Having covered the origins of leftism in the initial article in this two-part series, let's recap. Liberalism was originally named for its chief aim--as a philosophy based upon liberty, which is now known as Classical Liberalism. The roots of this worldview stretch back to classical paganism. In An Intellectual History of Liberalism, Pierre Manent generally describes Liberalism as "the basso continuo of modern politics, of the politics of Europe and the West for about the past three centuries." In other words, it is our foundational societal theory. Yet, now the term liberalism has been co-opted by socialism.
