Liberalism

Liberalism is an economical doctrine advocating free enterprise, free competition and free will. Opposed to statism and socialism, it has its roots in the Western Age of Enlightenment. Because of its wide acceptance in modern Western world, it influences many political movements.

Liberalism developed along two paths; political and economic. Political Liberalism focused on the concept of government by consent. It derived its name from the Liberales of Spain who drew up their 1812 constitution in opposition of the arbitrary powers of the Spanish monarchy. Its roots went further back, to the Enlightenment and beyond. Its first success was in the American Revolution, though it was largely based on British Parliamentarianism and the first, constitutional phase of the French Revolution. It advocated Republicanism, but many Liberals also advocated a limited, constitutional monarchy in the interests of encouraging stability. Its members stressed the rule of law, individual liberty and the universal rights of man. They tended to rein against inbuilt establishments, such as the crown, church or aristocracy. Nineteenth century Liberals also highly valued property, which they saw as the major source of responsible judgement and citizenship. Nevertheless, these Liberals were reluctant to support more radical schemes such as universal sufferage or radical egalatarianism.

Economic Liberalism focused on the concept of Free Trade, and on the associated doctrine of laissez-faire, which opposed protectionism or government interference in economic affairs. It stressed the rights of men to engage in commerce without undue interference. It energies were directed at one hand to dismantling barriers which had proliferated within and between countries and on the other to battling against collectivist organisation, from the Ancient guilds to the new trade unions.

Liberalism in the Nineteenth Century

Liberalism was often associated with the emergent Middle Classes; it certainly appealed to that wide constituency placed firmly between the old nobility and industrial masses. It did however, reach out beyond this electoral base to student associations and academics in the 1820s, to freemasonry, to cultural dissidents, to educational and penal reformists, to the aristocratic British whigs and Polish magnates and even dissident army officers in Russia.

Britain became a home for some of Europe's most vocal Liberals in this period; David Ricardo (1771-1823) with his Principles of Political Economy, furthering the work of classical economists like Adam Smith. Ricardo and his followers took practical action in the activities of the Anti-Corn Law League and in the campaigns of the Manchester School. He was aided by other free trade activists such as John Bright (1811-89) and Richard Cobden (1804-65). In political philosophy John Stuart Mill's (1806-73) works stand as a monument to a tolerant and balanced brand of Liberalism. Mill defended laissez faire economics, but only on the grounds that the power of capitalist employers was matched by the rights of employees' trade unions. He endorsed the principles of the Utilitarians as advocated by his philosopher father, James Mill (1773-1836), but only if happiness were not confused with pleasure. His essay, On Liberty (1859) produced the standard manifesto of individual human rights, which in his view should only be impinged where they stand on the rights of others. In The Subjection of Women (1869) he makes a clear argument for the Feminist cause, maintaining that there is nothing in the differences between the genders that warrented their possession of different sets of rights.