Liberalism

:This article discusses liberalism as a major political ideology, not the usage of the term in specific countries. For links to articles about varieties of liberalism and liberal parties around the world, see Liberalism in various countries, below.

Origins of liberal thought

Liberalism can trace its roots back to the humanism that began to challenge the authority of the established church during Renaissance, to the Levellers of the English Civil War who favored individual rights and opposed the privileges of the nobility, and the Whigs of the Glorious Revolution in Great Britain, whose assertion of their right to choose their king can be seen as a precursor to claims of popular sovereignty. However, movements generally labelled as truly "liberal" date from the Enlightenment, particularly the Whig party in Britain, the philosophes in France and the movement towards self-government in colonial America. These movements opposed absolute monarchy, mercantilism, and various kinds of religious orthodoxy and clericalism. They were also the first to formulate the concepts of individual rights and the rule of law, as well as the importance of self-government through elected representatives.

Related Topics:
Humanism - Established church - Renaissance - Levellers - English Civil War - Glorious Revolution - Popular sovereignty - The Enlightenment - Whig - Britain - Philosophes - France - Self-government - Absolute monarchy - Mercantilism - Orthodoxy - Clericalism

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The focus on "liberty" as essential right of people within the polity has been repeatedly asserted through history: in the middle ages Italian city states rose against the Papal States under the banner "liberty", and a century and a half later Niccolò Machiavelli, the great realist philosopher, would make preservation of liberties a key trait of a republican form of government. The republics of Florence and Venice had elections, the rule of law, and pursuit of free enterprise through much of the 1400s until domination by outside powers in the 16th century.

Related Topics:
Middle ages - Papal States - Niccolò Machiavelli - Realist - Liberties - Republican - Republics - Florence - Venice - 16th century

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The history of liberalism as a conscious ideology, that liberty was not an amendment to, but a fundamental basis of the rights within the polity and later the state, began to take more definite shape in response to absolutism and realism in the United Kingdom. The definitive break was the conception that free individuals could form the basis of political stability, rather than having license to the degree that they did not threaten political stability. This is generally dated from the work of John Locke (1632-1704), whose Two Treatises on Government established two fundamental liberal ideas: economic liberty, meaning the right to have and use property, and intellectual liberty, including freedom of conscience, which he expounded in A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689). However, he would not extend his views on religious freedom to Catholics. Locke developed further the earlier idea of natural rights, which he saw as "life, liberty and property". His "Natural Rights theory" was the distant forerunner of the modern conception of human rights. However, to Locke, property was more important than the right to participate in government and public decision-making: he did not endorse democracy, because he feared that giving power to the people would erode the sanctity of private property. Nevertheless, the idea of natural rights played a key role in providing the ideological justification for the (at least moderately democratizing) American revolution and French revolution.

Related Topics:
History - State - Absolutism - Realism - United Kingdom - John Locke - 1632 - 1704 - A Letter Concerning Toleration - 1689 - Catholic - Natural rights - Human rights - Democracy - American revolution - French revolution

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On the European continent, the doctrine of laws restraining even monarchs was expounded by Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, whose The Spirit of the Laws argues that "Better is it to say, that the government most conformable to nature is that which best agrees with the humour and disposition of the people in whose favour it is established." rather than the mere rule of force. Following in his footsteps would be political economist Jean-Baptiste Say and Destutt de Tracy who would be the most ardent exponents of the "harmonies" of the market, and in all probability it was they who coined the term laissez-faire.

Related Topics:
Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu - The Spirit of the Laws - Jean-Baptiste Say - Destutt de Tracy - Laissez-faire

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In the later half of the 18th century two schools of thought particularly important for later liberal thinking emerged. The first school can be traced to the "Scottish Enlightenment", including the thinkers David Hume, Adam Smith and finally Immanuel Kant. In Sweden the period of liberty and parliamentary government from 1718 to 1772 produced Anders Chydenius. His impact proved to be lasting in the Nordic area.

Related Topics:
Scottish Enlightenment - David Hume - Adam Smith - Immanuel Kant - Anders Chydenius

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Hume's contributions were many and varied, but most importantly his assertion that fundamental rules of human behavior would overwhelm attempts to restrict or regulate them. One example of this is in his disparging of the mercantile state's project of accumulating more gold and silver as leading to more wealth. He argued instead that prices were related to the quantity of money, and therefore this would only generate inflation.

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The Scotsman Adam Smith (1723–1790) expounded the theory that individuals could structure both moral and economic life without direction for the purposes of the state, and indeed, that the nations which would be the strongest would be those that left individuals free to follow their own initiative. He advocated the end of feudal and mercantile regulations, state granted monopolies and patents, and is seen as the promulgator of a principle of "laissez-faire" or "let act" - government should not take sides in the functioning of the free market. Adam Smith developed a theory of motivation that tried to reconcile human self-interestedness with unregulated social order (mainly done in The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)). His most famous work, The Wealth of Nations (1776), tried to explain how an unregulated market would naturally regulate itself via aggregated individual decisions. His primary role for government was to take on tasks which could not be entrusted to the profit motive, and to prevent individuals from using force or fraud from disrupting the flow of competition, trade and production.

Related Topics:
Adam Smith - Laissez-faire - Free market - The Theory of Moral Sentiments - The Wealth of Nations

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Kant was strongly influenced by Hume's empiricism and rationalism. His most important contributions to liberal thinking are in the realm of ethics, particularly his assertion of the categorical imperative. Kant argued that received systems of reason and morals were subordinate to basic natural and moral law, and that, therefore, attempts to stifle this basic law would meet with failure. His idealism would become increasingly influential, since it asserted that there were fundamental truths upon which systems of knowledge could be based. This meshed with the assertions of the English Enlightenment that there were natural rights.

Related Topics:
Kant - Categorical imperative

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The second school of thinking which would become increasingly important was founded by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. His assertion that man is born free, but that education was sufficient to restrain him within society rocked the monarchical society of his age. His assertion of an organic will of a nation argued for self-determination of peoples, again in contravention to the established political practice of dynastic politics of the time, would be a key element in the declaration of the National Assembly in the French Revolution, and in the thinking of Americans such as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. In his view the unity of a state came from the concerted action of consent, or the "national will". This unity of action would allow states to exist without being chained to pre-existing social orders, such as aristocracy.

Related Topics:
Jean-Jacques Rousseau - National Assembly - Benjamin Franklin - Thomas Jefferson

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