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Thinking Politically: A Liberal in the Age of Ideology

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This is what liberalism ment to be, this is a real liberal.
"I was a socialist as long as I had not studied political economy", states Raymond Aron and that is just the begining of a wonderful and objective radiography of the agitated periods Aron lived through. We find here one of the first warnings on the extreme social(ist) measures the western states were starting to implement, the first signs of liberalism going to far to the left, the need for at least a hint of Machiavellism especially when dealing with international crisis.
Interesting insights in France of WWII, de Gaulle, Alger, Indochina and all the intriguing power plays of that time.

And finaly this :
"The democratic state is suffering from an obvious contradiction. One the one hand it undertakes extensive intervention in the economic and social structure; on the other, its authority is relatively small, because every organized group, every trade union, every party has at its disposal ways and means of paralyzing it. The same people who protest against the state want everyhting from it."
"We live in societies controlled by economic interests in which it is very difficult to persuade people to sacrifice much, if not everything, to safeguard liberty. Democracy and prosperity are always identified whith each other. Prosperity is, to be sure, a good thing, but it quite often demands sacrifices too. The people of the Western democracies are not willing to make those sacrifices. That constitues another striking moral contradiction of the democratic system. Democracy is morally superior to despotism not because, say, its economic system is better or because it is more creative and generally productive, but because it comes up with better human beings".