Words sometimes change their meaning. Sometimes because those who adopt them are not careful students of the literature or avid users of dictionaries. Sometimes those who switch them are well educated and aware of their deliberate change in order to achieve control of illiterate minds. Thus it happened that, particularly in America, the word “liberalism” has been gradually appropriated by champions of collectivism who are the opposite of liberalism in its classical sense. European liberals may go on calling themselves by this designation, which is rightfully theirs, but they do so at the risk of being confused with American liberals. To avoid such confusion, they may resort either to explanatory footnotes every time they introduce themselves, or to adopting a new appellation for themselves, such as “libertarians”. The most essential difference is that the European liberal wants the individual to be free from coercive interferences, especially from interventions by the state, whereas the American liberal wants the state to intervene in all sorts of situations and restrict the individual’s freedom of thought, speech and action in a variety of ways for a variety of objectives.