liberalism

• egotistical individualism is the idea that humans are naturally and rationally drawn to the advancement of their own selfish interests
• atomism is the idea that society is made up of many autonomous individuals
• developmental individualism is a focus on the potential that humans have to better themselves. Human nature is not rigid
• john locke reacted to the enlightenment, leading him to believe in rationality, and the decline of feudalism
• john rawls reacted to the post WW2 consensus and welfare state which he didn't actually think went far enough to secure equality of opportunity
• Wollstonecraft reacted to the Enlightenment which she thought left out women, meaning man's stock of intelligence was limited. Said women were as rational as men.
• John Stuart Mill reacted to the increase in suffrage in the 1832 great reform act which gave him a fear of tyranny of the majority
• A limited government is where the government is limited in actions it can take whereas a minimal government is where the government cannot legislate in all policy areas, to ensure freedom
• Mill believes in representative democracy as he was afraid of giving too much power to the uneducated majority. He thinks representatives should follow the Burkean model of representation.
• Bentham's utilitarianism is creating 'the greatest happiness for the greatest number'
• Herbert Spencer believed in social darwinism as 'the feeble, the feckless and the failing' who could not rise in the meritocracy would be phased out. He did not believe in the state sponsoring them with benefits
• Samuel Smiles did not want self-help to be usurped by state help but for individuals to rise to new challenges the Industrial revolution brought
• Locke believed life in the state of nature would be pleasant civilised and long due to the natural rights that underpinned it
• John Stuart Mill wrote On Liberty
• John Rawls wrote A theory of Justice
• John Locke wrote Two treatises of government
• Mary Wollstonecraft wrote A Vindication of the rights of Women
• Betty Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique
• egotistical individualism does not lead to conflict as humans are also reasonable and sensitive and able to reach consensus after discussion and debate
• for liberals, property is seen as the expression of a person within society and something which allows them to develop
• liberals support capitalism as it protects private property, allows individuals to engage in competition and creates wealth
• liberals believe a state is necessary to protect natural rights with formal structures and to resolve conflicts efficiently
• liberalism rejects monarchies and the divine right of Kings
• The people's budget was written in 1908
• The Beveridge report was written in 1942
• T.H. Green developed the idea of positive freedom and said people born into working classes are stuck in a 'cycle of deprivation'
• the 1908 people's budget introduced sick pay, pensions and free school meals
• the 1942 beveridge report influenced the creation of the welfare state by the Attlee government
• Locke said 'where laws do not exist, man has no freedom' to justify the necessity of the state
• wollstonecraft said that 'the mind has no gender'
• toleration accepts that everyone has an equal moral worth and so should be granted the same rights as others
• it can be argued that Mill does want a bit of an enabling state as he proposes universal education that can only really be supplied by the state
• Hayek is a neo-liberal thinker who wrote the road to serfdom. He criticised state paternalism and dependency which had lured people in post ww2 with the promise of security and now trapped them with an enlarged state