Liberalism

Categories: Liberalism | Political theories | Social justice | Social philosophy | Political ideology entry points

This article discusses liberalism as a major political ideology, not the usage of the term in specific countries. For entries about varieties of liberalism and liberal parties around the world, see the entry Liberalism worldwide.

Liberalism is an ideology, or current of political thought, which strives to maximize individual liberty through rights under law. Liberalism seeks a society characterized by free action within a defined framework. This framework is generally seen to include a pluralistic liberal democratic system of government, the rule of law, the free exchange of ideas, and economic competition. Liberalism rejected many foundational assumptions which dominated most earlier theories of government, such as the divine right of kings, hereditary status, and established religion. The fundamental principles of liberalism include transparency, individual and civil rights, especially the right to life, liberty, and property; government with the consent of the governed as determined by open and fair elections; and equal rights for all citizens under law.

The nature and origins of liberalism: an overview

Etymology and historical usage

See Development of liberal thought section for more information on this topic.

The word "liberal" derives from the Latin liber ("free") and all liberals present themselves as friends of freedom. Liberalism has several different, but generally related, political meanings. In its original political meaning, the term "liberal" refers to a political philosophy, founded on the principles of the Enlightenment and to a lesser extent the idealist parts of the Romantic period, that tries to circumscribe the limits of political power and to define and support individual rights. In the present, a variety of ideologies attempt to claim the mantle of 19th century liberalism, from American liberalism and social liberalism to libertarianism.

Classification in a consistent manner is made difficult by the tendency of the dominant strain of liberalism in a region to refer to itself simply as "liberalism" and reject that identification for other minority positions. Since the word "liberalism" can not only refer to a variety of distinct political positions in different countries but can also range from being highly complimentary to being a term of abuse, the connotations of the word in different political cultures can be starkly different.

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) indicates that the word liberal has long been in the English language with the meanings of "befitting free men, noble, generous" as in liberal arts; also with the meaning "free from restraint in speech or action", as in liberal with the purse, or liberal tongue, usually as a term of reproach but, beginning 1776–88 imbued with a more favorable sense by Edward Gibbon and others to mean "free from prejudice, tolerant."

The first English language use to mean "tending in favor of freedom and democracy" according to the OED dates from about 1801 and comes from the French libéral, "originally applied in English by its opponents (often in Fr. form and with suggestions of foreign lawlessness)". They give early English language citation, "1801 Hel. M. WILLIAMS, Sk. Fr. Rep. I. xi. 113," presumably Helen Maria Williams, Sketches of the State of Manners and Opinions in the French Republic: "The extinction of every vestige of freedom, and of every liberal idea with which they are associated."

The editors of the Spanish Constitution of 1812, drafted in that year in Cádiz, may have been the first to use the word liberal in a political sense as a noun. They named themselves the Liberales, to state that they opposed the absolutist power of the Spanish monarchy.

Liberals throughout the world understand liberalism as embracing a tradition rooted in the Enlightenment, the American War of Independence, the more moderate bourgeois elements of the French Revolution, and the European Revolutions of 1848, with philosophical roots going back to the Renaissance traditions of empiricism (Sir Francis Bacon), humanism (Erasmus), and pragmatism (Niccolò Machiavelli) as well as the work of philosophers such as John Locke, economists such as Adam Smith, and French and German Enlightenment thinkers. .

The original Enlightenment thinkers, such as John Locke and Baron de Montesquieu, attempted to establish limits on existing political powers by asserting that there were natural rights and fundamental laws of governance that not even kings could overstep without becoming tyrants. This was combined with the idea that commercial freedom would best benefit the whole of the political order, an idea that would later be associated with the advocacy of capitalism, and which was drawn from the works of Adam Smith and David Ricardo. The next important piece of the triad of ideas of liberalism, was the idea of popular self-determination. Most liberals support a combination of these ideas, although many would ascribe more importance to one of them than to the other two.

Beginning in the late 18th century, liberalism became the governing ideology in various countries, e.g. in the United Kingdom. At the same time, liberalism became a major ideology in virtually all developed countries. As a result of being so widespread, the term "liberalism" began to evolve rapidly, and took on different meanings in different countries and schools of thought.

Strains of liberalism

Within the above framework, there are deep, often bitter, conflicts and controversies. Emerging from those controversies are a number of different forms of liberalism. Especially in economics, the values of property have often come into conflict, causing division in liberalism. One can distinguish two strains:

• Economic liberalism or classical liberalism is the ideological foundation of the free market. Economic liberals advocate laissez-faire economics, and minimal regulation of the marketplace, but generally accept regulation of monopolies and cartels. It focuses on property rights, and accepts the economic inequality that arises from fair competition. It is especially influenced by English liberalism of the mid 19th century. Libertarianism claims to be the true present representative of this intellectual tradition, although that is disputed by others.
• Social liberalism or modern liberalism (U.S. usage) focuses on equality, sometimes at the expense of property rights. It advocates a mixed economy and some form of welfare or workfare to protect the poor. Like classical liberalism, it distrusts monopolies and cartels, but has less fear of government regulation for the public good.

Both strains, however, agree on individual liberty and reject a planned economy or "utopian" dictatorship. There is a general belief that there should be a balance between government and private responsibilities, and that government should be limited to those task which cannot be carried out best by the private sector. All forms of liberalism claim to protect the fundamental dignity and autonomy of the individual under law. They all share the belief that social justice is best achieved through the interactions of free individuals, and therefore reject the authenticity of claims toward social justice which are in total conflict with, or act to wholly subvert, individual freedom. Most contemporary liberal parties fall somewhere between these two strains.

Comparative influences

Early Enlightenment thinkers contrasted this freedom to the Ancien Regime, to feudalism and to mercantilism. Later, as more radical philosophies articulated their thoughts in the course of the French Revolution and through the nineteenth century, liberalism defined itself in contrast to socialism and communism, although modern European liberal parties have often formed coalitions with social-democratic parties. Liberalism now defines itself in opposition to totalitarianism and collectivism, examples of the former including fascism, monarchism and bureaucratic collectivism, and the latter, marxism-leninism. In advocating the nation-state as a process-based solution to solving conflict, liberalism has had to define itself in contrast with anarchism. Many liberals adhere at the same time to internationalism.

Liberalism differs from anarchy in asserting the need for government to protect the rights of individuals, especially of minorities. Recently, liberalism has again come into conflict with those who seek a society ordered by religious values: radical Islamism often rejects liberal thought in its entirety.

Opponents of liberalism often reject the view that the private sector is beneficial, and stress the necessary adversarial role of the state as regulator. They would also argue that private initiative and competition does harm to those individuals who lose out in competition.

Development of liberal thought

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, 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.

The focus on "liberty" as an 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 the philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli would make preservation of liberties a key trait of a republican form of government. The republics of Florence and Venice had forms of elections, the rule of law, and pursuit of free enterprise through much of the 1400s until domination by outside powers in the 16th century. The Dutch resistance against (Spanish) Catholic oppression is often—despite its refusal to give freedom to Catholics—considered a predecessor of liberal values.

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 only insofar as they did not constitute a threat against 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.

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.

In the later half of the 18th century two schools of thought particularly important for later liberal thinking emerged. In Sweden-Finland the period of liberty and parliamentary government from 1718 to 1772 produced a Finnish parliamentarian Anders Chydenius. His impact has proven to be lasting particularly in the Nordic area, but it also had a powerful effect in the later development elsewhere.

The other school can be traced to the "Scottish Enlightenment", including the thinkers David Hume, Adam Smith and finally Immanuel Kant.

Although Adam Smith has perhaps reached the most fame of the liberal thinkers, he was not without antecedents. The physiocrats in France had proposed studying political economy systematical and the self organizing nature of markets. More importantly, in his 1765 book The National Gain Anders Chydenius became the first thinker to publicly propose freedom of trade and industry and to lay out the very principles of liberalism, eleven years before Adam Smith in his book The Wealth of Nations in 1776. Benjamin Franklin, on the other hand, had argued for the freedom of American industry in 1750.

Hume's contributions were many and varied, but most important was 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.

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 [it] 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 a market with certain preconditions would naturally regulate itself via aggregated individual decisions, and would produce more than the heavily restricted markets that were the norm at the time. 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. He argued that governments should levy taxation only in ways where there was no economic cost, following from Hume's observation about the quantity of money, he argued that it was the production of capital, and not the total amount of gold specie which represented the "wealth" of a nation.

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.

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.

Revolutionary liberalism

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 [1]:

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.

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".

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.

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.

Post-revolutionary liberalism: 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. 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.

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.

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.

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.

In 1911, L.T. Hobhouse published Liberalism [2], 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."

Liberalism against totalitarianism

In the mid-20th century, liberalism began to define itself in opposition to totalitarianism. Rather than a new philosophy, this was a descriptive term for the common characteristics of fascist and Marxist-leninist regimes. Totalitarian regimes sought and tried to implement absolute centralized control over all aspects of society, in order to achieve prosperity, stability, and survival itself. Opposition to totalitarian regimes seeking to discredit and destroy liberalism acquired great importance in liberal and democratic thinking. Liberal ideologies spent most of the 20th century defining themselves as opposition to various strains of totalitarianism. This opposition liberalism shared with social democracy and other democratic ideologies.

The Great Depression of the 1930s shook public faith in laissez-faire capitalism and "the profit motive," as well as the ability of unregulated markets to produce prosperity. Many liberals were troubled by the political instability and restrictions on liberty caused by the growing inequality of wealth. Key liberals of this persuasion, such as John Dewey, John Maynard Keynes, Winston Churchill, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, argued for the creation of a more elaborate state apparatus to serve as the bulwark of individual liberty, permitting the continuation of capitalism without resorting to totalitarianism. Some liberals, including Hayek, whose work The Road to Serfdom remains influential, argued against these institutions, believing the Great Depression and Second World War to be individual events, that, once passed, did not justify a permanent change in the role of government.

Meanwhile, in Italy and Germany, nationalist governments linked corporate capitalism to the state, rather than to individual liberty, and promoted the idea that conquest and national superiority would give these nations a rightful "place in the sun". These totalitarian states argued that democracy was weak and incapable of decisive action, and that only a strong leader could impose the kind of discipline that was necessary.

The rise of totalitarianism became a lens for liberal thought. The majority of liberals began analyzing their own beliefs and principles to find out where they had gone wrong. Eventually, they came to the conclusion that totalitarianism arose because people in a degraded condition turn to dictatorships for solutions. From this, it was argued that the state had the duty to protect the economic well being of its citizens. As Isaiah Berlin said, "Freedom for the wolves means death for the sheep." This growing body of liberal thought argued that reason requires a government to act as a balancing force in economics. The economic theory of Keynesianism was the masterpiece of this body of liberal thought.

Key liberal thinkers, such as Lujo Brentano, Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse, Thomas Hill Green, John Maynard Keynes, Bertil Ohlin and John Dewey, described how a government should intervene in the economy to protect liberty without leading to socialism. These liberals developed the theory of modern liberalism (also "new liberalism," not to be confused with present-day neoliberalism. Modern liberals rejected both radical capitalism and the revolutionary elements from the socialist school. John Maynard Keynes, in particular, had a significant impact on liberal thought throughout the world. The Liberal Party in Britain, particularly since Lloyd George's People's Budget, was heavily influenced by Keynes, as was the Liberal International, the Oxford Liberal Manifesto of 1947 of the world organization of liberal parties. In the United States, the influence of Keynesianism on Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal has led modern liberalism to be identified with American liberalism and Canadian Liberalism.

Liberalism after World War II

In much of the West, expressly liberal parties were caught between "conservative" parties on one hand, and "labor" or social democratic parties on the other hand. For example, the UK Liberal Party became a minor party. The same process occurred in a number of other countries, as the social democratic parties took the leading role in the Left, while pro-business conservative parties took the leading role in the Right.

The post-war period saw the dominance of modern liberalism. Linking modernism and progressivism to the notion that a populace in possession of rights and sufficient economic and educational means would be the best defense against totalitarian threats, the liberalism of this period took the stance that by enlightened use of liberal institutions, individual liberties could be maximized, and self-actualization could be reached by the broad use of technology. Liberal writers in this period include economist John Kenneth Galbraith, philosopher John Rawls and sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf. A dissenting strain of liberalism developed that viewed any government involvement in the economy as a betrayal of liberal principles. Calling itself classical liberalism or libertarianism, this movement was centered around such schools of thought as Austrian Economics.

The debate between personal liberty and social optimality occupies much of the theory of liberalism since the Second World War, particularly centering around the questions of social choice and market mechanisms required to produce a "liberal" society. One of the central parts of this argument concerns Kenneth Arrow's General Possibility Theorem. This thesis states that there is no consistent social choice function which satisifies unbounded decision making, independence of choices, Pareto optimality, and non-dictatorship. In short, according to the thesis, it is not possible to have unlimited liberty, a maximum amount of utility, and an unlimited range of choices at the same time. Another important argument within liberalism is the importance of rationality in decision making - whether the liberal state is best based on rigorous procedural rights or whether it should be rooted in substantial equality.

One important liberal debate concerns whether people have positive rights as members of communities in addition to being protected from wrongs done by others. For many liberals, the answer is "yes": individuals have positive rights based on being members of a national, political, or local unit, and can expect protection and benefits from these associations. Members of a community have a right to expect that their community will to a certain degree regulate the economy since rising and falling economic circumstances cannot be controlled by the individual. If individuals have a right to participate in a public capacity, then they have a right to expect education and social protections against discrimination from other members of that public. Other liberals would answer "no": individuals have no such rights as members of communities, for such rights conflict with the more fundamental "negative" rights of other members of the community.

After the 1970s, the liberal pendulum had swung away from increasing the role of government, and towards a greater use of the free market and laissez-faire principles. In essence, many of the old pre-World War I ideas were making a comeback.

In part this was a reaction to the triumphalism of the dominant forms of liberalism of the time, but as well it was rooted in a foundation of liberal philosophy, particularly suspicion of the state, whether as an economic or philosophical actor. Even liberal institutions could be misused to restrict rather than promote liberty. Increasing emphasis on the free market emerged with Milton Friedman in the United States, and with members of the Austrian School in Europe. Their argument was that regulation and government involvement in the economy was a slippery slope, that any would lead to more, and that more was difficult to remove.

The impact of liberalism in the modern world

The impact of liberalism on the modern world is profound. The ideas of individual liberties, personal dignity, free expression, religious tolerance, private property, universal human rights, transparency of government, limitations on government power, popular sovereignty, national self-determination, privacy, enlightened and rational policy, the rule of law, fundamental equality were all radical notions some 250 years ago. Liberal democracy, in its typical form of multiparty political pluralism, has spread to much of the world. Today all are accepted as the goals of policy in most nations, even if there is a wide gap between statements and reality. They are not only the goals of liberals, but also of social democrats, conservatives, Christian Democrats and Greens (and generally taken for granted) . There is, of course, opposition. See the headlines of critique.

Liberalism today

A general overview of political positions

The word liberalism is today used differently in various countries. (See Liberalism worldwide.) One of the greatest contrasts is between the usage in the United States and usage in Europe. In the US, liberalism is usually contrasted with conservatism, and American liberals support broader tolerance and more readily embrace multiculturalism and positive discrimination. In Europe, on the other hand, liberalism is not only contrasted with conservatism and Christian Democracy, but also with social democracy and socialism.

Before an explanation of this subject proceeds, it is important to add this disclaimer: There is always a disconnect between philosophical ideals and political realities. Also, opponents of any belief are apt to describe that belief in different terms from those used by followers. What follows is a record of those goals that overtly appear most consistently across major liberal manifestos (i.e., Oxford Manifesto of 1947). It is not an attempt to catalogue the idiosyncratic views of particular persons, parties, or countries, nor is it an attempt to investigate any covert goals, since both are beyond the scope of an article on ideology.

Most political parties which identify themselves as liberal claim to promote the rights and responsibilities of the individual, free choice within an open competitive process, the free market, and the dual responsibility of the state to protect the individual citizen and guarantee their liberty. The opposing parties tend to describe liberal policy in different terms. Free choice for all usually leads to some people being rich, and others being poor. Free speech for all usually leads to speech some call obscene, blasphemous, or treasonous. The conflicting ideals of the state as promoter of freedom, and the state as protector of its citizens, are among the principle issues disputed by liberalism and its opponents as well as inside liberalism.

Liberalism stresses the importance of liberal democracy as the form of representative democracy whereby the ability of elected representatives to exercise decision-making power subject to the rule of law and moderated by a constitution which emphasizes the protection of rights and freedoms of individuals and minorities and which places constraints on the extent to which the will of the majority can be exercised. Liberals are in favour of a pluralist system in which differing political and social views, even those viewed as extreme or fringe compete for political power on a democratic basis and have the opportunity to achieve power through periodically held elections. They stress the resolution of differences by peaceful means within the bounds of democratic or lawful processes. Many liberals seek ways to increase the involvement and participation of citizens in the democratic proces. Some liberals favour to include forms of direct democracy in the political system. (Main article: Liberal democracy).

Liberalism goes nowadays with the concept of civil rights: the protection and privileges of personal liberty given to all citizens by law. It includes the equal treatment of all citizens irrespective of race, gender and class. Liberals are divided over the degree for positive rights to be included in this concept. Critics argue that these civil rights in the liberal view are not extended to all people, but are limited to citizens. Inequal treatment on the basis of nationality is therefore possible, especially in regard to citizenship itself. (Main article: Civil rights).

Elementary for liberalism is furthermore the rule of law and equality before the law. Government authority may only be exercised in accordance with laws, which were adopted through an established procedure and are guaranteed by having an independent judiciary. It is intended to safeguard against arbitrary ruling in individual cases. The rule of law includes concepts such as the presumption of innocence, no double jeopardy, legal equality and Habeas Corpus. Rule of law is seen by liberals as a guard against despotism and as enforcing limitations on the power of government. In the penal system, liberals general reject inhumane punishment, e.g. capital punishment. Critics argue that rule of law is merely a method by which the ruling class can justify their rule. In this view it is in reality the rule of people who have the power to make or change laws. (Main article: Rule of law). Racism is incompatible with liberalism. Liberals in Europe are generally hostile to attempts by the state to enforce equality by legal action against employers, whereas in the United States this is a typical 'liberal' policy. Liberals in general support equal opportunity, but not necessarily equal outcome. Most European liberal parties do not favour employment quotas for women and ethnic minorities as the best way to abandon gender and racial inequality. However, on all hands it is agreed that inequality on the basis of arbitrary factors such as race or gender is wrong.

Economic liberals today stress the importance of a free market and free trade, and seek to limit government intervention in the economy. (Main article: Economic liberalism). Social liberals agree in principle with the idea of free trade, but maintain some skepticism, seeing unrestricted trade as leading to the growth of multi-national corporations and the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few. In the post-war consensus on the welfare state in Europe, liberals supported government responsibility for health, education, and alleviating poverty while still besides that insisting upon a market based on independent exchange. Liberals agree that a high quality of health care and education should be available for all citizens, but differ in the degree of the government task in these matters. Since poverty is a threat to personal liberty, liberalism seeks a balance between individual responsibility of people for their own future and the community responsibility for those who are not able to earn a sufficient income, to give security from the hazards of sickness, unemployment, disability and old age[3]. European liberalism turned back to more laissez-faire policies in the 1980's and 1990's, and supported privatisation and liberalisation in health care, and other public sectors. Modern European liberals generally tend to believe in a smaller role for government than would be supported by most social democrats, let alone socialists or communists. What is common to both is a belief that economies should be decentralized. In general, modern liberals do not believe that the government should directly control any industrial production through state owned enterprises, which places them in opposition to social democrats.

Liberals generally believe in neutral government, in the sense that it is not for the state to determine social values. As John Rawls put it, "The state has no right to determine a particular conception of the good life". In the United States this neutrality is expressed in the constitutional right to "pursue happiness". Therefore Liberals believe the state should have an open mind in ethical questions. Both in Europe as well as in the United States, 'liberals' support the 'pro choice' movement and advocate equal rights for women and for homosexuals. In Europe liberals were - together with other secular forces - far more succcesful in realizing this goals, despite government cooperation with conservative forces. All liberal parties are secular, but they differ on the issue of anti-clericalism. Liberal parties in Latin countries today tend to be very anti-clerical. Some liberal parties are now among the opponents of multiculturalism, which they see as oppressive of individuals within minority communities, and damaging to national unity. Others embrace multiculturalism as enriching society, but want also to defend individual rights within the minority communities. Critics argue that liberals are not neutral towards ethnic minorities and force their values upon members these minorities.

In recent times, liberalism is searching for a way and differs on the question how to incorporate green concerns in its thought. Some liberals incorporate green values into policy. They seek to minimize the damage done by the human species on the natural world and to the regeneration of damaged areas. They prefer to act together with business, but when necesary will enact legislation in order to achieve sustainable development. In this view environmental damage itself is a threat of liberty. Other liberals do not accept government regulation in this matter and argue that the market should regulate itself. (Main article: Green liberalism).

There is no general liberal doctrine in international politics. Though there are some central notions, which can be deduced from e.g. the opinions of Liberal International. Liberals claim to believe that war can be abolished and world peace and economic prosperity can flourish if all nations loyally adhere to a world organization of all nations (the United Nations Organization), under the same law and equity, and with power to enforce strict observance of all international obligations freely entered into. Furthermore they should respect the right of every nation to enjoy the essential human liberties, respect the language, faith, laws and customs of national minorities. Essentially is furthermore the free exchange of ideas, news, goods and services between nations, as well as freedom of travel within and between all countries, unhampered by censorship, protective trade barriers and exchange regulations. As early as 1947 Liberal International argued in favor of the development of what was then called the backward areas of the world, with the collaboration of their inhabitants, in their true interests and in the interests of the world at large. Liberals believe in the promotion of political and civil rights and therefore oppose all forms of dictatorship. Liberals argue that the poverty of large parts of the world can be alleviated through freedom to travel and to trade and to this end are committed to the further opening of ‘western' markets for products from the developing world. Development finance can only help reduce poverty if the recipient government institutions adopt practices of good governance, including full transparency and accountability based on the rule of law[4].

Liberals were among the strongest advocates of international co-operation and the building of supra-national organizations, like the European Union. They want these organizations to be democratic and open to the world. They see [globalisation]] as a phenomenon to be governed rather than fought [5]. In this way what they see as its positive effects can be promoted and developed (enhancement of production efficiency, global free markets, free circulation of capitals, people and ideas), and the perceived negative effects to be combated (general downgrading of the rights of workers, deepening of the rift between rich and poor countries and social classes, loss of cultural identity, lack of accountability of large multinational firms). In a liberal view a global free and fair market can only work if companies worldwide respect a set of common minimum social and ecological standards. Critics argue that liberals in fact do not open up their countries and supra-national organizations for people from outside, by limiting immigration. They furthermore argue that free trade doesn't give a fair chance to people from the non-western world to enter the western markets.

Since liberalism is broad, there is no hard and fast list of practical policy prescriptions which can be universally assumed to be "liberal". In some circumstances there may be tax increases, in others tax decreases. In some cases there will be the creation of a quasi-public entity to perform a function, in other cases privatization. Sometimes liberalism emphasizes financial aid to poorer citizens (e.g. as unemployment benefits or negative income tax or basic income, guaranteed minimum income or citizen's dividend). Most liberal parties argue that the government should provide some form of health services and basic education. Also, most liberals believe that social security benefits should be financed from taxes, whereas perks must be purchased by private insurances. In order to provide fuller choice for individuals, they may sometimes support vouchers in utilisation of government-paid benefits, such as education or senior care.

Political deviances

Recently, however, "Liberal" parties in Europe have begun to rethink their positions, in response to the confrontation with radical forms of Islam, with political Islamism. They are confronted with a dilemma between respect for other cultures and individual rights. Liberalism traditionally holds that state and society should have very limited interests in the private behavior of its citizens in the areas of private sexual relations, free speech, personal conscience, religious beliefs, and political association. European "liberals" are less willing to extend freedom to people who require others the wearing of the burqa, arranged marriage, and female circumcision, which they see as contradictory to individual freedom (especially for women). Many European liberals now think that the state should actively promote 'western values', 'European values' and/or 'Enlightenment values'.

Comparative critiques

Statist opponents of liberalism reject its emphasis on individual rights, and instead emphasize the collective or the community to a degree where the rights of the individual are either diminished or abolished. This position is called collectivism.

Collectivism can be found both to the right and to the left of liberalism. On the left, the collective that tends to be enhanced is the state, often in the form of state socialism. On the right, conservative and religious opponents argue that individual freedom in the non-economic sphere can lead to indifference, selfishness, and immorality.

A softer critique of liberalism can be found in communitarianism, which emphasizes a return to communities without necessarily denigrating individual rights.

Beyond these clear theoretical differences, some liberal principles can be treated peicemeal, with some portions kept and others abandoned (see Liberal democracy and Neoliberalism.) This ongoing process - where putatively liberal agents accept some traditionally liberal values and reject others - causes some critics to question whether or not the word "liberal" has any useful meaning at all.

In terms of international politics, the universal claims of human rights which liberalism tends to endorse is disputed by rigid adherants of non-interventionism, since intervention in the interests of human rights can conflict with the sovereignty of countries. By contrast, World federalists criticize liberalism for its adherance to the doctrine of sovereign nation-states, which the World federalists believe is not helpful in the face of genocide and other mass human rights abuses.

Left-leaning opponents of economic liberalism reject the view that the private sector can be for the collective benefit, often citing the harm done to those individuals who lose out in competition. They oppose the use of the state to impose market principles on non-liberals, usually through an enforced market mechanism in a previously non-market sector. They argue that the dominance of liberal principles in economy and society has contributed to inequality among states, and inequality within states. They argue that liberal societies are characterised by long-term poverty, and by ethnic and class differentials in health, (infant) mortality and life expectancy. Some would even say they have much higher unemployment than centrally planned economies.

Liberalism shares many basic goals and methods with social democracy, but in some places diverges. The fundamental difference between liberalism and social democracy, is a disagreement over the role of the state in the economy. Social democracy can be understood to be the common trait, or broader ideology, that overlaps between social liberalism and democratic socialism. Democratic socialism seeks to achieve some minimum equality of outcome. Democratic socialists support a large public sector and the nationalization of utilities such as gas and electricity in order to avoid private monopolies, and to achieve social justice and to raise the standard of living. By contrast, liberalism, in its distrust of monopolies (both public and private), prefers much less state intervention, choosing for example subsidies and regulation rather than outright nationalization. Liberalism also emphasizes equality of opportunity, and not equality of outcome, citing the desire for a meritocracy.

Non-statist critiques of liberalism, such as with some sorts of anarchism, emphasize the illegitimacy of the state for any purposes.

Liberal fundamentalism

As is the case for most ideologies, there are also fundamentalist forms of liberalism. One can distinguish two forms of liberal fundamentalism. The first form is libertarianism which claims the ideological inheritance of classical liberalism. It strongly beliefs in anti-statism and denies the right of government to enact norms on most areas. It is sometimes considered a branch of liberalism and sometimes a separate ideology in its own right. Libertarianism is in fact a theory that only a few parties adhere to. Some of these parties might label themselves as liberal parties, especially when the main liberal current is not present in the country concerned. The French liberals are close to the libertarians, but most other European liberal parties do not share their main values. But sometimes they adopted a part of the libertarian agenda. However, many object to this blending of what they see as two separate, opposing philosophies. Those who emphasize the distinction between classical liberalism and libertarianism point out that even Adam Smith believed a free market could not satisfy all the demands of a society. Furthermore, some (Haworth, 1994, pp. 27) argue that libertarianism and liberalism are fundamentally incompatible because the checks and balances provided by liberal institutions conflict with the support by most libertarians of complete economic deregulation. It may be argued, however, that minarchists (at least for those allowing for taxation and/or similar means to support a government) are not necessarily in favor of complete economic deregulation in the first place. (See main article: Libertarianism).

The other form is the reaction of some liberals to islamism. This fits in a tradition , sometimes referred to as neo-Jacobin, that never disappeared in Europe, and has recently re-emerged. An outspoken exponent of this tradition, which critics call "Enlightenment fundamentalism"[6] is the Dutch Liberal parliamentarian Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a refugee from Somalia. She never promoted forms of violence, but has herself been targeted with death threats. The reference to neo-Jacobinism is not without problem, since most present-day liberals wouldn't feel friendly to Jacobinism because of its illiberal terror regime.

Neoliberalism

See main article Neoliberalism.

Neoliberalism is an economic ideology rather than a broader political ideology. The swing away from government action in the 1970s led to the introduction of this term, which refers to a program of reducing trade barriers and internal market restrictions as a way towards a more free market capitalist system. It does accept a certain degree of government involvement in the economy, particularly the acceptance of the need for a central bank and a capable national defense, but it seeks to reduce government regulation (and particularly taxes) as much as possible. While neoliberalism is sometimes described as overlapping with Thatcherism, economists as diverse as Joseph Stiglitz and Milton Friedman have been described — by others — as "neoliberal". This economic agenda is not necessarily combined with a liberal agenda in politics: neoliberals often do not subscribe to individual liberty on ethical issues or in sexual mores. An extreme example was the Pinochet regime in Chile, but some will also classify Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair or Gerhard Schröder as being neo-liberal. It should be noted that, in the 1990s, many social democratic parties adopted neoliberal economic policies such as extensive privatization and open markets, much to the dismay of many of their own voters. This has led these parties to become de facto neoliberal, and has often resulted in a drastic loss of popular support. For example, critics to the left of the German Social Democratic Party and the British Labour Party accuse them of pursuing neoliberal policies. Some conservatives see themselves as the true inheritors of classical liberalism. Jonah Goldberg of National Review argues that "most conservatives are closer to classical liberals than a lot of Reason (magazine)-libertarians" because conservatives want to preserve some institutions that they see as needed for liberty.[7] Further confusing the classification of liberalism and conservatism is that some conservatives claim liberal values as their own.

See also

• Anarcho-capitalism
• Libertarianism
• Classical liberalism
• Market liberalism
• Freiwirtschaft
• Modern liberalism
• Neoliberalism
• Methodological Individualist
• Ordoliberalism
• Small-l liberal
• Left-wing politics
• Social liberalism
• Anders Chydenius

Further reading on liberalism

The literature by thinkers contributing to liberal theory is listed at the Contributions to liberal theory.

• in English
  • The future of liberal revolution / Bruce Ackerman - New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992
  • Left and Right: The Prospects of Liberty / Murray N. Rothbard, 1965
  • Liberalism and Democracy / Norberto Bobbio - London: Verso, 1990 (Liberalismo e democrazia, 1988)
  • Liberalism / John A. Hall - London: Paladin, 1988
  • The Decline of Liberalism as an Ideology / John H. Hallowell - London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1946
  • Liberalism / Ludwig von Mises, 1927
• in Dutch
  • Beleid voor een vrije samenleving / J.W. de Beus en Percy B. Lehning (red.) - Meppel: Boom, 1990
  • Afscheid van de Verlichting: Liberalen in verwarring over eigen gedachtengoed / Hans Charmant en Percy Lehning - Amsterdam: Donner, 1989
  • Liberalisme, een speurtocht naar de filosofische grondslagen / A.A.M. Kinneging e.a. - Den Haag: Teldersstichting, 1988
  • De liberale speurtocht voortgezet / K. Groenveld, H.J. Lutke Schipholt & J.H.C. van Zanen - Den Haag: Teldersstichting, 1989
  • Het menselijk liberalisme / Dirk Verhofstadt - Antwerpen: Houtekiet, 2002
• in French
  • Le libéralisme / Georges Burdeu - Paris: Seuil, 1979
• in German
  • Die Freiheit die wir meinen / Werner Becker - München: Piper, 1982
  • Noch eine chance für die Liberalen / Karl-Hermann Flach - Frankfurt: Fischer, 1971
  • Liberalismus / Lothar Gall - Königstein: Athenäum, 1985

Some references

• Michael Scott Christofferson "An Antitotalitarian History of the French Revolution: François Furet's Penser la Révolution française in the Intellectual Politics of the Late 1970s" (in French Historical Studies, Fall 1999)
• Piero Gobetti La Rivoluzione liberale. Saggio sulla lotta politica in Italia, Bologna, Rocca San Casciano, 1924

External links

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Liberalism, by Gerald F. Gaus
• On John Dewey's Liberalism and Social Action
• Peter Berkowitz on "Modern Liberalism"
• French Liberalism in the 18th and 19th century
• What's the Matter With Liberalism, political theorist Ronald Beiner's classic critique
• The program of liberalism, Ludwig von Mises
• The Oxford Manifesto of 1947ca:Liberalisme

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