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Nowadays the term "liberalism" is more and more used in political debates together with pejorative adjectives like "rotten", "passed" and others. Instead of "liberal democracy" we hear about "sovereign democracy", "independent democracy" and of course "national democracy". Looking for the roots of such development, the author sees one of them in the identification of liberal ideas with the liberal economy. Although the deepened studies show, that even the most prominent liberals never were so orthodox like the libertarians, among them especially Hans-Hermann Hoppe, for whom no liberty is possible without absolute freedom of property, commerce and production. The idea is false, taking into account the liberals like John Maynard Keynes, even John Stuart Mill or Leonard Trelawney Hobhouse. The second misunderstanding is in the notion of democracy. Nowadays the most popular idea is that democracy means simply the political majority. That is the point in which the liberals were always very cautious, beginning with Benjamin Constant, Alexis de Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill. The liberals accepted democracy, but – according to the famous words of Mill – defined as the rule of majority, but with respect of minorities. It is clear, that this role of liberalism is nowadays in retreat. Democracy is often meant and understood as the sovereignty of the people, according to the words of Jean-Jacques Rousseau "unlimited, unalienable and indivisible", and means freedom of nation and not freedom of individual. The historical experience shows that such "unlimited will of the people" was used as a veil for the most horrific political systems. But on the other hand, it is clear that under authoritarian regimes, liberalism, especially political liberalism, becomes the point of gathering of the opposition, as the examples of II French Empire, of fascist Italy, German III Reich, and communist regime confirm. ; Punktem wyjścia w niniejszym opracowaniu jest stwierdzenie faktu, że termin "liberalizm" nabiera pejoratywnego charakteru; w wypowiedziach polityków i publicystów pojawiają się określenia typu "zgniły" "upadły" czy "skompromitowany" liberalizm. Przyczyną tego zjawiska jest utożsamienie terminu "liberalizm" z nieograniczoną gospodarką wolnorynkową albo z absolutną, niemal anarchistyczną wolnością jednostki. To zjawisko nasiliło się szczególnie za sprawą szkoły chicagowskiej i libertarianizmu, czego najbardziej wymownym przykładem jest książka Demokracja – bóg, który zawiódł. Druga przyczyna to niewątpliwie stosunek klasycznych liberałów do demokracji. Liberałowie walczyli wprawdzie o powszechne prawa wyborcze (także dla kobiet), ale ich naczelnym zadaniem i ideałem było postawienie granic temu, co Jan Jakub Rousseau określił jako "nieograniczoną, suwerenną i niepozbywalną władzą ludu (narodu)". Stąd określenie "demokracja liberalna" zawierało konkretną treść, taką jak prawa jednostki, rządy prawa, podział władzy. Jesteśmy aktualnie świadkami wzrostu popularności ideału Rousseau, mówi się przecież o "suwerennej demokracji", woli narodu. To każe jednak pamiętać, że właśnie rządy autorytarne i totalitarne posługiwały się taką retoryką, mówiąc o demokracji jako o wyrazie woli narodu i nie przewidując żadnych dla tej woli ograniczeń. Czy to oznacza kres idei liberalnych? Historia poucza nas, że liberalizm stawał się ważną ideologią zawsze w momentach kryzysowych, jak np. w II Cesarstwie Francuskim, jak również po upadku III Rzeszy, dyktatury Francisco Franco i komunizmu. Można sądzić, że nie tyle liberalizm jako teoria ekonomiczna, ile liberalizm jako ograniczenie władzy absolutnej – nawet jeśli władza ta pochodzi z demokratycznych wyborów – będzie nadal spełniać tę funkcję.

Zsfassung in engl. Sprache u.d.T.: The economic dimension of Polish liberalism : from physiocracy to the Kraków School

Me-economy and we-economy are models (trends, streams) in the global economy development. In the me-economy model the core of interest is a consumer (user, client, prosumer, etc.) and the customisation in meeting customers' needs. Contrary to me-economy, we-economy stands for reciprocity economy, co-production of products and/or services by the users and clients, supported by neighbourly relations and co-operation, the principles of wikinomics and prosumption. The above-mentioned trend combines the features of different systems and economic streams, i.e. the market economy with the traditional economy and the centrally controlled economic system, as well as the laissez-faire approach with libertarianism and liberalism. Due to the limited role of the state in functioning of this trend and the lack of suitable legal regulations and economic tools which would determine the development of we-economy, it is often perceived as a threat to social and economic security, and not as a direction of development stimulating the activities of various entities.

Societies around the globe have been witnessing the emergence of the radical right, often seen as the result of neoliberal globalization. Democratic governance, liberalism, human rights, and values are being questioned while populist, authoritarian, and ethnonationalist forms of governance are being offered. In the European Union, the tumultuous developments have been testing the viability of the identity marker of Europeanness and its perseverance in EU member states. What we are witnessing are significant shifts in the discourse about sameness and otherness, the convergence of left and right ideologies and the emergence of hybrid forms of authoritarianism and democracy that have been dubbed as illiberal democracy or authoritarian liberalism. The rise of the radical right and its mobilization across the EU member states is reflective of these processes, and it is the goal of this author to understand the mechanisms behind the empowerment, mobilization, and normalization of radical right through the case study of Slovakia. In particular, the effort of this paper is to understand how the far-right party Kotlebovci – Ľudová Strana Naše Slovensko (ĽSNS) in Slovakia re-conceptualized the notion of nation and normalized far-right ideology as a pretext of a broader mobilization.

Niniejszy artykuł dotyczy rozdźwięku pomiędzy liberalną retoryką a społeczno- polityczną rzeczywistością współczesnych stosunków międzynarodowych. Autor twierdzi, że jakkolwiek liberalizm nadal zapewnia wiodącą perspektywę eksplanacyjną współczesne stosunki międzynarodowe są zbyt dynamiczne i skomplikowane aby można było zanalizować je wyłącznie w ramach liberalizmu, który zresztą popada w dogmatyzm. Z tego powodu, adekwatna analiza współczesnej demokracji oraz politycznych i gospodarczych aspektów współczesnych stosunków międzynarodowych jest niepełna, jeśli nie uwzględnia pewnych wniosków ze sfery realizmu, konstruktywizmu, a nawet postmodernizmu. Przykład transformacji demokratycznej w Europie Środkowo-Wschodniej doskonale obrazuje tę tezę. Liberalne reformy w regionie wciąż zderzają się z rygorystycznymi poglądami wywodzącymi się z socjalistycznej przeszłości. Liberalne wartości sąpoza tym zniekształcane i błędnie pojmowane. Wyjaśnianie tych procesów wykracza daleko poza liberalizm i analiza nawet samego wschodniego poszerzenia Unii Europejskiej byłaby bardziej wyczerpująca gdyby uwzględniła pewne odniesienia do realizmu, krytyki teoretycznej czy postmodernizmu. ; This paper refers to the gap between the liberal rhetoric and the reality of contemporary international relations. It maintains that liberalism remains a leading explanatory perspective, yet contemporary international affairs are too dynamic and too complicated to analyse them within liberal perspectives alone. In addition, liberalism tends to fall into dogmatism. Thus, the adequate analysis of today's democracy, as well as the political and economic aspects of contemporary international relations becomes incomplete without a reference to some realist, constructivist and even postmodernist conclusions. The example of the East-Central European democratic transformation clearly illustrates this thesis. The liberal reforms in the region still clash with the illiberal attitudes inherited from the communist past. Additionally, liberal values are misconceived and misunderstood. The explanation of those processes reaches far beyond liberal confines, and even the analysis of the Eastern enlargement of the European Union would be more complete with some realist, critical theoretical or postmodernist remarks added to it.

There is cultural domination of power in contemporary system of liberal democracy. In effect there is reaction as social, political and cultural evolution in Poland, Europe, USA. The article analyses different definitions of liberalism, describes interpretation of cultural monopolization of power, its character, mechanisms, manifests and reaction to domination of liberal-left identity. In conclusions describes identity clash of liberal-left with liberal-right and proposes a new deal and new consensus that establish a new form of democratic state as liberal-left-right democratic.

Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) was arguably the fi rst modern liberalist. His Theologico-Political Treatise (henceforward, "TPT", followed by chapter number), which contains among other things a principled defense of free speech, was published anonymously in 1677, twelve years before John Locke's charter of liberalism, Two Treatises on Government (1689), but it has been unduly, although understandably, neglected. It is also true that Thomas Hobbes and René Descartes had a huge infl uence on Spinoza, but neither of them can be called a liberalist, let alone a defender of free speech. In this article, I will try to show that Spinoza's argument for free speech is, despite its interpretative diffi culties, an important milestone in the development of the doctrine of free speech. ; Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) was arguably the fi rst modern liberalist. His Theologico-Political Treatise (henceforward, "TPT", followed by chapter number), which contains among other things a principled defense of free speech, was published anonymously in 1677, twelve years before John Locke's charter of liberalism, Two Treatises on Government (1689), but it has been unduly, although understandably, neglected. It is also true that Thomas Hobbes and René Descartes had a huge infl uence on Spinoza, but neither of them can be called a liberalist, let alone a defender of free speech. In this article, I will try to show that Spinoza's argument for free speech is, despite its interpretative diffi culties, an important milestone in the development of the doctrine of free speech.