I define liberalism in the sense we can ascribe it to the American founders as framers primarily in terms we find in a historian (and historian of political thought) like Ralph Ketcham--as limited government. Correlatively, I agree with Ron Oakerson (protege of Vincent Ostrom and one of my teachers), that liberalism is the rejection of arbitrary power (and therefore of authoritarianism). With Oakerson (and Burke), I take conservativism to be the rejection of radicalism (like we see in the French Revolution or the Bolshevik revolution in Russia). Correlatively, conservatism is, of course, the conservation not only of eternal principles but also that which is good in any order or regime in the midst of change for ordained to the common good. Thus, on this Oakersonian understanding, one can be a liberal conservative or a conservative literal. And this is entirely compatible with the criticisms of liberalism as Sandel defines it (and his correct contention that America's founders were not liberals in that sense)--namely, Utilitarian and Kantian liberalism and Kantian liberalism in its egalitarian / welfarist and libertarian branches. I think Sandels claim substantially correct--that with respect to liberalism so understood, the American founders were not liberals but republicans whose fundamental commitments were those of ancient political theory (the common good) and that liberalism so understood also fails: Utilitarian liberalism fails against the Kantian critique. Within Kantian liberalism, Rawls falls to Nozick's critique. But Nozick (as well as Rawls) fail to acknowledge substantial communal obligations we have by virtue of being members of those communities and that aren't just a matter of choice. Though I think all of this is in the first edition of Democracy's Discontent (and republished in Justice: A Reader) but excised (I wish it had not been) from the second edition of DD. I also think there's a good sense of liberalism in the work of Jacob Levy--institutional pluralism over and against institutional centralization. And here Vincent Ostrom's work (preeminently The Political Theory of a Compound Republic but also The Meaning of American Federalism and The Crisis in Public Administration) is of real import.
