Are you talking big "L" Liberals (as in the Liberal Party of Canada) or small "l" liberals as in classic political liberalism, the oppositve of classic conservatism. OR are you talking about economic liberalism? In that case... Most Liberals AND liberals ARE 'economic liberals', which essentially believe the same thing as neocons and neoliberals - all agree that the free, competitive market is awesome.

You're right, none of it is very progressive because it hinges on the ideas of one man many, many years ago by the name of Adam Smith. He couldn't have anticipated how out of hand things would get, and we really should be more critical and stop listening to this antiquated gent. He had a good idea at the time, let's move on and correct this mess of a system.
 

If your trying to say that the Liberal party of Canada believes in free market economics, I've gotta laugh. They're usually the first ones to rush to regulate the shit out of any industry.

And while Adam Smith's ideas may be old, they do hold up better than any other theories to have come along since. It might not be as "progressive" as some other ideas that have come along since, but we all know how those end, don't we?
 

Actually, the Liberals brought us free trade. It's a simple fact of history. Trudeau brought us the Auto Pact (sectoral free trade with the US) and he did all of the preliminary negotations for NAFTA. Mulroney inhereted these negotiations and sealed the deal.