Tradition

Liberalism

Overview

Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property, and equality before the law. Different liberals espouse various and sometimes conflicting views depending on their understanding of these principles but generally support liberal democracy, private property, market economies, individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), secularism, rule of law, economic and political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion. Liberalism is frequently cited as the dominant ideology of modern history.

Liberalism became a distinct movement in the Age of Enlightenment, gaining popularity among Western philosophers and economists. Liberalism sought to replace the norms of hereditary privilege, 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, royal monopolies, and other trade barriers, 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.

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. During the 20th century, liberal ideas spread further, especially in Western Europe, as liberal democracies won both world wars and the Cold War.

Liberals sought and established a constitutional order that prized important individual freedoms, 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. 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.

21st-century liberal parties continue to wield power and influence throughout the world. The fundamental elements of contemporary society have liberal roots. The early waves of liberalism popularised economic individualism while expanding constitutional government and parliamentary authority.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

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And such an education will of itself tend to do away with the evils of the existing economic situation. In the degree in which men have an active concern in the ends that control their activity, their activity becomes free or voluntary and loses its externally enforced and servile quality, even though the physical aspect of behavior remain the same. In what is termed politics, democratic social organization makes…
John Dewey, Democracy and Education
States what Liberalism is; the author is tied to Liberalism in the knowledge graph.
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There is a subtle nervous tension in the atmosphere as of a country on the verge of change but not knowing where the change will take it. Liberalism is in the air, but genuine liberals are encompassed with all sorts of difficulties especially in combining their liberalism with the devotion to theocratic robes which the imperialist militarists who rule Japan have so skilfully thrown about the Throne and the…
John Dewey, China, Japan and the U.S.A.
States what Liberalism is; the author is tied to Liberalism in the knowledge graph.
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We have stated thus fully M. Comte's opinion on the most fundamental doctrine of liberalism, because it is the clue to much of his general conception of politics. If his object had only been to exemplify by that doctrine the purely negative character of the principal liberal and revolutionary schools of thought, he need not have gone so far: it would have been enough to say, that the mere liberty to hold and express…
John Stuart Mill, Auguste Comte and Positivism
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Philosophers who discussed Liberalism

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