Liberals and Liberalists

[Comrade Gwydion]

Just a rant and some incoherent thoughts about liberalism.

Both adhere to liberalism, but are something completely different.
In american language, Liberals are leftwing moderates, who mostly are anti-violence, pro-welfarestate and progressive on social issiues like drugs, abortion and euthanesia without forming actual funded critisism on capitalism (many of the hippies of old times)

In for example the netherlands, there are the 'liberalists', also known as neo-liberals, who care little about the social issues (and thus form alliances both with progressives and conservatives) but are very radically in favor of free market policies. In fact, they're the people most close to libertarian.

So, basicly, in the netherlands there is a difference between Liberal and Liberalist: Liberals are those in favor of free private sphere (abortion, drugs etc) and liberalist are those in favor of 'free' market. Both words however are mostly used in the meaning of the latter.
The greens for example, are very liberal without being 'liberalist'. There's a party who are very liberalist but get most of their votes because they're also very, very 'liberal'. The rightwing party are the staunch liberalists.

Because of this, I have often been confused when people said hippies where 'dirty lazy liberals' or when the democrats where called the liberal party, because our liberal party (read: neo-liberalist) where staunch supporters of the republicans. Any thoughts?

[Pierson's]

the trouble is that words can mean more than one thing. in the case of 'liberal' i think that people throw it around as an insult, which, well, is a problem. because that doesn't say what it means!

the conservative party in australia is the "liberal party", and yet, i don't think they are liberal at all in the first sense you mention. and, of course, teh democrats and republicans in the usa are not liberal in that sense either. indeed, i can't think of a major political party (in power or with a chance at power) who is truely liberal in that sense.

yet, of course, there are many many liberalists as you call them. fuckers, tehy are the enemy.

[9]

Yeah, in the US (as the OP noted), the term "liberal" is used more to describe "social liberalism" (pro-choice, gay rights, civil rights, etc.) and outside of North America, the word "liberal" seems to be referring to "economic liberalism" (laissez faire capitalism). In the US, the term used for the latter (as the OP correctly notes) is generally "neoliberalism".
On the left, when the term "liberal" is thrown around as an insult, it generally is intended to connote reformism.

[Die Rote Fahne]

Neo-liberalism is an economic theory.

[Demogorgon]

There was a split in the Liberal Movement in the early twentieth century. People like Lloyd George and Franklin Roosevelt moved Liberalism into the area of Keynesian economics and support for welfare measures. They tended to see poverty and economic instability as a threat to freedom. They took predominance in North America and Britain.

Those who rejected this and maintained classical liberalism formed the other branch of liberalism and continue to hold predominance in continental Europe, Australia and so forth. Tellingly this branch also tends to be more authoritarian in social issues.