Industrialization, centralization, and urbanization created a new society that was alien to the liberal and individualistic tradition. Concentrations of people, wealth, and power made necessary new limitations on individual freedom. A new class, the unpropertied proletariat, became large enough to be politically important. The very existence of the new society had partially depended upon governmental privileges — ou corporate rights, franchises, land grants, and tarifis. Ideas such as free enterprise, private property, equality of opportunity, and competition became almost meaningless to many men, even though completely accepted. At the same time those ideas became crutches for the use of a privileged few. The purists saw this and fought back. They wanted to return to decentralization in govern ment and in the economy, to equal opportunities and really free enter prise, to pure competition, and to an age long past. They continued to believe, and do yet today, that the liberal tradition remains valid. In a polluted, indistinct form the liberal tradition remains the domi nant political ideology in America today.
