Concept
Social liberalism
Overview
Social liberalism or progressive liberalism is a political philosophy and variety of liberalism that endorses social justice, social services, a mixed economy, and the expansion of civil and political rights, as slightly opposed to classical liberalism which favors limited government and an overall more laissez-faire style of governance. While both are committed to personal freedoms, social liberalism places greater emphasis on the role of government in addressing social inequalities and ensuring public welfare.
Social liberal governments address economic and social issues such as poverty, welfare, infrastructure, healthcare, and education using government intervention, while emphasising individual rights and autonomy.
Economically, social liberalism is based on the social market economy and views the common good as harmonious with the individual's freedom. Social liberals overlap with social democrats in accepting market intervention more than other liberals; its importance is considered auxiliary compared to social democrats. Ideologies that emphasize its economic policy include welfare liberalism, New Deal liberalism and New Democrats in the United States, and Keynesian liberalism. Almost all of the Western world has widely adopted social liberal policies.
Social liberal ideas and parties tend to be considered centre to centre-left, although there are deviations from these positions to both the political left or right. In modern political discourse, social liberalism is associated with progressivism, a left-liberalism contrasted to the right-leaning neoliberalism, and combines support for a mixed economy with cultural liberalism.
Cultural liberalism is an ideology that advocates the freedom of individuals to choose whether to conform to cultural norms. In American usage, the term Social liberalism may also refer to American progressive stances on sociocultural issues, such as reproductive rights and same-sex marriage, in contrast with American social conservatism. Cultural liberalism is often referred to as social liberalism because it expresses the social dimension of liberalism; however, it is not the same as the broader political ideology known as social liberalism. In American politics, a social liberal may hold either conservative (economic liberal) or progressive views on fiscal policy.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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In what is termed politics, democratic social organization makes provision for this direct participation in control: in the economic region, control remains external and autocratic. Hence the split between inner mental action and outer physical action of which the traditional distinction between the liberal and the utilitarian is the reflex. An education which should unify the disposition of the members of society…
John Dewey, Democracy and Education
States what Social liberalism is; the author is tied to Social liberalism in the knowledge graph.
5. Gratuitous administration of justice by the people. 6. General and equal, popular and gratuitous education by the Government in all classes and institutes of learning; general duty to attend school; religion to be declared a private affair. The German Social Workingmen’s party insists on realizing in the present state of society: 1. The largest possible extension of political rights and freedom in conformity to…
John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy
The author is tied to Social liberalism in the knowledge graph.
For popular use this definition is amply sufficient, but it still falls short of the complete accuracy required for the purposes of the philosopher. Political Economy does not treat of the production and distribution of wealth in all states of mankind, but only in what is termed the social state; nor so far as they depend upon the laws of human nature, but only so far as they depend upon a certain portion of those…
John Stuart Mill, Essays on some unsettled Questions of Political Economy
States what Social liberalism is; the author is tied to Social liberalism in the knowledge graph.
Philosophers who discussed Social liberalism
Related ideas
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Turkey
- Max Stirner
- Matthew Arnold
- Friedrich Hayek
- Germany
- Greenland
- John Rawls
- German Empire
- Thomas Carlyle
- Hans Kelsen
- Hungary
- Deregulation
- Norberto Bobbio
- Iceland
- Italy
- India
- Indonesia
- Immanuel Kant
- Individualism
- Japan
- John Stuart Mill
- Isaiah Berlin
- Analytic philosophy
Opposing perspectives
- Laissez-faire
- Welfare state
- Mixed economy
- Classical liberalism
- Reproductive rights
- Social services
- Fiscal conservatism
Place in the tradition
Part of British philosophy.