Liberalism—both as a political current and an intellectual tradition—is mostly a modern phenomenon that started in the 17th century, although some liberal philosophical ideas had precursors in
classical antiquity and
Imperial China. Scholars have also recognised many principles familiar to contemporary liberals in the works of several
Sophists and the
Funeral Oration by
Pericles. Liberal philosophy is the culmination of an extensive intellectual tradition that has examined and popularized some of the modern world's most important and controversial principles. Its immense scholarly output has been characterized as containing "richness and diversity", but that diversity often has meant that liberalism comes in different formulations and presents a challenge to anyone looking for a clear definition.
Major themes Although all liberal doctrines possess a common heritage, scholars frequently assume that those doctrines contain "separate and often contradictory streams of thought". Despite these variations, liberal thought does exhibit a few definite and fundamental conceptions. Political philosopher
John Gray identified the common strands in liberal thought as
individualist, egalitarian,
meliorist and
universalist. The individualist element avers the ethical primacy of the human being against the pressures of social
collectivism; the egalitarian element assigns the same
moral worth and status to all individuals; the meliorist element asserts that successive generations can improve their sociopolitical arrangements, and the universalist element affirms the moral unity of the human species and marginalises local
cultural differences. The meliorist element has been the subject of much controversy, defended by thinkers such as
Immanuel Kant, who believed in human progress, while suffering criticism by thinkers such as
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who instead believed that human attempts to improve themselves through social
cooperation would fail. The liberal philosophical tradition has searched for validation and justification through several intellectual projects. The moral and political suppositions of liberalism have been based on traditions such as natural rights and
utilitarian theory, although sometimes liberals even request support from scientific and religious circles.
Classical and modern John Locke and Thomas Hobbes Enlightenment philosophers are given credit for shaping liberal ideas. These ideas were first drawn together and systematized as a distinct
ideology by the English philosopher
John Locke, generally regarded as the father of modern liberalism.
Thomas Hobbes attempted to determine the purpose and the justification of governing authority in post-civil war England. Employing the idea of a
state of nature — a hypothetical war-like scenario prior to the state — he constructed the idea of a
social contract that individuals enter into to guarantee their security and, in so doing, form the State, concluding that only an
absolute sovereign would be fully able to sustain such security. Hobbes had developed the concept of the social contract, according to which individuals in the anarchic and brutal state of nature came together and voluntarily ceded some of their rights to an established state authority, which would create laws to regulate social interactions to mitigate or mediate conflicts and enforce justice. Whereas Hobbes advocated a strong monarchical commonwealth (the
Leviathan), Locke developed the then-radical notion that government acquires
consent from the governed, which has to be constantly present for the government to remain
legitimate. While adopting Hobbes's idea of a state of nature and social contract, Locke nevertheless argued that when the monarch becomes a
tyrant, it violates the social contract, which protects life, liberty and property as a natural right. He concluded that the people have a right to overthrow a tyrant. By placing the security of life, liberty and property as the supreme value of law and authority, Locke formulated the basis of liberalism based on social contract theory. To these early enlightenment thinkers, securing the essential amenities of life—
liberty and
private property—required forming a "sovereign" authority with universal jurisdiction. His influential
Two Treatises (1690), the foundational text of liberal ideology, outlined his major ideas. Once humans moved out of their
natural state and formed
societies, Locke argued, "that which begins and actually constitutes any
political society is nothing but the consent of any number of freemen capable of a majority to unite and incorporate into such a society. And this is that, and that only, which did or could give beginning to any lawful government in the world". The stringent insistence that lawful government did not have a
supernatural basis was a sharp break with the dominant theories of governance, which advocated the
divine right of kings and echoed the earlier thought of
Aristotle. Dr John Zvesper described this new thinking: "In the liberal understanding, there are no citizens within the regime who can claim to rule by natural or supernatural right, without the consent of the governed". Locke had other intellectual opponents besides Hobbes. In the
First Treatise, Locke aimed his arguments first and foremost at one of the doyens of 17th-century English conservative philosophy:
Robert Filmer. Filmer's
Patriarcha (1680) argued for the divine right of kings by appealing to
biblical teaching, claiming that the authority granted to
Adam by
God gave successors of Adam in the male line of descent a right of dominion over all other humans and creatures in the world. However, Locke disagreed so thoroughly and obsessively with Filmer that the
First Treatise is almost a sentence-by-sentence refutation of
Patriarcha. Reinforcing his respect for consensus, Locke argued that "conjugal society is made up by a voluntary compact between men and women". Locke maintained that the grant of dominion in
Genesis was not to
men over women, as Filmer believed, but to humans over animals. Based on the social contract principle, Locke argued that the government lacked authority in the realm of individual
conscience, as this was something
rational people could not cede to the government for it or others to control. For Locke, this created a natural right to the liberty of conscience, which he argued must remain protected from any government authority. In his
Letters Concerning Toleration, he also formulated a general defence for
religious toleration. Three arguments are central: • Earthly judges, the state in particular, and human beings generally, cannot dependably evaluate the truth claims of competing religious standpoints; • Even if they could, enforcing a single "
true religion" would not have the desired effect because belief cannot be compelled by
violence; • Coercing
religious uniformity would lead to more social disorder than allowing diversity. Locke was influenced by the liberal ideas of Presbyterian politician and poet
John Milton, who was a staunch advocate of freedom in all its forms. Milton argued for
disestablishment as the only effective way of achieving broad
toleration. Rather than force a man's conscience, the government should recognise the persuasive force of the gospel. As assistant to
Oliver Cromwell, Milton also drafted a constitution of the
independents (
Agreement of the People; 1647) that strongly stressed the equality of all humans as a consequence of democratic tendencies. In his
Areopagitica, Milton provided one of the first arguments for the importance of freedom of speech—"the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties". His central argument was that the individual could use reason to distinguish right from wrong. To exercise this right, everyone must have unlimited access to the ideas of his fellow men in "
a free and open encounter", which will allow good arguments to prevail. In a natural state of affairs, liberals argued that humans were driven by the instincts of survival and
self-preservation, and the only way to escape from such a dangerous existence was to form a common and supreme power capable of arbitrating between competing human desires. This power could be formed in the framework of a
civil society that allows individuals to make a voluntary social contract with the sovereign authority, transferring their natural rights to that authority in return for the protection of life, liberty and property.
James Madison and Montesquieu As part of the project to limit the powers of government, liberal theorists such as
James Madison and
Montesquieu conceived the notion of
separation of powers, a system designed to equally distribute governmental authority among the
executive,
legislative and
judicial branches. Contemporary liberals, heavily influenced by social liberalism, have supported limited
constitutional government while advocating for
state services and provisions to ensure equal rights. Modern liberals claim that formal or official guarantees of individual rights are irrelevant when individuals lack the material means to benefit from those rights and call for a
greater role for government in the administration of economic affairs. Early liberals also laid the groundwork for the separation of church and state. As heirs of the Enlightenment, liberals believed that any given social and political order emanated
from human interactions, not from
divine will. Many liberals were openly hostile to
religious belief but most concentrated their opposition to the union of religious and political authority, arguing that faith could prosper independently without official sponsorship or administration by the state. Mill's
On Liberty (1859), one of the classic texts in liberal philosophy, proclaimed, "the only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way".
Coppet Group and Benjamin Constant The development into maturity of modern classical in contrast to ancient liberalism took place before and soon after the French Revolution. One of the historic centres of this development was at
Coppet Castle near
Geneva, where the eponymous
Coppet group gathered under the aegis of the exiled writer and
salonnière,
Madame de Staël, in the period between the establishment of
Napoleon's First Empire (1804) and the
Bourbon Restoration of 1814–1815. The unprecedented concentration of European thinkers who met there was to have a considerable influence on the development of nineteenth-century liberalism and, incidentally,
romanticism. They included
Wilhelm von Humboldt,
Jean de Sismondi,
Charles Victor de Bonstetten,
Prosper de Barante,
Henry Brougham,
Lord Byron,
Alphonse de Lamartine, Sir
James Mackintosh,
Juliette Récamier and
August Wilhelm Schlegel. , a Franco-Swiss political activist and theorist Among them was also one of the first thinkers to go by the name of "liberal", the
Edinburgh University-educated Swiss Protestant,
Benjamin Constant, who looked to the United Kingdom rather than to
ancient Rome for a practical model of freedom in a large mercantile society. He distinguished between the "Liberty of the Ancients" and the "Liberty of the Moderns". The Liberty of the Ancients was a participatory
republican liberty, which gave the citizens the right to influence politics directly through debates and votes in the public assembly. The British philosopher and historian of ideas, Sir
Isaiah Berlin, has pointed to the debt owed to Constant.
British liberalism Liberalism in Britain was based on core concepts such as
classical economics,
free trade,
laissez-faire government with minimal intervention and taxation, and a
balanced budget. Classical liberals were committed to individualism, liberty and equal rights. Writers such as
John Bright and
Richard Cobden opposed aristocratic privilege and property, which they saw as an impediment to developing a class of
yeoman farmers. , an influential
liberal philosopher who established in
Prolegomena to Ethics (1884) the first major foundations for what later became known as
positive liberty and in a few years, his ideas became the
official policy of the
Liberal Party in
Britain, precipitating the rise of
social liberalism and the modern
welfare state Beginning in the late 19th century, a new conception of liberty entered the liberal intellectual arena. This new kind of liberty became known as
positive liberty to distinguish it from the prior
negative version, and it was first developed by
British philosopher T. H. Green. Green rejected the idea that humans were driven solely by
self-interest, emphasising instead the complex circumstances involved in the evolution of our
moral character. In a very profound step for the future of modern liberalism, he also tasked society and political institutions with the enhancement of individual freedom and identity and the development of moral character, will and reason and the state to create the conditions that allow for the above, allowing genuine
choice. As a response, liberals began demanding proper safeguards to thwart majorities in their attempts at suppressing the
rights of minorities. All forms of liberalism assume in some basic sense that individuals are equal. In maintaining that people are naturally equal, liberals assume they all possess the same right to liberty. In other words, no one is inherently entitled to enjoy the benefits of liberal society more than anyone else, and all people are
equal subjects before the law. Beyond this basic conception, liberal theorists diverge in their understanding of equality. American philosopher
John Rawls emphasised the need to ensure equality under the law and the equal distribution of material resources that individuals required to develop their
aspirations in life. Unlike many of their competitors and predecessors, liberals do not seek
conformity and homogeneity in how people think. Their efforts have been geared towards establishing a governing framework that
harmonises and minimises conflicting views but still allows those views to exist and flourish. For liberal philosophy, pluralism leads easily to toleration. Since individuals will hold diverging viewpoints, liberals argue, they ought to uphold and respect the right of one another to disagree. From the liberal perspective, toleration was initially connected to
religious toleration, with
Baruch Spinoza condemning "the stupidity of religious persecution and ideological wars". Smith addressed the motivation for economic activity, the causes of
prices and
wealth distribution, and the
policies the state should follow to maximise
wealth. through profit-driven production of goods and services. An "
invisible hand" directed individuals and firms to work toward the nation's good as an unintended consequence of efforts to maximise their gain. This provided a moral justification for accumulating wealth, which some had previously viewed as sinful. Other than that government should be limited to defence,
public works and the
administration of justice, financed by
taxes based on income. Smith's economics was carried into practice in the 19th century with the lowering of tariffs in the 1820s, the repeal of the
Poor Relief Act that had restricted the mobility of labour in 1834 and the end of the rule of the
East India Company over India in 1858. Say argues that "products are paid for with products" (1803, p. 153) or "a glut occurs only when too much resource is applied to making one product and not enough to another" (1803, pp. 178–179). Related reasoning appears in the work of
John Stuart Mill and earlier in that of his Scottish classical economist father,
James Mill (1808). Mill senior restates Say's law in 1808: "production of commodities creates, and is the one and universal cause which creates a market for the commodities produced". In addition to Smith's and Say's legacies,
Thomas Malthus' theories of population and
David Ricardo's
Iron law of wages became central doctrines of classical economics. Smith argued that as societies progressed, the spoils of war would rise, but the costs of war would rise further, making war difficult and costly for industrialised nations. Cobden believed that military expenditures worsened the state's welfare and benefited a small but concentrated elite minority, combining his
Little Englander beliefs with opposition to the economic restrictions of mercantilist policies. To Cobden and many classical liberals, those who advocated peace must also advocate free markets.
Utilitarianism was seen as a
political justification for implementing
economic liberalism by British governments, an idea dominating economic policy from the 1840s. Although utilitarianism prompted legislative and administrative reform, and John Stuart Mill's later writings foreshadowed the welfare state, it was mainly used as a premise for a
laissez-faire approach. The central concept of utilitarianism, developed by
Jeremy Bentham, was that
public policy should seek to provide "the greatest happiness of the greatest number". While this could be interpreted as a justification for state action to
reduce poverty, it was used by classical liberals to justify inaction with the argument that the net benefit to all individuals would be higher. A prolific writer, among many other works, he had begun a theoretical work examining the relationship between unemployment, money and prices back in the 1920s. Keynes was deeply critical of the British government's
austerity measures
during the Great Depression. He believed
budget deficits were a good thing, a product of
recessions. He wrote: "For Government borrowing of one kind or another is nature's remedy, so to speak, for preventing business losses from being, in so severe a slump as the present one, so great as to bring production altogether to a standstill". At the height of the Great Depression in 1933, Keynes published
The Means to Prosperity, which contained specific policy recommendations for tackling unemployment in a global recession, chiefly counter cyclical public spending.
The Means to Prosperity contains one of the first mentions of the
multiplier effect. , with its periods of worldwide economic hardship, formed the backdrop against which the
Keynesian Revolution took place (the image is
Dorothea Lange's
Migrant Mother depiction of destitute
pea-pickers in California, taken in March 1936). Keynes's
magnum opus,
The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, was published in 1936, and served as a theoretical justification for the
interventionist policies Keynes favoured for tackling a recession. The
General Theory challenged the earlier
neo-classical economic paradigm, which had held that the
market would naturally establish
full employment equilibrium if it were unfettered by government interference.
Classical economists believed in
Say's law, which states that "
supply creates its own demand" and that in a
free market, workers would always be willing to lower their wages to a level where employers could profitably offer them jobs. An innovation from Keynes was the concept of
price stickiness, i.e. the recognition that, in reality, workers often refuse to lower their wage demands even in cases where a classical economist might argue it is
rational for them to do so. Due in part to price stickiness, it was established that the interaction of "
aggregate demand" and "
aggregate supply" may lead to stable unemployment equilibria, and in those cases, it is the state and not the market that economies must depend on for their salvation. The book advocated activist economic policy by the government to stimulate demand in times of high unemployment, for example, by spending on public works. In 1928, he wrote: "Let us be up and doing, using our idle resources to increase our wealth. ... With men and plants unemployed, it is ridiculous to say that we cannot afford these new developments. It is precisely with these plants and these men that we shall afford them."
Liberal feminist theory , widely regarded as the pioneer of
liberal feminism Liberal feminism, the dominant tradition in
feminist history, is an
individualistic form of
feminist theory that focuses on women's ability to maintain their equality through their actions and choices. Liberal feminists hope to eradicate all barriers to
gender equality, claiming that the continued existence of such barriers eviscerates the individual rights and freedoms ostensibly guaranteed by a liberal social order. They argue that society believes women are naturally
less intellectually and physically capable than men; thus, it tends to
discriminate against women in the
academy, the forum and the
marketplace. Liberal feminists believe that "female subordination is rooted in a set of customary and legal constraints that blocks women's entrance to and success in the so-called public world". They strive for sexual equality via political and legal reform. British
philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) is widely regarded as the pioneer of liberal feminism, with
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) expanding the boundaries of liberalism to include women in the political structure of liberal society. In her writings, such as
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Wollstonecraft commented on society's view of women and encouraged women to use their voices in making decisions separate from those previously made for them. Wollstonecraft "denied that women are, by nature, more pleasure seeking and pleasure giving than men. She reasoned that if they were confined to the same cages that trap women, men would develop the same flawed characters. What Wollstonecraft most wanted for women was personhood". He believed that both sexes should have equal rights under the law and that "until conditions of equality exist, no one can possibly assess the natural differences between women and men, distorted as they have been. What is natural to the two sexes can only be found out by allowing both to develop and use their faculties freely". Mill frequently spoke of this imbalance and wondered if women were able to feel the same "genuine unselfishness" that men did in providing for their families. This unselfishness Mill advocated is the one "that motivates people to take into account the good of society as well as the good of the individual person or small family unit".
Equity feminism is a form of liberal feminism discussed since the 1980s, specifically a kind of classically liberal or libertarian feminism.
Steven Pinker, an
evolutionary psychologist, defines equity feminism as "a moral doctrine about equal treatment that makes no commitments regarding open empirical issues in psychology or biology". Barry Kuhle asserts that equity feminism is compatible with
evolutionary psychology in contrast to
gender feminism.
Social liberal theory , who wrote the first critique of the free market from a liberal perspective in 1819
Jean Charles Léonard Simonde de Sismondi's
New Principles of Political Economy (French: ''Nouveaux principes d'économie politique, ou de la richesse dans ses rapports avec la population
) (1819) represents the first comprehensive liberal critique of early capitalism and laissez-faire economics, and his writings, which were studied by John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx among many others, had a profound influence on both liberal and socialist responses to the failures and contradictions of industrial society. By the end of the 19th century, the principles of classical liberalism were being increasingly challenged by downturns in economic growth, a growing perception of the evils of poverty, unemployment and relative deprivation present within modern industrial cities, as well as the agitation of organised labour. The ideal of the self-made individual who could make his or her place in the world through hard work and talent seemed increasingly implausible. A major political reaction against the changes introduced by industrialisation and laissez-faire'' capitalism came from conservatives concerned about social balance, although
socialism later became a more important force for change and reform. Some
Victorian writers, including
Charles Dickens,
Thomas Carlyle and
Matthew Arnold, became early influential critics of social injustice. , whose
On Liberty greatly influenced 19th-century liberalism
John Stuart Mill contributed enormously to liberal thought by combining elements of classical liberalism with what eventually became known as the new liberalism. Mill's 1859
On Liberty addressed the nature and limits of the
power that can be legitimately exercised by society over the
individual. He gave an impassioned defence of free speech, arguing that free
discourse is a
necessary condition for intellectual and social progress. Mill defined "
social liberty" as protection from "the tyranny of political rulers". He introduced many different concepts of the form tyranny can take, referred to as social tyranny and
tyranny of the majority. Social liberty meant limits on the ruler's power through obtaining recognition of political liberties or rights and establishing a system of "
constitutional checks". His definition of liberty, influenced by
Joseph Priestley and
Josiah Warren, was that the
individual ought to be free to do as he wishes unless he harms others. However, although Mill's initial
economic philosophy supported
free markets and argued that
progressive taxation penalised those who worked harder, he later altered his views toward a more socialist bent, adding chapters to his
Principles of Political Economy in defence of a socialist outlook and defending some socialist causes, including the radical proposal that the whole wage system be abolished in favour of a co-operative wage system. Another early liberal convert to greater government intervention was
T. H. Green. Seeing the effects of alcohol, he believed that the state should foster and protect the social, political and economic environments in which individuals will have the best chance of acting according to their consciences. The state should intervene only where there is a clear, proven and strong tendency of liberty to enslave the individual. Green regarded the national state as legitimate only to the extent that it upholds a system of rights and obligations most likely to foster individual self-realisation. The New Liberalism or social liberalism movement emerged in about 1900 in Britain. The New Liberals, including intellectuals like L. T. Hobhouse and
John A. Hobson, saw individual liberty as something achievable only under favourable social and economic circumstances. It supports a
mixed economy that includes
public and private property in
capital goods. Principles that can be described as social liberal have been based upon or developed by philosophers such as John Stuart Mill,
Eduard Bernstein,
John Dewey,
Carlo Rosselli,
Norberto Bobbio and
Chantal Mouffe. Other important social liberal figures include Guido Calogero,
Piero Gobetti, Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse and
R. H. Tawney.
Liberal socialism has been particularly prominent in British and Italian politics. Unlike the liberalism of Locke, which saw the state as evolving from society, the anti-state liberals saw a fundamental conflict between the voluntary interactions of people, i.e. society, and the institutions of force, i.e. the state. This society versus state idea was expressed in various ways: natural society vs artificial society, liberty vs authority, society of contract vs society of authority and industrial society vs militant society, to name a few. The anti-state liberal tradition in Europe and the United States continued after Molinari in the early writings of
Herbert Spencer and thinkers such as
Paul Émile de Puydt and
Auberon Herbert. However, the first person to use the term anarcho-capitalism was
Murray Rothbard. In the mid-20th century, Rothbard synthesized elements from the
Austrian School of economics, classical liberalism and 19th-century American
individualist anarchists
Lysander Spooner and
Benjamin Tucker (while rejecting their
labour theory of value and the norms they derived from it). Anarcho-capitalism advocates the elimination of the state in favour of
individual sovereignty,
private property and
free markets.
Anarcho-capitalists believe that in the absence of
statute (law by
decree or
legislation), society would improve itself through the discipline of the free market (or what its proponents describe as a "
voluntary society"). In a theoretical
anarcho-capitalist society,
law enforcement,
courts and all other security services would be operated by privately funded competitors rather than centrally through
taxation.
Money and other
goods and services would be privately and competitively provided in an
open market. Anarcho-capitalists say personal and economic activities under anarcho-capitalism would be regulated by victim-based dispute resolution organizations under
tort and
contract law rather than by statute through centrally determined punishment under what they describe as "political monopolies". A Rothbardian anarcho-capitalist society would operate under a mutually agreed-upon libertarian "legal code which would be generally accepted, and which the courts would pledge themselves to follow". Although enforcement methods vary, this pact would recognize
self-ownership and the
non-aggression principle (NAP). == History ==