"The Third Way is a position that tries to reconcile right-wing and left-wing politics by synthesizing conservative economic and social welfare policies. It was exemplified by a group of political leaders in the 1990s that included President Bill Clinton, Prime Minister Tony Blair, Chancellor Gerhard Schroder, and leaders of Brazil, Portugal, the Netherlands, and Israel."
"The Third Way is a centrist political position that attempts to reconcile right-wing and left-wing politics by advocating a varying synthesis of centre-right economic policies with centre-left social policies.[1][2] The Third Way was born from a re-evaluation of political policies within various centre to centre-left progressive movements in the 1980s in response to doubt regarding the economic viability of the state and the perceived overuse of economic interventionist policies that had previously been popularised by Keynesianism, but which at that time contrasted with the rise of popularity for neoliberalism and the New Right starting in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s.[3]
The Third Way has been promoted by social liberal[4] and social-democratic parties.[5] In the United States, a leading proponent of the Third Way was Bill Clinton, who served as the country's president from 1993 to 2001.[6] In the United Kingdom, Third Way social-democratic proponent Tony Blair claimed that the socialism he advocated was different from traditional conceptions of socialism and said: "My kind of socialism is a set of values based around notions of social justice. ... Socialism as a rigid form of economic determinism has ended, and rightly."[7] Blair referred to it as a "social-ism" involving politics that recognised individuals as socially interdependent and advocated social justice, social cohesion, equal worth of each citizen and equal opportunity.[8]
Third Way social-democratic theorist Anthony Giddens has said that the Third Way rejects the state socialist conception of socialism and instead accepts the conception of socialism as conceived of by Anthony Crosland as an ethical doctrine that views social democratic governments as having achieved a viable ethical socialism by removing the unjust elements of capitalism by providing social welfare and other policies and that contemporary socialism has outgrown the Marxist claim for the need of the abolition of capitalism as a mode of production.[9] In 2009, Blair publicly declared support for a "new capitalism".[10]
The Third Way supports the pursuit of greater egalitarianism in society through action to increase the distribution of skills, capacities and productive endowments while rejecting income redistribution as the means to achieve this.[11] It emphasises commitment to balanced budgets, providing equal opportunity which is combined with an emphasis on personal responsibility, the decentralisation of government power to the lowest level possible, encouragement and promotion of public–private partnerships, improving labour supply, investment in human development, preservation of social capital, and protection of the environment.[12]
Specific definitions of Third Way policies may differ between Europe and the United States. The Third Way has been criticised by other social democrats, as well as anarchists, communists, and in particular democratic socialists as a betrayal of left-wing values,[13][14][15] with some analysts characterising the Third Way as an effectively neoliberal movement.[16] It has also been criticised by certain conservatives, classical liberals, and libertarians who advocate for laissez-faire capitalism."
Alvin Rabushka, is essentially right about what the Third Way is. That it’s a new approach born in the mid 1980s or so. But you could go back to Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s and Jack Kennedy in the early 1960s. That it’s a different approach and a center, between anti-government conservative libertarianism on the Right, that Barry Goldwater and Ron Reagan put on the national scene in the 1960s and 70s and New-Left democratic socialism on the left, that became dominate in the Democratic Party in the late 1960s and 1970s, that seek to create a superstate, a European welfare state in America. And make the central government responsible for looking after and taking care of the personal and economic welfare of the people.
The Third Way, is essentially a bridge between Barry Goldwater on the conservative libertarian-right and Bernie Sanders on the Socialist Far-Left. That says government has a role in seeing that everyone can succeed and do well and live in freedom. Just not try to do everything for them and run their economic and personal affairs for them.
Classical Liberals (meaning the real Liberals) believe that it's the job of government, not to try to run people's lives for them and take away personal responsibility, accountability, and freedom of choice away from them. But instead empower people, especially people who are struggling, to get the tools that they need to be successful and independent on their own. Classical Liberals also don't believe that government should just get out-of-way, and essentially let corporations and wealthy individuals run the country. But instead use government to empower people to take control of their own lives. As well as protect individuals from predators.
People on the left (or far-left) would say this looks like neoliberalism or it looks centrist. People who are closeted Socialists especially say that. But the Third Way is between conservative libertarianism on the Right and democratic socialism on the left, but it's not centrist. Liberals believe in liberal democracy, not centrism and splitting the difference. Liberalism (or classical liberalism, if you prefer) is it's own political philosophy, not a combination of two other philosophies.
If you think about it, the Third Way has been the dominant political philosophy in the Democratic Party, really since the mid 1980s after they lost another presidential election in a landslide to President Ronald Reagan. Governor Michael Dukakis, even though he lost to George H.W. Bush in a landslide in 1988, is also a New Democrat, not a Social Democrat.
The Democratic Party has always had a left-wing in it and probably will always have that, unless the Democratic Socialists move to the Green Party. But at best, they've been more than a 3rd of the Democratic Party.
It's almost impossible to win a statewide election or win the presidential nomination, as a Democrat, as a left-wing Democratic Socialist. You have to be a Classical Liberal (meaning real Liberal) or a Progressive (meaning not Socialist) to win a statewide election, at least outside of Vermont and Massachusetts, to win the Democratic nomination. And unless that changes, I don't see classical liberalism (meaning the real liberalism) ever leaving the Democratic Party.
