There is no one Liberalism, there are actually two distinct versions.
People tend to look at concepts and they don't dig in.
It is almost as if we see ourselves as 3D, body and mind, and yet the others we do not agree with as 2D. Like our eyes, we may see color only in the center and fill in the picture everywhere else where in reality we view things black and white. Your view on Liberalism/Libertarianism fails to be 3D. I have to provide you my quick and dirty perspectives.
We can give Liberalism a start with the upcoming middle class of society, eons ago. Taking powers in our own hands and not be organized by an overlord is the simple version most desired. But then it actually happened. The middle class became the ruling class and democracy started to flourish.
And that is where the split occurred. John Stuart Mill describes it best.
"Two very different ideas are usually confounded under the name democracy. The pure idea of democracy, according to its definition, is the government of the whole people by the whole people, equally represented. Democracy as commonly conceived and hitherto practiced is the government of the whole people by a mere majority of the people, exclusively represented. The former is synonymous with the equality of all citizens; the latter, strangely confounded with it, is a government of privilege, in favor of the numerical majority, who alone possess practically any voice in the State. This is the inevitable consequence of the manner in which the votes are now taken, to the complete disfranchisement of minorities."
—John Stuart Mill, Representative Government, 1861
From the moment Belgium became a real democracy, still embracing Liberalism in many ways, the world has known two kinds of Liberalism.
If an economy is like a horse, then the government is like the jockey. In the USA, the horse is enormously strong, so we think much of the jockey as well, but the jockey is in reality a tiny figure not all that much in control of the horse, sometimes. This winner-take-all democracy means that the winners are indeed pulling on the horse and no one else is.
In the happiest nations on the planet, Scandinavian countries, the horse is still strong and still based on much Liberalism, too, but the jockey is in much better control of the horse. The horse is brought to where society as a whole likes it to be brought. The internal forces in society all come out to declare where the horse needs to go to, and as a result they are the happiest nations on the planet.
One nation is Liberal but does not have the Liberal voting system in place. The other nation is Liberal but uses the Liberal voting system to control the horse better.
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So, don't use a concept unless you are willing to dig in deeper, Graham. Don't just dismiss something that is 3D with a 2D position.
'The Libertarian Voting System'
https://fred-rick.medium.com/the-libertarian-voting-system-702c8334d442
