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.

The Liberal Revolutions

These thinkers, however, worked within the political framework of monarchies, though often increasingly constitutional in the case of England. The idea that human beings could structure their own affairs through the working of understood rules remained theoretical until the American and French Revolutions. Thus, while the Glorious Revolution is often used as a precedent, the two late 18th century revolutions became the examples which later revolutionary liberals followed.

Related Topics:
American - French - Glorious Revolution - 18th century - Revolutionary

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Franklin, Jefferson and John Adams would be instrumental in persuading their fellow Americans to revolt in the name of The Laws of Nature and of Nature's God, echoing Montesquieu, and to secure life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, echoing Locke. The "American Experiment" would be in favor of democratic government, individual liberty, and, as importantly, economic development which was best achieved through these two mechanisms. However, when it came time to draft a Federal Constitution, it was two younger men, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, who would find specific means to put the idea of competing interests within the law as being necessary and sufficient for liberty into specific structures. They furthered the influence of the new ideology on the American system of government, by advocating a system of checks and balances, federal states' rights and a bicameral legislature. At the core of this wave of liberalism was most often the ideal of a state with the functions of protecting individual liberties, preventing abuses of civil authority, expanding markets, and defending the country. Standing armies were held in suspicion, and the belief was that the militia would be enough for defense, along with a navy maintained by the government for the purpose of trade.

Related Topics:
John Adams - Federal Constitution - James Madison - Alexander Hamilton - Bicameral legislature - Militia - Navy

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The French Revolution, coming out of the direct overthrow of a monarchy, along with an aristocratic social order, was more vehement in its belief in equality, and the necessity of removing the old order. A key moment in the French Revolution was the declaration by the representatives of the Third Estate that they were the "National Assembly" and the representatives of the interests of the French people. During the first few years the revolution was guided by liberal ideas, but the transition from revolt to stability was to prove more difficult than the similar American transition. In addition to native Enlightenment traditions, some leaders of the early phase of the revolution, such as Lafayette, had fought in the U.S. War of Independence against Britain, and brought home Anglo-American liberal ideas. Later, under the leadership of Maximilien Robespierre, a Jacobin faction greatly centralized power and dispensed with most aspects of due process, resulting in the Reign of Terror. The French Revolution transition from revolt to stability was more difficult than the similar American transition. Instead of an ultimately republican constitution, Napoleon Bonaparte rose from Director, to Consul, to Emperor. On his death bed he confessed "They wanted another Washington", meaning a man who could militarily establish a new state, without desiring a dynasty. Nevertheless, the French Revolution would go farther than the American Revolution in establishing liberal ideals with such policies as universal male suffrage, national citizenship, and a far reaching "Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen", paralleling the American Bill of Rights. One of the side-effects of Napoleon's military campaigns was to carry these ideas throughout Europe.

Related Topics:
Aristocratic - Third Estate - Lafayette - Maximilien Robespierre - Jacobin - Due process - Reign of Terror - Napoleon Bonaparte - Suffrage - Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen - Bill of Rights

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The examples of the revolutions in the United States and France were followed in many other countries. The usurpation of the Spanish monarchy by Napoleon's forces in 1808 led to autonomist and independence movements across Latin America, which often turned to liberal ideas as alternatives to the monarchical-clerical corporatism of the colonial era. Movements such as that led by Simon Bolivar in the Andean countries aspired to constitutional government, individual rights, and free trade. The struggle between liberals and corporatist conservatives continued for the rest of the century in Latin America, with anti-clerical liberals like Benito Juarez of Mexico attacking the traditional role of the Catholic Church. In South America and Italy, Giuseppe Garibaldi became known as a warrior for liberal nationalism. Throughout the Latin countries, masonic lodges provided an organizational structure for liberal revolutionaries.

Related Topics:
Usurpation - Simon Bolivar - Anti-clerical - Benito Juarez - Catholic Church - Giuseppe Garibaldi - Masonic lodges

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Ideology of Revolutionary liberalism

With the coming of romanticism, liberal notions moved from being proposals for reform of existing governments, to demands for changes. The American Revolution and the French Revolution would add "democracy" to the list of values which liberal thought promoted, and based their political sovereignty on "the rights of man". This idea, that the people were sovereign, and capable of making all necessary laws and enforcing them, went beyond the conceptions of the Enlightenment. Instead of merely asserting the rights of individuals within the state, the people were the state, and all of the state's powers were derived from "the just consent of the governed".

Related Topics:
Romanticism - American Revolution - French Revolution - Democracy

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The contractual nature of liberal thought to this point must be stressed. One of the basic ideas of the first wave of thinkers in the liberal tradition was that individuals made agreements and owned property. This may not seem a radical notion now, but at the time, most property laws defined property as belonging to a family or to a particular figure within it, such as the "head of the family". Obligations were based on feudal ties of loyalty and personal fealty, rather than an exchange of particular goods. Gradually, the liberal tradition began to see voluntary consent and voluntary agreement as being the basis for legitimate government and law. This view was further advanced by Rousseau with his notion of a social contract.

Related Topics:
Contractual - Social contract

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Between 1774 and 1848, there were several waves of revolutions, each revolution demanding greater and greater primacy for individual rights. The revolutions placed increasing value on the idea that national unity was an important part of political unity, and that a people could not be properly governed by those who were not present. This was a particularly important concept in the revolutions which ended Spanish control over much of her colonial empire in the Americas, and in the assertion of nationalism in Europe, which separated regions from monarchies that had traditionally controlled them. As part of this revolutionary program, the importance of education, a value repeatedly stressed from Erasmus onward, became more and more central to the idea of liberty.

Related Topics:
Empire - Erasmus

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Dignity, equality, liberty and property

The early 19th century also saw the primary ideological conflict within liberalism brought forward. The two key concepts of liberalism are the dignity and equality of the individual and the right to individual liberty, particularly to own and control private property. These two principles found themselves in conflict, when it became obvious that the property rights of some individuals could not be reconciled with the dignity of others. The extreme case of this was chattel slavery, where one person was viewed as another person's property. Generally, in this conflict, the weight of liberal thought tilted towards the importance of human dignity, viewed increasingly by liberals as more fundamental than the claims of property. However, balancing these two fundamental values still explains a series of conflicts within liberal thought.

Related Topics:
Private property - Chattel slavery

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The late 19th century saw the expansion of voting rights, education and economic progress in the form of industrialism. It also saw the expansion of trade, and therefore opportunity, as well as an explosive growth in the spread of culture and literacy. At the same time, it produced vast inequalities of wealth, and vast human misery in the form of famines, child labor, polluted urban centers, and deep poverty for the majority of the population. The conflict between property and dignity came forward. One strain of liberal thought demanded laws against child labor, and requiring minimum standards of work and wages, while the laissez-faire strain argued that such laws were an unjust imposition on property and a hindrance to economic development.

Related Topics:
Economic progress - Industrialism

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Another important principle of liberalism was the rationality of government and its institutions. The late 19th century saw the rise of standardization and internationalization of such things as time keeping and weights and measures, as well as money systems and international commercial transactions. Liberalism's insistence that the individual, real or corporate, was the important unit of law, made it the only framework within which the increasingly interdependent trade could be governed. Feudal notions of property, in many nations still in force, were gradually stripped away. For example, serfdom was still practiced in Russia well into the 19th century, and commerce restrictions dating from the middle ages existed in German states right up to unification under Prussia in 1871.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

John Stuart Mill (J.S. Mill, 1806-1873) was influential in developing modern concepts of liberalism. He opposed collectivist tendencies while still placing emphasis on quality of life for the individual. He also had sympathy for female suffrage and (later in life) for labor co-operatives. His support for utilitarianism grounded liberal ideas in the instrumental and pragmatic, allowing the unification of subjective ideas of liberty gained from the French thinkers in the tradition of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the more rights-based philosophies of John Locke and the British tradition.

Related Topics:
John Stuart Mill - 1806 - 1873 - Collectivist - Utilitarianism - Jean-Jacques Rousseau - John Locke

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In the late 19th century, a growing body of liberal thought asserted that, in order to be free, individuals needed access to the requirements of fulfillment, including protection and education. The conflict between dignity and property became more acute during the Industrial Revolution when industrialization produced vast fortunes, along with vast misery and poverty.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Industrial Revolution also enabled more deadly warfare. While in the 19th century industrial nations had been able to seize land and materials from less technologically advanced and politically organized nations, by the early 20th century the globe had been carved up, and, in order to expand, industrial nations would have to turn on each other. After World War I, President Woodrow Wilson, by many considered to be the founder of American liberalism, advocated the development of liberal institutions on the international stage that would encourage collaboration as a substitute for the threat and use of force between nations. The League of Nations, Wilson's brainchild, was considerably weakened when the U.S. Congress refused to allow the United States to join.

Related Topics:
World War I - President Woodrow Wilson - American liberalism - League of Nations - U.S. Congress

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In 1911, L.T. Hobhouse published Liberalism http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1911hobhouse.html, which summarized the liberalism of the 19th century, including qualified acceptance of government intervention in the economy, and the collective right to equality in dealings, what he called "just consent."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Liberal violence

The transition to liberal society in Europe sometimes came through revolutionary violence (in Britain, the Netherlands, Germany and most Northern European and Northern American countries it was evolutionary). The anti-clerical violence during the French Revolution was seen by opponents at the time, and for most of the 19th century, as explicitly liberal in origin. At the same time many French liberals were victim too of the Jacobin terror. The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1911, in its article on "Persecution", reflects the long-lasting anti-liberalism within the Church http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11703a.htm:

Related Topics:
Revolutionary - Anti-clerical - French Revolution - Jacobin - Catholic Encyclopedia

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

:A new spirit of opposition appears in the so-called "Liberalism" and in Free Thought, whose influence has been felt in Catholic as well as Protestant countries. Its origin is to be traced back to the infidel philosophy of the eighteenth century. At the end of that century it had grown so strong that it could menace the Church with armed violence. In France six hundred priests were murdered by Jourdan, "the Beheader", in 1791, and in the next year three hundred ecclesiastics, including an archbishop and two bishops, were cruelly massacred in the prisons of Paris.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

One reason for the violence was that Enlightenment thinking often presented itself as an absolute truth, derived from Reason. In this, it mirrored the epistemological claims of the Roman Catholic Church, making compromise or synthesis improbable.

Related Topics:
Epistemological - Roman Catholic Church - Synthesis

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

This revolutionary liberal tradition—sometimes referred to as neo-Jacobin -- never disappeared in Europe, and has recently re-emerged to confront Islamism. The Dutch Liberal parliamentarian Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a refugee from Somalia, is a prominent representative of this tradition, which critics call "Enlightenment fundamentalism"http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,2763,1485433,00.html. She never promoted forms of violence, but has herself been targeted with death threats. At the same time most present-day liberals wouldn't feel friendly to Jacobinism because of its illiberal terror regime.

Related Topics:
Islamism - Ayaan Hirsi Ali - Somalia

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Foreign policy and regime change

From the mid 20th century, transitions from totalitarianism to liberalism (certainly to liberal democracy) have also been imposed by external force. The introduction of a liberal constitution and democratic pluralism in occupied western Germany by the western Allies, served as a model for later theories of regime change.

Related Topics:
Liberal democracy - Constitution - Pluralism - Occupied western Germany - Regime change

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

During the Bosnian War in the 1990?s, Daniel Goldhagen and some other liberals suggested the military occupation of Serbia for this purpose, specifically citing the German experience. In the event, the model was first applied, controversially, after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Liberals were strongly divided about the legitimacy of this invasion. The process of 'nation-building' under occupation http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/bookrev/dobbins.html, refers to concurrent regime change, democratisation and liberalisation. In this way, some liberal thinkers are called unilateralists, or "neoconservatives", as they see such externally-driven transitions as legitimate. They are to be contrasted with internationalism, which is historically part and parcel with liberal foreign policy.

Related Topics:
Bosnian War - Daniel Goldhagen - Serbia - 2003 invasion of Iraq - Regime change - Democratisation - Liberalisation - Unilateralists - Neoconservatives - Internationalism

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Internationalism has been harshly criticized by some neoconservative commentators like Christopher Hitchens, who note the poor responsiveness of international institutions like the United Nations in cases of human rights violations, and suggest that this must be replaced by unilateral interventions.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Neoconservatism often appeals to Francis Fukuyama's end of history thesis for justification, by suggesting that a shift towards liberalism is historically inevitable. Other liberal thinkers, like L. T. Hobhouse in "Metaphysical Theory of the State: A Criticism", explicitly deny such hypotheses.

Related Topics:
End of history - L. T. Hobhouse

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~