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{{short description|Political and moral philosophy based on liberty, consent of the governed and equality}}{{other uses|Liberal (disambiguation)}}{{distinguish|Libertarianism}}{{pp-semi-indef|small=yes}}{{use dmy dates|date=July 2015}}{{use British English|date=January 2014}}{{liberalism sidebar}}{{party politics}}Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property and equality before the law.“liberalism In general, the belief that it is the aim of politics to preserve individual rights and to maximize freedom of choice.” Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics, Iain McLean and Alistair McMillan, Third edition 2009, {{ISBN|978-0-19-920516-5}}.BOOK, political rationalism, hostility to autocracy, cultural distaste for conservatism and for tradition in general, tolerance, and ... individualism., John, Dunn, Western Political Theory in the Face of the Future, 1993, Cambridge University Press, 978-0-521-43755-4, Liberals espouse various and often mutually warring views depending on their understanding of these principles but generally support private property, market economies, individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), liberal democracy, secularism, rule of law, economic and political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion,BOOK,books.google.com/books?id=UkVIYjezrF0C&q=liberalism+secularism, Nader, Hashemi, Islam, Secularism, and Liberal Democracy: Toward a Democratic Theory for Muslim Societies, Oxford University Press, Liberal democracy requires a form of secularism to sustain itself, 2009, 978-0-19-971751-4, Google Books, BOOK,books.google.com/books?id=htuTnexZAo8C&q=liberalism+freedom+of+religion&pg=PA1, Kathleen G., Donohue, Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Idea of the Consumer, New Studies in American Intellectual and Cultural History, Johns Hopkins University Press, Three of them – freedom from fear, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion – have long been fundamental to liberalism., 978-0-8018-7426-0, 19 December 2003, 31 December 2007, Google Books, NEWS,books.google.com/books?id=KBzHAAAAIAAJ&q=liberalism+freedom+of+religion, The Economist, Volume 341, Issues 7995–7997, The Economist, For all three share a belief in the liberal society as defined above: a society that provides constitutional government (rule by law, not by men) and freedom of religion, thought, expression and economic interaction; a society in which ... ., 1996, 31 December 2007, Google Books, BOOK,books.google.com/books?id=ndAdGl8ScfcC&q=liberalism+freedom+of+religion&pg=PA525, Sheldon S., Wolin, Politics and Vision: Continuity and Innovation in Western Political Thought, Princeton University Press, The most frequently cited rights included freedom of speech, press, assembly, religion, property, and procedural rights, 978-0-691-11977-9, 2004, 31 December 2007, Google Books, BOOK,books.google.com/books?id=mQJgnEITPRIC&q=liberalism+freedom+of+religion&pg=PA366, Edwin Brown, Firmage, Bernard G., Weiss, John Woodland, Welch, Religion and Law: Biblical-Judaic and Islamic Perspectives, Eisenbrauns, There is no need to expound the foundations and principles of modern liberalism, which emphasises the values of freedom of conscience and freedom of religion, 978-0-931464-39-3, 1990, 31 December 2007, Google Books, BOOK,archive.org/details/cyclopaediapoli00lalogoog, 760, John Joseph, Lalor, John Joseph Lalor, Cyclopædia of Political Science, Political Economy, and of the Political History of the United States, Nabu Press, Democracy attaches itself to a form of government: liberalism, to liberty and guarantees of liberty. The two may agree; they are not contradictory, but they are neither identical, nor necessarily connected. In the moral order, liberalism is the liberty to think, recognised and practiced. This is primordial liberalism, as the liberty to think is itself the first and noblest of liberties. Man would not be free in any degree or in any sphere of action, if he were not a thinking being endowed with consciousness. The freedom of worship, the freedom of education, and the freedom of the press are derived the most directly from the freedom to think., 1883, 31 December 2007, WEB, Liberalism,www.britannica.com/topic/liberalism, 2021-06-16, Encyclopedia Britannica, en, constitutional government and privacy rights.BOOK, The Desk Encyclopedia of World History, Oxford University Press, 2006, 978-0-7394-7809-7, Wright, Edmund, New York, 374, Liberalism is frequently cited as the dominant ideology of modern history.Wolfe, p. 23.BOOK, Adams, Ian, Political Ideology Today,archive.org/details/politicalideolog0000adam/mode/2up?view=theater, registration,archive.org/details/politicalideolog0000adam/page/10/mode/2up?view=theater, registration, Second, Politics Today, 2001, Manchester University Press, Manchester and New York, 0-7190-6019-2, 2: Liberalism and democracy, {{rp|11}}Liberalism became a distinct movement in the Age of Enlightenment, gaining popularity among Western philosophers and economists. Liberalism sought to replace the norms of hereditary privilege, state religion, absolute monarchy, the divine right of kings and traditional conservatism with representative democracy, rule of law, and equality under the law. Liberals also ended mercantilist policies, royal monopolies, and other trade barriers, instead promoting free trade and marketization. Philosopher John Locke is often credited with founding liberalism as a distinct tradition based on the social contract, arguing that each man has a natural right to life, liberty and property, and governments must not violate these rights.BOOK, All mankind ... being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions, John, Locke, John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, While the British liberal tradition has emphasized expanding democracy, French liberalism has emphasized rejecting authoritarianism and is linked to nation-building.Kirchner, p. 3.Leaders in the British Glorious Revolution of 1688,BOOK,archive.org/details/1688firstmodernr00stev, registration, 1688: The First Modern Revolution, Steven, Pincus, 2009, Yale University Press, 978-0-300-15605-8, 7 February 2013, the American Revolution of 1776, and the French Revolution of 1789 used liberal philosophy to justify the armed overthrow of royal sovereignty. The 19th century saw liberal governments established in Europe and South America, and it was well-established alongside republicanism in the United States.BOOK, Milan, Zafirovski, Liberal Modernity and Its Adversaries: Freedom, Liberalism and Anti-Liberalism in the 21st Century,books.google.com/books?id=GNlT9Qho0tAC&pg=PA237, 2007, Brill Publishers, Brill, 237, 978-90-04-16052-1, Google Books, In Victorian Britain, it was used to critique the political establishment, appealing to science and reason on behalf of the people.JOURNAL, Eddy, Matthew Daniel, The Politics of Cognition: Liberalism and the Evolutionary Origins of Victorian Education, British Journal for the History of Science, 2017, 50, 4, 677–699, 10.1017/S0007087417000863, 29019300, free, During the 19th and early 20th centuries, liberalism in the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East influenced periods of reform, such as the Tanzimat and Al-Nahda, and the rise of constitutionalism, nationalism, and secularism. These changes, along with other factors, helped to create a sense of crisis within Islam, which continues to this day, leading to Islamic revivalism. Before 1920, the main ideological opponents of liberalism were communism, conservatism, and socialism;BOOK,books.google.com/books?id=Lta_DwAAQBAJ, Liberalism and Its Critics, Koerner, Kirk F., Routledge, 1985, 978-0-429-27957-7, London, Google Books, liberalism then faced major ideological challenges from fascism and Marxism–Leninism as new opponents. During the 20th century, liberal ideas spread even further, especially in Western Europe, as liberal democracies found themselves as the winners in both world warsBOOK, Conway, Martin, Gosewinkel, Dieter, Anti-liberal Europe: A Neglected Story of Europeanization, The Limits of an Anti-liberal Europe,books.google.com/books?id=ECIfAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA184, 2014, Berghahn Books, 184, 978-1-78238-426-7, Liberalism, liberal values and liberal institutions formed an integral part of that process of European consolidation. Fifteen years after the end of the Second World War, the liberal and democratic identity of Western Europe had been reinforced on almost all sides by the definition of the West as a place of freedom. Set against the oppression in the Communist East, by the slow development of a greater understanding of the moral horror of Nazism, and by the engagement of intellectuals and others with the new states (and social and political systems) emerging in the non-European world to the South., Google Books, and the Cold War.Stern, Sol (Winter, 2010) www.city-journal.org/2010/20_1_ramparts.html#selection-857.7-857.121" title="archive.today/20120730200404www.city-journal.org/2010/20_1_ramparts.html#selection-857.7-857.121">“The Ramparts I Watched.” City Journal.JOURNAL, Fukuyama, Francis, 1989, The End of History?,www.jstor.org/stable/24027184, The National Interest, 16, 3–18, 24027184, 0884-9382, Liberals sought and established a constitutional order that prized important individual freedoms, such as freedom of speech and freedom of association; an independent judiciary and public trial by jury; and the abolition of aristocratic privileges. Later waves of modern liberal thought and struggle were strongly influenced by the need to expand civil rights.Worell, Judith. Encyclopedia of women and gender, Volume I. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2001. {{ISBN|0-12-227246-3}} Liberals have advocated gender and racial equality in their drive to promote civil rights, and global civil rights movements in the 20th century achieved several objectives towards both goals. Other goals often accepted by liberals include universal suffrage and universal access to education. In Europe and North America, the establishment of social liberalism (often called simply liberalism in the United States) became a key component in expanding the welfare state.“Liberalism in America: A Note for Europeans” {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180212050753www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/schleslib.html |date=12 February 2018 }} by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. (1956) from: The Politics of Hope (Boston: Riverside Press, 1962). “Liberalism in the U.S. usage has little in common with the word as used in the politics of any other country, save possibly Britain.” Today, liberal parties continue to wield power and influence throughout the world. The fundamental elements of contemporary society have liberal roots. The early waves of liberalism popularised economic individualism while expanding constitutional government and parliamentary authority.Gould, p. 3.

Etymology and definition

{{libertarianism sidebar|origins}}(wikt:Liberal|Liberal), (wikt:Liberty|liberty), (wikt:Libertarianism|libertarian), and libertine all trace their etymology to (wikt:Liber|liber), a root from Latin that means “(wikt:Free|free)”.Gross, p. 5. One of the first recorded instances of liberal occurred in 1375 when it was used to describe the liberal arts in the context of an education desirable for a free-born man. The word’s early connection with the classical education of a medieval university soon gave way to a proliferation of different denotations and connotations. Liberal could refer to “free in bestowing” as early as 1387, “made without stint” in 1433, “freely permitted” in 1530, and “free from restraint“—often as a pejorative remark—in the 16th and the 17th centuries.In the 16th-century Kingdom of England, liberal could have positive or negative attributes in referring to someone’s generosity or indiscretion. In Much Ado About Nothing, William Shakespeare wrote of “a liberal villaine” who “hath ... confest his vile encounters”. With the rise of the Enlightenment, the word acquired decisively more positive undertones, defined as “free from narrow prejudice” in 1781 and “free from bigotry” in 1823. In 1815, the first use of liberalism appeared in English.Kirchner, pp. 2–3. In Spain, the liberales, the first group to use the liberal label in a political context,Palmer and Colton, p. 479. fought for decades to implement the Spanish Constitution of 1812. From 1820 to 1823, during the Trienio Liberal, King Ferdinand VII was compelled by the liberales to swear to uphold the 1812 Constitution. By the middle of the 19th century, liberal was used as a politicised term for parties and movements worldwide.Kirchner, Emil J. (1988). Liberal Parties in Western Europe. Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-521-32394-9}}. “Liberal parties were among the first political parties to form, and their long-serving and influential records, as participants in parliaments and governments, raise important questions ... .“Over time, the meaning of liberalism began to diverge in different parts of the world. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica: “In the United States, liberalism is associated with the welfare-state policies of the New Deal programme of the Democratic administration of Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt, whereas in Europe it is more commonly associated with a commitment to limited government and laissez-faire economic policies.“”Liberalism”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Consequently, the ideas of individualism and laissez-faire economics previously associated with classical liberalism are key components of modern American conservatism and movement conservatism, and became the basis for the emerging school of modern American libertarian thought.Rothbard, Murray (2006) [1973]. “The Libertarian Heritage: The American Revolution and Classical Liberalism”. (For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto). Mises Institute. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150618045238archive.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard121.html |date=18 June 2015 }}. Retrieved 18 June 2015 – via LewRockewell.com{{better source needed|date=December 2020}} In this American context, liberal is often used as a pejorative.NEWS, 6 January 2012, The failure of American political speech, The Economist,www.economist.com/johnson/2012/01/06/the-failure-of-american-political-speech, 1 September 2022, 0013-0613, Yellow is the political colour most commonly associated with liberalism.BOOK, Adams, Sean,archive.org/details/colordesignworkb0000ston/page/86, Color Design Workbook: A Real World Guide to Using Color in Graphic Design, Morioka, Noreen, Stone, Terry Lee, 2006, Rockport Publishers, 1-59253-192-X, Gloucester, Mass., 86, 60393965, JOURNAL, Kumar, Rohit Vishal, Joshi, Radhika, October–December 2006, Colour, Colour Everywhere: In Marketing Too, SCMS Journal of Indian Management, 3, 4, 40–46, 0973-3167, 969272, Cassel-Picot, Muriel “The Liberal Democrats and the Green Cause: From Yellow to Green” in Leydier, Gilles and Martin, Alexia (2013) Environmental Issues in Political Discourse in Britain and Ireland. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p.105 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221206080446books.google.ca/books?id=fFgxBwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=PA105 |date=6 December 2022 }}. {{isbn|9781443852838}} In Europe and Latin America, liberalism means a moderate form of classical liberalism and includes both conservative liberalism (centre-right liberalism) and social liberalism (centre-left liberalism).WEB,www.parties-and-elections.eu/content.html, Content, 2020, Parties and Elections in Europe, In North America, liberalism almost exclusively refers to social liberalism. The dominant Canadian party is the Liberal Party, and the Democratic Party is usually considered liberal in the United States.Puddington, p. 142. “After a dozen years of centre-left Liberal Party rule, the Conservative Party emerged from the 2006 parliamentary elections with a plurality and established a fragile minority government.“Grigsby, pp. 106–07. [Talking about the Democratic Party] “Its liberalism is, for the most part, the later version of liberalism – modern liberalism.“Arnold, p. 3. “Modern liberalism occupies the left-of-center in the traditional political spectrum and is represented by the Democratic Party in the United States.” In the United States, conservative liberals are usually called conservatives in a broad sense.BOOK, Cayla, David, Populism and Neoliberalism,books.google.com/books?id=pDAXEAAAQBAJ&dq=Neoliberalism+%22conservative+liberalism%22&pg=PA62, 2021, 62, Routledge, 9781000366709, Google Books, BOOK, Slomp, Hans, Europe, A Political Profile: An American Companion to European Politics, Volume 1,books.google.com/books?id=LmfAPmwE6YYC&q=EU+left-wing+liberal+parties, 2011, 106–108, ABC-CLIO, 9780313391811, Google Books,

Philosophy

Liberalism—both as a political current and an intellectual tradition—is mostly a modern phenomenon that started in the 17th century, although some liberal philosophical ideas had precursors in classical antiquity and Imperial China. The Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius praised “the idea of a polity administered with regard to equal rights and equal freedom of speech, and the idea of a kingly government which respects most of all the freedom of the governed”.Antoninus, p. 3. Scholars have also recognised many principles familiar to contemporary liberals in the works of several Sophists and the Funeral Oration by Pericles.{{Harvnb|Young|2002|pp=25–26}}. Liberal philosophy is the culmination of an extensive intellectual tradition that has examined and popularized some of the modern world’s most important and controversial principles. Its immense scholarly output has been characterized as containing “richness and diversity”, but that diversity often has meant that liberalism comes in different formulations and presents a challenge to anyone looking for a clear definition.{{Harvnb|Young|2002|p=24}}.

Major themes

{{individualism sidebar|philosophies}}Although all liberal doctrines possess a common heritage, scholars frequently assume that those doctrines contain “separate and often contradictory streams of thought”. The objectives of liberal theorists and philosophers have differed across various times, cultures and continents. The diversity of liberalism can be gleaned from the numerous qualifiers that liberal thinkers and movements have attached to the term “liberalism”, including classical, egalitarian, economic, social, the welfare state, ethical, humanist, deontological, perfectionist, democratic, and institutional, to name a few.{{Harvnb|Young|2002|p=25}}. Despite these variations, liberal thought does exhibit a few definite and fundamental conceptions.Political philosopher John Gray identified the common strands in liberal thought as individualist, egalitarian, meliorist and universalist. The individualist element avers the ethical primacy of the human being against the pressures of social collectivism; the egalitarian element assigns the same moral worth and status to all individuals; the meliorist element asserts that successive generations can improve their sociopolitical arrangements, and the universalist element affirms the moral unity of the human species and marginalises local cultural differences.Gray, p. xii. The meliorist element has been the subject of much controversy, defended by thinkers such as Immanuel Kant, who believed in human progress, while suffering criticism by thinkers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who instead believed that human attempts to improve themselves through social cooperation would fail.Wolfe, pp. 33–36.The liberal philosophical tradition has searched for validation and justification through several intellectual projects. The moral and political suppositions of liberalism have been based on traditions such as natural rights and utilitarian theory, although sometimes liberals even request support from scientific and religious circles. Through all these strands and traditions, scholars have identified the following major common facets of liberal thought:

• believing in equality and individual liberty
• supporting private property and individual rights
• supporting the idea of limited constitutional government
• recognising the importance of related values such as pluralism, toleration, autonomy, bodily integrity, and consent{{Harvnb|Young|2002|p=45}}.

Classical and modern

{{see also|Age of Enlightenment}}

John Locke and Thomas Hobbes

{{See also|John Locke|Thomas Hobbes}}Enlightenment philosophers are given credit for shaping liberal ideas. These ideas were first drawn together and systematized as a distinct ideology by the English philosopher John Locke, generally regarded as the father of modern liberalism.Taverne, p. 18.Godwin et al., p. 12. Thomas Hobbes attempted to determine the purpose and the justification of governing authority in post-civil war England. Employing the idea of a state of nature — a hypothetical war-like scenario prior to the state — he constructed the idea of a social contract that individuals enter into to guarantee their security and, in so doing, form the State, concluding that only an absolute sovereign would be fully able to sustain such security. Hobbes had developed the concept of the social contract, according to which individuals in the anarchic and brutal state of nature came together and voluntarily ceded some of their rights to an established state authority, which would create laws to regulate social interactions to mitigate or mediate conflicts and enforce justice. Whereas Hobbes advocated a strong monarchical commonwealth (the Leviathan), Locke developed the then-radical notion that government acquires consent from the governed, which has to be constantly present for the government to remain legitimate.Copleston, Frederick. A History of Philosophy: Volume V. New York: Doubleday, 1959. {{ISBN|0-385-47042-8}} pp. 39–41. While adopting Hobbes’s idea of a state of nature and social contract, Locke nevertheless argued that when the monarch becomes a tyrant, it violates the social contract, which protects life, liberty and property as a natural right. He concluded that the people have a right to overthrow a tyrant. By placing the security of life, liberty and property as the supreme value of law and authority, Locke formulated the basis of liberalism based on social contract theory. To these early enlightenment thinkers, securing the essential amenities of life—liberty and private property—required forming a “sovereign” authority with universal jurisdiction.{{Harvnb|Young|2002|pp=30–31}}His influential Two Treatises (1690), the foundational text of liberal ideology, outlined his major ideas. Once humans moved out of their natural state and formed societies, Locke argued, “that which begins and actually constitutes any political society is nothing but the consent of any number of freemen capable of a majority to unite and incorporate into such a society. And this is that, and that only, which did or could give beginning to any lawful government in the world”.BOOK, Locke, John, John Locke, Two Treatises of Government,archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.503178/page/n5/mode/2up, 1947, Hafner Publishing Company, New York, {{rp|170}} The stringent insistence that lawful government did not have a supernatural basis was a sharp break with the dominant theories of governance, which advocated the divine right of kingsForster, p. 219. and echoed the earlier thought of Aristotle. Dr John Zvesper described this new thinking: “In the liberal understanding, there are no citizens within the regime who can claim to rule by natural or supernatural right, without the consent of the governed”.BOOK, Zvesper, Dr John, Nature and Liberty, 4 March 1993, Routledge, 9780415089234, 93, en, Locke had other intellectual opponents besides Hobbes. In the First Treatise, Locke aimed his arguments first and foremost at one of the doyens of 17th-century English conservative philosophy: Robert Filmer. Filmer’s Patriarcha (1680) argued for the divine right of kings by appealing to biblical teaching, claiming that the authority granted to Adam by God gave successors of Adam in the male line of descent a right of dominion over all other humans and creatures in the world.Copleston, Frederick. A History of Philosophy: Volume V. New York: Doubleday, 1959. {{ISBN|0-385-47042-8}}, p. 33. However, Locke disagreed so thoroughly and obsessively with Filmer that the First Treatise is almost a sentence-by-sentence refutation of Patriarcha. Reinforcing his respect for consensus, Locke argued that “conjugal society is made up by a voluntary compact between men and women”.JOURNAL, Kerber, Linda, Linda Kerber, 1976, The Republican Mother: Women and the Enlightenment-An American Perspective, American Quarterly, 28, 2, 10.2307/2712349, 2712349, 187–205, Locke maintained that the grant of dominion in Genesis was not to men over women, as Filmer believed, but to humans over animals. Locke was not a feminist by modern standards, but the first major liberal thinker in history accomplished an equally major task on the road to making the world more pluralistic: integrating women into social theory.File:Areopagitica 1644bw gobeirne.png|thumb|upright=0.9|John Milton’s Areopagitica (1644) argued for the importance of freedom of speechfreedom of speechLocke also originated the concept of the separation of church and state.Feldman, Noah (2005). Divided by God. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, p. 29 (“It took John Locke to translate the demand for liberty of conscience into a systematic argument for distinguishing the realm of government from the realm of religion.“) Based on the social contract principle, Locke argued that the government lacked authority in the realm of individual conscience, as this was something rational people could not cede to the government for it or others to control. For Locke, this created a natural right to the liberty of conscience, which he argued must remain protected from any government authority.Feldman, Noah (2005). Divided by God. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, p. 29 In his Letters Concerning Toleration, he also formulated a general defence for religious toleration. Three arguments are central:

1. Earthly judges, the state in particular, and human beings generally, cannot dependably evaluate the truth claims of competing religious standpoints;
2. Even if they could, enforcing a single “true religion” would not have the desired effect because belief cannot be compelled by violence;
3. Coercing religious uniformity would lead to more social disorder than allowing diversity.McGrath, Alister. 1998. Historical Theology, An Introduction to the History of Christian Thought. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. pp. 214–15.

Locke was also influenced by the liberal ideas of Presbyterian politician and poet John Milton, who was a staunch advocate of freedom in all its forms.{{Citation | first = Heinrich | last = Bornkamm | language = de | contribution = Toleranz. In der Geschichte des Christentums | title = Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart | year = 1962}}, 3. Auflage, Band VI, col. 942 Milton argued for disestablishment as the only effective way of achieving broad toleration. Rather than force a man’s conscience, the government should recognise the persuasive force of the gospel.Hunter, William Bridges. A Milton Encyclopedia, Volume 8 (East Brunswick, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1980). pp. 71, 72. {{ISBN|0-8387-1841-8}}. As assistant to Oliver Cromwell, Milton also drafted a constitution of the independents (Agreement of the People; 1647) that strongly stressed the equality of all humans as a consequence of democratic tendencies.{{Citation | first = W | last = Wertenbruch | contribution = Menschenrechte | title = Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart | language = de | place = Tübingen, DE | year = 1960}}, 3. Auflage, Band IV, col. 869 In his Areopagitica, Milton provided one of the first arguments for the importance of freedom of speech—“the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties”. His central argument was that the individual could use reason to distinguish right from wrong. To exercise this right, everyone must have unlimited access to the ideas of his fellow men in “a free and open encounter”, which will allow good arguments to prevail.In a natural state of affairs, liberals argued, humans were driven by the instincts of survival and self-preservation, and the only way to escape from such a dangerous existence was to form a common and supreme power capable of arbitrating between competing human desires.{{Harvnb|Young|2002|p=30}}. This power could be formed in the framework of a civil society that allows individuals to make a voluntary social contract with the sovereign authority, transferring their natural rights to that authority in return for the protection of life, liberty and property. These early liberals often disagreed about the most appropriate form of government, but all believed that liberty was natural and its restriction needed strong justification. Liberals generally believed in limited government, although several liberal philosophers decried government outright, with Thomas Paine writing, “government even in its best state is a necessary evil”.{{Harvnb|Young|2002|p=31}}.

James Madison and Montesquieu

As part of the project to limit the powers of government, liberal theorists such as James Madison and Montesquieu conceived the notion of separation of powers, a system designed to equally distribute governmental authority among the executive, legislative and judicial branches. Governments had to realise, liberals maintained, that legitimate government only exists with the consent of the governed, so poor and improper governance gave the people the authority to overthrow the ruling order through all possible means, even through outright violence and revolution, if needed.{{Harvnb|Young|2002|p=32}}. Contemporary liberals, heavily influenced by social liberalism, have supported limited constitutional government while advocating for state services and provisions to ensure equal rights. Modern liberals claim that formal or official guarantees of individual rights are irrelevant when individuals lack the material means to benefit from those rights and call for a greater role for government in the administration of economic affairs.{{Harvnb|Young|2002|pp=32–33}}. Early liberals also laid the groundwork for the separation of church and state. As heirs of the Enlightenment, liberals believed that any given social and political order emanated from human interactions, not from divine will.Gould, p. 4. Many liberals were openly hostile to religious belief but most concentrated their opposition to the union of religious and political authority, arguing that faith could prosper independently without official sponsorship or administration by the state.Beyond identifying a clear role for government in modern society, liberals have also argued over the meaning and nature of the most important principle in liberal philosophy: liberty. From the 17th century until the 19th century, liberals (from Adam Smith to John Stuart Mill) conceptualised liberty as the absence of interference from government and other individuals, claiming that all people should have the freedom to develop their unique abilities and capacities without being sabotaged by others.{{Harvnb|Young|2002|p=33}}. Mill’s On Liberty (1859), one of the classic texts in liberal philosophy, proclaimed, “the only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way”. Support for laissez-faire capitalism is often associated with this principle, with Friedrich Hayek arguing in The Road to Serfdom (1944) that reliance on free markets would preclude totalitarian control by the state.Wolfe, p. 74.

Coppet Group and Benjamin Constant

File:Marie Eléonore Godefroid - Portrait of Mme de Staël.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Madame de Staël ]] The development into maturity of modern classical in contrast to ancient liberalism took place before and soon after the French Revolution. One of the historic centres of this development was at Coppet Castle near Geneva, where the eponymous Coppet group gathered under the aegis of the exiled writer and salonnière, Madame de Staël, in the period between the establishment of Napoleon’s First Empire (1804) and the Bourbon Restoration of 1814–1815.JOURNAL, Tenenbaum, Susan, The Coppet Circle. Literary Criticism as Political Discourse, History of Political Thought, 1980, 1, 2, 453–473, BOOK, Lefevere, Andre, Translation, Rewriting, and the Manipulation of Literary Fame, 2016, Taylor & Francis, 109, BOOK, Fairweather, Maria, Madame de Stael, 2013, Little, Brown Book Group, BOOK, Hofmann, Etienne, Rosset, François, Le Groupe de Coppet. Une constellation d’intellectuels européens, 2005, Presses polytechniques et universitaires romandes, The unprecedented concentration of European thinkers who met there was to have a considerable influence on the development of nineteenth-century liberalism and, incidentally, romanticism.BOOK, Jaume, Lucien, Coppet, creuset de l’esprit libéral: Les idées politiques et constitutionnelles du Groupe de Madame de Staël, 2000, Presses Universitaires d’Aix-Marseille, 10, BOOK, Delon, Michel, Francillon, Roger, Histoire de la littérature en Suisse romande t.1, 1996, Payot, Le Groupe de Coppet, WEB, The Home of French Liberalism, The Coppet Institute,coppetinstitute.org, 2020-02-20, They included Wilhelm von Humboldt, Jean de Sismondi, Charles Victor de Bonstetten, Prosper de Barante, Henry Brougham, Lord Byron, Alphonse de Lamartine, Sir James Mackintosh, Juliette Récamier and August Wilhelm Schlegel.BOOK, Making Way for Genius: The Aspiring Self in France from the Old Regime to the New, Kete, Kathleen, Yale University Press, 2012, 978-0-300-17482-3, File:Roche - Portrait de Benjamin Constant (1767-1830), écrivain et homme politique - P1679 - Musée Carnavalet.jpg|thumb|Benjamin ConstantBenjamin ConstantAmong them was also one of the first thinkers to go by the name of “liberal”, the Edinburgh University-educated Swiss Protestant, Benjamin Constant, who looked to the United Kingdom rather than to ancient Rome for a practical model of freedom in a large mercantile society. He distinguished between the “Liberty of the Ancients” and the “Liberty of the Moderns”.WEB,www.uark.edu/depts/comminfo/cambridge/ancients.html, Constant, Benjamin, 1988, ‘The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with that of the Moderns’ (1819), in The Political Writings of Benjamin Constant, ed. Biancamaria Fontana, Cambridge, pp. 309–28, Uark.edu, 2013-09-17, dead,www.uark.edu/depts/comminfo/cambridge/ancients.html," title="archive.today/20120805184450www.uark.edu/depts/comminfo/cambridge/ancients.html,">archive.today/20120805184450www.uark.edu/depts/comminfo/cambridge/ancients.html, 5 August 2012, dmy-all, The Liberty of the Ancients was a participatory republican liberty,JOURNAL, Bertholet, Auguste, 2021, Constant, Sismondi et la Pologne,www.slatkine.com/fr/editions-slatkine/75250-book-05077807-3600120175625.html, Annales Benjamin Constant, 46, 65–76, which gave the citizens the right to influence politics directly through debates and votes in the public assembly. In order to support this degree of participation, citizenship was a burdensome moral obligation requiring a considerable investment of time and energy. Generally, this required a sub-group of slaves to do much of the productive work, leaving citizens free to deliberate on public affairs. Ancient Liberty was also limited to relatively small and homogenous male societies, where they could congregate in one place to transact public affairs.In contrast, the Liberty of the Moderns was based on the possession of civil liberties, the rule of law, and freedom from excessive state interference. Direct participation would be limited: a necessary consequence of the size of modern states and the inevitable result of creating a mercantile society where there were no slaves, but almost everybody had to earn a living through work. Instead, the voters would elect representatives who would deliberate in Parliament on the people’s behalf and would save citizens from daily political involvement. The importance of Constant’s writings on the liberty of the ancients and that of the “moderns” has informed the understanding of liberalism, as has his critique of the French Revolution.BOOK, Benjamin Constant, Madame de Staël et le Groupe de Coppet: Actes du Deuxième Congrès de Lausanne à l’occasion du 150e anniversaire de la mort de Benjamin Constant Et Du Troisième Colloque de Coppet, 15–19 juilliet 1980, Hofmann, Étienne, Oxford, The Voltaire Foundation and Lausanne, Institut Benjamin Constant, 1982, fr, 0-7294-0280-0, The British philosopher and historian of ideas, Sir Isaiah Berlin, has pointed to the debt owed to Constant.BOOK, Rosen, Frederick, Classical Utilitarianism from Hume to Mill, 2005, Routledge, 251, According to Berlin, the most eloquent of all defenders of freedom and privacy [was] Benjamin Constant, who had not forgotten the Jacobin dictatorship.

British liberalism

Liberalism in Britain was based on core concepts such as classical economics, free trade, laissez-faire government with minimal intervention and taxation and a balanced budget. Classical liberals were committed to individualism, liberty and equal rights. Writers such as John Bright and Richard Cobden opposed aristocratic privilege and property, which they saw as an impediment to developing a class of yeoman farmers.BOOK, Vincent, Andrew, Modern Political Ideologies,archive.org/details/modernpoliticali0000vinc/mode/2up?view=theater, registration, 1992, Blackwell, Oxford, UK, & Cambridge, US, 0-631-16451-0, 29–30, File:T.H. Green.png|thumb|left|upright|T. H. Green, an influential liberal philosopher who established in Prolegomena to Ethics (1884) the first major foundations for what later became known as positive liberty and in a few years, his ideas became the official policy of the Liberal Party in Britain, precipitating the rise of social liberalism and the modern welfare statewelfare stateBeginning in the late 19th century, a new conception of liberty entered the liberal intellectual arena. This new kind of liberty became known as positive liberty to distinguish it from the prior negative version, and it was first developed by British philosopher T. H. Green. Green rejected the idea that humans were driven solely by self-interest, emphasising instead the complex circumstances involved in the evolution of our moral character.BOOK, Adams, Ian, Ideology and Politics in Britain Today, Politics Today,archive.org/details/ideologypolitics0000adam/mode/2up?view=theater, registration,archive.org/details/ideologypolitics0000adam/page/52/mode/2up?view=theater, registration, 1998, Manchester University Press, Manchester & New York, 0-7190-5055-3, New Liberals to Liberal Democrats, {{rp|54–55}} In a very profound step for the future of modern liberalism, he also tasked society and political institutions with the enhancement of individual freedom and identity and the development of moral character, will and reason and the state to create the conditions that allow for the above, allowing genuine choice.{{rp|54–55}} Foreshadowing the new liberty as the freedom to act rather than to avoid suffering from the acts of others, Green wrote the following: {{blockquote|If it were ever reasonable to wish that the usage of words had been other than it has been ... one might be inclined to wish that the term ‘freedom’ had been confined to the ... power to do what one wills.Wempe, p. 123.|sign=|source=}}Rather than previous liberal conceptions viewing society as populated by selfish individuals, Green viewed society as an organic whole in which all individuals have a duty to promote the common good.{{rp|55}} His ideas spread rapidly and were developed by other thinkers such as Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse and John A. Hobson. In a few years, this New Liberalism had become the essential social and political programme of the Liberal Party in Britain,{{rp|58}} and it would encircle much of the world in the 20th century. In addition to examining negative and positive liberty, liberals have tried to understand the proper relationship between liberty and democracy. As they struggled to expand suffrage rights, liberals increasingly understood that people left out of the democratic decision-making process were liable to the “tyranny of the majority”, a concept explained in Mill’s On Liberty and Democracy in America (1835) by Alexis de Tocqueville.{{Harvnb|Young|2002|p=36}}. As a response, liberals began demanding proper safeguards to thwart majorities in their attempts at suppressing the rights of minorities.Besides liberty, liberals have developed several other principles important to the construction of their philosophical structure, such as equality, pluralism and tolerance. Highlighting the confusion over the first principle, Voltaire commented, “equality is at once the most natural and at times the most chimeral of things”.Wolfe, p. 63. All forms of liberalism assume in some basic sense that individuals are equal.{{Harvnb|Young|2002|p=39}}. In maintaining that people are naturally equal, liberals assume they all possess the same right to liberty.{{Harvnb|Young|2002|pp=39–40}}. In other words, no one is inherently entitled to enjoy the benefits of liberal society more than anyone else, and all people are equal subjects before the law.{{Harvnb|Young|2002|p=40}}. Beyond this basic conception, liberal theorists diverge in their understanding of equality. American philosopher John Rawls emphasised the need to ensure equality under the law and the equal distribution of material resources that individuals required to develop their aspirations in life. Libertarian thinker Robert Nozick disagreed with Rawls, championing the former version of Lockean equality.To contribute to the development of liberty, liberals also have promoted concepts like pluralism and tolerance. By pluralism, liberals refer to the proliferation of opinions and beliefs that characterise a stable social order.{{Harvnb|Young|2002|pp=42–43}}. Unlike many of their competitors and predecessors, liberals do not seek conformity and homogeneity in how people think. Their efforts have been geared towards establishing a governing framework that harmonises and minimises conflicting views but still allows those views to exist and flourish.{{Harvnb|Young|2002|p=43}}. For liberal philosophy, pluralism leads easily to toleration. Since individuals will hold diverging viewpoints, liberals argue, they ought to uphold and respect the right of one another to disagree.{{Harvnb|Young|2002|p=44}}. From the liberal perspective, toleration was initially connected to religious toleration, with Baruch Spinoza condemning “the stupidity of religious persecution and ideological wars”. Toleration also played a central role in the ideas of Kant and John Stuart Mill. Both thinkers believed that society would contain different conceptions of a good ethical life and that people should be allowed to make their own choices without interference from the state or other individuals.

Liberal economic theory

File:Liberalescoruneses.JPG|thumb|300px|Monument to the liberals of the 19th century in Agra del Orzán neighborhood, La Coruña, Galicia, (SpainSpainAdam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, followed by the French liberal economist Jean-Baptiste Say’s treatise on Political Economy published in 1803 and expanded in 1830 with practical applications, were to provide most of the ideas of economics until the publication of John Stuart Mill’s Principles in 1848.BOOK, Mills, John, John Mills (businessman), A Critical History of Economics,archive.org/details/criticalhistoryo0000mill/page/n5/mode/2up?view=theater, 2002, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 0-333-97130-2, {{rp|63, 68}} Smith addressed the motivation for economic activity, the causes of prices and wealth distribution, and the policies the state should follow to maximise wealth.{{rp|64}}Smith wrote that as long as supply, demand, prices and competition were left free of government regulation, the pursuit of material self-interest, rather than altruism, maximises society’s wealthThe Wealth of Nations {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221206080447books.google.com/books?id=KpWg1DYxRTwC&pg=PA81&lpg=PA81&dq=%22public+good%22&sa=X#v=onepage&q=%22public%20good%22 |date=6 December 2022 }}, Strahan and Cadell, 1778 through profit-driven production of goods and services. An “invisible hand” directed individuals and firms to work toward the nation’s good as an unintended consequence of efforts to maximise their gain. This provided a moral justification for accumulating wealth, which some had previously viewed as sinful.{{rp|64}}Smith assumed that workers could be paid as low as was necessary for their survival, which David Ricardo and Thomas Robert Malthus later transformed into the “iron law of wages”.{{rp|65}} His main emphasis was on the benefit of free internal and international trade, which he thought could increase wealth through specialisation in production.{{rp|66}} He also opposed restrictive trade preferences, state grants of monopolies and employers’ organisations and trade unions.{{rp|67}} Government should be limited to defence, public works and the administration of justice, financed by taxes based on income.{{rp|68}} Smith was one of the progenitors of the idea, which was long central to classical liberalism and has resurfaced in the globalisation literature of the later 20th and early 21st centuries, that free trade promotes peace.See, e.g., Donald Markwell, John Maynard Keynes and International Relations: Economic Paths to War and Peace, Oxford University Press, 2006, chapter 1. Smith’s economics was carried into practice in the 19th century with the lowering of tariffs in the 1820s, the repeal of the Poor Relief Act that had restricted the mobility of labour in 1834 and the end of the rule of the East India Company over India in 1858.{{rp|69}}In his Treatise (Traité d’économie politique), Say states that any production process requires effort, knowledge and the “application” of the entrepreneur. He sees entrepreneurs as intermediaries in the production process who combine productive factors such as land, capital and labour to meet the consumers’ demands. As a result, they play a central role in the economy through their coordinating function. He also highlights qualities essential for successful entrepreneurship and focuses on judgement, in that they have continued to assess market needs and the means to meet them. This requires an “unerring market sense”. Say views entrepreneurial income primarily as the high revenue paid in compensation for their skills and expert knowledge. He does so by contrasting the enterprise and supply-of-capital functions, distinguishing the entrepreneur’s earnings on the one hand and the remuneration of capital on the other. This differentiates his theory from that of Joseph Schumpeter, who describes entrepreneurial rent as short-term profits which compensate for high risk (Schumpeterian rent). Say himself also refers to risk and uncertainty along with innovation without analysing them in detail.Say is also credited with Say’s law, or the law of markets which may be summarised as “Aggregate supply creates its own aggregate demand”,and “Supply creates its own demand”, or “Supply constitutes its own demand” and “Inherent in supply is the need for its own consumption”. The related phrase “supply creates its own demand” was coined by John Maynard Keynes, who criticized Say’s separate formulations as amounting to the same thing. Some advocates of Say’s law who disagree with Keynes have claimed that Say’s law can be summarized more accurately as “production precedes consumption” and that what Say is stating is that for consumption to happen, one must produce something of value so that it can be traded for money or barter for consumption later.{{Harv|Clower|2004|loc=p. 92}}Bylund, Per. “Say’s Law (the Law of Markets)” {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308022031twitter.com/perbylund/status/883692795583746049 |date=8 March 2021 }}.Say argues, “products are paid for with products” (1803, p. 153) or “a glut occurs only when too much resource is applied to making one product and not enough to another” (1803, pp. 178–179).“Information on Jean-Baptiste Say”.{{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090326021523cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/say.htm|date=26 March 2009}}Related reasoning appears in the work of John Stuart Mill and earlier in that of his Scottish classical economist father, James Mill (1808). Mill senior restates Say’s law in 1808: “production of commodities creates, and is the one and universal cause which creates a market for the commodities produced”.BOOK, Mill, James, 1808, Commerce Defended,oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=1668&layout=html, VI: Consumption,web.archive.org/web/20210224092944/https://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=1668&layout=html, 24 February 2021, 81, In addition to Smith’s and Say’s legacies, Thomas Malthus’ theories of population and David Ricardo’s Iron law of wages became central doctrines of classical economics.{{rp|76}} Meanwhile, Jean-Baptiste Say challenged Smith’s labour theory of value, believing that prices were determined by utility and also emphasised the critical role of the entrepreneur in the economy. However, neither of those observations became accepted by British economists at the time. Malthus wrote An Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798,{{rp|71–72}} becoming a major influence on classical liberalism. Malthus claimed that population growth would outstrip food production because the population grew geometrically while food production grew arithmetically. As people were provided with food, they would reproduce until their growth outstripped the food supply. Nature would then provide a check to growth in the forms of vice and misery. No gains in income could prevent this, and any welfare for the poor would be self-defeating. The poor were, in fact, responsible for their problems which could have been avoided through self-restraint.{{rp|72}}Several liberals, including Adam Smith and Richard Cobden, argued that the free exchange of goods between nations would lead to world peace.Erik Gartzke, “Economic Freedom and Peace”, in Economic Freedom of the World: 2005 Annual Report (Vancouver: Fraser Institute, 2005). {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181227133203www.columbia.akadns.net/itc/journalism/stille/Politics%20Fall%202007/readings%20weeks%206-7/Economic%20Freedom%20and%20Peace%20--%20Garzke.pdf |date=27 December 2018 }}. Smith argued that as societies progressed, the spoils of war would rise, but the costs of war would rise further, making war difficult and costly for industrialised nations.Michael Doyle, Ways of War and Peace: Realism, Liberalism, and Socialism (New York: Norton, 1997), p. 237 ({{ISBN|0-393-96947-9}}). Cobden believed that military expenditures worsened the state’s welfare and benefited a small but concentrated elite minority, combining his Little Englander beliefs with opposition to the economic restrictions of mercantilist policies. To Cobden and many classical liberals, those who advocated peace must also advocate free markets.BOOK, Howe, Anthony, Morgan, Simon, Rethinking nineteenth-century liberalism: Richard Cobden bicentenary essays, 2006, Ashgate Publishing, 978-0-7546-5572-5, 231, 239,books.google.com/books?id=Eqp4Hae4bmUC, Google Books, Utilitarianism was seen as a political justification for implementing economic liberalism by British governments, an idea dominating economic policy from the 1840s. Although utilitarianism prompted legislative and administrative reform, and John Stuart Mill’s later writings foreshadowed the welfare state, it was mainly used as a premise for a laissez-faire approach.BOOK, James L., Richardson, 2001, Contending Liberalisms in World Politics: Ideology and Power, Boulder, Colorado, Lynne Rienner Publishers, 155587939X, {{rp|32}} The central concept of utilitarianism, developed by Jeremy Bentham, was that public policy should seek to provide “the greatest happiness of the greatest number”. While this could be interpreted as a justification for state action to reduce poverty, it was used by classical liberals to justify inaction with the argument that the net benefit to all individuals would be higher.{{rp|76}} His philosophy proved highly influential on government policy and led to increased Benthamite attempts at government social control, including Robert Peel’s Metropolitan Police, prison reforms, the workhouses and asylums for the mentally ill.

Keynesian economics

File:Keynes 1933.jpg|thumb|upright|John Maynard Keynes, one of the most influential economists of modern times and whose ideas, which are still widely felt, formalized modern liberal economic policy.]]File:Lange-MigrantMother02.jpg|thumb|upright|The Great Depression, with its periods of worldwide economic hardship, formed the backdrop against which the Keynesian Revolution took place (the image is Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother depiction of destitute pea-pickerspea-pickersDuring the Great Depression, the English economist John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) gave the definitive liberal response to the economic crisis. Keynes had been “brought up” as a classical liberal, but especially after World War I, became increasingly a welfare or social liberal.See studies of Keynes by, e.g., Roy Harrod, Robert Skidelsky, Donald Moggridge, and Donald Markwell. A prolific writer, among many other works, he had begun a theoretical work examining the relationship between unemployment, money and prices back in the 1920s.BOOK, Pressman, Steven, Fifty Great Economists, 1999, 978-0-415-13481-1, 96–100, Routledge, London, Keynes was deeply critical of the British government’s austerity measures during the Great Depression. He believed budget deficits were a good thing, a product of recessions. He wrote: “For Government borrowing of one kind or another is nature’s remedy, so to speak, for preventing business losses from being, in so severe a slump as the present one, so great as to bring production altogether to a standstill”.MAGAZINE, Cassidy, John, John Cassidy (journalist), The Demand Doctor, The New Yorker, 10 October 2011,www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/10/10/the-demand-doctor, At the height of the Great Depression in 1933, Keynes published The Means to Prosperity, which contained specific policy recommendations for tackling unemployment in a global recession, chiefly counter cyclical public spending. The Means to Prosperity contains one of the first mentions of the multiplier effect.BOOK, Skidelsky, Robert, John Maynard Keynes: 1883–1946: Economist, Philosopher, Statesman, 2003, 978-0-330-48867-9, 494–500, 504, 509–510, Pan MacMillan Ltd, Keynes’s magnum opus, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, was published in 1936BOOK, Keith, Tribe, Economic careers: economics and economists in Britain, 1930–1970, 1997, 61, and served as a theoretical justification for the interventionist policies Keynes favoured for tackling a recession. The General Theory challenged the earlier neo-classical economic paradigm, which had held that the market would naturally establish full employment equilibrium if it were unfettered by government interference. Classical economists believed in Say’s law, which states that “supply creates its own demand” and that in a free market, workers would always be willing to lower their wages to a level where employers could profitably offer them jobs. An innovation from Keynes was the concept of price stickiness, i.e. the recognition that, in reality, workers often refuse to lower their wage demands even in cases where a classical economist might argue it is rational for them to do so. Due in part to price stickiness, it was established that the interaction of “aggregate demand” and “aggregate supply” may lead to stable unemployment equilibria, and in those cases, it is the state and not the market that economies must depend on for their salvation. The book advocated activist economic policy by the government to stimulate demand in times of high unemployment, for example, by spending on public works. In 1928, he wrote: “Let us be up and doing, using our idle resources to increase our wealth. ... With men and plants unemployed, it is ridiculous to say that we cannot afford these new developments. It is precisely with these plants and these men that we shall afford them”. Where the market failed to allocate resources properly, the government was required to stimulate the economy until private funds could start flowing again—a “prime the pump” kind of strategy designed to boost industrial production.Palmer and Colton, p. 808.

Liberal feminist theory

File:Mary Wollstonecraft by John Opie (c. 1797).jpg|thumb|upright|Mary Wollstonecraft, widely regarded as the pioneer of liberal feminismliberal feminismLiberal feminism, the dominant tradition in feminist history, is an individualistic form of feminist theory that focuses on women’s ability to maintain their equality through their actions and choices. Liberal feminists hope to eradicate all barriers to gender equality, claiming that the continued existence of such barriers eviscerates the individual rights and freedoms ostensibly guaranteed by a liberal social order.Jensen, p. 2. They argue that society believes women are naturally less intellectually and physically capable than men; thus, it tends to discriminate against women in the academy, the forum and the marketplace. Liberal feminists believe that “female subordination is rooted in a set of customary and legal constraints that blocks women’s entrance to and success in the so-called public world”. They strive for sexual equality via political and legal reform.Tong, Rosemarie. 1989. Feminist Thought: A Comprehensive Introduction. Oxon, United Kingdom: Unwin Human Ltd. Chapter 1British philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) is widely regarded as the pioneer of liberal feminism, with A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) expanding the boundaries of liberalism to include women in the political structure of liberal society.Falco, pp. 47–48. In her writings, such as A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Wollstonecraft commented on society’s view of women and encouraged women to use their voices in making decisions separate from those previously made for them. Wollstonecraft “denied that women are, by nature, more pleasure seeking and pleasure giving than men. She reasoned that if they were confined to the same cages that trap women, men would develop the same flawed characters. What Wollstonecraft most wanted for women was personhood”.John Stuart Mill was also an early proponent of feminism. In his article The Subjection of Women (1861, published 1869), Mill attempted to prove that the legal subjugation of women is wrong and that it should give way to perfect equality.John Stuart Mill: critical assessments, Volume 4, By John Cunningham WoodMill, J.S. (1869) The Subjection of Women {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150429185554www.constitution.org/jsm/women.htm |date=29 April 2015 }}, Chapter 1 He believed that both sexes should have equal rights under the law and that “until conditions of equality exist, no one can possibly assess the natural differences between women and men, distorted as they have been. What is natural to the two sexes can only be found out by allowing both to develop and use their faculties freely”.Mill, John Stuart (1869). The Subjection of Women (1869 first ed.). London: Longmans, Green, Reader & Dyer. Retrieved 10 December 2012. Mill frequently spoke of this imbalance and wondered if women were able to feel the same “genuine unselfishness” that men did in providing for their families. This unselfishness Mill advocated is the one “that motivates people to take into account the good of society as well as the good of the individual person or small family unit”. Like Mary Wollstonecraft, Mill compared sexual inequality to slavery, arguing that their husbands are often just as abusive as masters and that a human being controls nearly every aspect of life for another human being. In his book The Subjection of Women, Mill argues that three major parts of women’s lives are hindering them: society and gender construction, education and marriage.WEB,plato.stanford.edu/entries/mill-moral-political/, Mill’s Moral and Political Philosophy, Brink, David, 9 October 2007, Stanford University, 1 October 2016, Equity feminism is a form of liberal feminism discussed since the 1980s,BOOK, Social Feminism, Naomi, Black,books.google.com/books?id=kDYqAAAAYAAJ, 1989, Cornell University Press, 9780801422614, Google Books, BOOK,books.google.com/books?id=Q83kxhOsgxYC&pg=PA79, Industry and Politics in West Germany: Toward the Third Republic, Peter J., Katzenstein, 3. Social Change and Political Mobilization in West Germany, 79, Jost, Halfmann, Equity-feminism differs from equality-feminism, 1989, Cornell University Press, 978-0-8014-9595-3, Google Books, specifically a kind of classically liberal or libertarian feminism.WEB,plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-liberal/#EquFem, Liberal Feminism, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 18 October 2007, 24 February 2016, (revised 30 September 2013) Steven Pinker, an evolutionary psychologist, defines equity feminism as “a moral doctrine about equal treatment that makes no commitments regarding open empirical issues in psychology or biology”.BOOK, Pinker, Steven, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature,archive.org/details/blankslatemodern00pink, registration, 0-670-03151-8, Viking, 2002, 341, Barry Kuhle asserts that equity feminism is compatible with evolutionary psychology in contrast to gender feminism.JOURNAL, Evolutionary Psychology (journal), Evolutionary Psychology,www.epjournal.net/articles/evolutionary-psychology-is-compatible-with-equity-feminism-but-not-with-gender-feminism-a-reply-to-eagly-and-wood-2011/, usurped, 16 January 2012,www.epjournal.net/articles/evolutionary-psychology-is-compatible-with-equity-feminism-but-not-with-gender-feminism-a-reply-to-eagly-and-wood-2011/," title="web.archive.org/web/20120116120314www.epjournal.net/articles/evolutionary-psychology-is-compatible-with-equity-feminism-but-not-with-gender-feminism-a-reply-to-eagly-and-wood-2011/,">web.archive.org/web/20120116120314www.epjournal.net/articles/evolutionary-psychology-is-compatible-with-equity-feminism-but-not-with-gender-feminism-a-reply-to-eagly-and-wood-2011/, Evolutionary psychology is compatible with equity feminism, 2011, Barry X., Kuhle,

Social liberal theory

File:Jean Charles Simonde de Sismondi (1773-1842).png|thumb|upright|SismondiSismondiJean Charles Léonard Simonde de Sismondi’s New Principles of Political Economy (French: Nouveaux principes d’économie politique, ou de la richesse dans ses rapports avec la population) (1819) represents the first comprehensive liberal critique of early capitalism and laissez-faire economics, and his writings, which were studied by John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx among many others, had a profound influence on both liberal and socialist responses to the failures and contradictions of industrial society.JOURNAL, Stewart, Ross E., Sismondi’s Forgotten Ethical Critique of Early Capitalism, Journal of Business Ethics, 1984, 3, 3, 227–234, 10.1007/BF00382924, 154967384, BOOK, Spiegel, Henry William, The Growth of Economic Thought, 1991, Duke University Press, 302–303, BOOK, Stedman Jones, Gareth, Aprile, Sylvie, Bensimon, Fabrice, La France et l’Angleterre au XIXe siècle. Échanges, représentations, comparaisons, Saint-Simon and the Liberal origins of the Socialist critique of Political Economy, 2006, Créaphis, 21–47, By the end of the 19th century, the principles of classical liberalism were being increasingly challenged by downturns in economic growth, a growing perception of the evils of poverty, unemployment and relative deprivation present within modern industrial cities, as well as the agitation of organised labour. The ideal of the self-made individual who could make his or her place in the world through hard work and talent seemed increasingly implausible. A major political reaction against the changes introduced by industrialisation and laissez-faire capitalism came from conservatives concerned about social balance, although socialism later became a more important force for change and reform. Some Victorian writers, including Charles Dickens, Thomas Carlyle and Matthew Arnold, became early influential critics of social injustice.{{rp|36–37}}New liberals began to adapt the old language of liberalism to confront these difficult circumstances, which they believed could only be resolved through a broader and more interventionist conception of the state. An equal right to liberty could not be established merely by ensuring that individuals did not physically interfere with each other or by having impartially formulated and applied laws. More positive and proactive measures were required to ensure that every individual would have an equal opportunity for success.BOOK, Eatwell, Roger, Wright, Anthony, Contemporary political ideologies, Continuum International Publishing Group, 1999, 978-0-8264-5173-6, File:John Stuart Mill by London Stereoscopic Company, c1870.jpg|thumb|upright|John Stuart Mill, whose On LibertyOn LibertyJohn Stuart Mill contributed enormously to liberal thought by combining elements of classical liberalism with what eventually became known as the new liberalism. Mill’s 1859 On Liberty addressed the nature and limits of the power that can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual.BOOK, Mill, John Stuart, John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, Penguin Classics, 2006, 978-0-14-144147-4, 90–91, He gave an impassioned defence of free speech, arguing that free discourse is a necessary condition for intellectual and social progress. Mill defined “social liberty” as protection from “the tyranny of political rulers”. He introduced many different concepts of the form tyranny can take, referred to as social tyranny and tyranny of the majority. Social liberty meant limits on the ruler’s power through obtaining recognition of political liberties or rights and establishing a system of “constitutional checks”.BOOK, Mill, John Stuart, John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, Penguin Classics, 2006, 978-0-14-144147-4, 10–11, His definition of liberty, influenced by Joseph Priestley and Josiah Warren, was that the individual ought to be free to do as he wishes unless he harms others.John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), “The Contest in America”. Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. Volume 24. Issue 143. pp. 683–684. Harper & Bros. New York. April 1862. Cornell.edu. However, although Mill’s initial economic philosophy supported free markets and argued that progressive taxation penalised those who worked harder,IREF | Pour la liberte economique et la concurrence fiscale (PDF) {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090327011315www.irefeurope.org/col_docs/doc_51_fr.pdf |date=27 March 2009 }} he later altered his views toward a more socialist bent, adding chapters to his Principles of Political Economy in defence of a socialist outlook and defending some socialist causes,BOOK, Mill, John Stuart, Bentham, Jeremy, Ryan, Alan, Utilitarianism and other essays, Penguin Books, 2004, London, 978-0-14-043272-5, 11,archive.org/details/utilitarianismot00mill/page/11, including the radical proposal that the whole wage system be abolished in favour of a co-operative wage system.Another early liberal convert to greater government intervention was T. H. Green. Seeing the effects of alcohol, he believed that the state should foster and protect the social, political and economic environments in which individuals will have the best chance of acting according to their consciences. The state should intervene only where there is a clear, proven and strong tendency of liberty to enslave the individual.Nicholson, P. P., “T. H. Green and State Action: Liquor Legislation”, History of Political Thought, 6 (1985), 517–50. Reprinted in A. Vincent, ed., The Philosophy of T. H. Green (Aldershot: Gower, 1986), pp. 76–103 Green regarded the national state as legitimate only to the extent that it upholds a system of rights and obligations most likely to foster individual self-realisation.The New Liberalism or social liberalism movement emerged in about 1900 in Britain.Michael Freeden, The New Liberalism: An Ideology of Social Reform (Oxford UP, 1978). The New Liberals, including intellectuals like L. T. Hobhouse and John A. Hobson, saw individual liberty as something achievable only under favourable social and economic circumstances.{{rp|29}} In their view, the poverty, squalor and ignorance in which many people lived made it impossible for freedom and individuality to flourish. New Liberals believed these conditions could be ameliorated only through collective action coordinated by a strong, welfare-oriented, interventionist state.The Routledge Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, p. 599 It supports a mixed economy that includes public and private property in capital goods.BOOK, Stanislao G., Pugliese,archive.org/details/carlorossellisoc00pugl, Carlo Rosselli: socialist heretic and antifascist exile, Harvard University Press, 1999, 99, 9780674000537, BOOK, Noel W., Thompson, Political economy and the Labour Party: the economics of democratic socialism, 1884–2005, 2nd, Oxon, England; New York, New York, Routledge, 2006, 60–61, Principles that can be described as social liberal have been based upon or developed by philosophers such as John Stuart Mill, Eduard Bernstein, John Dewey, Carlo Rosselli, Norberto Bobbio and Chantal Mouffe.Nadia Urbinati. J.S. Mill’s political thought: a bicentennial reassessment {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221206080447books.google.com/books?id=YoS6bMf4toQC&printsec=frontcover |date=6 December 2022 }}. Cambridge, England, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007 p. 101. Other important social liberal figures include Guido Calogero, Piero Gobetti, Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse and R. H. Tawney.Steve Bastow, James Martin. Third way discourse: European ideologies in the twentieth century {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181227181430research.gold.ac.uk/1882/ |date=27 December 2018 }}. Edinburgh, Scotland, UK: Edinburgh University Press, Ltd, 2003. p. 72. Liberal socialism has been particularly prominent in British and Italian politics.

Anarcho-capitalist theory

File:Gustave de Molinari.jpg|thumb|upright|Gustave de MolinariGustave de MolinariFile:Die Gartenlaube (1863) b 269.jpg|thumb|upright|Julius FaucherJulius FaucherClassical liberalism advocates free trade under the rule of law. Anarcho-capitalism goes one step further, with law enforcement and the courts being provided by private companies. Various theorists have espoused legal philosophies similar to anarcho-capitalism. One of the first liberals to discuss the possibility of privatizing the protection of individual liberty and property was France’s Jakob Mauvillon in the 18th century. Later in the 1840s, Julius Faucher and Gustave de Molinari advocated the same. In his essay The Production of Security, Molinari argued: “No government should have the right to prevent another government from going into competition with it, or to require consumers of security to come exclusively to it for this commodity”. Molinari and this new type of anti-state liberal grounded their reasoning on liberal ideals and classical economics. Historian and libertarian Ralph Raico argued that what these liberal philosophers “had come up with was a form of individualist anarchism, or, as it would be called today, anarcho-capitalism or market anarchism”.Raico, Ralph (2004) Authentic German Liberalism of the 19th century {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090610035217www.crea.polytechnique.fr/index.htm |date=10 June 2009 }} Ecole Polytechnique, Centre de Recherce en Epistemologie Appliquee {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090610035217www.crea.polytechnique.fr/index.htm |date=10 June 2009 }}, Unité associée au CNRS Unlike the liberalism of Locke, which saw the state as evolving from society, the anti-state liberals saw a fundamental conflict between the voluntary interactions of people, i.e. society, and the institutions of force, i.e. the state. This society versus state idea was expressed in various ways: natural society vs artificial society, liberty vs authority, society of contract vs society of authority and industrial society vs militant society, to name a few.Molinari, Gustave de (1849) The Production of Security {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927000023praxeology.net/GM-PS.htm |date=27 September 2007 }} (trans. J. Huston McCulloch). Retrieved 15 July 2006. The anti-state liberal tradition in Europe and the United States continued after Molinari in the early writings of Herbert Spencer and thinkers such as Paul Émile de Puydt and Auberon Herbert. However, the first person to use the term anarcho-capitalism was Murray Rothbard. In the mid-20th century, Rothbard synthesized elements from the Austrian School of economics, classical liberalism and 19th-century American individualist anarchists Lysander Spooner and Benjamin Tucker (while rejecting their labour theory of value and the norms they derived from it).“A student and disciple of the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, Rothbard combined the laissez-faire economics of his teacher with the absolutist views of human rights and rejection of the state he had absorbed from studying the individualist American anarchists of the 19th century such as Lysander Spooner and Benjamin Tucker.” Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought, 1987, {{ISBN|978-0-631-17944-3}}, p. 290 Anarcho-capitalism advocates the elimination of the state in favour of individual sovereignty, private property and free markets. Anarcho-capitalists believe that in the absence of statute (law by decree or legislation), society would improve itself through the discipline of the free market (or what its proponents describe as a “voluntary society“).ENCYCLOPEDIA, Morris, Andrew, Ronald, Hamowy, Ronald Hamowy, The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism,books.google.com/books?id=yxNgXs3TkJYC, 2008, SAGE Publishing, SAGE; Cato Institute, Thousand Oaks, CA, 10.4135/9781412965811.n8, 978-1-4129-6580-4, 750831024, 2008009151, 13–14, Anarcho-Capitalism, Edward Stringham, Anarchy and the law: the political economy of choice, p. 51 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221206080458books.google.com/books?id=nft4e62nicsC&pg=PA51&dq=anarcho-capitalism+libertarian&sa=X&ct=result&resnum=8#v=onepage&q=anarcho-capitalism%20libertarian |date=6 December 2022 }}.In a theoretical anarcho-capitalist society, law enforcement, courts and all other security services would be operated by privately funded competitors rather than centrally through taxation. Money and other goods and services would be privately and competitively provided in an open market. Anarcho-capitalists say personal and economic activities under anarcho-capitalism would be regulated by victim-based dispute resolution organizations under tort and contract law rather than by statute through centrally determined punishment under what they describe as “political monopolies”.“Review of Kosanke’s Instead of Politics – Don Stacy” {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181001010127libertarianpapers.org/articles/2011/lp-3-3.pdf |date=1 October 2018 }} Libertarian Papers VOL. 3, ART. NO. 3 (2011) A Rothbardian anarcho-capitalist society would operate under a mutually agreed-upon libertarian “legal code which would be generally accepted, and which the courts would pledge themselves to follow”.Rothbard, Murray. For A New Liberty. 12 The Public Sector, III: Police, Law, and the Courts {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111213124557mises.org/rothbard/newliberty11.asp |date=13 December 2011 }} Although enforcement methods vary, this pact would recognize self-ownership and the non-aggression principle (NAP).

History

{{cleanup|section|reason=Needs better presentation and content summarization|date=May 2017}}File:John Locke.jpg|thumb|upright|John Locke was the first to develop a liberal philosophy, including the right to private property and the consent of the governedconsent of the governedIsolated strands of liberal thought had existed in Eastern philosophy since the Chinese Spring and Autumn periodRothbard, Murray (2005). Excerpt from “Concepts of the Role of Intellectuals in Social Change Toward Laissez Faire”, The Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. IX, No. 2 (Fall 1990) at mises.org {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141108220713mises.org/daily/1967 |date=8 November 2014 }} and Western philosophy since the Ancient Greeks. The economist Murray Rothbard suggested that Chinese Taoist philosopher Laozi was the first libertarian, likening Laozi’s ideas on government to Friedrich Hayek’s theory of spontaneous order.Rothbard, Murray (2005). “The Ancient Chinese Libertarian Tradition”, Mises Daily, (5 December 2005) (original source unknown) at mises.org {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141108220713mises.org/daily/1967 |date=8 November 2014 }} These ideas were first drawn together and systematized as a distinct ideology by the English philosopher John Locke, generally regarded as the father of modern liberalism.BOOK, Fung, Edmund S. K., The Intellectual Foundations of Chinese Modernity: Cultural and Political Thought in the Republican Era, 2010, Cambridge University Press, 978-1-139-48823-5, 130,books.google.com/books?id=7muduLXtSGMC&pg=PA130, 16 May 2017, Google Books, BOOK, Bevir, Mark, Encyclopedia of Political Theory: A–E, Volume 1, 2010, SAGE Publications, 978-1-4129-5865-3, 164,books.google.com/books?id=wVIoCtB3m74C&pg=PA164, 19 May 2017, Google Books, The first major signs of liberal politics emerged in modern times. These ideas began to coalesce at the time of the English Civil War. The Levellers, a largely ignored minority political movement that primarily consisted of Puritans, Presbyterians, and Quakers, called for freedom of religion, frequent convening of parliament and equality under the law. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 enshrined parliamentary sovereignty and the right of revolution in Britain and was referred to by author Steven Pincus as the “first modern liberal revolution”.BOOK,archive.org/details/1688firstmodernr00stev, registration, 1688: The First Modern Revolution, Steven, Pincus, 2009, Yale University Press, 978-0-300-15605-8, 7 February 2013, The development of liberalism continued throughout the 18th century with the burgeoning Enlightenment ideals of the era. This period of profound intellectual vitality questioned old traditions and influenced several European monarchies throughout the 18th century. Political tension between England and its American colonies grew after 1765 and the Seven Years’ War over the issue of taxation without representation, culminating in the American Revolutionary War and, eventually, the Declaration of Independence. After the war, the leaders debated about how to move forward. The Articles of Confederation, written in 1776, now appeared inadequate to provide security or even a functional government. The Confederation Congress called a Constitutional Convention in 1787, which resulted in the writing of a new Constitution of the United States establishing a federal government. In the context of the times, the Constitution was a republican and liberal document.Roberts, J.M. The Penguin History of the World. New York: Penguin Group, 1992. {{ISBN|0-19-521043-3}} p. 701.BOOK, Milan, Zafirovski, Liberal Modernity and Its Adversaries: Freedom, Liberalism and Anti-Liberalism in the 21st Century,books.google.com/books?id=GNlT9Qho0tAC, 2007, Brill Publishers, Brill, 237–38, 978-90-04-16052-1, Google Books, It remains the oldest liberal governing document in effect worldwide.File:Montesquieu 1.png|thumb|left|upright|Montesquieu, who argued for the separation of the powers of government ]]The two key events that marked the triumph of liberalism in France were the abolition of feudalism in France on the night of 4 August 1789, which marked the collapse of feudal and old traditional rights and privileges and restrictions, as well as the passage of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in August, itself based on the U.S. Declaration of Independence from 1776.BOOK, Jon, Meacham, Thomas Jefferson: President and Philosopher,books.google.com/books?id=tvBMBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT131, 2014, Random House, 131, 978-0-385-38751-4, During the Napoleonic Wars, the French brought Western Europe the liquidation of the feudal system, the liberalization of property laws, the end of seigneurial dues, the abolition of guilds, the legalization of divorce, the disintegration of Jewish ghettos, the collapse of the Inquisition, the end of the Holy Roman Empire, the elimination of church courts and religious authority, the establishment of the metric system and equality under the law for all men.Palmer and Colton, pp. 428–29. His most lasting achievement, the Civil Code, served as “an object of emulation all over the globe“Lyons, p. 94. but also perpetuated further discrimination against women under the banner of the “natural order”.Lyons, pp. 98–102.The development into maturity of classical liberalism took place before and after the French Revolution in Britain. Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, was to provide most of the ideas of economics, at least until the publication of John Stuart Mill’s Principles in 1848.{{rp|63, 68}} Smith addressed the motivation for economic activity, the causes of prices and wealth distribution, and the policies the state should follow to maximise wealth.{{rp|64}} The radical liberal movement began in the 1790s in England and concentrated on parliamentary and electoral reform, emphasizing natural rights and popular sovereignty. Radicals like Richard Price and Joseph Priestley saw parliamentary reform as a first step toward dealing with their many grievances, including the treatment of Protestant Dissenters, the slave trade, high prices and high taxes.Turner, p. 86{{full citation needed|date=August 2023}}In Latin America, liberal unrest dates back to the 18th century, when liberal agitation in Latin America led to independence from the imperial power of Spain and Portugal. The new regimes were generally liberal in their political outlook and employed the philosophy of positivism, which emphasized the truth of modern science, to buttress their positions.JOURNAL,pics3441.upmf-grenoble.fr/articles/cult/,pics3441.upmf-grenoble.fr/articles/cult/assimilation_and_transformation_of_positivism_in_latin_america.pdf," title="web.archive.org/web/20150212190612pics3441.upmf-grenoble.fr/articles/cult/assimilation_and_transformation_of_positivism_in_latin_america.pdf,">web.archive.org/web/20150212190612pics3441.upmf-grenoble.fr/articles/cult/assimilation_and_transformation_of_positivism_in_latin_america.pdf, dead, 12 February 2015, 2707981, Assimilation and Transformation of Positivism in Latin America, Journal of the History of Ideas, 24, 4, 515–522, Ardao, Arturo, 1963, 10.2307/2707981, In the United States, a vicious war ensured the integrity of the nation and the abolition of slavery in the South. Historian Don H. Doyle has argued that the Union victory in the American Civil War (1861–1865) greatly boosted the course of liberalism.BOOK, Don H., Doyle, Don H. Doyle, The Cause of All Nations: An International History of the American Civil War, 2014, {{page needed|date=August 2023}}In the 19th century, English liberal political philosophers were the most influential in the global tradition of liberalism.BOOK, Caldwell, Wallace E., History of the World, Merrill, Edward H., The Greystone Press, 1964, 1, United States, 428, During the 19th and early 20th century, in the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East, liberalism influenced periods of reform, such as the Tanzimat and Al-Nahda; the rise of secularism, constitutionalism and nationalism; and different intellectuals and religious groups and movements, like the Young Ottomans and Islamic Modernism. Prominent of the era were Rifa’a al-Tahtawi, Namık Kemal and Ä°brahim Åžinasi. However, the reformist ideas and trends did not reach the common population successfully, as the books, periodicals, and newspapers were accessible primarily to intellectuals and segments of the emerging middle class. Many Muslims saw them as foreign influences on the world of Islam. That perception complicated reformist efforts made by Middle Eastern states.BOOK, Abdelmoula, Ezzeddine, Al Jazeera and Democratization: The Rise of the Arab Public Sphere, 2015, Routledge, 978-1-317-51847-1, 50–52,books.google.com/books?id=vP7qBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA50, 7 May 2017, Google Books, Roderic. H. Davison, Essays in Ottoman and Turkish History, 1774–1923 – The Impact of the West, University of Texas Press, 1990, pp. 115-116. These changes, along with other factors, helped to create a sense of crisis within Islam, which continues to this day. This led to Islamic revivalism.BOOK, Lindgren, Allana, Ross, Stephen, The Modernist World, 2015, Routledge, 978-1-317-69616-2,books.google.com/books?id=YFvLCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA440, 6 May 2017, Google Books, File:Eugène Delacroix - La liberté guidant le peuple.jpg|thumb|The iconic painting Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix, a tableau of the July RevolutionJuly RevolutionAbolitionist and suffrage movements spread, along with representative and democratic ideals. France established an enduring republic in the 1870s. However, nationalism also spread rapidly after 1815. A mixture of liberal and nationalist sentiments in Italy and Germany brought about the unification of the two countries in the late 19th century. A liberal regime came to power in Italy and ended the secular power of the Popes. However, the Vatican launched a counter-crusade against liberalism. Pope Pius IX issued the Syllabus of Errors in 1864, condemning liberalism in all its forms. In many countries, liberal forces responded by expelling the Jesuit order. By the end of the nineteenth century, the principles of classical liberalism were being increasingly challenged, and the ideal of the self-made individual seemed increasingly implausible. Victorian writers like Charles Dickens, Thomas Carlyle and Matthew Arnold were early influential critics of social injustice.{{rp|36–37}}File:Kaarlo Juho StÃ¥hlberg.jpg|thumb|upright|As a liberal nationalist,WEB,www.eduskunta.fi/triphome/bin/hx5000.sh?{hnro}=911547&{kieli}=su&{haku}=kaikki, Edustajamatrikkeli, fi, Eduskunta, dead,www.eduskunta.fi/triphome/bin/hx5000.sh?%7Bhnro%7D=911547&%7Bkieli%7D=su&%7Bhaku%7D=kaikki," title="web.archive.org/web/20120212180625www.eduskunta.fi/triphome/bin/hx5000.sh?%7Bhnro%7D=911547&%7Bkieli%7D=su&%7Bhaku%7D=kaikki,">web.archive.org/web/20120212180625www.eduskunta.fi/triphome/bin/hx5000.sh?%7Bhnro%7D=911547&%7Bkieli%7D=su&%7Bhaku%7D=kaikki, 2012-02-12, K. J. StÃ¥hlberg (1865–1952), the President of Finland, anchored the state in liberal democracy, guarded the fragile germ of the rule of law, and embarked on internal reforms.WEB, Juha, Mononen, War or Peace for Finland? Neoclassical Realist Case Study of Finnish Foreign Policy in the Context of the Anti-Bolshevik Intervention in Russia 1918–1920,tampub.uta.fi/handle/10024/80491, 2 February 2009, University of TampereUniversity of TampereLiberalism gained momentum at the beginning of the 20th century. The bastion of autocracy, the Russian Tsar, was overthrown in the first phase of the Russian Revolution. The Allied victory in the First World War and the collapse of four empires seemed to mark the triumph of liberalism across the European continent, not just among the victorious allies but also in Germany and the newly created states of Eastern Europe. Militarism, as typified by Germany, was defeated and discredited. As Blinkhorn argues, the liberal themes were ascendant in terms of “cultural pluralism, religious and ethnic toleration, national self-determination, free market economics, representative and responsible government, free trade, unionism, and the peaceful settlement of international disputes through a new body, the League of Nations”.In the Middle East, liberalism led to constitutional periods, like the Ottoman First and Second Constitutional Era and the Persian constitutional period, but it declined in the late 1930s due to the growth and opposition of Islamism and pan-Arab nationalism.BOOK, Kurzman, Charles, Liberal Islam: A Source Book, 1998, Oxford University Press, 978-0-19-511622-9, 10,books.google.com/books?id=4n8HSe9SfXMC&pg=PA10, 25 May 2017, BOOK, Moaddel, Mansoor, Islamic Modernism, Nationalism, and Fundamentalism: Episode and Discourse, 2005, University of Chicago Press, 978-0-226-53333-9, 4,books.google.com/books?id=Dk6BLopmn3gC&pg=PA4, BOOK, A History of Islamic Societies, Lapidus, Ira Marvin, 2002, Cambridge University Press, 978-0-521-77933-3, 496,books.google.com/books?id=I3mVUEzm8xMC&pg=PA496, BOOK, Lorentz, John H., The A to Z of Iran, 2010, Scarecrow Press, 978-1-4617-3191-7, 224,books.google.com/books?id=oV9WwxXbCB8C&pg=PA224, 9 May 2017, However, many intellectuals advocated liberal values and ideas. Prominent liberals were Taha Hussein, Ahmed Lutfi el-Sayed, Tawfiq al-Hakim, Abd El-Razzak El-Sanhuri and Muhammad Mandur.BOOK, Hanssen, Jens, Weiss, Max, Arabic Thought beyond the Liberal Age: Towards an Intellectual History of the Nahda, 2016, Cambridge University Press, 978-1-107-13633-5, 299,books.google.com/books?id=dPF7DQAAQBAJ&pg=PA299, 10 May 2017, File:FDR 1944 Color Portrait.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Franklin D. RooseveltFranklin D. RooseveltIn the United States, modern liberalism traces its history to the popular presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who initiated the New Deal in response to the Great Depression and won an unprecedented four elections. The New Deal coalition established by Roosevelt left a strong legacy and influenced many future American presidents, including John F. Kennedy.Alterman, p. 32. Meanwhile, the definitive liberal response to the Great Depression was given by the British economist John Maynard Keynes, who had begun a theoretical work examining the relationship between unemployment, money and prices back in the 1920s.BOOK, Pressman, Steven, Fifty Great Economists, 1999, 978-0-415-13481-1, 96–100, London: routledge, London, The worldwide Great Depression, starting in 1929, hastened the discrediting of liberal economics and strengthened calls for state control over economic affairs. Economic woes prompted widespread unrest in the European political world, leading to the rise of fascism as an ideology and a movement against liberalism and communism, especially in Nazi Germany and Italy.Heywood, pp. 218–26. The rise of fascism in the 1930s eventually culminated in World War II, the deadliest conflict in human history. The Allies prevailed in the war by 1945, and their victory set the stage for the Cold War between the Communist Eastern Bloc and the liberal Western Bloc.In Iran, liberalism enjoyed wide popularity. In April 1951, the National Front became the governing coalition when democratically elected Mohammad Mosaddegh, a liberal nationalist, took office as the Prime Minister. However, his way of governing conflicted with Western interests, and he was removed from power in a coup on 19 August 1953. The coup ended the dominance of liberalism in the country’s politics.NEWS,www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-cia-index.html, The New York Times, Secrets of History: The C.I.A. in Iran, James Risen, 16 April 2000, 3 November 2006, James Risen, Clandestine Service History: Overthrow of Premier Mossadeq of Iran (March 1954). p. iii.BOOK, Ends of British Imperialism: The Scramble for Empire, Suez, and Decolonization, 2007, I.B.Tauris, 978-1-84511-347-6, 775 of 1082,books.google.com/books?id=NQnpQNKeKKAC&pg=PA775, JOURNAL, CIA Admits It Was Behind Iran’s Coup, Malcolm, Bryne, 18 August 2013, Foreign Policy,foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/19/cia-admits-it-was-behind-irans-coup/, The CIA’s history of the 1953 coup in Iran is made up of the following documents: a historian’s note, a summary introduction, a lengthy narrative account written by Donald N. Wilber and as appendices five planning documents he attached. Published on 18 June 2000 under the title “The C.I.A. in Iran” {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130125113825www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-cia-index.html |date=25 January 2013 }} by The New York Times.Among the various regional and national movements, the civil rights movement in the United States during the 1960s strongly highlighted the liberal efforts for equal rights.Mackenzie and Weisbrot, p. 178. The Great Society project launched by President Lyndon B. Johnson oversaw the creation of Medicare and Medicaid, the establishment of Head Start and the Job Corps as part of the War on Poverty and the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, an altogether rapid series of events that some historians have dubbed the “Liberal Hour”.Mackenzie and Weisbrot, p. 5.File:Nizhny Novgorod. Anti-Corruption Rally (26 March 2017).jpg|thumb|The 2017–2018 Russian protests2017–2018 Russian protestsThe Cold War featured extensive ideological competition and several proxy wars, but the widely feared World War III between the Soviet Union and the United States never occurred. While communist states and liberal democracies competed against one another, an economic crisis in the 1970s inspired a move away from Keynesian economics, especially under Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom and Ronald Reagan in the United States. This trend, known as neoliberalism, constituted a paradigm shift away from the post-war Keynesian consensus, which lasted from 1945 to 1980.JOURNAL, Palley, Thomas I, 2004-05-05, From Keynesianism to Neoliberalism: Shifting Paradigms in Economics,fpif.org/from_keynesianism_to_neoliberalism_shifting_paradigms_in_economics/, Foreign Policy in Focus, 25 March 2017, BOOK,books.google.com/books?id=igrwb3rsOOUC&pg=PA339, Modern Political Ideologies, Vincent, Andrew, 2009, Wiley-Blackwell, 978-1-4051-5495-6, Hoboken, New Jersey, 339, Meanwhile, nearing the end of the 20th century, communist states in Eastern Europe collapsed precipitously, leaving liberal democracies as the only major forms of government in the West.At the beginning of World War II, the number of democracies worldwide was about the same as it had been forty years before.Colomer, Josep Maria. Great Empires, Small Nations. New York: Routledge, 2007. {{ISBN|0-415-43775-X}}, p. 62. After 1945, liberal democracies spread very quickly but then retreated. In The Spirit of Democracy, Larry Diamond argues that by 1974 “dictatorship, not democracy, was the way of the world” and that “barely a quarter of independent states chose their governments through competitive, free, and fair elections”. Diamond says that democracy bounced back, and by 1995 the world was “predominantly democratic”.BOOK, Larry Diamond, The Spirit of Democracy: The Struggle to Build Free Societies Throughout the World,books.google.com/books?id=vx3JTGSB5JcC&pg=PA7, 2008, Henry Holt, 7, 978-0-8050-7869-5, WEB, Freedom in the World 2016, Freedom House,freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2016, 2016-01-27, However, liberalism still faces challenges, especially with the phenomenal growth of China as a model combination of authoritarian government and economic liberalism.Peerenboom, Randall. China modernizes. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. {{ISBN|0-19-920834-4}}, pp. 7–8.Liberalism is frequently cited as the dominant ideology of the modern era.{{rp|11}}

Criticism and support

File:Fusilamiento de Torrijos (Gisbert).jpg|thumb|Execution of José María de Torrijos y Uriarte and his men in 1831 as Spanish King Ferdinand VII took repressive measures against the liberal forces in his country]]File:Raif Badawi cropped.jpg|thumb|upright|Raif Badawi, a Saudi ArabiaSaudi ArabiaLiberalism has drawn criticism and support from various ideological groups throughout its history. Despite these complex relationships, some scholars have argued that liberalism actually “rejects ideological thinking” altogether, largely because such thinking could lead to unrealistic expectations for human society.Wolfe, p. 116.

Conservatism

The first major proponent of modern conservative thought, Edmund Burke, offered a blistering critique of the French Revolution by assailing the liberal pretensions to the power of rationality and the natural equality of all humans.Grigsby, p. 108. Conservatives have also attacked what they perceive as the reckless liberal pursuit of progress and material gains, arguing that such preoccupations undermine traditional social values rooted in community and continuity.Koerner, p. 14. However, a few variations of conservatism, like liberal conservatism, expound some of the same ideas and principles championed by classical liberalism, including “small government and thriving capitalism”.In the book Why Liberalism Failed (2018), Patrick Deneen argued that liberalism has led to income inequality, cultural decline, atomization, nihilism, the erosion of freedoms, and the growth of powerful, centralized bureaucracies.Damon Linker, An ominous prophecy for liberalism, The Week, January 22, 2018.WEB, Burns, Nick, 2020-04-08, The new intellectuals of the American right,www.newstatesman.com/world/americas/north-america/2020/04/new-intellectuals-american-right, 2023-08-10, New Statesman, en-US, The book also argues that liberalism has replaced old values of community, religion and tradition with self-interest.Russian President Vladimir Putin believes that “liberalism has become obsolete” and claims that the vast majority of people in the world oppose multiculturalism, immigration, and rights for LGBT people.NEWS, 27 June 2019, Tiounine, Margot, Hannen, Tom, Financial Times, Liberalism ‘has outlived its purpose’ — President Putin speaks exclusively to the Financial Times,www.ft.com/video/a49cfa25-610e-438c-b11d-5dac19619e08, en-GB, 23 August 2019,

Catholicism

One of the most outspoken early critics of liberalism was the Roman Catholic Church, which resulted in lengthy power struggles between national governments and the Church.BOOK, Grew, Raymond, Liberty and the Catholic Church in 19th century Europe, Freedom and Religion in the 19th Century, Helmstadter, Richard, Stanford University Press, 1997, 978-0-8047-3087-7, 201,archive.org/details/freedomreligioni0000unse/page/201, A movement associated with modern democracy, Christian democracy, hopes to spread Catholic social ideas and has gained a large following in some European nations.Riff, pp. 34–36. The early roots of Christian democracy developed as a reaction against the industrialisation and urbanisation associated with laissez-faire liberalism in the 19th century.Riff, p. 34.

Anarchism

Anarchists criticize the liberal social contract, arguing that it creates a state that is “oppressive, violent, corrupt, and inimical to liberty.“{{Citation |last=Fiala |first=Andrew |title=Anarchism |date=2021 |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2021/entries/anarchism/ |encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |editor-last=Zalta |editor-first=Edward N. |access-date=2023-06-17 |edition=Winter 2021 |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University}}

Marxism

Karl Marx rejected the foundational aspects of liberal theory, hoping to destroy both the state and the liberal distinction between society and the individual while fusing the two into a collective whole designed to overthrow the developing capitalist order of the 19th century.Koerner, pp. 9–12.Vladimir Lenin stated that—in contrast with Marxism—liberal science defends wage slavery.BOOK, Selsam, Howard, Martel, Harry, Howard Selsam, Reader in Marxist Philosophy, 1963, International Publishers, 978-0-7178-0167-1, 37,archive.org/details/readerinmarxistp00sels, registration, 1 June 2017, BOOK, Lenin, Vladimir, Vladimir Lenin, On Culture and Cultural Revolution, 2008,books.google.com/books?id=CsoSQ6vD8fUC&pg=PA37, Wildside Press LLC, 978-1-4344-6352-4, 34, 1 June 2017, However, some proponents of liberalism, such as Thomas Paine, George Henry Evans, and Silvio Gesell, were critics of wage slavery.WEB,www.ssa.gov/history/paine4.html, Social Security Online History Pages, 1 June 2017, 15 March 2015,www.ssa.gov/history/paine4.html," title="web.archive.org/web/20150315055647www.ssa.gov/history/paine4.html,">web.archive.org/web/20150315055647www.ssa.gov/history/paine4.html, live, BOOK, Rodriguez, Junius P., Junius P. Rodriguez, Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, 1, 2007, ABC-CLIO, 500,books.google.com/books?id=4X44KbDBl9gC&pg=PA500, 1 June 2017, 978-1-85109-544-5, Deng Xiaoping criticized that liberalization would destroy the political stability of the People’s Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party, making it difficult for development to take place, and is inherently capitalistic. He termed it bourgeois liberalization.WEB, 《邓小平文选第三卷》《在党的十二届六中全会上的讲话》, zh,www.qstheory.cn/books/2019-07/31/c_1119485398_58.htm, 2022-02-27, 2022-02-27,www.qstheory.cn/books/2019-07/31/c_1119485398_58.htm," title="web.archive.org/web/20220227203520www.qstheory.cn/books/2019-07/31/c_1119485398_58.htm,">web.archive.org/web/20220227203520www.qstheory.cn/books/2019-07/31/c_1119485398_58.htm, 大家可以回想一下，粉碎“四人帮“以后，全国人大在一九八○年通过一个议案，取消宪法中的关于“大鸣、大放、大辩论、大字报“这一条。为什么做这件事？因为有一股自由化思潮。搞自由化，就会破坏我们安定团结的政治局面。没有一个安定团结的政治局面，就不可能搞建设。自由化本身就是资产阶级的，没有什么无产阶级的、社会主义的自由化，自由化本身就是对我们现行政策、现行制度的对抗，或者叫反对，或者叫修改。实际情况是，搞自由化就是要把我们引导到资本主义道路上去，所以我们用反对资产阶级自由化这个提法。管什么这里用过、那里用过，无关重要，现实政治要求我们在决议中写这个。我主张用。, Thus some socialists accuse the economic doctrines of liberalism, such as individual economic freedom, of giving rise to what they view as a system of exploitation that goes against the democratic principles of liberalism, while some liberals oppose the wage slavery that the economic doctrines of capitalism allow.WEB, Beauchamp, Zack, 2019-09-09, The anti-liberal moment,www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/9/20750160/liberalism-trump-putin-socialism-reactionary, 2021-05-06, Vox (website), Vox, en,

Feminism

Some feminists argue that liberalism’s emphasis on distinguishing between the private and public spheres in society “allow[s] the flourishing of bigotry and intolerance in the private sphere and to require respect for equality only in the public sphere”, making “liberalism vulnerable to the right-wing populist attack. Political liberalism has rejected the feminist call to recognize that the personal is political and has relied on political institutions and processes as barriers against illiberalism.“JOURNAL, Stopler, Gila, May 8, 2021, The personal is political: The feminist critique of liberalism and the challenge of right-wing populism,academic.oup.com/icon/article/19/2/393/6272532, 2023-07-13, International Journal of Constitutional Law, 19, 2, 393–402, 10.1093/icon/moab032, free,

Social democracy

Social democracy, an ideology advocating modification of capitalism along progressive lines, emerged in the 20th century and was influenced by socialism. Broadly defined as a project that aims to correct through government reform what it regards as the intrinsic defects of capitalism, by reducing inequality,Lightfoot, p. 17. social democracy does not oppose the existence of the state. Several commentators have noted strong similarities between social liberalism and social democracy, with one political scientist calling American liberalism “bootleg social democracy” due to the absence of a significant social democratic tradition in the United States.Susser, p. 110.

Fascism

Fascists accuse liberalism of materialism and a lack of spiritual values.BOOK, Marvin, Perry, Myrna, Chase, Margaret, Jacob, James R., Jacob, Western Civilization: Ideas, Politics, and Society – From 1600, 2, 9th, Boston, Massachusetts, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2009, 760, In particular, fascism opposes liberalism for its materialism, rationalism, individualism and utilitarianism.BOOK, Sternhell, Zeev, Mario, Sznajder, Maia, Ashéri,books.google.com/books?id=hnv0F88nLawC, The Birth of Fascist Ideology: From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution,web.archive.org/web/20221206080448/https://books.google.com/books?id=hnv0F88nLawC&printsec=frontcover, 6 December 2022, Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1994, 7, 0691044864, Fascists believe that the liberal emphasis on individual freedom produces national divisiveness, but many fascists agree with liberals in their support of private property rights and a market economy.

See also

{{Cols}}

• The American Prospect, an American political magazine that backs social liberal policies
• Black liberalism
• Constitutional liberalism
• Friedrich Naumann Foundation, a global advocacy organisation that supports liberal ideas and policies
• The Liberal, a former British magazine dedicated to coverage of liberal politics and liberal culture
• Liberalism by country
• Muscular liberalism
• Old Liberals
• Orange Book liberalism
• Rule according to higher law

{{Colend}}

References

Notes{{reflist}}

Bibliography and further reading

• Alterman, Eric. Why We’re Liberals. New York: Viking Adult, 2008. {{ISBN|0-670-01860-0}}.
• Ameringer, Charles. Political parties of the Americas, 1980s to 1990s. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1992. {{ISBN|0-313-27418-5}}.
• Amin, Samir. The liberal virus: permanent war and the americanization of the world. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2004.
• Antoninus, Marcus Aurelius. The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. {{ISBN|0-19-954059-4}}.
• Arnold, N. Scott. Imposing values: an essay on liberalism and regulation. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. {{ISBN|0-495-50112-3}}.
• Auerbach, Alan and Kotlikoff, Laurence. Macroeconomics Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998. {{ISBN|0-262-01170-0}}.
• Barzilai, Gad. Communities and Law: Politics and Cultures of Legal Identities University of Michigan Press, 2003. {{ISBN|978-0-472-03079-8}}.
• Bell, Duncan. “What is Liberalism?” Political Theory, 42/6 (2014).
• Brack, Duncan and Randall, Ed (eds.). Dictionary of Liberal Thought. London: Politico’s Publishing, 2007. {{ISBN|978-1-84275-167-1}}.
• George Brandis, Tom Harley & Donald Markwell (editors). Liberals Face the Future: Essays on Australian Liberalism, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1984.
• Alan Bullock & Maurice Shock (editors). The Liberal Tradition: From Fox to Keynes, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967.
• Chodos, Robert et al. The unmaking of Canada: the hidden theme in Canadian history since 1945. Halifax: James Lorimer & Company, 1991. {{ISBN|1-55028-337-5}}.
• BOOK, Clower, Robert W., K. Vela, Velupillai, Vela Velupillai, 22 April 2004, Macroeconomic Theory and Economic Policy: Essays in Honour of Jean-Paul Fitoussi, 5: Trashing J.B. Say: The Story of a Mare’s Nest, Routledge, 978-0-203-35650-0,books.google.com/books?id=tzzClShefiYC,
• Coker, Christopher. Twilight of the West. Boulder: Westview Press, 1998. {{ISBN|0-8133-3368-7}}.
• Taverne, Dick. The march of unreason: science, democracy, and the new fundamentalism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. {{ISBN|0-19-280485-5}}.
• Diamond, Larry. The Spirit of Democracy. New York: Macmillan, 2008. {{ISBN|0-8050-7869-X}}.
• Dobson, John. Bulls, Bears, Boom, and Bust. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2006. {{ISBN|1-85109-553-5}}.
• Dorrien, Gary. The making of American liberal theology. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001. {{ISBN|0-664-22354-0}}.
• Farr, Thomas. World of Faith and Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press US, 2008. {{ISBN|0-19-517995-1}}.
• Fawcett, Edmund. Liberalism: The Life of an Idea. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014. {{ISBN|978-0-691-15689-7}}.
• Feuer, Lewis. Spinoza and the Rise of Liberalism. New Brunswick: Transaction 1984.
• Flamm, Michael and Steigerwald, David. Debating the 1960s: liberal, conservative, and radical perspectives. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008. {{ISBN|0-7425-2212-1}}.
• Freeden, Michael, Javier Fernández-Sebastián, et al. In Search of European Liberalisms: Concepts, Languages, Ideologies (2019)
• Gallagher, Michael et al. Representative government in modern Europe. New York: McGraw Hill, 2001. {{ISBN|0-07-232267-5}}.
• Gifford, Rob. China Road: A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power. Random House, 2008. {{ISBN|0-8129-7524-3}}.
• Godwin, Kenneth et al. School choice tradeoffs: liberty, equity, and diversity. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002. {{ISBN|0-292-72842-5}}.
• Gould, Andrew. Origins of liberal dominance. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999. {{ISBN|0-472-11015-2}}.
• Gray, John. Liberalism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995. {{ISBN|0-8166-2801-7}}.
• Grigsby, Ellen. Analyzing Politics: An Introduction to Political Science. Florence: Cengage Learning, 2008. {{ISBN|0-495-50112-3}}.
• Gross, Jonathan. Byron: the erotic liberal. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2001. {{ISBN|0-7425-1162-6}}.
• Hafner, Danica and Ramet, Sabrina. Democratic transition in Slovenia: value transformation, education, and media. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2006. {{ISBN|1-58544-525-8}}.
• Handelsman, Michael. Culture and Customs of Ecuador. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2000. {{ISBN|0-313-30244-8}}.
• Hartz, Louis. The liberal tradition in America. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1955. {{ISBN|0-15-651269-6}}.
• BOOK, Heywood, Andrew, 2003, Political Ideologies: An Introduction, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 978-0-333-96177-3,
• Hodge, Carl. Encyclopedia of the Age of Imperialism, 1800–1944. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2008. {{ISBN|0-313-33406-4}}.
• Jensen, Pamela Grande. Finding a new feminism: rethinking the woman question for liberal democracy. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996. {{ISBN|0-8476-8189-0}}.
• Johnson, Paul. The Renaissance: A Short History. New York: Modern Library, 2002. {{ISBN|0-8129-6619-8}}.
• JOURNAL, Kanazawa, Satoshi, Satoshi Kanazawa, 2010, Why Liberals and Atheists Are More Intelligent,personal.lse.ac.uk/kanazawa/pdfs/SPQ2010.pdf, Social Psychology Quarterly, 73, 1, 33–57, 25677384, 10.1177/0190272510361602, 10.1.1.395.4490, 2642312,
• Karatnycky, Adrian. Freedom in the World. Piscataway: Transaction Publishers, 2000. {{ISBN|0-7658-0760-2}}.
• Karatnycky, Adrian et al. Nations in transit, 2001. Piscataway: Transaction Publishers, 2001. {{ISBN|0-7658-0897-8}}.
• Kelly, Paul. Liberalism. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005. {{ISBN|0-7456-3291-2}}.
• Kirchner, Emil. Liberal parties in Western Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. {{ISBN|0-521-32394-0}}.
• Knoop, Todd. Recessions and Depressions Westport: Greenwood Press, 2004. {{ISBN|0-313-38163-1}}.
• Koerner, Kirk. Liberalism and its critics. Oxford: Taylor & Francis, 1985. {{ISBN|0-7099-1551-9}}.
• Lightfoot, Simon. Europeanizing social democracy?: The rise of the Party of European Socialists. New York: Routledge, 2005. {{ISBN|0-415-34803-X}}.
• Losurdo, Domenico. Liberalism: a counter-history. London: Verso, 2011.
• Mackenzie, G. Calvin and Weisbrot, Robert. The liberal hour: Washington and the politics of change in the 1960s. New York: Penguin Group, 2008. {{ISBN|1-59420-170-6}}.
• Manent, Pierre and Seigel, Jerrold. An Intellectual History of Liberalism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996. {{ISBN|0-691-02911-3}}.
• Donald Markwell. John Maynard Keynes and International Relations: Economic Paths to War and Peace, Oxford University Press, 2006.
• Mazower, Mark. Dark Continent. New York: Vintage Books, 1998. {{ISBN|0-679-75704-X}}.
• Monsma, Stephen and Soper, J. Christopher. The Challenge of Pluralism: Church and State in Five Democracies. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008. {{ISBN|0-7425-5417-1}}.
• Palmer, R.R. and Joel Colton. A History of the Modern World. New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1995. {{ISBN|0-07-040826-2}}.
• Perry, Marvin et al. Western Civilization: Ideas, Politics, and Society. Florence, KY: Cengage Learning, 2008. {{ISBN|0-547-14742-2}}.
• Pierson, Paul. The New Politics of the Welfare State. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. {{ISBN|0-19-829756-4}}.
• Puddington, Arch. Freedom in the World: The Annual Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007. {{ISBN|0-7425-5897-5}}.
• Riff, Michael. Dictionary of modern political ideologies. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990. {{ISBN|0-7190-3289-X}}.
• Rivlin, Alice. Reviving the American Dream Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1992. {{ISBN|0-8157-7476-1}}.
• Ros, Agustin. Profits for all?: the cost and benefits of employee ownership. New York: Nova Publishers, 2001. {{ISBN|1-59033-061-7}}.
• Routledge, Paul et al. The geopolitics reader. New York: Routledge, 2006. {{ISBN|0-415-34148-5}}.
• BOOK, Russell, Bertrand, Bertrand Russell, 2000, 1945, History of Western Philosophy, London, Routledge, 978-0-415-22854-1, A History of Western Philosophy,
• Ryan, Alan. The Philosophy of John Stuart Mill. Humanity Books: 1970. {{ISBN|978-1-57392-404-7}}.
• Ryan, Alan. The Making of Modern Liberalism (Princeton University Press, 2012).
• Ryan, Alan. On Politics: A History of Political Thought: From Herodotus to the Present. Allen Lane, 2012. {{ISBN|978-0-87140-465-7}}.
• Shell, Jonathan. The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People. New York: Macmillan, 2004. {{ISBN|0-8050-4457-4}}.
• Shaw, G. K. Keynesian Economics: The Permanent Revolution. Aldershot, England: Edward Elgar Publishing Company, 1988. {{ISBN|1-85278-099-1}}.
• Sinclair, Timothy. Global governance: critical concepts in political science. Oxford: Taylor & Francis, 2004. {{ISBN|0-415-27662-4}}.
• Smith, Steven B. Spinoza, Liberalism, and the Question of Jewish Identity. New Haven: Yale University Press 1997. {{ISBN|0300066805}}
• Song, Robert. Christianity and Liberal Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. {{ISBN|0-19-826933-1}}.
• Stacy, Lee. Mexico and the United States. New York: Marshall Cavendish Corporation, 2002. {{ISBN|0-7614-7402-1}}.
• Steindl, Frank. Understanding Economic Recovery in the 1930s. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004. {{ISBN|0-472-11348-8}}.
• Susser, Bernard. Political ideology in the modern world. Upper Saddle River: Allyn and Bacon, 1995. {{ISBN|0-02-418442-X}}.
• JOURNAL, Trivers, Robert L., Robert Trivers, 1971, The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism,greatergood.berkeley.edu/images/uploads/Trivers-EvolutionReciprocalAltruism.pdf, The Quarterly Review of Biology, 46, 1, 35–57, 2822435, 10.1086/406755, 19027999, .
• Van den Berghe, Pierre. The Liberal dilemma in South Africa. Oxford: Taylor & Francis, 1979. {{ISBN|0-7099-0136-4}}.
• Van Schie, P. G. C. and Voermann, Gerrit. The dividing line between success and failure: a comparison of Liberalism in the Netherlands and Germany in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Berlin: LIT Verlag Berlin-Hamburg-Münster, 2006. {{ISBN|3-8258-7668-3}}.
• Venturelli, Shalini. Liberalizing the European media: politics, regulation, and the public sphere. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. {{ISBN|0-19-823379-5}}.
• Wallerstein, Immanuel. The Modern World-System IV: Centrist Liberalism trimphant 1789–1914. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2011.
• Whitfield, Stephen. Companion to twentieth-century America. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2004. {{ISBN|0-631-21100-4}}.
• Wolfe, Alan. The Future of Liberalism. New York: Random House, Inc., 2009. {{ISBN|0-307-38625-2}}.
• BOOK, Young, Shaun, 2002, Beyond Rawls: An Analysis of the Concept of Political Liberalism, Lanham, MD, University Press of America, 978-0-7618-2240-0, registration,archive.org/details/beyondrawlsanaly0000youn,
• Zvesper, John. Nature and liberty. New York: Routledge, 1993. {{ISBN|0-415-08923-9}}.

Britain

• Adams, Ian. Ideology and politics in Britain today. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998. {{ISBN|0-7190-5056-1}}.
• Cook, Richard. The Grand Old Man. Whitefish: Kessinger Publishing, 2004. {{ISBN|1-4191-6449-X}} on Gladstone.
• Falco, Maria. Feminist interpretations of Mary Wollstonecraft. State College: Penn State Press, 1996. {{ISBN|0-271-01493-8}}.
• Forster, Greg. John Locke’s politics of moral consensus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. {{ISBN|0-521-84218-2}}.
• Locke, John. (wikisource:A Letter Concerning Toleration|A Letter Concerning Toleration). 1689.
• Locke, John. Two Treatises of Government. reprint, New York: Hafner Publishing Company, Inc., 1947. {{ISBN|0-02-848500-9}}.
• Wempe, Ben. T. H. Green’s theory of positive freedom: from metaphysics to political theory. Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2004. {{ISBN|0-907845-58-4}}.

France

• Frey, Linda and Frey, Marsha. The French Revolution. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2004. {{ISBN|0-313-32193-0}}.
• Hanson, Paul. Contesting the French Revolution. Hoboken: Blackwell Publishing, 2009. {{ISBN|1-4051-6083-7}}.
• Leroux, Robert, Political Economy and Liberalism in France: The Contributions of Frédéric Bastiat, London and New York, Routledge, 2011.
• Leroux, Robert, and David Hart (eds), French Liberalism in the 19th century. An Anthology, London and New York, Routledge, 2012.
• Lyons, Martyn. Napoleon Bonaparte and the Legacy of the French Revolution. New York: St. Martin’s Press, Inc., 1994. {{ISBN|0-312-12123-7}}.
• Shlapentokh, Dmitry. The French Revolution and the Russian Anti-Democratic Tradition. Edison, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1997. {{ISBN|1-56000-244-1}}.

External links

{{Library resources box}}

• Liberalism—entry at Encyclopædia Britannica
• SEP, liberalism, Liberalism,
• {{Curlie|Society/Politics/Liberalism/}}
• mason.gmu.edu/~ihs/guide.html" title="web.archive.org/web/20131002050329mason.gmu.edu/~ihs/guide.html">“Guide to Classical Liberal Scholarship”.

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