The term liberal in modern society...

When did it switch meanings? I know that throughout most of the 20th century, Liberalism in Europe was still pretty much libertarianism. Even today, many Europeans look at liberalism and socialism as two very different things. We have pretty much accepted that the term liberal now tends to describe the Democratic party and conservatism tends to describe the Republicans. However, neither really describe either party in the classical sense of the term.

Clasical liberals would think the Democrats are far too hands on with the economy and some laws.
Classical conservatives would think modern Republicans don't have enough control over the economy and would advocate for more social control.

I bring this up because a close friend of mine is an associate professor, and I sat in on his class last night. He had his students read some stuff from both Keynes and Hayek over the first few weeks of the class. Well, one student missed the class where my friend explained how the terms liberal and conservative were used in classical works. She stood up and gave about a 5 minute speech about Hayek. For the record, she didn't seem like one of the brighter students, more than likely taking summer courses to make up for failed courses during the regular school year. The entire speech, she had no idea what she was talking about, but she thought she did. She criticized Hayek for promoting a "liberal philosophy that has failed". When my friend explained that Hayek would actually be advocating a Libertarian or modern conservative stance, she got so embarrassed. I just thought it was funny that she read about 100 pages of Hayek, and had no clue what he was talking about.

all you have to know is that corporate structures are a form of governance, or they want that role.

From that the libertarian must protect peoples freedoms from overreach of the private sector by unjust use of monies unearned, and by trying to dictate working conditions, and out of work conditions over people with the threat of starvation or homelessness.

Once you see the private sector as an overlapping form of governance it all makes sense.

As an easy example, Government can take a urine test without probable cause, becuase of rights to freedom.But corporations want to do it, to enforce a social action onto people, by threat of termination from employment, and if that is done in monopoly fashion, as is done by some groups that set same policies, then that is a move against citizens rights.

Corporations don't want controls on energy production or pollution, or any controls that citizens can vote for, becuase they want to run society, and the libertarian should be against that.

They don't want any taxation that tries to correct the unearned monies they are given by the capitalist system, so they want to control how taxes work.

In the same way, removing rights to collective bargain is the same thing, as is many other forms of private sector abuses, like telecoms or computer companies that hack peoples computers, or work with former or current actual government employees to try to modify the information systems, and to censor what people might see, or what people are able to hear. Violating various rights while doing that.

If money buys TV or Internet, and then uses that to remove free speech, the libertarian should be breaking up big corporations, and monopolies.

Where should I have the beer money sent?

When it became accepted by some people to put group desires before individual rights.

I have read something to the effect that FDR purposefully reclaimed/repurposed the word in order to weaken opposition to some of his more vigorous policies. Whether this is true or not is difficult to say.