It is far too early to pick up the pieces and reconstruct either mainstream economics or the free market version of it after the debacle of the past two years. It is not, however, too early to restate some liberal values that need to be preserved whatever technical changes are made in the conduct of economic policy.
(The word “liberal” has acquired so many meanings that I need to make clear that I am using it in the classical European sense of someone who attaches especial importance to personal freedom, and therefore wishes to reduce the number of human made obstacles to the exercise of actual or potential choice. The late Isaiah Berlin called this “negative freedom”.)
Many socialists and social democrats regard the negative definition of freedom as far too narrow and ask whether someone can be really free if he or she has not enough to eat or is deprived of the opportunity of a decent education. The confusion arises from the attempt to derive all public policy from one central goal. Freedom is not the same as prosperity, equality, self-government or any other desired state of affairs. These goals may sometimes be complementary, at other times competitive.