Classical liberalism refers to an ideology that values individual freedom, limited government intervention, and protection of private property rights. It believes in free markets, individual rights, and a minimal role of the state in people's lives.
Full definition
The liberal ideas of the 1800s, often
called classical liberalism, emphasized such institutions as rule of law, limited government, civil liberties, and representative democracy.
The
term classical liberalism was applied in retrospect to distinguish earlier 19th - century liberalism from the newer social liberalism.
Conservatives in the past would have
criticized classical liberalism, but conservatives today can safely admire it because it's been made into a set doctrine.
Basically, the idea is that the freedom to starve because you have no food is not a meaningful freedom at all, because it does not maximize your autonomy or allow your to realize your potential, which were important goals
in classical liberalism.
And there were Americans of the founding generation who were also at pains to diminish the conflict
between classical liberalism and traditional religion.
The ideas of
classical liberalism remained essentially unchallenged until a series of depressions, thought to be impossible according to the tenets of classical economics, led to economic hardship from which the voters demanded relief.
'' In Europe and North America,
classical liberalism became less popular and gave way to social liberalism, [11][12] the latter of which is commonly identified with the liberal socialism and social democracy [13] in Europe.»
and while the literalists may make protestants look silly, remember that its this rejection of authoritarian leadership that led directly to the rise of western style democracy and american /
scottish classical liberalism.
Over at Front Porch Republic, Augustinian scholar James Matthew Wilson provides an important exegesis on «traditional conservatism» that «calls into question nearly everything that modern persons generally take for granted» and reveals the rather bland, indiscernible sameness found in the liberal / conservative paradigm, the spawn of 18th
century Classical Liberalism, as humbuggery of the first magnitude.
Demonstrating how thoroughly progressive thought — as defined by Abramson — has
shattered classical liberalism in Canada's medical ranks, 79 percent of the Canadian Medical Association doctors recently voted against conscience protections for physicians opposed to participation in euthanasia.
[50] James Kurth, Robert Lerner, John Micklethwait, Adrian Wooldridge and several other political scholars have argued that
classical liberalism still exists today, but in the form of American conservatism.
[1][2][3] Notable individuals whose ideas contributed to
classical liberalism include John Locke, [4] Jean - Baptiste Say, Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo.
Furthermore, it can be argued that this school of thought did not develop out of
classical liberalism around the turn of the century — when, for instance, the alleged fraudulence of freedom of contract in the labor market is supposed to have been discovered.
While few major British businesses were overtly aligned to Thatcherism - let
alone classical liberalism - they undoubtedly benefited from those politicians that were so aligned.
While rejecting the practical doctrines of
classical liberalism like laissez - faire, Hobhouse praised the work of earlier classical liberals like Richard Cobden in dismantling an archaic order of society and older forms of coercion.
Though the MR's original ideology
emphasised classical liberalism and free market economics, it has of late joined the general trend of Belgian liberals to accept elements of social liberalism under the influence of Dirk Verhofstadt, whose brother Guy Verhofstadt led the MR's Flemish counterpart, the Open VLD.
The neoconservative Catholic often draws attention to a progressive fall
from classical liberalism, while the radical Catholic sees our current crisis as the outworking of liberalism's deepest premises.
As such, fiscal conservatism today exists somewhere
between classical liberalism and contemporary consequentialist political philosophies, and is often influenced by coinciding levels of social conservatism.
[27] In Europe, liberalism usually means what is sometimes
called classical liberalism, a commitment to limited government, laissez - faire economics, and unalienable individual rights.
A widely accepted view of omnipotence, explained below, appears to be an uneasy mixture of ancient authoritarianism and
classical liberalism.
I will not argue here that
classical liberalism is wrong on this matter — though I think it is.
The problem is that a basic tenet of
classical liberalism — a tenet generally accepted in the Western world by «liberals,» as well as by many «conservatives» — is that differences regarding fundamental principles of human nature and morality are not a threat to social and political life.
Though the volume is concerned primarily with the major political events in France during Aron's lifetime, it does describe the intellectual encounters (most notably with Machiavelli, Tocqueville, and Max Weber) and the personal experiences that led Aron to
classical liberalism and a belief in democracy as the answer to the totalitarian temptations of communism and fascism.
This is his response to Hanby's contention that
classical liberalism (which is the bedrock of both American conservatism and liberalism) is inconsistent with Christianity.
Classical liberalism is a philosophy committed to the ideal of limited government and liberty of individuals including freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and free markets.
Schlueter argued that the founders» philosophy was indeed sustainable because it combined the best of
classical liberalism, social contract liberalism, and the natural law tradition.
It precludes the existence of a collective moral horizon, and it is primarily responsible for the decline of
classical liberalism.
Isaiah Berlin, among the best - known exponents of
classical liberalism, advocated what he called the «negative freedom.»
The first sense is that of
classical liberalism, which conceives the freedom of the individual as the highest good.