Liberalism

• Most commentators agree that liberalism is the most important and influential ideology in the world today. Indeed, there is reason to argue that its influence is increasing. According to the United Nations, almost two-thirds of the states across the globe may now be classed ‘liberal democracies’ — a seven-fold increase since 1945. For many academics, liberalism represents not just the prevailing ideology but ‘the end of history’, the inevitable destination for advanced societies and the politicians who guide them.
• In view of this ascendancy, it is more important than ever that liberalism is fully understood
• Priorities of liberalism


  • What do 'liberal' societies and 'liberal' states embody
  • What does being 'liberal' involve
• Explaining liberalism is not straightforward: 'liberal' politicians are a decidedly mixed bunch, and commentators' views on what constitutes 'liberalism' are often contradictory
• Liberalism in the UK, USA and western Europe

  Being at odds with the values of conservatism, while being closer to the values of socialism
• In the states of the southern hemisphere and western Pacific, the term 'liberal' has rather different connotations
• Liberalism is not just hugely influential; it is also complex and potentially confusing
• To make sense of liberalism, let us examine the origins and core beliefs of this pre-eminent ideology
• Liberalism

  A political and moral philosophy based on liberty, consent of the governed, and equality before the law
• The Reformation, a religious movement affecting much of northern Europe

  Late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
• The Reformation

  • Led by religious protestors such as Martin Luther
  • Argued that individuals seeking to communicate with God, and to understand His commands, need no longer rely on priests, popes and other intermediaries
  • With the advent of the printing press and the printed word, and the wider literacy this promoted, Luther argued that Christianity could now assume a more individualistic character, with each man and woman undertaking their own private prayers and undertaking God's work in their own way
• It was the Enlightenment that sought to extend these religious ideas into the political and secular spheres
• Enlightenment

  An intellectual movement that emerged in the mid-seventeenth century, and had an especially profound effect upon politics in the eighteenth century
• Enlightenment

  • Defined by a belief in reason rather than faith
  • Promoted relentless debate and inquiry, questioning and scrutinising almost anything that, hitherto, was unthinkingly accepted
• Radical ideas that emerged from the Enlightenment

  • Each individual is someone with free will
  • Each individual is the best judge of their own interests
  • Each individual's life should be shaped by that individual's actions and decisions
• John Locke


  Widely regarded as the 'father' of liberalism
• Relationship between individuals and governments

  1. Questioning

  2. Defining why and how individuals should defer to those who governed them
• Until the seventeenth century, it had been assumed that the natural form of government was monarchical, that a king had been put in place by God, and that a king's decisions should be instinctively accepted by a king's 'subjects'
• This agreement was underpinned by a society and culture dominated by faith, religion and superstition
• Enlightenment philosophers

  Believed that human beings were uniquely endowed with the power of logic, calculation and deduction
• Enlightenment philosophers argued that human beings should create, by themselves and for themselves, a political system based upon reason
• Mechanistic theory Linked to the writings of John Locke, this argues that mankind is rational and therefore capable of devising a state that reflects mankind’s needs. It was a pointed rebuff to notions like the ‘divine right of kings’, which argued that the state reflected God’s will and that obedience to the state was a religious duty.
• John Locke


  The father of liberal philosophy
• Two Treatises of Government


  The cornerstone of liberal thought
• Classical liberalism


  The original version of liberalism, with Locke as the central figure
• Locke's importance to classical liberalism

  The questions he raised about human nature and the type of state that was therefore appropriate
• Locke denied the traditional, medieval principle that the state was part of God's creation
• Locke disputed the idea that the state had been created by a celestial power, involving monarchs who had a 'divine right' to govern
• Locke rejected the notion that 'ordinary' people were 'subjects' of the state, with a quasi-religious obligation to obey the monarch's rulings
• Locke's 'true' state


  One created by mankind to serve mankind's interests and would arise only from the consent of those who would be governed by it
• State of nature

  The 'natural' society which served mankind's interests tolerably well, prior to the state's existence
• Locke's state of nature was very different to the 'nasty and brutish' version depicted by Hobbes
• Locke's state of nature

  • Underpinned by 'natural laws', 'natural liberties' and 'natural rights'
  • Not one that people would be keen to leave at any cost
• State of law

  Designed to improve upon the state of nature by resolving disputes between individuals more efficiently
• The 'state of law' would be legitimate only if it respected natural rights and natural laws, thus ensuring that individuals living under formal laws were never consistently worse off than they had been in the state of nature
• Locke's ideal state


  • Embody the natural rights and natural liberties that preceded it
  • Reflect the principle that its 'citizens' had voluntarily consented to accept the state's rulings in return for the state improving their situation
• Limited government


  The state would be limited to always representing the interests of the governed and always requiring the ongoing consent of the governed
• Dispersal of the state's powers

  • The executive and legislative branches would be separate, while its lawmakers would be separated from its law enforcers
• Liberalism's view of human nature

  As first articulated by John Locke and refined by later liberal thinkers such as John Stuart Mill, it strongly reflected the view associated with the Enlightenment
• Enlightenment's most important features

  • Challenge to the established, medieval notion of human nature strongly tied to the religious doctrine of original sin
  • Doctrine held that mankind was deeply flawed and imperfect, and that man's only hope lay in him acknowledging his flaws and imperfections while praying for the grace and forgiveness of God