| Liberalism has always been the basic social ideology in the United States since the American Revolution, whose basic principles are personal property rights, individual freedom and distrust of government power. But from the very beginning, there is an inherent contradiction in Liberalism. It claims that everyone is bom equal, but at the same time, it confesses actual inequality among the seemingly equal individuals. So more and more social problems concerning inequality and injustice appeared and piled up in the United States. At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, a new type of social theory, named New Liberalism in this paper, brewed and developed in the American intellectual circle. It criticized Liberalism for its failing to give real equality and justice to the weak groups, and called for governmental reform to achieve this goal. It's not hard to figure out the linkage and difference between liberalism and the so-called New Liberalism.Taking advantage of the Great Crisis in the 1920s and under the direction of the New Liberalism, a large-scale governmental reform stepped into the American history, i. e., the New Deal. After that, another two reforms of this kind took place in the 1940s and 1960s, which were called the Fair Deal and the Great Society respectively. Among the three reforms, the New Deal represented the primary stage of the New Liberalist reform, while the other two, the developing and the climax stage. They greatly changed the American society, making big contribution to the welfare system in the United States.But in the United States, the reforms could not get free from double predicaments. Firstly, they came across many problems in the execution of the reform policies, which badly discounted the reforms' performance. So there's a pretty big gap between their achievements and goals. Secondly, the reforms inevitably led to the expansion of government authority, which was against the basic principle of the Liberalism tradition in the American society. And accordingly, the reforms suffered severe criticism and opposition from the Liberalists who were the majority of Americans. So we can draw aconclusion that the reform of this kind could neither solve the problem of social inequality, nor be accepted by the American society.This paper is mainly composed of four chapters. Chapter One provides the theoretical base for the whole paper. The writer gives a detailed exploration for the historical development of the concept of Liberalism, summing up its basic principles and pointing out its inherent contradiction. After that, the concept of New Liberalism is put forward and compared with the concept of Liberalism, for the purpose of showing the New Liberalism's calling for governmental reform to realize social equality.Chapter Two to Four discuss the whole process of the American governmental reform under the direction of the New Liberalism, mainly expounding the reform's inevitable fate to be cornered by the double predicaments. Chapter Two discusses the New Deal. which was the primary stage of the reform. As a whole, the New Deal was not mainly for social equality but for anti-crisis, which was obviously to meet an urgent need. As to its effect, it indeed saved the American capitalist from collapsing, but it couldn't get rid of the economic recession. At the same time, the New Deal led to an expansion of the government authority, which encountered great criticism and opposition from the Liberalist. As a result, the New Deal had to be at a standstill, but it left a large legacy to the future reform.Chapter Three discusses the Fair Deal, which was the developing stage of the reform. The Fair Deal's aim was to maintain the fruits of the New Deal and to expand the reform area, so as to achieve social equality. But when the reform was put forward, most American people had lost their interest in the reform. Undoubtedly, the reform was promoting in a very hard way for badly short of necessary social support, and its achievement was also very weak.Chapter Four discuss...
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