Les libéralismes économiques et la crise

The emergence of the crisis has given a new impetus to the criticism of economic liberalism. My claim in this paper is that such criticisms will be to no avail as long as the idea of liberalism remains homogenous. It should rather be considered that several degrees of liberalism coexist, which I call full liberalism, mitigated liberalism and mitigated antiliberalism with additional subcategories for the first two categories. In the first part of the paper, I explain the salient traits of economic liberalism in general. Its justification by Adam Smith is discussed in part two. In part three, I show how the different forms of liberalism have emerged with the passing of time.