Classical liberalism was first articulated by

Liberalism is more than one thing. On any close examination, it seems to fracture into a range of related but sometimes competing visions. In this entry we focus on debates within the liberal tradition. (1) We contrast three interpretations of liberalism’s core commitment to liberty. (2) We contrast ‘old’ and ‘new’ liberalism. (3) We ask whether liberalism is a ‘comprehensive’ or a ‘political’ doctrine. (4) We close with questions about the ‘reach’ of liberalism — does it apply to all humankind? Must all political communities be liberal? Could a liberal coherently answer this question by saying No? Could a liberal coherently answer this question by saying Yes? “By definition,” Maurice Cranston says, “a liberal is a man who believes in liberty” (1967: 459). In two ways, liberals accord liberty primacy as a political value. (i) Liberals have typically maintained that humans are naturally in “a State of perfect Freedom to order their Actions…as they think fit…without asking leave, or depending on the Will of any other Man” (Locke, 1960 [1689]: 287). Mill too argued that “the burden of proof is supposed to be with those who are against liberty; who contend for any restriction or prohibition…. The a priori assumption is in favour of freedom…” (1963, vol. 21: 262). Recent liberal thinkers such as as Joel Feinberg (1984: 9), Stanley Benn (1988: 87) and John Rawls (2001: 44, 112) agree. Liberalism is a philosophy that starts from a premise that political authority and law must be ...

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The final death of classical liberalism as a force or element within the Liberal Party has been announced many times over the last hundred and thirty years. Yet, as the need to keep on repeating the pronouncement of final death shows, the tradition has persisted and persists. Ever since Herbert Spencer declared in 1884 that “Most of those who now pass as Liberals, are Tories of a new type” (Spencer, 1884) there have always been within the Liberal Party those who have upheld the old religion of free trade, economic liberalism, limited government, and individualism. Since the climax and crisis of Gladstonian Liberalism in the 1880s two things have repeatedly happened in British Liberal politics. The first is the redefinition of liberalism as a collectivist rather than individualist system of thought, with a corresponding shift of policy towards a position that assigns an active role to government. This has been the work of a series of thinkers from L. T. Hobhouse and J. A. Hobson onwards, passing through figures such as John Maynard Keynes, Beveridge, and Rawls. The second has been not just resistance to this by those who adhere to the older vision of an individualist version of liberalism that looks back to Locke, Bentham and J. S. Mill but a succession of departures by such resisters, typically in the direction of the Conservative Party. Starting with the Whigs in the 1880s, this has also included Coalition Liberals after 1916 and National Liberals in the 1930s, and a seri...

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Classical liberalism is the set of ideas most identified (within the United States at least) as "libertarianism." Classical liberalism formed in opposition to hereditary monarchy, particularly monarchy's absolutist variant. Locke, writing in the late seventeenth century, articulated many of the ideas held dear by classical liberals. One was that every human being had certain rights that could not be taken away by a government without one's consent. This was because the government did not grant people these rights in the first place. They were rather "natural rights," that is, they were inseparable from the human condition. So government by the consent of the governed was a fundamental belief of classical liberalism, and it followed that government should be as unobtrusive as possible into the lives of the people who gave it permission to govern. Taxes should be very low, government interference in the economy should be minimal (so as not to deprive people of their property rights), and government should be, as much as possible, a reflection of the will of the people—or at least those with property. Classical liberals also, like Locke, supported civil liberties like freedom of religion, due process in the courts, free press, and other institutions we would associate with modern liberal democracies. Locke's On Toleration was a touchstone for religious tolerance, and he generally favored the free press. So for these reasons, Locke is considered the founder of classical libera...

There has been a great paradox in the modern world. On the one hand, freedom and prosperity have replaced tyranny and poverty for tens, indeed for hundreds of millions of people around the world over the last two centuries. Yet the political and economic system that historically has made this possible has been criticized and condemned. That political and economic system is liberalism. By liberalism, I do not mean American “progressive” liberalism, historically a modified and reduced form of what used to be called socialism — that is, central planning of all economic affairs. In its modern “progressive” form, it has been watered down to mean extensive and intrusive government regulation of private enterprise with wide redistribution of wealth based on a prior conception of social justice. (See my article Nor do I mean what in many other parts of the world is often referred to as neoliberalism. While it is frequently claimed that neoliberalism favors a wild and unrestricted capitalism, in fact it is institutionally far closer to American progressive liberalism, under which private enterprise and profit seeking are permitted, but, again, an extensive interventionist welfare state combined with government–business crony favoritism and corruption hampers the functioning of a truly free and competitive market. (See my article What is lost in all the labeling is the original meaning and significance of political and economic classical liberalism, which has nothing to do with what...

Political foundations Although liberal ideas were not noticeable in European politics until the early 16th century, liberalism has a considerable “prehistory” reaching back to the The ambitions of national rulers and the requirements of expanding industry and commerce led gradually to the adoption of economic policies based on In the English Civil Wars, the absolutist king By the time Locke had published his Treatises, politics in England had become a contest between two loosely related parties, Liberalism and The early liberals, then, worked to free individuals from two forms of social constraint—religious conformity and aristocratic privilege—that had been maintained and enforced through the powers of government. The aim of the early liberals was thus to limit the power of government over the individual while holding it accountable to the governed. As Locke and others argued, this required a system of government based on majority rule—that is, one in which government executes the expressed will of a majority of the electorate. The chief institutional device for attaining this goal was the But in answering the crucial question of who is to be the electorate, classical liberalism fell victim to As to those who have no landed property in a county, the allowing them to vote for legislators is an impropriety. They are Most 18th- and 19th-century liberal politicians thus feared see Despite the misgivings of men of the propertied classes, a slow but steady expansion of the fran...