"It has sometimes been thought that this distinction mapped onto the welfarist/libertarian divide. I will argue that this is precisely wrong. The pluralist/rationalist distinction crosscuts the economic one. Liberals of whatever economic stripe have to face the pluralist/rationalist tension and the choices it poses. As hard questions about, for instance, multiculturalism assume greater prominence than old debates over taxation, libertarians and welfarists confront much the same difficulties in much the same ways, just in virtue of being liberals and not nationalists, republicans, or something else. After socialism, as before it, liberals face a necessary tension and difficult choices between pluralism and rationalism." - Asim Ihsan