The change in the meaning of the term preceded FDR and initially occurred in the UK.  Outside the English-speaking world, "liberal" pretty much means "classical liberal."  One can think of the change as being associated with the change in views of the British Liberal Party that began to happen in the late 19th century, arguably with J.S. Mill, who went from being a pretty pure classical liberal when younger towards supporting some mildly "socialist" policies in his older age.  Initially the party of business against landed aristocracy (the base of the Conservative Tory Party), with full male suffrage and the growth of the industrial working class in the late 19th century, they began to compete with the "wet" Tories for the votes of that group and began to support some redistributionist and social safety net programs.  By the time Lloyd-George was  PM in WW I, this process was nearly completed, although the rising Labour Party was definitely flanking them on the left and supporting more fully socialist policies.  It was the 11920s that Labour came to move ahead of the Liberals, who became a minor party and the ancestor of the modern Lib-Dems currently in coalition with the Tories in the current UK government.  It might be kept in mind that Keynes was openly and strongly associated with the Liberal Party, and this was well prior to FDR coming in as president in 1933.  However, it is probably correct that in the US usage of the term that it was the 1930s when the change happened.

Barkley Rosser

-----Original Message-----
From: Societies for the History of Economics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of michael perelman
Sent: Tuesday, March 19, 2013 5:48 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SHOE] Political use of the word "liberals"

Franklin Roosevelt renamed liberal to mean progressive as opposed to the European form of liberalism.

On Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 8:01 AM, Leonidas Montes <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I was reading a book by Stedman Jones ("Masters of the Universe") and somewhere he mentions that the word liberal acquired a political connotation (Republican versus Liberals) in the early 20th century. After reading Scgumpeter and Hayek on this issue,  I had the impression that this conflation emerged during the second world war.
>
> Does anyone know when and how it actually happened?
>
> Leonidas Montes



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Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
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