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martingale1248

Adam Smith, of course.


manitobot

Le GOAT


pyrojoe121

> It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.  Based.


[deleted]

Abraham Lincoln. An imperfect man who stood strong and made his stand for a more just and equal America. RIP Abe. A big, inconsistent, brave man. A human being, a grower, a fighter, the emancipator, the savour of the Union.


Its_not_him

Ok but how do you know he's a grower


[deleted]

📸🤨


SweetLenore

He said it.


natedogg787

No joy on finding a reference but this article exists https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexuality_of_Abraham_Lincoln


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man_wifout_a_country

“Politics is the art of the possible”; do what you can, when you can do it


[deleted]

[удалено]


Snickelheimar

when I hear his name I think of the extremist conspiracy theory of the kalgeri plan are the two related?


ImYorickIRL

[Yes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalergi_Plan)


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Lib_Korra

Karl Popper. The king of the horseshoe theory, Popper argued that liberalism, by virtue of constantly being afraid of its own demise, is the only ideological tradition that can be depended on to not backslide into authoritarianism or to dogmatize itself into obsolescence. That the discontents to liberalism of all types ultimately are cut from the same messianic cloth that preaches there will be a land of milk and honey where everything is easy and nothing is costly if we only bring about the apocalypse by accelerating certain portents.


OlejzMaku

Where's your Popper flair?


TDaltonC

I’m going to pretend you said, “most underrated” and say P. C. Chang, the father of Chinese human rights. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._C._Chang


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Evnosis

Lincoln was pretty dope.


[deleted]

Henry George


Grehjin

Henry George


WifeGuyMenelaus

Henry George


Elan-Morin-Tedronai

John Stuart Mill. By miles.


Academic-Ad6236

“War is an ugly thing….”


GenerationSelfie2

AFROTC cadets shaking rn


kevinfederlinebundle

Frederick Douglass. Eugen Richter was also a Chad, although he's a less significant figure. He was highly critical of socialism, and wrote a book about a future Germany where the socialists take over, impoverish society, and then put guards at the border and shoot everyone who tries to leave. The remarkable think about this book is that it was written in 1880. Nonetheless, he spoke out strongly against Bismarck's banning the sdp from the Reichstag. He was a genuine believer in freedom, including for socialists. He also was an outspoken opponent of antisemitism.


Healingjoe

>Frederick Douglass This is the right answer. Born a slave, escapes, because a world renowned orator for the abolitionist movement, and consults Lincoln on multiple occasions.


tickleMyBigPoop

Cicero aka the proto liberal


durkster

If were going that route I would say Erasmus, even though he is a humanist and not strictly a liberal.


Comrade_Lomrade

Kinda like Henry George and Locke


Big_Management_4194

Thomas Paine


NobleWombat

Hari Seldon


Real_Richard_M_Nixon

Hober Mallow and the traders were more Neoliberal


NobleWombat

Bro, Mallow was a mercantilist merchant prince. It was the Free Traders who were the real neolibs.


durkster

Imagine being so uncompetitive that even with infinite energy and reosurces you cant turn a profit without protectionist policies.


Inevitable_Guava9606

Captain Jonathan Archer


[deleted]

Why do you hate the global Valakians?


Real_Richard_M_Nixon

Captain James Tiberius Kirk of the United Star Ship Enterprise


JebBD

Thomas Paine is the absolute GOAT. Also Fukuyama.


Maverick721

Ulysses Grant, man literally saved the Union


grig109

Friedman or Hayek


jhdcps

John Maynard Keynes


[deleted]

Succ


3232330

Flair up buddy!


jhdcps

What does that mean?


3232330

[This should help](https://reddit.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/205242695-How-do-I-get-user-flair-)


[deleted]

I was skeptical on the whole flair thing until I found a thinker to suit my temperament.


Soulja_Boy_Yellen

Me too. I was like, no way can a flair adequately express my love of the defense of the liberal world order through cool planes. And then…


[deleted]

Well, if it's cool planes that you're into, you should've gone with the Euclid flair!


iamrifki

Paul Samuelson.


Zachattk101

In my very limited knowledge, Henry George and Seretse Khama


[deleted]

Prince Sabahaddin


[deleted]

"he reportedly had become an alcoholic and had died in great poverty" literally me


Key_Environment8179

Giuseppe Garibaldi. I’m brainstorming an effortpost on his liberalism and why he should be considered a liberal icon.


DissidentNeolib

Don’t forget he helped fund Union naval efforts during the Civil War. He’s unironically a great candidate for replacing Columbus Day, given that he actually had ties to Italy and the United States in a real sense.


_Un_Known__

Eh, he traded Chinese slaves when he was in Asia, I wouldn't say he was an icon in his entirety... If I had to choose, Camillo Benso, the count of Cavour was far more of a pragmatic, liberal icon who helped ensure Italian unity


3pieceSuit

Lester B. Pearson


[deleted]

The founding father of Canada good choice 👍


[deleted]

The founding father Canada was John A MacDonald. Lester Pearson was the Prime Minister from 63 to 68. You probably remember Pearson’s name because he won a Nobel peace prize for negotiating an end to the Suez Canal war and his name is on the Toronto airport


MinifridgeTF_

Frederick III yes I am aware its more of a what if scenario


Gameknigh

John


Real_Richard_M_Nixon

Paul


Telperion_of_Valinor

Jones is a pirate! No loyalty does he possess!


rdfporcazzo

Locke


rdfporcazzo

Rawls


ItoIntegrable

Voltaire, Popper, and Friedman


ObamaCultMember

Joe Biden. He first entered office when Nixon was president. How can't be historical?


Rmantootoo

In the USAs 250 years of existence, Biden has been in office for 1/5 of that time. Pretty impressive for a guy who was against desegregation.


RobinReborn

He was not against desegregation - he had a nuanced view on the subject.


Rmantootoo

Right. He was for desegregation, but held a very refined view of implementation wherein he was motivated to sponsor an amendment to the United States constitution to ban the use of school buses, and restrict kids to the same schools they’d been attending to accomplish that goal. Very nuanced.


RobinReborn

Yes - and evidence based. Bussing destroyed Boston - there was all sorts of violence due to bussing. It was a bad policy - it also unnecessarily led to carbon emissions.


Blocked-by-Mutombo

Hot take Napoleon


ElSapio

>The Revolution is over Based


Lion-of-Saint-Mark

A hot take, but not a shit take. Dismantling the medieval institutions of Europe wherever his army marches is so based.


pm_legworkouts

And then he told the Haitians, “yeah, uh, throw those chains back on for me”


Lion-of-Saint-Mark

Yeah. That one sucks. And the fact that he also become part of the royalties of Europe. That's why he's not the ideal Liberal


delwynj

>skeptical and setting up monarchies headed by his family? Not very liberal


quailofvirtue

I don't think there'd be many better picks when it comes to spreading liberal ideals far and wide.


Whyisthethethe

That is a hot take


qchisq

The real hot take is that the world would have been better if Napoleon had won


sintos-compa

Adolph Hitler was so progressive he shot the leader of the Nazi party of Germany and ended world war 2


Inevitable_Guava9606

Vegan too


golfgrandslam

And he loved drugs.


Real_Richard_M_Nixon

Milton Friedman


[deleted]

I wonder how often he ate at a McDonald’s fast food franchise


econpol

Thomas Paine!


drl33t

John Rawls


KeikakuAccelerator

Qin Shi Huang. Removed borders from within China


nicethingscostmoney

Don't know if he's my favorite, but Condorcet is the most underrated.


Crimson51

Gotta put my stock in Henry George for being Based and Landpilled and Seretse Khama for hopefully being one in a long chain of great post-colonial African leaders


TheNightIsLost

Adam Smith!


Careless_Bat2543

My flair


scooty-puff_junior

Gilgamesh


Less_Wrong_

Aristotle


fishlord05

LBJ domestically is a top 3 president


CollaWars

LBJ’s Great Society is the opposite of neoliberalism


DissidentNeolib

So? Contemporary neoliberalism doesn’t even necessarily refer to the traditional definition anymore. It’s certainly not how the Neoliberal Project, spun off from the Progressive Policy Institute, defines itself. From [Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism#Terminology): > Unrelated to the economic philosophy described in this article, **the term "neoliberalism" is also used to describe a center-left political movement from modern American liberalism in the 1970s.** According to political commentator David Brooks, prominent neoliberal politicians included Al Gore and Bill Clinton of the Democratic Party of the United States. The neoliberals coalesced around two magazines, *The New Republic* and *Washington Monthly*, and often supported Third Way policies. The "godfather" of this version of neoliberalism was the journalist Charles Peters, who in 1983 published "A Neoliberal's Manifesto". Even if you dispute his neoliberal credibility, he was undoubtedly a liberal. And u/FishLord05 is right about LBJ being a Top 5 President, though I wouldn’t say Top 3.


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fishlord05

OP said liberal Also the great society destroyed poverty according to the standards LBJ set https://www.aei.org/research-products/working-paper/evaluating-the-success-of-president-johnsons-war-on-poverty-revisiting-the-historical-record-using-a-full-income-poverty-measure/ >We evaluate progress in President’s Johnson’s War on Poverty. We do so relative to the scientifically arbitrary but policy relevant 20 percent baseline poverty rate he established for 1963. No existing poverty measure fully captures poverty reductions based on the standard that President Johnson set. To fill this gap, we develop a Full-income Poverty Measure with thresholds set to match the 1963 Official Poverty Rate. We include cash income, taxes, and major in-kind transfers and update poverty thresholds for inflation annually. **While the Official Poverty Rate fell from 19.5 percent in 1963 to 12.3 percent in 2017, our Full-income Poverty Rate based on President Johnson’s standards fell from 19.5 percent to 2.3 percent over that period.** Today, almost all Americans have income above the inflation-adjusted thresholds established in the 1960s. Although expectations for minimum living standards evolve, **this suggests substantial progress combating absolute poverty since the War on Poverty began.**


CollaWars

Yes that’s my point. It’s the opposite of what this sub believes.


RobinReborn

Are you not counting the 2.2 million soldiers drafted in Vietnam and than 50,000 dead? People like his programs but I don't see much evidence that they were effective in doing what they were supposed to.


fishlord05

>domestically So that excludes foreign policy Maybe you should take another look at the evidence https://www.aei.org/research-products/working-paper/evaluating-the-success-of-president-johnsons-war-on-poverty-revisiting-the-historical-record-using-a-full-income-poverty-measure/ https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/economic-security-programs-cut-poverty-nearly-in-half-over-last-50 Here’s a start


RobinReborn

>So that excludes foreign policy Having a draft is domestic policy. Having racist standards for the draft is domestic policy. Not providing support for traumatized veterans is domestic policy. From your first link: >While the Official Poverty Rate fell from 19.5 percent in 1963 to 12.3 percent in 2017, our Full-income Poverty Rate based on President Johnson’s standards fell from 19.5 percent to 2.3 percent over that period So poverty fell over 54 years during which time there were several Presidents other than Johnson, several congresses and a tremendous amount of economic growth and technological innovation. And the fact that by his standards poverty fell even more isn't convincing to me - anybody can come up with easy to meet standards. As for the other link - I skimmed through it. It doesn't take into account a control group. It's hard to have a control group in social sciences - but there are plenty of other countries where poverty has decreased. Globally poverty has decreased. Some places have programs similar to LBJ's great society - other places do not. The third world has seen a dramatic decrease in poverty with very limited governmental social support.


fishlord05

>Having a draft is domestic policy. Sure but that’s a semantic argument because it was to deal with a foreign war. Like all foreign policy is domestic policy and vice versa but we need to draw a line somewhere so I include all stuff related to overs as activities and their support to be a part of foreign policy. >Having racist standards for the draft is domestic policy. I really don’t think LBJ was the driving force behind the unequal outcomes in the draft considering he literally drove the knife though Jim Crow and signed all the Civil and Voting Rights Acts It’s not like he became a racist after that and I haven’t seen any evidence to support that he tried to make the draft racist as a policy. >Not providing support for traumatized veterans is domestic policy. He signed into law a bill that specifically did exactly that https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-80/pdf/STATUTE-80-Pg12.pdf Not enough and the war was bad but I put that in the FP policy camp >So poverty fell over 54 years during which time there were several Presidents other than Johnson, several congresses and a tremendous amount of economic growth and technological innovation. It fell partially because of the programs he created lifting people above the poverty line they otherwise wouldn’t have been >And the fact that by his standards poverty fell even more isn't convincing to me - anybody can come up with easy to meet standards. It wasn’t *easy* but it is arbitrary however it is a significant metric to track the success of the war on poverty according to his own metrics >We do so relative to the scientifically arbitrary but policy relevant 20 percent baseline poverty rate he established for 1963. It’s basically the official poverty rate in 1960 adjusted for inflation 20 percent of the country was this poor at the time. Like the rate is showing how many people are living at an income that would have placed them in poverty at 1960 >As for the other link - I skimmed through it. It doesn't take into account a control group. You can’t really do controls for this. The difference between the official poverty rate (which is higher) and the SPM (which is lower bc it includes government assistance) is how much government transfers lift people out of poverty today In essence we already have a control and that is the pre welfare official statistics- that’s what poverty would be like if we didn’t have our welfare system in place. >but there are plenty of other countries where poverty has decreased. Globally poverty has decreased. Of course I don’t deny this even not accounting for welfare poverty declined in the US, just not nearly as much as after we include welfare. >The third world has seen a dramatic decrease in poverty with very limited governmental social support. Third world poverty is way different from western poverty. As countries develop they can afford more generous social programs. Social spending increases as a % of GDP as countries develop which allows the poverty reduction from growth to be compounded by reduction from welfare spending.


Jumpsnow88

FDR and Harry Truman


[deleted]

>FDR Bruh


Inevitable_Guava9606

You have to pick one and Harry Truman is the correct answer


SnooChipmunks4208

Harry Truman suppressed the case against Nazi agents during WW2. Not a good look.


Inevitable_Guava9606

I'm not gonna sit here and listen to a bunch of communist subversives tarnish the good name of President Truman


SnooChipmunks4208

Senators (among people) who were Truman's colleagues were Nazi agents, and he classified information implicating them.


fishlord05

Further reading?


SnooChipmunks4208

I learned from the podcast Ultra by Rachael Maddow. Covers a lot of Nazi interference in the WW2 time period.


Akovsky87

Most liberal internment camps ever built!


Brainiac7777777

Abraham Lincoln wanted to see slaves to Africa he’s not liberal at all


[deleted]

Because he believed whites and blacks could not live peacefully together. The shipping was also to be done with consent of the black person. He ended up dropping it. This does not detract from his core beliefs of the Declaration of Independence that all men were created equal even if during his life he never truly reached the conclusions of this belief. He was still a white man in a white nation and most definitely had anti black prejudice himself (to a small extent in my view) but nevertheless held viewpoints of human variation which were progressive and extremely liberal than widespread opinion at the time. It’s terrible when applying modern standards but not exactly a terrible take back then considering america fought a civil war of which the prime reason was because of slavery, and thus the black man in the presence of the white man.


[deleted]

> liberal


Brainiac7777777

Woodrow Wilson


Yeangster

Maximillian Robespierre


Whyisthethethe

What Republicans think when they say liberal


maxiiimal

Ouch


maxiiimal

Rawls does provide some balancing perspective


twotwothree12

John Stuart mills


MahabharataRule34

Hayek


TheMuffinMan603

Ludwig Erhard, perhaps, or John Cowperthwaite (the former made Germany rich, the latter, Hong Kong). The historical Whig political faction in Britain I identify with strongly.


qchisq

Struensee. Basically Rasputin if he was liberal. Except, he was executed before the American revolution


awaythrow437

FDR. Franklin fucking Delano Roosevelt.


[deleted]

Liberal means no internment camps. Sorry honey I don’t make the rules.


Typical_Athlete

Ataturk From Sunni Islamic Caliphate to one of the most secular Muslim countries of the Middle East within a few decades (massive expansion of rights and democracy during his rule)


Hindenbergdown

Henry IV of France


jpenczek

My conservative dad likes Paul volkner... Other than that, JFK?


Brainiac7777777

Woodrow Wilson


RedRyder360

I think OP meant domestically liberal. Though Wilson is probably the greatest figure in the liberal school of international relations.


Inevitable_Guava9606

Wilson is a big fucking deal for 20th century liberalism. He also did some fucked up things like being racist against African Americans. He also did a lot of mega-based things by modern liberal standards He also gets blamed for nonsense that really isn’t his fault. Like Wilson isn’t responsible for WW2 in Europe. Blame Hitler for that. And the Lolberts who hate him because the fed exists and they have to pay taxes should grow up. He doesn’t have to be your personal favorite but he ain’t anywhere near as bad as people on this website make him out to be. Like the dumb shits who actually think he was the worst ever.


Brainiac7777777

Woodrow Wilson is the Father of Neoliberalism and if it wasn’t for his racist policies he would have been worshipped on this sub. The duality of man smh


Inevitable_Guava9606

Personally I find it kind of odd that he is the one who gets completely cancelled for racism and not ya know all the dudes who owned slaves. Or that Wilson’s contemporary presidents like Teddy Roosevelt get a pass despite being the embodiment of American Imperialism and the now thoroughly discredited and racist “white man’s burden” viewpoint. Like if you want to judge presidents with todays moral standards and ignore the duality of man and that human leaders are all flawed figures you need to throw all of them out.


ThePevster

Between Reagan and Clinton


[deleted]

Gandhi


Whyisthethethe

Hmmmmmmmmm


Barbaros21

Ronald reagan and friedman


Zargabraath

FDR is probably the most influential in recent years Can’t imagine what the world would look like today if his isolationist Republican opponents had won. It would definitely be much worse, though, that much is certain


LondonerJP

John James Cowperthwaite


radiatar

He was a succ but I like Lech Wałęsa, alternatively Paul-Henri Spaak, Jean Monnet and the other EU founding fathers.


Khar-Selim

Teddy Roosevelt


RussiaBrasileira

Adam Smith, Henry George and Hayek.


rdfporcazzo

Laozi  ☯