ABSTRACT
Liberalism has evolved from being critical of the authority of the state and recommending private and voluntary action into a set of beliefs which remains critical of authority in nearly all forms but which at the same time supports an extremely comprehensive and penetrating extension of governmental action. Liberalism in the United States has always had greater sympathy for socialism than it had in Europe. The movement towards collectivistic liberalism in the United States was influenced, too, by quite similar developments in Great Britain in the course of which Benthamism—which aimed at the greatest happiness of the greatest number—turned from individual freedom to the use of an efficient government as a means of increasing the general happiness. Malthusianism has for a long time been a term of accusation and abuse in the vocabulary of collectivistic liberalism.
