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Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, the right to private property, and equality before the law. Liberals espouse various and sometimes conflicting views depending on their understanding of these principles but generally support private property, market economies, individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), liberal democracy, secularism, rule of law, Economic freedom and political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion.Generally support:
Liberalism is frequently cited as the dominant ideology of modern history.Wolfe, p. 23.
(2025). 9780739478097, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780739478097
Liberalism became a distinct movement in the Age of Enlightenment, gaining popularity among Western world philosophers and . Liberalism sought to replace the norms of Nobility, state religion, absolute monarchy, the divine right of kings and traditional conservatism with representative democracy, rule of law, and equality under the law. Liberals also ended mercantilist policies, Legal monopoly, and other , instead promoting free trade and marketization. The philosopher John Locke is often credited with founding liberalism as a distinct tradition based on the social contract, arguing that each man has a natural right to life, liberty and property, and governments must not violate these rights. While the British liberal tradition emphasized expanding democracy, French liberalism emphasized rejecting authoritarianism and is linked to Nationalism.Kirchner, p. 3.
Leaders in the British Glorious Revolution of 1688, the American Revolution of 1776, and the French Revolution of 1789 used liberal philosophy to justify the armed overthrow of royal sovereignty. The 19th century saw liberal governments established in Europe and South America, and it was well-established alongside republicanism in the United States. In Victorian Britain, it was used to critique the political establishment, appealing to science and reason on behalf of the people. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, liberalism in the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East influenced periods of reform, such as the Tanzimat and Al-Nahda, and the rise of constitutionalism, nationalism, and secularism. These changes, along with other factors, helped to create a sense of crisis within Islam, which continues to this day, leading to Islamic revivalism. Before 1920, the main ideological opponents of liberalism were communism, conservatism, and socialism; liberalism then faced major ideological challenges from fascism and Marxism–Leninism as new opponents. During the 20th century, liberal ideas spread even further, especially in Western Europe, as liberal democracies found themselves as the winners in both world wars and the Cold War.
Liberals sought and established a constitutional order that prized important Civil liberties, such as freedom of speech and freedom of association; an independent judiciary and public trial by jury; and the abolition of aristocratic privileges. Later waves of modern liberal thought and struggle were strongly influenced by the need to expand civil rights.Worell, Judith. Encyclopedia of women and gender, Volume I. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2001. Liberals have advocated gender and racial equality in their drive to promote civil rights, and global civil rights movements in the 20th century achieved several objectives towards both goals. Other goals often accepted by liberals include universal suffrage and universal access to education. In Europe and North America, the establishment of social liberalism (often called simply liberalism in the United States) became a key component in expanding the welfare state. "Liberalism in America: A Note for Europeans" by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. (1956) from: The Politics of Hope (Boston: Riverside Press, 1962). "Liberalism in the U.S. usage has little in common with the word as used in the politics of any other country, save possibly Britain." 21st-century liberal parties continue to wield power and influence throughout the world. The fundamental elements of Modernity have liberal roots. The early waves of liberalism popularised economic individualism while expanding constitutional government and authority.Gould, p. 3.
In the 16th-century Kingdom of England, liberal could have positive or negative attributes in referring to someone's generosity or indiscretion. In Much Ado About Nothing, William Shakespeare wrote of "a liberal villaine" who "hath ... confest his vile encounters". With the rise of the Enlightenment, the word acquired decisively more positive undertones, defined as "free from narrow prejudice" in 1781 and "free from bigotry" in 1823. In 1815, the first use of liberalism appeared in English.Kirchner, pp. 2–3. In Spain, the liberales, the first group to use the liberal label in a political context,Palmer and Colton, p. 479. fought for decades to implement the Spanish Constitution of 1812. From 1820 to 1823, during the Trienio Liberal, King Ferdinand VII was compelled by the liberales to swear to uphold the 1812 Constitution. By the middle of the 19th century, liberal was used as a politicised term for parties and movements worldwide.Kirchner, Emil J. (1988). Liberal Parties in Western Europe. Cambridge University Press. . "Liberal parties were among the first political parties to form, and their long-serving and influential records, as participants in parliaments and governments, raise important questions ... ."
Yellow is the political colour most commonly associated with liberalism.Cassel-Picot, Muriel "The Liberal Democrats and the Green Cause: From Yellow to Green" in Leydier, Gilles and Martin, Alexia (2013) Environmental Issues in Political Discourse in Britain and Ireland. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p.105 . The United States differs from other countries in that conservatism is associated with red and liberalism with blue.
According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, "In the United States, liberalism is associated with the welfare-state policies of the New Deal programme of the Democratic administration of Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt, whereas in Europe it is more commonly associated with a commitment to limited government and laissez-faire economic policies.""Liberalism". Encyclopædia Britannica. This variety of liberalism is also known as modern liberalism to distinguish it from classical liberalism, which evolved into modern conservatism. In the United States, the two forms of liberalism comprise the two main poles of American politics, in the forms of modern American liberalism and modern American conservatism.Pease, Donald E.; Wiegman, Robyn (eds.) (2002). The Futures of American Studies. Duke University Press. p. 518.
Some liberals, who call themselves classical liberals, fiscal conservatives, or libertarians, endorse fundamental liberal ideals but diverge from modern liberal thought on the grounds that economic freedom is more important than social equality.Pena, David S. (2001). Economic Barbarism and Managerialism. p. 35. Consequently, the ideas of individualism and laissez-faire economics previously associated with classical liberalism are key components of modern American conservatism and movement conservatism, and became the basis for the emerging school of modern American libertarian thought.Rothbard, Murray (2006) 1973. "The Libertarian Heritage: The American Revolution and Classical Liberalism". . Mises Institute. . Retrieved 18 June 2015 – via LewRockewell.com In this American context, liberal is often used as a pejorative.
This political philosophy is exemplified by enactment of major social legislation and welfare programs. Two major examples in the United States are Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal policies and later Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society, as well as other accomplishments such as the Works Progress Administration and the Social Security Act in 1935, as well as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Modern liberalism, in the United States and other major Western countries, now includes issues such as same-sex marriage, transgender rights, the abolition of capital punishment, reproductive rights and other women's rights, voting rights for all adult citizens, civil rights, environmental justice, and government protection of the right to an adequate standard of living. National social services, such as equal educational opportunities, access to health care, and transportation infrastructure are intended to meet the responsibility to promote the general welfare of all citizens as established by the United States Constitution.
In the context of current American politics of the present day, classical liberalism may be described as "fiscally conservative" and "socially liberal". (2025). 9780739478097, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780739478097 Despite this, classical liberals tend to reject the right's higher tolerance for economic protectionism and the left's inclination for collective group rights due to classical liberalism's central principle of individualism. Additionally, in the United States classical liberalism is considered closely tied to, or synonymous with, American libertarianism.
Until the Great Depression and the rise of social liberalism, classical liberalism was called economic liberalism. Later, the term was applied as a retronym, to distinguish earlier 19th-century liberalism from social liberalism. By modern standards, in the United States the bare term liberalism often means social liberalism whereas in Europe and Australia it often means classical liberalism.
Classical liberalism gained full flowering in the early 18th century, building on ideas dating at least as far back as the 16th century, within the Iberian, British, and Central European contexts, and it was foundational to the American Revolution and "American Project" more broadly. Notable liberal individuals whose ideas contributed to classical liberalism include John Locke,Steven M. Dworetz (1994). The Unvarnished Doctrine: Locke, Liberalism, and the American Revolution. Jean-Baptiste Say, Thomas Malthus, and David Ricardo. It drew on classical economics, especially the economic ideas espoused by Adam Smith in Book One of The Wealth of Nations, and on a belief in natural law. In contemporary times, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, Thomas Sowell, George Stigler, Larry Arnhart, Ronald Coase and James M. Buchanan are seen as the most prominent advocates of classical liberalism; however, other scholars have made reference to these contemporary thoughts as neoclassical liberalism, distinguishing them from 18th-century classical liberalism.Mayne, Alan James (1999). From Politics Past to Politics Future: An Integrated Analysis of Current and Emergent Paradigmss. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 124–125. . (2025). 9781412969017, SAGE Publications, Inc.. ISBN 9781412969017
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 Morality 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.Gray, p. xii. 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.Wolfe, pp. 33–36.
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 Utilitarianism, although sometimes liberals even request support from scientific and religious circles. Through all these strands and traditions, scholars have identified the following major common facets of liberal thought:
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 kingsForster, p. 219. 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.Copleston, Frederick. A History of Philosophy: Volume V. New York: Doubleday, 1959. , p. 33. 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 Male privilege, as Filmer believed, but to humans over animals. Locke was not a feminist by modern standards, but the first major liberal thinker in history accomplished an equally major task on the road to making the world more pluralistic: integrating women into social theory.
Locke also originated the concept of the separation of church and state.Feldman, Noah (2005). Divided by God. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, p. 29 ("It took John Locke to translate the demand for liberty of conscience into a systematic argument for distinguishing the realm of government from the realm of religion.") 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.Feldman, Noah (2005). Divided by God. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, p. 29 In his Letters Concerning Toleration, he also formulated a general defence for religious toleration. Three arguments are central:
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., 3. Auflage, Band VI, col. 942 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.Hunter, William Bridges. A Milton Encyclopedia, Volume 8 (East Brunswick, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1980). pp. 71, 72. . 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., 3. Auflage, Band IV, col. 869 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. These early liberals often disagreed about the most appropriate form of government, but all believed that liberty was natural and its restriction needed strong justification. Liberals generally believed in limited government, although several liberal philosophers decried government outright, with Thomas Paine writing, "Government even in its best state is a necessary evil.".
Beyond identifying a clear role for government in modern society, liberals have also argued over the meaning and nature of the most important principle in liberal philosophy: liberty. From the 17th century until the 19th century, liberals (from Adam Smith to John Stuart Mill) conceptualised liberty as the absence of interference from government and other individuals, claiming that all people should have the freedom to develop their unique abilities and capacities without being sabotaged by others.. 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". Support for laissez-faire capitalism is often associated with this principle, with Friedrich Hayek arguing in The Road to Serfdom (1944) that reliance on free markets would preclude totalitarian control by the state.Wolfe, p. 74.
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 Republicanism liberty, which gave the citizens the right to influence politics directly through debates and votes in the public assembly. In order to support this degree of participation, citizenship was a burdensome moral obligation requiring a considerable investment of time and energy. Generally, this required a sub-group of slaves to do much of the productive work, leaving citizens free to deliberate on public affairs. Ancient Liberty was also limited to relatively small and homogenous male societies, where they could congregate in one place to transact public affairs.
In contrast, the Liberty of the Moderns was based on the possession of civil liberties, the rule of law, and freedom from excessive state interference. Direct participation would be limited: a necessary consequence of the size of modern states and the inevitable result of creating a mercantile society where there were no slaves, but almost everybody had to earn a living through work. Instead, the voters would elect Legislator who would deliberate in Parliament on the people's behalf and would save citizens from daily political involvement. The importance of Constant's writings on the liberty of the ancients and that of the "moderns" has informed the understanding of liberalism, as has his critique of the French Revolution. (1982). 9780729402804, Oxford, The Voltaire Foundation and Lausanne, Institut Benjamin Constant. ISBN 9780729402804 The British philosopher and historian of ideas, Sir Isaiah Berlin, has pointed to the debt owed to Constant. According to Berlin, the most eloquent of all defenders of freedom and privacy was Benjamin Constant, who had not forgotten the Jacobin dictatorship.
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 liberty, 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. Foreshadowing the new liberty as the freedom to act rather than to avoid suffering from the acts of others, Green wrote the following:
Rather than previous liberal conceptions viewing society as populated by selfish individuals, Green viewed society as an organic whole in which all individuals have a duty to promote the common good. His ideas spread rapidly and were developed by other thinkers such as Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse and John A. Hobson. In a few years, this New Liberalism had become the essential social and political programme of the Liberal Party in Britain, and it would encircle much of the world in the 20th century. In addition to examining negative and positive liberty, liberals have tried to understand the proper relationship between liberty and democracy. As they struggled to expand suffrage rights, liberals increasingly understood that people left out of the Voting were liable to the "tyranny of the majority", a concept explained in Mill's On Liberty and Democracy in America (1835) by Alexis de Tocqueville.. As a response, liberals began demanding proper safeguards to thwart majorities in their attempts at suppressing the Minority rights.
Besides liberty, liberals have developed several other principles important to the construction of their philosophical structure, such as equality, pluralism and tolerance. Highlighting the confusion over the first principle, Voltaire commented, "equality is at once the most natural and at times the most chimeral of things".Wolfe, p. 63. 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 Motivation in life. Libertarian thinker Robert Nozick disagreed with Rawls, championing the former version of Lockean equality.
To contribute to the development of liberty, liberals also have promoted concepts like pluralism and tolerance. By pluralism, liberals refer to the proliferation of opinions and beliefs that characterise a stable social order.. 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". Toleration also played a central role in the Kantianism and John Stuart Mill. Both thinkers believed that society would contain different conceptions of a good ethical life and that people should be allowed to make their own choices without interference from the state or other individuals.
Smith wrote that as long as supply, demand, and competition were left free of government regulation, the pursuit of material self-interest, rather than altruism, maximises society's wealth The Wealth of Nations , Strahan and Cadell, 1778 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.
Smith assumed that workers could be Salary as low as was necessary for their survival, which David Ricardo and Thomas Robert Malthus later transformed into the "iron law of wages". His main emphasis was on the benefit of free internal and international trade, which he thought could increase wealth through specialisation in production. He also opposed restrictive , state grants of monopolies and employers' organisations and . While Smith advocated for minimal government intervention, he recognized that some market regulation was necessary to prevent fraud, protect consumers, and ensure fair competition. Other than that government should be limited to defence, and the administration of justice, financed by Income tax. Smith was one of the progenitors of the idea, which was long central to classical liberalism and has resurfaced in the globalisation literature of the later 20th and early 21st centuries, that free trade promotes peace.See, e.g., Donald Markwell, John Maynard Keynes and International Relations: Economic Paths to War and Peace, Oxford University Press, 2006, chapter 1. 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.
In his Treatise (Traité d'économie politique), Say states that any production process requires effort, knowledge and the "application" of the entrepreneur. He sees entrepreneurs as intermediaries in the production process who combine productive factors such as land, capital and labour to meet the consumers' demands. As a result, they play a central role in the economy through their coordinating function. He also highlights qualities essential for successful entrepreneurship and focuses on judgement, in that they have continued to assess market needs and the means to meet them. This requires an "unerring market sense". Say views entrepreneurial income primarily as the high revenue paid in compensation for their skills and expert knowledge. He does so by contrasting the enterprise and supply-of-capital functions, distinguishing the entrepreneur's earnings on the one hand and the remuneration of capital on the other. This differentiates his theory from that of Joseph Schumpeter, who describes entrepreneurial rent as short-term profits which compensate for high risk (Schumpeterian rent). Say himself also refers to risk and uncertainty along with innovation without analysing them in detail.
Say is also credited with Say's law, or the law of markets which may be summarised as "Aggregate supply creates its own aggregate demand", and "Supply creates its own demand", or "Supply constitutes its own demand" and "Inherent in supply is the need for its own consumption". The related phrase "supply creates its own demand" was coined by John Maynard Keynes, who criticized Say's separate formulations as amounting to the same thing. Some advocates of Say's law who disagree with Keynes have claimed that Say's law can be summarized more accurately as "production precedes consumption" and that what Say is stating is that for consumption to happen, one must produce something of value so that it can be traded for money or barter for consumption later.Bylund, Per. "Say's Law (the Law of Markets)" . 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). "Information on Jean-Baptiste Say".
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. Meanwhile, Jean-Baptiste Say challenged Smith's labour theory of value, believing that prices were determined by utility and also emphasised the critical role of the entrepreneur in the economy. However, neither of those observations became accepted by British economists at the time. Malthus wrote An Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798, becoming a major influence on classical liberalism. Malthus claimed that population growth would outstrip food production because the population grew geometrically while food production grew arithmetically. As people were provided with food, they would reproduce until their growth outstripped the food supply. Nature would then provide a check to growth in the forms of vice and misery. No gains in income could prevent this, and any welfare for the poor would be self-defeating. The poor were, in fact, responsible for their problems which could have been avoided through self-restraint.
Several liberals, including Adam Smith and Richard Cobden, argued that the free exchange of goods between nations would lead to world peace.Erik Gartzke, " Economic Freedom and Peace", in Economic Freedom of the World: 2005 Annual Report (Vancouver: Fraser Institute, 2005). . 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.Michael Doyle, Ways of War and Peace: Realism, Liberalism, and Socialism (New York: Norton, 1997), p. 237 (). 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.James L. Richardson (2025). 155587939X, Lynne Rienner Publishers. 155587939X 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. His philosophy proved highly influential on government policy and led to increased Benthamite attempts at government social control, including Robert Peel's Metropolitan Police, , the and asylums for the mentally ill.
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." Where the market failed to allocate resources properly, the government was required to stimulate the economy until private funds could start flowing again—a "prime the pump" kind of strategy designed to boost industrial production.Palmer and Colton, p. 808.
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.Falco, pp. 47–48. 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".
John Stuart Mill was also an early proponent of feminism. In his article The Subjection of Women (1861, published 1869), Mill attempted to prove that the legal subjugation of women is wrong and that it should give way to perfect equality.John Stuart Mill: critical assessments, Volume 4, By John Cunningham WoodMill, J.S. (1869) The Subjection of Women , Chapter 1 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, John Stuart (1869). The Subjection of Women (1869 first ed.). London: Longmans, Green, Reader & Dyer. Retrieved 10 December 2012. 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". Like Mary Wollstonecraft, Mill compared sexual inequality to slavery, arguing that their husbands are often just as abusive as masters and that a human being controls nearly every aspect of life for another human being. In his book The Subjection of Women, Mill argues that three major parts of women's lives are hindering them: society and gender construction, education and marriage.
Equity feminism is a form of liberal feminism discussed since the 1980s, specifically a kind of classically liberal or libertarian feminism. (revised 30 September 2013) 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.
New liberals began to adapt the old language of liberalism to confront these difficult circumstances, which they believed could only be resolved through a broader and more interventionist conception of the state. An equal right to liberty could not be established merely by ensuring that individuals did not physically interfere with each other or by having impartially formulated and applied laws. More positive and proactive measures were required to ensure that every individual would have an equal opportunity for success. (1999). 9780826451736, Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 9780826451736
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.John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), "The Contest in America". Harper's New Monthly Magazine. Volume 24. Issue 143. pp. 683–684. Harper & Bros. New York. April 1862. Cornell.edu. However, although Mill's initial economic philosophy supported and argued that penalised those who worked harder, IREF | Pour la liberte economique et la concurrence fiscale (PDF) 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.Nicholson, P. P., "T. H. Green and State Action: Liquor Legislation", History of Political Thought, 6 (1985), 517–50. Reprinted in A. Vincent, ed., The Philosophy of T. H. Green (Aldershot: Gower, 1986), pp. 76–103 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.Michael Freeden, The New Liberalism: An Ideology of Social Reform (Oxford UP, 1978). 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. In their view, the poverty, squalor and ignorance in which many people lived made it impossible for freedom and individuality to flourish. New Liberals believed these conditions could be ameliorated only through collective action coordinated by a strong, welfare-oriented, interventionist state.The Routledge Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, p. 599 It supports a mixed economy that includes public property and private property in . 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.Nadia Urbinati. J.S. Mill's political thought: a bicentennial reassessment . Cambridge, England, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007 p. 101. Other important social liberal figures include Guido Calogero, Piero Gobetti, Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse and R. H. Tawney.Steve Bastow, James Martin. Third way discourse: European ideologies in the twentieth century . Edinburgh, Scotland, UK: Edinburgh University Press, Ltd, 2003. p. 72. 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.Molinari, Gustave de (1849) The Production of Security (trans. J. Huston McCulloch). Retrieved 15 July 2006. 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)."A student and disciple of the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, Rothbard combined the laissez-faire economics of his teacher with the absolutist views of human rights and rejection of the state he had absorbed from studying the individualist American anarchists of the 19th century such as Lysander Spooner and Benjamin Tucker." Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought, 1987, , p. 290 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").Edward Stringham, Anarchy and the law: the political economy of choice, p. 51 .
In a theoretical anarcho-capitalist society, law enforcement, 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". "Review of Kosanke's Instead of Politics – Don Stacy" Libertarian Papers VOL. 3, ART. NO. 3 (2011) 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".Rothbard, Murray. For A New Liberty. 12 The Public Sector, III: Police, Law, and the Courts Although enforcement methods vary, this pact would recognize self-ownership and the non-aggression principle (NAP).
The two key events that marked the triumph of liberalism in France were the abolition of feudalism in France on the night of 4 August 1789, which marked the collapse of feudal and old traditional rights and privileges and restrictions, as well as the passage of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in August, itself based on the U.S. Declaration of Independence from 1776. During the Napoleonic Wars, the French brought Western Europe the liquidation of the feudal system, the liberalization of , the end of Manorialism, the abolition of , the legalization of divorce, the disintegration of Jewish ghettos, the collapse of the Inquisition, the end of the Holy Roman Empire, the elimination of church courts and religious authority, the establishment of the metric system and equality under the law for all men.Palmer and Colton, pp. 428–29. His most lasting achievement, the Napoleonic code, served as "an object of emulation all over the globe"Lyons, p. 94. but also perpetuated further discrimination against women under the banner of the "natural order".Lyons, pp. 98–102.
The development into maturity of classical liberalism took place before and after the French Revolution in Britain. Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, was to provide most of the ideas of economics, at least until the publication of John Stuart Mill's Principles in 1848. Smith addressed the motivation for economic activity, the causes of prices and wealth distribution, and the policies the state should follow to maximise wealth. The radical liberal movement began in the 1790s in England and concentrated on parliamentary and electoral reform, emphasizing natural rights and popular sovereignty. Radicals like Richard Price and Joseph Priestley saw parliamentary reform as a first step toward dealing with their many grievances, including the treatment of Protestant Dissenters, the slave trade, high prices and high taxes.Turner, p. 86
In Latin America, liberal unrest dates back to the 18th century, when liberal agitation in Latin America led to independence from the imperial power of Spain and Portugal. The new regimes were generally liberal in their political outlook and employed the philosophy of positivism, which emphasized the truth of modern science, to buttress their positions. In the United States, a vicious war ensured the integrity of the nation and the abolition of slavery in the South. Historian Don H. Doyle has argued that the Union victory in the American Civil War (1861–1865) greatly boosted the course of liberalism. In the 19th century, English people liberal political philosophers were the most influential in the global tradition of liberalism.
During the 19th and early 20th century, in the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East, liberalism influenced periods of reform, such as the Tanzimat and Al-Nahda; the rise of secularism, constitutionalism and nationalism; and different intellectuals and religious groups and movements, like the Young Ottomans and Islamic Modernism. Prominent of the era were Rifa'a al-Tahtawi, Namık Kemal and İbrahim Şinasi. However, the reformist ideas and trends did not reach the common population successfully, as the books, periodicals, and newspapers were accessible primarily to intellectuals and segments of the emerging middle class. Many saw them as foreign influences on the Muslim world. That perception complicated reformist efforts made by Middle Eastern states.Roderic. H. Davison, Essays in Ottoman and Turkish History, 1774–1923 – The Impact of the West, University of Texas Press, 1990, pp. 115-116. These changes, along with other factors, helped to create a sense of crisis within Islam, which continues to this day. This led to Islamic revivalism.
Abolitionist and suffrage movements spread, along with representative and democratic ideals. France established an enduring republic in the 1870s. However, nationalism also spread rapidly after 1815. A mixture of liberal and nationalist sentiments in Italy and Germany brought about the unification of the two countries in the late 19th century. A liberal regime came to power in Italy and ended the secular power of the Popes. However, the Holy See launched a counter-crusade against liberalism. Pope Pius IX issued the Syllabus of Errors in 1864, condemning liberalism in all its forms. In many countries, liberal forces responded by expelling the Jesuit order. By the end of the nineteenth century, the principles of classical liberalism were being increasingly challenged, and the ideal of the self-made individual seemed increasingly implausible. Victorian writers like Charles Dickens, Thomas Carlyle and Matthew Arnold were early influential critics of social injustice.
Liberalism gained momentum at the beginning of the 20th century. The bastion of autocracy, the Nicholas II, was overthrown in the first phase of the Russian Revolution. The Allied victory in the First World War and the collapse of four empires seemed to mark the triumph of liberalism across the European continent, not just among the victorious allies but also in Germany and the newly created states of Eastern Europe. Militarism, as typified by Germany, was defeated and discredited. As Blinkhorn argues, the liberal themes were ascendant in terms of "cultural pluralism, religious and ethnic toleration, national self-determination, free market economics, representative and responsible government, free trade, unionism, and the peaceful settlement of international disputes through a new body, the League of Nations".
In the Middle East, liberalism led to constitutional periods, like the Ottoman First and Second Constitutional Era and the Persian constitutional period, but it declined in the late 1930s due to the growth and opposition of Islamism and pan-Arab Arab nationalism. However, many intellectuals advocated liberal values and ideas. Prominent liberals were Taha Hussein, Ahmed Lutfi el-Sayed, Tawfiq al-Hakim, Abd El-Razzak El-Sanhuri and Muhammad Mandur.
In the United States, modern liberalism traces its history to the popular presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who initiated the New Deal in response to the Great Depression and won an unprecedented four elections. The New Deal coalition established by Roosevelt left a strong legacy and influenced many future American presidents, including John F. Kennedy.Alterman, p. 32. Meanwhile, the definitive liberal response to the Great Depression was given by the British economist John Maynard Keynes, who had begun a theoretical work examining the relationship between unemployment, money and prices back in the 1920s. The worldwide Great Depression, starting in 1929, hastened the discrediting of liberal economics and strengthened calls for state control over economic affairs. Economic woes prompted widespread unrest in the European political world, leading to the rise of fascism as an ideology and a movement against liberalism and communism, especially in Nazi Germany and Italy.Heywood, pp. 218–26. The rise of fascism in the 1930s eventually culminated in World War II, the deadliest conflict in human history. The Allies prevailed in the war by 1945, and their victory set the stage for the Cold War between the Communist state Eastern Bloc and the liberal Western Bloc.
In Iran, liberalism enjoyed wide popularity. In April 1951, the National Front became the governing coalition when democratically elected Mohammad Mosaddegh, a liberal nationalist, took office as the Prime Minister. However, his way of governing conflicted with Western interests, and he was removed from power in a coup on 19 August 1953. The coup ended the dominance of liberalism in the country's politics. Clandestine Service History: Overthrow of Premier Mossadeq of Iran (March 1954). p. iii.The CIA's history of the 1953 coup in Iran is made up of the following documents: a historian's note, a summary introduction, a lengthy narrative account written by Donald N. Wilber and as appendices five planning documents he attached. Published on 18 June 2000 under the title "The C.I.A. in Iran" by The New York Times.
Among the various regional and national movements, the civil rights movement in the United States during the 1960s strongly highlighted the liberal efforts for Social equality.Mackenzie and Weisbrot, p. 178. The Great Society project launched by President Lyndon B. Johnson oversaw the creation of Medicare and Medicaid, the establishment of Head Start and the Job Corps as part of the War on Poverty and the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, an altogether rapid series of events that some historians have dubbed the "Liberal Hour".Mackenzie and Weisbrot, p. 5.
The Cold War featured extensive ideological competition and several , but the widely feared World War III between the Soviet Union and the United States never occurred. While communist states and liberal democracies competed against one another, an economic crisis in the 1970s inspired a move away from Keynesian economics, especially under Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom and Ronald Reagan in the United States. This trend, known as neoliberalism, constituted a paradigm shift away from the post-war Keynesian consensus, which lasted from 1945 to 1980. Meanwhile, nearing the end of the 20th century, communist states in Eastern Europe collapsed precipitously, leaving liberal democracies as the only major forms of government in the West.
At the beginning of World War II, the number of democracies worldwide was about the same as it had been forty years before.Colomer, Josep Maria. Great Empires, Small Nations. New York: Routledge, 2007. , p. 62. After 1945, liberal democracies spread very quickly but then retreated. In The Spirit of Democracy, Larry Diamond argues that by 1974 "dictatorship, not democracy, was the way of the world" and that "barely a quarter of independent states chose their governments through competitive, free, and fair elections". Diamond says that democracy bounced back, and by 1995 the world was "predominantly democratic". However, liberalism still faces challenges, especially with the phenomenal growth of China as a model combination of authoritarian government and economic liberalism.Peerenboom, Randall. China modernizes. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. , pp. 7–8. Liberalism is frequently cited as the dominant ideology of the modern era.
Edmund Burke, the first major proponent of modern conservative thought, offered a blistering critique of the French Revolution by assailing the liberal pretensions to the power of rationality and the natural equality of all humans.Grigsby, p. 108. Nonetheless, Burke was highly influential on other classical liberal thought, and has been praised by both conservatives and liberals alike.
In the book Why Liberalism Failed (2018), Patrick Deneen argued that liberalism has led to income inequality, cultural decline, atomization, nihilism, the erosion of freedoms, and the growth of powerful, centralized bureaucracies.Damon Linker, An ominous prophecy for liberalism, The Week, January 22, 2018. The book also argues that liberalism has replaced old values of community, religion and tradition with self-interest.
Russian President Vladimir Putin believes that "liberalism has become obsolete" and claims that the vast majority of people in the world oppose multiculturalism, immigration, and civil and political rights for LGBTQ people.
Deng Xiaoping believed that liberalization would destroy the political stability of the People's Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party, making it difficult for development to take place, and is inherently capitalistic. He termed it "bourgeois liberalization". Thus, some socialists accuse the economic doctrines of liberalism, such as individual economic freedom, of giving rise to what they view as a system of exploitation that goes against the democratic principles of liberalism, while some liberals oppose the wage slavery that the economic doctrines of capitalism allow.
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