The Value of the Adjective

In Europe, liberalism is essentially what we call libertarianism, but not the left libertarianism. In the United States, liberalism is simply our name for our very modest version of social democracy. But many of the defenders of New Deal liberalism became neo-defenders of neoliberalism. So I don't see a coherent doctrine. It means anything from laissez-faire politics to some kind of socialdemocracy.