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| This article is part of or related to the Liberalism series |
Liberalism worldwide List of liberal parties Liberal International - ELDR Liberal democracy List of liberal theorists A short liberal bibliography |
Liberalism is a political current embracing several historical and present-day ideologies that claim defense of individual liberty as the purpose of government. It typically favors the right to dissent from orthodox tenets or established authorities in political or religious matters. In this respect, it is held in contrast to conservatism.
The word "liberal" derives from the Latin "liber" ("free") and liberals of all stripes tend to see themselves as friends of freedom, particularly freedom from the shackles of tradition. The origins of liberalism in the Enlightenment era contrasted this philosophy to feudalism and mercantilism. Later, as more radical philosophies articulated themselves in the course of the French Revolution and through the nineteenth century, liberalism equally defined itself in contrast to socialism and communism, although some adherents of liberalism sympathize with some of the aims and methods of social democracy.
Classification in a consistent manner is made difficult by the tendency of the dominant strain of liberalism in a region to refer to itself simply as "liberalism" and reject that identification for other minority positions. Since the word "liberalism" ranges from being highly complimentary to a term of abuse, the connotations of the word in different languages can be starkly different.
The word liberalism has several different, but generally related, meanings.
The editors of the Spanish constitution of Cadiz in 1812 were the first to use the word liberal in a political sense. They named themselves the Liberales, to state that they opposed the absolutist power of the Spanish monarchy.
In its original meaning, the term "liberal" refers to a political philosophy, founded on the principles of the Enlightenment, that tries to circumscribe the limits of political power and to define and support individual rights. In the present, a variety of ideologies attempt to claim the mantle of 19th century liberalism, from libertarianism to American liberalismUsage of the world Liberal In the United States, the common meaning of " liberal" has evolved over time. In the 19th century it denoted classical liberalism''. After World War II, it came to refer to left-of center (but anti-socialist and anti-communist) to social-liberalism.
Both European liberalism and American liberalism see their tradition as embracing the Enlightenment, the American War of Independence, the more moderate bourgeois elements of the French Revolution, and the European Revolutions of 1848Society was cut in two: those who had nothing united in common envy, and those who had anything united in common terror. Alexis de Tocqueville, Recollections The European Revolutions of 1848 in some countries known as the Spring of Nations were the bloody, with philosophical roots going back to the renaissanceLeonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, an example of the blend of art and science during the Renaissance The Renaissance was a great cultural movement which brought about a period of scientific revolution and artistic transformation, at the dawn of modern Eur traditions of empiricism, humanism and realism of Sir Francis Bacon, ErasmusThis article deals with the Erasmus, the theologian. For other meanings, see Erasmus (disambiguation). Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (also Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam ( October 27, probably 1466 July 12, 1536) was a Dutch humanist and theologian. and Niccolò Machiavelli respectively.
The original Enlightenment thinkers, such as John Locke and Baron de Montesquieu, attempted to establish limits on existing political powers by asserting that there were natural rights and fundamental laws of governance that not even kings could overstep without becoming tyrants. This was combined with the idea that commercial freedom would best benefit the whole of the political order, an idea that would later be associated with the advocacy of capitalism, and which was drawn from the works of Adam Smith and David Ricardo. The next important piece of the triad of ideas of liberalism, was the idea of popular self-determination. Most liberals support a combination of these ideas, although many would ascribe more importance to one of them than to the other two.
Beginning in the late 19th century, liberalism started to become the governing ideology in various countries, e.g. in the United Kingdom. At the same time, liberalism became a major ideology in virtually all developed countries. As a result of being so widespread, the term "liberalism" began to evolve rapidly, and took on different meanings in different countries. In some countries, liberalism remained in its late 19th century form: limiting government involvement in private transactions of whatever kind, with government being devoted only to protecting against threats from abroad and enforcing civil order at home, along with maintaining a stable currency, based on a "sound money" policy.
However, with the coming of industrialization, a new wave of liberal thinkers began seeing government as a tool to encourage social progress and hence supported government action as a means to this end. This was a departure from the belief that government interventionism restricted liberty and thus inevitably retarded progress. The change led to a fundamental split in "liberalism" as a broad ideology, with one wing believing that the tenets of liberalism had been set by the late 18th and early 19th century, and another believing that liberalism was an evolving commitment to progress.
These two diverging branches of liberalism are known in the United States and some other countries today as libertarianism and social liberalism, respectively. However, both of them usually claim the name of "liberalism" as their own, and do not recognize the other branch as being liberal at all.
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