Free to choose is the very point of liberalism

Zoe Strimpel’s new book is reviewed:

Women’s freedom of choice, Strimpel says, has been enabled and enriched by the values and gains of Western capitalism. Her book is subtitled How Money, Sex and Power Set Women Free. Admittedly, when writing most strongly in this vein, Strimpel can sometimes seem to paint just as simple a picture of the “good woman” as the targets of her ire do. The chapter titled “Let’s Be Careerist, Bitches!” should leave us in no doubt as to her views on stay-at-home motherhood. Each to their own, but most women have jobs, not careers, and spending time having fun with your children while cleaning your own floor is, for many of us, preferable to leaving them with strangers while being paid peanuts to clean someone else’s.

Even The Observer grasps - tho’ cannot quite bring itself to agree with - the point:

The entire point of the liberal settlement is chacun a son gout. That we all gain the liberty, the freedom, to live our own lives our own way. Neoliberalism is merely a restatement of that idea given how the left - especially American - has debased the word liberal itself.

We all get rich enough that we all have choices that is. We might not like or approve of, we might enjoy and take part in, the choices that others make but it is the choice, the ability to have the liberty, which is the very point of the idea, system and socioeconomic settlement.

Excellent, eh? Isn’t it great when a plan comes together?

Tim Worstall