It seems incongruous to be discussing such a pacific philosophy as liberalism in the context of imminent war, but liberalism as an idea will outlive both Saddam Hussein (not that that’s saying much) and George Bush.

The basic range of meanings associated with liberalism were set by John Stuart Mill in On Liberty which, fortunately is in the public domain. Reading Mill, we can distinguish three separate arguments associated with liberalism, listed in order of the importance Mill attached to them
(a) An argument for freedom of speech, thought and discussion, based not only on the rights of the individual speaker but on the social and intellectual damage done by restrictions on freedom of speech. As Mill observes, our own beliefs are weaker if we need to protect ourselves from counterarguments
(b) An argument that individuals should not be ‘protected from themselves’ in relation to ‘self-regarding’ acts such as taking drugs
(c) An argument for free trade (in the broad sense of laissez-faire) economic policies, based on classical economic theory. Mill says that doctrine of Free Trade,‘rests on grounds different from, though equally solid with, the principle of individual liberty asserted in this Essay.’ Mill observes that market transactions are social acts and may therefore be regulated without infringing individual liberty.

It follows that there is no logical inconsistency in accepting Mill’s arguments for individual freedom while rejecting or modifying the economic arguments for Free Trade and in fact, late in his life, Mill himself announced a commitment to a rather abstract form of socialism. Most of those whose thought descends directly from Mill’s liberalism similarly accepted substantial modifications to the classical theory of Free Trade, so that, in economic terms, most “liberals” in the US and UK are social democrats of one form and another.

However, beginning with Hayek, there has been a resurgence of versions of liberalism which focus on free markets. Hayek rejects Mill’s ranking arguing that freedom of action (most notably, freedom of contract) is at least as important as freedom of speech and thought. Radical versions of the Hayekian position are commonly referred to as ‘libertarian’.

More significant in practical terms has been the trend of thought often called ‘neoliberalism’, and also given a range of more-or-less pejorative labels such as ‘economic rationalism’ (in Australia), ‘Thatcherism’ (in the UK) and ‘the Washington consensus’ (in relation to less-developed countries). Just to confuse things, neoliberalism is also used in the US to describe a specific subgroup associated with the Democratic Leadership Council. I’ve given a lengthy discussion of neoliberalism here.