Where do you consider yourself on the political spectrum?

[Selatius]

21. Actually, outside the United States, "liberal" typically means right wing. FDR changed it all.

In Australia, for instance, the Liberal Party is the right-wing party.

Prior to the 1930s, "liberal" in the United States meant no government regulation of the markets or of industry, the freedom to run a business or enterprise as one saw fit. The term typically could also be used to describe somebody who was socially liberal as well, such as anti-Prohibitionists.

During the 1930s, Franklin Roosevelt appropriated the term "liberal" from right-wing elements of the Republican Party and turned the definition into one that meant more freedom for workers to a decent wage and a decent living.

It appears that the appropriation of the term was so successful that since FDR, the term "liberal" took on, essentially, the current meaning within the United States. It is outside of the United States that the word largely maintained its old definition.

So whenever you're in Europe and you see a left-wing protester mention that "liberals" are no friends of labor, they mean laissez-faire economic policy or deregulators. In the United States, we've invented the term "neoliberal" to describe somebody who is pro-free trade and pro-deregulation as result to describe the same thing.

Personally, I prefer giving "liberal" back to the Republicans. They're champions of the notion that businessmen should be entirely free to run their enterprises however they saw fit. Instead, I prefer to use the original descriptor of the left in the United States: Progressive.