Maybe this is facile but it's been bugging me.
I was thinking about this, and the modern liberal is fundamentally not liberal.
Like, yeah, ok, it's a dogshit ideology that destroyed the world, more than once.
But there was a time when it was radical, at least compared to Feudalism.
Now? I don't even think most liberals are anti monarchy. Like they literally aren't. If you ask them point blank, should all royalty be abolished, or was the French Revolution worth doing, they're gonna flat out say no.
The modern liberal essentially believes in two things. The absolute inviolability of the power and legitimacy of Western hegemony and institutions. And that things remain basically the same, and cannot change for any reason, because change is bad unless you can be sure it'll make things better.
That describes Conservatism. These people are conservative, fundamentally.
Conservatives that speak woke, maybe. But they believe all the same shit. Hierarchy, domination, and sadism, just mediated by the market and culture instead of whatever "conservatives" believe.
And actual conservatives are just proto, or outright, fascist at this point. They're completely untethered from the conservative tradition.
Right underneath our noses, liberalism died. Good riddance maybe but, there are, legitimately, none left.
Liberal is one of those words that means so many different things to different people that it's not very useful as a descriptor. The way you're defining it is in a pejoractive sense to where basically nobody would identify with it as defined.
The author I most agree with is Henry George, who's ideas were very much opposed to and by bourgeois interests, because he believed the state should capture the revenue from the natural resources they controlled. Many early labor movements in the US were composed of people who subscribed to the same ideology. But this ideology was firmly rooted in liberal principles and the language of individual rights - his argument was that natural resources rightfully belong to everyone, and that private ownership is only acceptable if everyone else recieves compensation in exchange.
Now you can say that that's such an obscure strain that it poses no threat to the bourgeoisie and you'd be right, which is why I come here and break bread with y'all. But I believe that, technically speaking, I'd still be classified as a liberal.
Take for example, prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh of Iran. This was a man who stood against bourgeoisie interests to the extent that he nationalized the oil industry and was overthrown by the CIA. Yet he never described himself as a socialist, he had no ties to the USSR, and the other policies he supported were consistent with liberal principles. What does that make him? Is he a socialist simply because he opposed the interest of the bourgeoisie, even though he never described himself as such?
I believe, if you believe that people of all nations should be entitled to their own resources and should have the right to popular sovereignty (without a CIA coup whenever they step out of line), and if you possess a realistic view of the world, then you believe that the status quo is fundamentally wrong and you support radical change against the interests of the bourgeoisie. I also believe that believing the above doesn't automatically mean you're a socialist.
The word "liberal" becomes pejorative because the interests of the bourgeoisie are in opposition to the majority of the human race. In the present moment, liberalism is a threat to the survival of humanity.
You're right that Henry George was a liberal thinker. He's not one that's popular one among the bourgeoisie proper. Although Georgism leaves the capitalist system intact, even the blandest Georgist reforms are too much for them. They dig their heels in the way they always do today - the same way the nobility of the Ancien Régime did. They're only ever willing to entertain those reforms when violent revolution is already underway. But Georgism and other reformist schools of thought do serve the interests of the bourgeoisie, just by existing. They act as a sort of relief valve for discontent. People who are unsatisfied with the current status quo are directed toward effective inaction - stonewalled reforms - when they could otherwise be doing something substantial to advance their cause. The powers that be are only ever willing to entertain those reforms when violent overthrow is already underway.
I don't think I said that everybody opposed to the bourgeoisie is a socialist. People like Mossadegh who lead national liberation movements are not always socialists, but they frequently deserve support from socialists in their mutual struggle against imperialist powers. I'm not sure how this came up.
Tactics are not inherently tied to the results they aim to achieve. Liberalism doesn't mean reformism - there is such a thing as a liberal revolution, for example, against a monarchy. I agree that seeking reform is often a fruitless endeavor, those in power in the US are not going to give up power simply because people ask nicely. I believe in a diversity of tactics, and I wouldn't be here if I didn't.
It came up because you said, "Being a liberal is about pursuing the bourgoisie’s best interest. Liberalism is the ideology of the bourgoisie," and I wanted to refute that by providing a counterexample of a liberal clearly opposed to the bourgeoisie's best interest. The way I interpreted your claim was definitional, but maybe I misinterpreted and what you meant is that it is generally or often the case that the principles of liberalism align with the best interest of the bourgeoisie - not that they necessarily do by definition.