fall in society according to their efforts and ability; to compete on an equal footing in the marketplace; to exercise some control over government; and to think, speak, and live in unconventional ways. On these points liberals seldom disagree. When some liberals began to say that freedom is not merely a matter of being left alone but a positive power or ability to do what one chooses, disagreements emerged. Welfare liberals insist that the government must be enlisted in the struggle against illness, ignorance, prejudice, poverty, and any other condition that threatens liberty and equality of opportunity, while neoclassical liberals complain that government “meddling” is itself the chief threat to liberty and equality.

These two schools of liberalism now offer rival political programs, not because their goals are different but because they disagree on how best to achieve those goals. The dispute is over means, not ends. That is why we believe that liberalism, divided as it is by the intramural dispute between its neoclassical and welfare camps, remains a single, albeit fragmented, ideology.

Liberalism and the Democratic Ideal

At the outset of the twenty-first century, liberals are firmly committed to democracy, but that has not always been the case. Throughout most of its history, in fact, liberalism has been more concerned with protecting people from their rulers than with establishing rule by the people. From its inception, as we have seen, liberalism has fought to remove obstacles that stand in the way of the individual’s freedom to live as he or she sees fit, and in the beginning most of those obstacles—religious conformity, ascribed status, political absolutism, monopolies, and other restraints on economic competition—were either provided or supported by government. Rather than strive to enable people to rule themselves through government, then, the classical liberals struggled to free people from government. They tried, in other words, to reduce the areas of life that were considered public in order to expand the private sphere.

From the beginning, however, liberalism also displayed several democratic tendencies, the most notable being its premise of basic equality among human beings. Whether couched in terms of natural rights or the Utilitarians’ claim that everybody is to count for one and nobody for more than one, liberals have always argued from the premise that every person’s rights or interests should count as much as everyone else’s. Early liberals defined “person” in such narrow terms that the only true “person” was a free adult male who owned substantial property. But as they spoke and argued in

terms of natural equality, liberals opened the door for those—including later liberals— who demanded that slavery be abolished and that women and the propertyless should be extended the right to vote, to run for public office, and generally be politically equal to property-owning males.

This liberal tendency did not lead in an openly democratic direction until the 1800s, when Bentham and the Utilitarians began to argue that democracy gave every citizen the chance to protect his—and later her—interests. If the business of government is to promote the greatest good of the greatest number, they reasoned, then the only way to determine the greatest good is to allow every citizen to say what is good for him or her. Earlier liberals had proclaimed that government must rest on the consent of the people, and they had devised constitutions and bills of rights in order to limit the powers of government, but it was not until the 1800s that liberals began to regard the vote as a way to give everyone an equal chance to protect and promote his or her interests. This is the protectionist theory of democracy.

For the most part, liberals favor democracy because it enables citizens to hold their government accountable, thereby protecting their personal interests. Some, including John Stuart Mill, have gone further, arguing that democracy is good because it encourages widespread political participation, which in turn enriches people’s lives by developing their intellectual and moral capacities. Yet most liberals have attached no particular value to political activity, seeing it as simply one possible good among many. The state should be neutral, they say, leaving people free to pursue whatever they consider good—as long as they respect others’ freedom to do the same. If people find pleasure or satisfaction in public life, well and good; but if they derive more pleasure from private pursuits, then they should be free to follow that path.

As a rule, liberal democracy emphasizes the importance of individual rights and liberty. Everyone is supposed to be free to participate in public life; but the primary concern is to protect people from undue interference in their private affairs. Consequently, deciding what counts as “private” and how far an individual’s “right to privacy” extends are matters of debate (as in the abortion controversy). For the liberal, democracy is good so long as it protects these rights and interests in privacy and free action. It does this primarily by making the government responsive to the needs and interests of the people, thus preventing arbitrary and tyrannical government. But if rule by the people begins to threaten individual rights and liberties, then one can expect liberals to demand that it be curbed. In liberal democracy, in short, democracy is defined mainly in terms of the individual’s right to be free from outside interference to do as he or she thinks best.

Coda 1: The Limits of Liberal Toleration

As we have seen, liberals have historically prided themselves on their tolerance of those whose tastes, preferences, identities, beliefs, and behavior are unorthodox and perhaps shocking to many people in the so-called mainstream of society. Thus today’s liberals favor the decriminalization of same-sex relations between consenting adults, of pornography (except when it involves children), and in some cases of drug use and other activities that cause no demonstrable harm to others. But how far should such tolerance extend? Should it, for example, be extended to illiberal individuals or groups who scorn or even seek to overthrow liberal societies?