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Liberalism -- the 30-second elevator pitch

by nadezhda at 09:07PM (EST) on January 28, 2005 | Permanent Link

The American Prospect has a competition underway for a 30-second elevator pitch on "what does liberalism stand for." I've found the winner.

William Jefferson Clinton, Davos, Switzerland, January 27, 2005:

[Clinton's] future goals were based on the reality that the world had become interdependent. The results have been both ominous, such as the rise of terrorism, and hopeful, such as the large number of private donations to tsunami victims in Asia, a crisis in which he and former President George H.W. Bush are leading the U.S. response.

"I should do whatever I can to help to create an integrated global community where we have shared benefits and shared responsibilities and we don't fight because of our differences," Clinton said.

"I just wake up every day saying, 'How lucky did I get, right?' And so my goal is, I just don't want anybody younger than me to die before they have to. To have their dreams broken…. So I just want to spend the rest of my life doing what I can to stop that from happening."

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Re: Liberalism -- the 30-second elevator pitch

by praktike on Sat 29 Jan 2005 02:10 PM EST | Profile | Permanent Link

Great find. Replaces Churchill on LAT.

Re: Liberalism -- the 30-second elevator pitch

by thibaud on Mon 31 Jan 2005 10:25 AM EST | Profile | Permanent Link

um, this bureaucratese isn't exactly going to rouse the masses. No one gets excited about "global integration." As Churchill said, "Short words are best and the old words when short are best of all." Words like hope, faith, charity, work, strive, seek, heart....

The challenge in a nutshell is to tell western workers and farmers why they should welcome, and fight for, higher living standards for their rivals in China, India, Brazil etc. Pablum about "shared benefits and shared responsibilities" won't persuade or rally anyone.

Re: Liberalism -- the 30-second elevator pitch

by thibaud on Mon 31 Jan 2005 11:50 AM EST | Profile | Permanent Link

The first thing liberalism needs to get over is the bogus rhetoric about "one world-ism", "the world community" etc. Anti-nationalism resonates within Europe but nowhere else. The goal is to encourage other nations and regions to play within the rules and thereby reap the benefits of the institutions set up by the advanced democracies. So the elevator pitch has to be convincing the non-democratic nations to empower their citizens while encouraging the more fearful and vulnerable elements of the democratic nations to applaud the continued rise and empowerment of the non-western nations.

Liberalism's message needs to appeal simultaneously to workers and farmers in the western world and the ambitious young nationalists of China, Brazil, India, Indonesia etc. Perhaps along the lines of the following:

Liberalism seeks a world in which no one is a nobody, in which economic change brings opportunity for the weak as well as the strong, in which the power of any nation depends upon the amount of power it grants its citizens. Liberalism holds that real peace requires free nations and that no nation can be truly free that does not actively seek peace and the institutions that preserve it among nations.

Liberalism is confident. It welcomes technology, it favors change and economic growth as necessary to human fulfillment. Liberalism does not fetishize the past. Institutions are not worthy simply for being old. Liberalism looks forward to a future based on increased power and autonomy for the individual in a community of free nations made up of free men and women.

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