ABSTRACT
The liberal tradition has come to stand for capitalist styles and capitalist economies; but if so, this is a very late development in the history of capitalism. If one understands liberalism in this way, one can better appreciate the tensions, ambiguities and uncertainties that have pervaded the liberal tradition in politics and society. The ambiguities within the liberal tradition are imposed not simply by other forms of political ideologies, but by the metaphysics of the concept of liberty itself. It offers a middle range between whatever is at one extreme end and whatever is said to be necessary at the other. This is where the liberal tradition has had its gravest trials and tribulations. It is interesting to note the degree to which discussion of twentieth-century liberalism seems inevitably centered on the United States. All shibboleths of science were linked into one network of fact and theory; evolution, industry, growth, progress, technology and science itself.
