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What is liberalism?

Liberalism is a political and economic doctrine that emphasizes individual autonomy , equality of opportunity , and the protection of individual rights (primarily to life, liberty, and property), originally against the state and later against both the state and private economic actors, including businesses.

The intellectual founders of liberalism were the English philosopher John Locke (1632–1704), who developed a theory of political authority based on natural individual rights and the consent of the governed, and the Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith (1723–90), who argued that societies prosper when individuals are free to pursue their self-interest within an economic system based on private ownership of the means of production and competitive markets , controlled neither by the state nor by private monopolies .

In John Locke ’s theory, the consent of the governed was secured through a system of majority rule, whereby the government would carry out the expressed will of the electorate. However, in the England of Locke’s time and in other democratic societies for centuries thereafter, not every person was considered a member of the electorate, which until the 20th century was generally limited to propertied white males. There is no necessary connection between liberalism and any specific form of democratic government, and indeed Locke’s liberalism presupposed a constitutional monarchy .

Classical liberals (now often called libertarians ) regard the state as the primary threat to individual freedom and advocate limiting its powers to those necessary to protect basic rights against interference by others. Modern liberals have held that freedom can also be threatened by private economic actors, such as businesses, that exploit workers or dominate governments, and they advocate state action, including economic regulation and provision of social services , to ameliorate conditions (e.g., extreme poverty ) that may hamper the exercise of basic rights or undermine individual autonomy . Many also recognize broader rights such as the rights to adequate employment, health care, and education.

Modern liberals are generally willing to experiment with large-scale social change to further their project of protecting and enhancing individual freedom. Conservatives are generally suspicious of such ideologically driven programs, insisting that lasting and beneficial social change must proceed organically, through gradual shifts in public attitudes, values, customs, and institutions.

liberalism , political doctrine that takes protecting and enhancing the freedom of the individual to be the central problem of politics. Liberals typically believe that government is necessary to protect individuals from being harmed by others, but they also recognize that government itself can pose a threat to liberty . As the American Revolutionary pamphleteer Thomas Paine expressed it in Common Sense (1776), government is at best “a necessary evil.” Laws, judges , and police are needed to secure the individual’s life and liberty, but their coercive power may also be turned against the individual. The problem, then, is to devise a system that gives government the power necessary to protect individual liberty but also prevents those who govern from abusing that power.

The problem is compounded when one asks whether this is all that government can or should do on behalf of individual freedom. Classical liberalism , an early form of liberalism, and modern "neoclassical liberals" (i.e.,  libertarians ), answer that it is. Since the late 19th century, however, most liberals have insisted that the powers of government can promote as well as protect the freedom of the individual. According to modern liberalism, the chief task of government is to remove obstacles that prevent individuals from living freely or from fully realizing their potential. Such obstacles include poverty , disease , discrimination , and ignorance. The disagreement among liberals over whether government should promote individual freedom rather than merely protect it is reflected to some extent in the different prevailing conceptions of liberalism in the United States and Europe since the late 20th century. In the United States, liberalism is associated with the welfare-state policies of the New Deal program 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 ( see below Contemporary liberalism ).

This article discusses the political foundations and history of liberalism from the 17th century to the present. For coverage of classical and contemporary philosophical liberalism, see political philosophy . For biographies of individual philosophers, see John Locke ; John Stuart Mill ; John Rawls .

Liberalism is derived from two related features of Western culture . The first is the West’s preoccupation with individuality, as compared to the emphasis in other civilizations on status , caste , and tradition. Throughout much of history, individuals have been submerged in and subordinate to their clan , tribe , ethnic group , or kingdom. Liberalism is the culmination of developments in Western society that produced a sense of the importance of human individuality, a liberation of the individual from complete subservience to the group, and a relaxation of the tight hold of custom, law , and authority. In this respect, liberalism stands for the emancipation of the individual. See also individualism .

Liberalism also derives from the practice of adversariality, or adversariness, in European political and economic life, a process in which institutionalized competition—such as the competition between different political parties in electoral contests , between prosecution and defense in adversary procedure , or between different producers in a market economy ( see monopoly and competition )—generates a dynamic social order. Adversarial systems have always been precarious, however, and it took a long time for the belief in adversariality to emerge from the more traditional view, traceable at least to Plato , that the state should be an organic structure, like a beehive, in which the different social classes cooperate by performing distinct yet complementary roles. The belief that competition is an essential part of a political system and that good government requires a vigorous opposition was still considered strange in most European countries in the early 19th century.

Underlying the liberal belief in adversariality is the conviction that human beings are essentially rational creatures capable of settling their political disputes through dialogue and compromise. This aspect of liberalism became particularly prominent in 20th-century projects aimed at eliminating war and resolving disagreements between states through organizations such as the League of Nations , the United Nations , and the International Court of Justice (World Court).

Liberalism has a close but sometimes uneasy relationship with democracy . At the centre of democratic doctrine is the belief that governments derive their authority from popular election; liberalism, on the other hand, is primarily concerned with the scope of governmental activity. Liberals often have been wary of democracy , then, because of fears that it might generate a tyranny by the majority. One might briskly say, therefore, that democracy looks after majorities and liberalism after unpopular minorities.

Like other political doctrines, liberalism is highly sensitive to time and circumstance. Each country’s liberalism is different, and it changes in each generation. The historical development of liberalism over recent centuries has been a movement from mistrust of the state’s power, on the grounds that it tends to be misused, to a willingness to use the power of government to correct perceived inequities in the distribution of wealth resulting from economic competition—inequities that purportedly deprive some people of an equal opportunity to live freely. The expansion of governmental power and responsibility sought by liberals in the 20th century was clearly opposed to the contraction of government advocated by liberals a century earlier. In the 19th century liberals generally formed the party of business and the entrepreneurial middle class, but for much of the 20th century they were more likely to work to restrict and regulate business in order to provide greater opportunities for labourers and consumers. In each case, however, the liberals’ inspiration was the same: a hostility to concentrations of power that threaten the freedom of individuals and prevent them from realizing their full potential, along with a willingness to reexamine and reform social institutions in the light of new needs. This willingness is tempered by an aversion to sudden, cataclysmic change, which is what sets off the liberal from the radical . It is this very eagerness to welcome and encourage useful change, however, that distinguishes the liberal from the conservative , who believes that change is at least as likely to result in loss as in gain.

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Liberalism: Introduction, Origin, Growth and Elements

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Introduction :

The scholars, after a thorough research, have concluded that the liberalism as a political ideology is not the outgrowth of the twentieth century’s intellectual progress. Its origin can be traced to the political ideas of the fourteenth century. During the last six centuries the concept had to face several situations and had to overcome uphill tasks in the sense that many political systems, individuals and organisations stridently opposed it on various grounds some of which had solid foundations.

The flood-like appearance of Marx’s and Engels’ works and Marxian literatures eclipsed though temporarily, the growth and influence of liberalism. The establishment of Bolshevik government in Russia in 1917 kindled the hope in the minds of anti-liberals that with the weapon of Marxism the rapid advance of liberalism could be stopped and particularly an anti-liberal atmosphere could be built up in the Third World states.

At first Moscow and later on Beijing opposed liberalism tooth and nail. Ultimately the academic and political worlds were deeply plunged into the conflict between two leading ideologies of the world—liberalism and socialism. The recession of the Cold War in the mid-seventies and finally the collapse of Soviet Union in 1991 turned the condition of liberalism upside down. It was being felt that only liberalism could provide solace to all people of the world. It was capable of solving the basic problems both economic and political.

Origin and Definitions :

The word liberal is derived from the Latin word liber which means free men Liberalis is also a derivative of liber. The central idea of all these words is freedom or liberty. Liberal also denotes generosity or open-mindedness. Open-mindedness/generosity indicate liberty in taking food, drink, social attitude, behaviour and selection of the alternatives.

Thus we find that freedom is always associated with the word liberal. In the middle Ages when the French people used the word liber they meant that people will have freedom in respect of their selection of alternatives and pursuit of thoughts and ideas.

There are large numbers of definitions of liberalism which convey more or less same ideas.

Some are noted below:

“It means the belief that it is the aim of politics to preserve individual’s rights and to maximise freedom of choice” (Oxford Concise Dictionary of Politics). Advocates of liberalism have used some selected words to denote the meaning of liberalism. It means political to (1) Freedom and choice. The freedom to select alternatives which are suitable. (2) Liberalism is a systematic political creed. (3) It is the manifestation of reason and toleration in the face of tradition and absolutism. (4) Freedom, equality, liberty etc. are embodied in the liberalism.

As an adjective “liberal” implies an attitude of mind, rather than a political creed. But the noun liberalism designates a Political Creed and this was used specifically in the early parts of the nineteenth century. Robert Eccleshall in his noted article Liberalism has stated that liberalism, in ultimate analysis, is a political ideology intimately associated with the birth and evolution of the capitalist world. So we can say that as a political ideology liberalism means to pursue policies of freedom in political and economic spheres and clear restrictions on the activities of state authority.

Liberalism does not embody a particular meaning. It is a cluster of meanings, in different periods it has meant different conceptions. For example, it is an intellectual movement whose purpose is to curb the power and authority of state and to ensure freedom of individuals. It has been observed by a recent analyst that liberalism is an ideology based on a commitment to individualism, freedom, toleration and consent.

Hence we can say that in modern sense liberalism are both an ideology and a movement whose purpose is to strengthen the cause, progress etc. of individuals through the vindication of right to select the choicest alternative and for that purpose to endorse the restrictions upon the authority of state.

Liberalism, strictly speaking, an offshoot of capitalism since it was believed that the meteoric growth of capitalism could be possible only through an adoption of liberal policies which contain an allowance of maximum freedom to investors and producers. Thus, liberalism is an economic and political doctrine.

Rise and Growth of Liberalism :

It is really an uphill task to ascertain the origin of liberalism because an ideology cannot be created at a particular point of time. However, it’s quite safe to say that liberalism was born in England during the middle of seventeenth century. Here again the readers may be cautioned that the seeds of liberalism existed in British society even before that time.

Nevertheless, we can say that several factors and writings of a number of persons contributed to the origin of their political ideology:

(1) The collapse of feudalism is an important cause of the origin of liberalism. Let us explain it briefly. In the feudal period the feudal lords practically controlled the economy and politics along with the church and its fall opened the advent of capitalism and emergence of a middle class which aspired to have a positive role in politics. The capitalist class and the middle class did not want the dominant role of the church.

The capitalists supplied the finance for the management of state and the middle class supplied executives and administrators. Slowly but steadily these two classes captured the power of the state and wanted to impose restrictions upon the government. In this way there arose liberalism in embryonic form.

(2) Eccleshall in his article Liberalism maintains that Enlightenment is another factor of the growth of liberalism. The thinkers and philosophers of the Enlightenment period were sceptical about the role of laws, administration, custom etc. They strongly advocated for the rational reconstruction of society so that the individuals can get enough freedom. Autocratic rule or dictatorial administration was vehemently oppo­sed.

(3) Two major events of the second half of the eighteenth century helped the emergence of liberalism. These two events are: Declaration of American Indepen­dence in 1776 and the Declaration of the Rights of Man in 1789. Both these events furthered the progress of liberalism. American war of independence was not simply a war of the independence of a particular nation but a major war against colonialism which contained the seeds of liberalism. On the other hand, after the French Revolution, Declaration of Rights of Man heralded the collapse of autocratic rule in France and its wave spread to other parts of Europe and this accelerated the advent of liberalism.

(4) The writings (including philosophy) of some men were conspicuous in advancing the emergence of liberalism. Some of them may be stated briefly. John Gray says that Thomas Hobbes may be regarded as an exponent of liberalism. Hobbes’ (1588-1679) “Closeness to liberalism lies in part in his uncompromising individualism. It is found also in his egalitarian affirmation of the equal liberty of all men in the state of nature and his rejection of a purely hereditary title to political authority”. Benedict de Spinoza (1632-1677) was also a precursor of liberalism. He was mainly concerned with natural rights, freedom, curtailment of political power, maintenance of peace and security.

Behind the birth of liberalism there was a very important role of John Locke (1632- 1704). Locke, by many, is regarded as the father of modern nationalism. His Two, Treatise of Government, A Letter Concerning Toleration are regarded by many as potential sources of liberalism. Gray says that Locke’s thought harbours a number of themes which confer a distinctive complexion on English liberalism that persists up to the time of John Stuart Mill.

His theory of natural rights, right to property, concept of consent, constitutionalism, people’s right to dislodge a government for its future to act in accordance with the terms and conditions of contract are classic examples of liberal thought.

The major ideas of liberalism enunciated by Locke were carried out by many who belonged to the latter part of the eighteenth century and early years of nineteenth century. To be brief Locke vigorously championed the central themes of liberalism. Tom Paine (1737-1809) was another figure whose thought symbolises the ideas and spirit of liberalism.

Paine strongly advocated for natural rights and limited government which later on became the focus of liberal thought and philosophy. His limited government is nothing but minimal government or state which has been elaborated by Robert Nozick. J. S. Mill and several other political scientists thought that people’s liberty, rights and other interests could only be assumed through the constitutionalism, representative government and constitutional declaration of human rights.

Elements of Liberalism :

Liberalism has been branded by many as meta-ideology which means that it encompasses many principles, values and elements within its fold. Whereas other ideologies do not possess this capacity. The following are the main elements/principles/values of liberalism—Individualism, freedom, reason, toleration, con­sent, constitutionalism, equality and justice.

1. Individualism:

Individualism is the central idea or theme of liberalism. It believes that the interests or welfare of the individual should be given primacy over all other values and principles. Individual is the basic concept of political theory and arrangements shall be made to safeguard his interest. Liberalism says that since a political system consists of individuals it should be the chief objective of this system to see that their interests are fully protected and the individuals are quite capable of doing their own job. The role of the state is to some extent like a night watchman.

This conclusion is based on certain presumptions such as they are reasonable and do not harm others. They are capable of pursuing their own interests and outside interference will not produce any benefit. To reach the goals (the development of individual’s personality, protection of interests, allowance of freedom etc.) it is essential that the society is to be restructured suitable for people.

It has been suggested by liberal thinkers that establishment of market economy, curtailment of state authority to the minimum level, non-governmental organisations must have maximum freedom to operate etc. The liberalism believes that all these are indispensable for the development of the latent qualities of the individuals. That is why it is frequently said that the primacy of the individuals is the core of liberalism or liberal political philosophy.

2. Freedom:

Another important core value, principle or element of liberalism is freedom. To the liberals it is the value of supreme importance because without it the individual will simply be a unit without any dignity. Moreover, liberty or freedom is the best vehicle for developing the best qualities. But the liberals do not advocate for absolute or unrestricted freedom because freedom/liberty will do more harm.

They are in favour of chained or restricted liberty. J. S. Mill (1806-1873) was the pioneer of individual liberty but he favoured the association of law with freedom because he believed that restriction is for the general welfare of the community. The famous British historian Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997) developed a famous concept of liberty which states that liberty/freedom has two concepts—negative and positive.

The negative liberty implies that man should be allowed to enjoy an atmosphere free from all sorts of restrictions. This was the contention of classical thinkers. But modern liberals do not think of liberty where there shall be no restrictions. It is positive liberty because real liberty is one which implies laws and restrictions.

3. Reason :

Liberalism harbours upon reason. To put it in other words, liberalism and reason are inseparable from each other.

This relationship can be viewed from angles more than one:

(1) Mention has been made earlier that liberalism partially the product of Enlightenment which strongly emphasises that man is rational being and guided by reason and rationality. The advent of Enlightenment emancipated man from age- old superstition, ignorance and bondage. Enlightenment also established the age of reason.

(2) Since individuals are rational and reasonable they are quite capable of taking any decision and to judge what is good and what is bad for them. In that case there is no necessity of imposing any decision by any outside power/authority.

(3) The liberals believe that real progress of society could be achieved only through the individual initiative and outside interference will dampen the spirit of initiative.

(4) The primacy of reason ultimately led Adam Smith (1723-1790) to enunciate a doctrine of laissez-faire. A large number of philosophers and thinkers enriched the various aspects of Enlightenment through their philosophy and ideas. Enlightenment in all possible ways gave priority to reason and rationality. “Rationalism is the belief that the world has a rational structure and that this can be disclosed through the exercise of human reason and critical enquiry”.

4. Toleration :

Toleration is another value/element of liberalism. In any society there is found different opinions, religious sects or communities of belief and faith. All of them must live side by side peacefully and for this is required toleration. Also various ideologies and opinions make a society diverse. It is the basic feature of any society. Liberalism believes that all these diversities must exist side by side.

One community/section has no right to impose its decision or belief of another. Only in authoritarian community imposition of ideas and belief happens. On the other hand, liberalism attempts to accommodate all the beliefs, faiths, ideologies and opinions. Lord Ramakrishna very frequently said many are the opinions and many are the ways.

The noted French philosopher Voltaire (1694-1778) once said “I detest what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it”. This opinion of Voltaire clearly shows that he forcefully advocated for the practice of toleration. Massacre of St. Barthalomew (1572) is the manifestation of the most hated type of in toleration.

Not only this massacre, numerous other events took place in various parts of European society and they were definitely black spots of society. What liberalism wants to impress upon us is that toleration ought to be practised by all sections of body politic and if it is not done the progress will be adversely affected which will be a loss for whole humanity.

5. Consent :

Consent is another value/element of liberalism. The idea of consent though very old, its modern appearance took place in the hands of the contractualists, such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. Both of them assertively argued that the members of the state of nature assembled together to take a decision about the setting up of a body politic and behind this decision there was the consent of all. Locke dealt elaborately with consent and this was one of the pillars of his liberalism.

The freedom fighters of America raised their arms against the British rulers and said that they had no consent behind British rule in America. We hold the view that consent is a very important element of any democratic government and this has been variously explained by many in numerous forms. It is generally held that representative form of government is the most popular embodiment of consent. J.S. Mill was a great defender of government based on consent.

The liberal thinkers even go a step ahead and declare that every law and policy must be based on the consent of those for whom these are made. In this way consent has become an integral part of democracy and liberal political philosophers are of the opinion that all forms of pluralist societies (also liberal societies) must start from below. That is, consent of all or majority must constitute the basic structure of society.

6. Constitutionalism :

Constitutionalism is an important principle/value/element of liberalism. It has two meanings—narrow and broad. In its narrow meaning constitutionalism means certain limitations upon the government specified by constitution. The narrow meaning further states that whenever a government intends to discharge any function or adopt a policy it must follow the restrictions.

In broader sense it implies values, principles and ideas which act as guide to the government. Whenever the government proceeds to some work it must implement these values, principles, ideas etc. The objective is to give proper credence to the aspirations of the people and to translate them into reality.

Constitutionalism is a basic principle of liberalism. It, in simple language, states that government’s business never specifies that it has the unlimited freedom to do anything without considering the advantages or disadvantages of the common people. It must follow certain basic rules and procedures laid down in the basic or ordinary laws.

Needless to say that this idea was first formulated by Locke and in the later periods it was adhered to by many. This is called constitutionalism or liberation. We can further state that constitutional principles must be observed by both the rulers and the ruled and none has the authority to act arbitrarily. The arbitrariness and constitutionalism are the issues situated at two opposite poles. Constitutionalism is another name of limited government or the theory of limited state.

7. Equality :

Liberalism is based on another principle and it is equality. Though we treat it as a political principle/value it is also a religious and moral principle because the religious- minded people generally say that every person is born equal as Rousseau said man is born free. So it is unreligious to deprive him of his equal status with others.

The religious people also believe that it is never the intention of God to create inequalities among men and if an artificial distinction is created among men that will go against the will of God and in that sense it is immoral. We can further observe that as a political ideology liberalism has also built up a nexus with religion.

But liberalism is also an ideology of practical world. In any society all the individuals cannot claim same levels of merit, intelligence and capacity of hard work and in that case there must arise clear differences in remuneration. This must be admitted. Idleness and hard work cannot be equally remunerated and if done so that will make way for the appearance of gross injustice. None will be ready to demonstrate his ability.

This type of social inequality does not infringe upon the concept of equality. Equality as a principle in political science asserts that none will be allowed to enjoy special privileges ignoring the common minimum privileges to which everyone has legitimate claims.

8. Justice :

Though justice is a principle of both socialism and liberalism, the latter gives it more importance and politically declares that the very basis of liberalism is justice. The liberal justice has several forms or meanings. We note few of them. It is the declared policy of liberalism that each individual will have his due share and since all men are born equal none can deprive other of the share.

All the persons have same status in society and there shall be an atmosphere so that people can enjoy the status. “Liberals, fiercely disapprove of any social privileges or advantages that are enjoyed by some but denied to others on the basis of factors such as gender, race, colour, creed, religion or social background. Rights should not be reserved for any particular class of persons. The most important forms of equality are legal equality and political equality”. Liberal conception of justice further draws our attention to the point that the door of opportunity shall be open to all.

Everyone will get the chance to have a share of opportunity. Liberalism also speaks of social equality. All these interpretations lead to the liberal conception of justice. It also says that talented and non-talented persons are not to be grouped together. In this political ideology there is a special place of talents which means that merit should be recognised and should be given its due share. It is called meritocracy.

Related Articles:

• Classical Liberalism: Elements, Theories and Revival
• Hayek’s Theory of Liberalism: Definition, Characteristics and Elements
• Rawls’ Theory of Liberalism (An Analysis)
• Essay on Early and Modernized Liberalism

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Liberalism is more than one thing. On any close examination, it seems to fracture into a range of related but sometimes competing visions. In this entry we focus on debates within the liberal tradition. (1) We contrast three interpretations of liberalism’s core commitment to liberty. (2) We contrast ‘old’ and ‘new’ liberalism. (3) We ask whether liberalism is a ‘comprehensive’ or a ‘political’ doctrine. (4) We close with questions about the ‘reach’ of liberalism — does it apply to all humankind? Must all political communities be liberal? Could a liberal coherently answer this question by saying No? Could a liberal coherently answer this question by saying Yes?

1.1 The Presumption in Favor of Liberty

1.2 negative liberty, 1.3 positive liberty, 1.4 republican liberty, 2.1 classical liberalism, 2.2 the ‘new liberalism’, 2.3 liberal theories of social justice, 3.1 political liberalism, 3.2 liberal ethics, 3.3 liberal theories of value, 3.4 the metaphysics of liberalism, 4.1 is liberalism justified in all political communities, 4.2 is liberalism a cosmopolitan or a state-centered theory, 4.3 liberal interaction with non-liberal groups: international, 4.4 liberal interaction with non-liberal groups: domestic, 5. conclusion, other internet resources, related entries, 1. the debate about liberty.

“By definition,” Maurice Cranston says, “a liberal is a man who believes in liberty” (1967: 459). In two ways, liberals accord liberty primacy as a political value.

(i) Liberals have typically maintained that humans are naturally in “a State of perfect Freedom to order their Actions…as they think fit…without asking leave, or depending on the Will of any other Man” (Locke, 1960 [1689]: 287). Mill too argued that “the burden of proof is supposed to be with those who are against liberty; who contend for any restriction or prohibition…. The a priori assumption is in favour of freedom…” (1963, vol. 21: 262). Recent liberal thinkers such as as Joel Feinberg (1984: 9), Stanley Benn (1988: 87) and John Rawls (2001: 44, 112) agree. Liberalism is a philosophy that starts from a premise that political authority and law must be justified. If citizens are obliged to exercise self-restraint, and especially if they are obliged to defer to someone else’s authority, there must be a reason why. Restrictions on liberty must be justified.

(ii) That is to say, although no one classifies Hobbes as a liberal, there is reason to regard Hobbes as an instigator of liberal philosophy (see also Waldron 2001), for it was Hobbes who asked on what grounds citizens owe allegiance to the sovereign. Implicit in Hobbes’s question is a rejection of the presumption that citizens are the king’s property; on the contrary, kings are empowered by citizens who are themselves, initially, sovereign in the sense of having a meaningful right to say no. In the culture at large, this view of the relation between citizen and king had been taking shape for centuries. The Magna Carta was a series of agreements, beginning in 1215, arising out of disputes between the barons and King John. The Magna Carta eventually settled that the king is bound by the rule of law. In 1215, the Magna Carta was part of the beginning rather than the end of the argument, but by the mid-1300s, concepts of individual rights to trial by jury, due process, and equality before the law were more firmly established. The Magna Carta was coming to be seen as vesting sovereignty not only in nobles but in “the People” as such. By the mid-1400s, John Fortescue, England’s Chief Justice from 1442 to 1461, would write The Difference Between an Absolute and Limited Monarchy , a plea for limited monarchy that arguably represents the beginning of English political thought (Schmidtz and Brennan, 2010: chap. 2).

Hobbes generally is treated as one of the first and greatest social contract thinkers. Typically, Hobbes also is seen as an advocate of absolute sovereignty. On Hobbes’s theory, Leviathan’s authority is almost absolute along a particular dimension: namely, Leviathan is authorized to do whatever it takes to keep the peace. This special end justifies almost any means, including drastic limitations on liberty. Yet, note the limitations implicit in the end itself. Leviathan’s job is to keep the peace: not to do everything worth doing, but simply to secure the peace. Hobbes, the famed absolutist, in fact developed a model of government sharply limited in this most important way.

Paradigmatic liberals such as Locke also maintain that justified limitations on liberty are fairly modest. Only a limited government can be justified; indeed, the basic task of government is to protect the equal liberty of citizens. Thus John Rawls’s paradigmatically liberal first principle of justice: “Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive system of equal basic liberty compatible with a similar system for all” (Rawls, 1999b: 220).

Liberals disagree, however, about the concept of liberty, and as a result the liberal ideal of protecting individual liberty can lead to different conceptions of the task of government. Isaiah Berlin famously advocated a negative conception of liberty:

I am normally said to be free to the degree to which no man or body of men interferes with my activity. Political liberty in this sense is simply the area within which a man can act unobstructed by others. If I am prevented by others from doing what I could otherwise do, I am to that degree unfree; and if this area is contracted by other men beyond a certain minimum, I can be described as being coerced, or, it may be, enslaved. Coercion is not, however, a term that covers every form of inability. If I say that I am unable to jump more than ten feet in the air, or cannot read because I am blind…it would be eccentric to say that I am to that degree enslaved or coerced. Coercion implies the deliberate interference of other human beings within the area in which I could otherwise act. You lack political liberty or freedom only if you are prevented from attaining a goal by human beings (Berlin, 1969: 122).

For Berlin and those who follow him, then, the heart of liberty is the absence of coercion by other agents; consequently, the liberal state’s commitment to protecting liberty is, essentially, the job of ensuring that citizens do not coerce each other without compelling justification. So understood, negative liberty is a matter of which options are left to our discretion, or more precisely, which options are foreclosed by the actions of others, and with what warrant, and this is so regardless of whether we exercise such options (Taylor, 1979).

Many liberals have been attracted to more ‘positive’ conceptions of liberty. Although Rousseau (1973 [1762]) seemed to advocate a positive conception of liberty, according to which one was free when one acted according to one’s true will (the general will), the positive conception was best developed by the British neo-Hegelians of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, such as Thomas Hill Green and Bernard Bosanquet (2001 [1923]). Green acknowledged that “…it must be of course admitted that every usage of the term [i.e., ‘freedom’] to express anything but a social and political relation of one man to other involves a metaphor…It always implies…some exemption from compulsion by another…”(1986 [1895]: 229). Nevertheless, Green went on to claim that a person can be unfree in another way, a psychological rather than political way, if he is subject to an impulse or craving that cannot be controlled. Such a person, Green argued, is “…in the condition of a bondsman who is carrying out the will of another, not his own” (1986 [1895]: 228). Just as a slave is not doing what he really wants to do, one who is, say, an alcoholic, is being led by a craving to look for satisfaction where it cannot, ultimately, be found.

For Green, a person is free only if she is self-directed or autonomous. Running throughout liberal political theory is an ideal of a free person as one whose actions are in some sense her own . In this sense, positive liberty is an exercise-concept . One is free merely to the degree that one has effectively determined oneself and the shape of one’s life (Taylor, 1979). Such a person is not subject to compulsions, critically reflects on her ideals and so does not unreflectively follow custom, and does not ignore her long-term interests for short-term pleasures. This ideal of freedom as autonomy has its roots not only in Rousseau’s and Kant’s political theory, but also in John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty. And today it is a dominant strain in liberalism, as witnessed by the work of S.I. Benn (1988), Gerald Dworkin (1988), and Joseph Raz (1986); see also the essays in Christman and Anderson (2005).

Green’s autonomy-based conception of positive freedom is often run together with a notion of ‘positive’ freedom: freedom as effective power to act or to pursue one’s ends. In the words of the British socialist R. H. Tawney, freedom thus understood is ‘the ability to act’ (1931: 221; see also Gaus, 2000; ch. 5.) On this positive conception, a person not prohibited from being a member of a Country Club but too poor to afford membership is not free to be a member: she lacks an effective power to act. Positive freedom qua effective power to act closely ties freedom to material resources. (Education, for example, should be easily available so that all can develop their capacities.) It was this conception of positive liberty that Hayek had in mind when he insisted that although “freedom and wealth are both good things…they still remain different” (1960: 17–18). To Hayek, wealth implies capability in a way that freedom does not.

An older notion of liberty that has recently resurfaced is the republican, or neo-Roman, conception of liberty, which has roots in the writings of Cicero and Niccolo Machiavelli (1950 [1513]). According to Philip Pettit,

The contrary of the liber , or free, person in Roman, republican usage was the servus , or slave, and up to at least the beginning of the last century, the dominant connotation of freedom, emphasized in the long republican tradition, was not having to live in servitude to another: not being subject to the arbitrary power of another (Pettit, 1996: 576).

On this view, the opposite of freedom is domination. To be unfree is to be “subject to the potentially capricious will or the potentially idiosyncratic judgement of another” (Pettit, 1997: 5). The ideal liberty-protecting government, then, ensures that no agent, including the government, has arbitrary power over any citizen. This is accomplished through an equal disbursement of power. Each person has power that offsets the power of another to arbitrarily interfere with her activities (Pettit, 1997: 67).

The republican conception of liberty is distinct from both Greenian positive and negative conceptions. Unlike Greenian positive liberty, republican liberty is not primarily concerned with rational autonomy, realizing one’s true nature, or becoming one’s higher self. When all dominating power has been dispersed, republican theorists are generally silent about these goals (Larmore 2001). Unlike negative liberty, republican liberty is primarily focused upon “defenseless susceptibility to interference, rather than actual interference” (Pettit, 1996: 577). Thus, in contrast to the ordinary negative conception, on the republican conception the mere possibility of arbitrary interference is a limitation of liberty. Republican liberty thus seems to involve a modal claim about the possibility of interference, and this is often cashed out in terms of complex counterfactual claims. It is not clear whether these claims can be adequately explicated (Gaus, 2003; cf. Larmore, 2004).

Some republican theorists, such as Quentin Skinner (1998: 113), Maurizio Viroli (2002: 6) and Pettit (1997: 8–11), view republicanism as an alternative to liberalism. When republican liberty is seen as a basis for criticizing market liberty and market society, this is plausible (Gaus, 2003b). However, when liberalism is understood more expansively, and not so closely tied to either negative liberty or market society, republicanism becomes indistinguishable from liberalism (Ghosh, 2008; Rogers, 2008; Larmore, 2001; Dagger, 1997).

2. The Debate Between the ‘Old’ and the ‘New’

Liberal political theory, then, fractures over how to conceive of liberty. In practice, another crucial fault line concerns the moral status of private property and the market order. For classical liberals — ‘old’ liberals — liberty and private property are intimately related. From the eighteenth century to the present day, classical liberals have insisted that an economic system based on private property is uniquely consistent with individual liberty, allowing each to live her life —including employing her labor and her capital — as she sees fit. Indeed, classical liberals and libertarians have often asserted that in some way liberty and property are really the same thing; it has been argued, for example, that all rights, including liberty rights, are forms of property; others have maintained that property is itself a form of freedom (Gaus, 1994; Steiner, 1994). A market order based on private property is thus seen as an embodiment of freedom (Robbins, 1961: 104). Unless people are free to make contracts and sell their labour, save and invest their incomes as they see fit, and free to launch enterprises as they raise the capital, they are not really free.

Classical liberals employ a second argument connecting liberty and private property. Rather than insisting that the freedom to obtain and employ private property is simply one aspect of people’s liberty, this second argument insists that private property effectively protects liberty, and no protection can be effective without private property. Here the idea is that the dispersion of power that results from a free market economy based on private property protects the liberty of subjects against encroachments by the state. As F.A. Hayek argues, “There can be no freedom of press if the instruments of printing are under government control, no freedom of assembly if the needed rooms are so controlled, no freedom of movement if the means of transport are a government monopoly” (1978: 149).

Although classical liberals agree on the fundamental importance of private property to a free society, the classical liberal tradition itself is a spectrum of views, from near-anarchist to those that attribute a significant role to the state in economic and social policy (on this spectrum, see Mack and Gaus, 2004). At the libertarian end of the classical liberal spectrum are views of justified states as legitimate monopolies that may with justice charge for essential rights-protection services: taxation is legitimate if necessary and sufficient for effective protection of liberty and property. Further ‘leftward’ we encounter classical liberal views that allow taxation for public education in particular, and more generally for public goods and social infrastructure. Moving yet further ‘left’, some classical liberal views allow for a modest social minimum.(e.g., Hayek, 1976: 87). Most nineteenth century classical liberal economists endorsed a variety of state policies, encompassing not only the criminal law and enforcement of contracts, but the licensing of professionals, health, safety and fire regulations, banking regulations, commercial infrastructure (roads, harbors and canals) and often encouraged unionization (Gaus, 1983b). Although classical liberalism today often is associated with libertarianism, the broader classical liberal tradition was centrally concerned with bettering the lot of the working class, women, blacks, immigrants, and so on. The aim, as Bentham put it, was to make the poor richer, not the rich poorer (Bentham, 1952 [1795]: vol. 1, 226n). Consequently, classical liberals treat the leveling of wealth and income as outside the purview of legitimate aims of government coercion.

What has come to be known as ‘new’, ‘revisionist’, ‘welfare state’, or perhaps best, ‘social justice’, liberalism challenges this intimate connection between personal liberty and a private property based market order (Freeden, 1978; Gaus, 1983b; Paul, Miller and Paul, 2007). Three factors help explain the rise of this revisionist theory. First, the new liberalism was clearly taking its own distinctive shape by the early twentieth century, as the ability of a free market to sustain what Lord Beveridge (1944: 96) called a ‘prosperous equilibrium’ was being questioned. Believing that a private property based market tended to be unstable, or could, as Keynes argued (1973 [1936]), get stuck in an equilibrium with high unemployment, new liberals came to doubt, initially on empirical grounds, that classical liberalism was an adequate foundation for a stable, free society. Here the second factor comes into play: just as the new liberals were losing faith in the market, their faith in government as a means of supervising economic life was increasing. This was partly due to the experiences of the First World War, in which government attempts at economic planning seemed to succeed (Dewey, 1929: 551–60); more importantly, this reevaluation of the state was spurred by the democratization of western states, and the conviction that, for the first time, elected officials could truly be, in J.A. Hobson’s phrase ‘representatives of the community’ (1922: 49). As D.G. Ritchie proclaimed:

be it observed that arguments used against ‘government’ action, where the government is entirely or mainly in the hands of a ruling class or caste, exercising wisely or unwisely a paternal or grandmotherly authority — such arguments lose their force just in proportion as the government becomes more and more genuinely the government of the people by the people themselves. (1896: 64)

The third factor underlying the currency of the new liberalism was probably the most fundamental: a growing conviction that, so far from being ‘the guardian of every other right’ (Ely, 1992: 26), property rights foster an unjust inequality of power. They entrench a merely formal equality that in actual practice systematically fails to secure the kind of equal positive liberty that matters on the ground for the working class. This theme is central to what is now called ‘liberalism’ in American politics, combining a strong endorsement of civil and personal liberties with indifference or even hostility to private ownership. The seeds of this newer liberalism can be found in Mill’s On Liberty. Although Mill insisted that the ‘so-called doctrine of Free Trade’ rested on ‘equally solid’ grounds as did the ‘principle of individual liberty’ (1963, vol. 18: 293), he nevertheless insisted that the justifications of personal and economic liberty were distinct. And in his Principles of Political Economy, Mill consistently emphasized that it is an open question whether personal liberty can flourish without private property (1963, vol. 2; 203–210), a view that Rawls was to reassert over a century later (2001: Part IV).

One consequence of Rawls’s great work, A Theory of Justice (1999 [first published in 1971]) is that the ‘new liberalism’ has become focused on developing a theory of social justice. Since the 1960s when Rawls began to publish the elements of his emerging theory, liberal political philosophers have analyzed, and disputed, his famous ‘difference principle’ according to which a just basic structure of society arranges social and economic inequalities such that they are to the greatest advantage of the least well off representative group (1999b:266). For Rawls, the default is not liberty but rather an equal distribution of (basically) income and wealth; only inequalities that best enhance the long-term prospects of the least advantaged are just. As Rawls sees it, the difference principle constitutes a public recognition of the principle of reciprocity: the basic structure is to be arranged such that no social group advances at the cost of another (2001: 122–24). Many followers of Rawls have focused less on the ideal of reciprocity than on the commitment to equality (Dworkin, 2000). Indeed, what was previously called ‘welfare state’ liberalism is now often described as liberal egalitarianism. However, see Jan Narveson’s essay on Hobbes’s seeming defense of the welfare state (in Courtland 2018) for historical reflections on the difference.

And in one way that is especially appropriate: in his later work Rawls insists that welfare-state capitalism does not constitute a just basic structure (2001: 137–38). If some version of capitalism is to be just it must be a ‘property owning democracy’ with a wide diffusion of ownership; a market socialist regime, in Rawls’s view, is more just than welfare-state capitalism (2001: 135-38). Not too surprisingly, classical liberals such as Hayek (1976) insist that the contemporary liberal fixation on ‘the mirage of social justice’ leads modern liberals to ignore the extent to which, as a matter of historical observation, freedom depends on a decentralized market based on private property, the overall results of which are unpredictable.

Thus, Robert Nozick (1974: 160ff) famously classifies Rawls’s difference principle as patterned but not historical: prescribing a distribution while putting no moral weight on who produced the goods being distributed. One stark difference that emerges from this is that Rawlsian liberalism’s theory of justice is a theory about how to distribute the pie while old liberalism’s theory of justice is a theory about how to treat bakers (Schmidtz, 2022).

The problem with patterned principles is that, in Nozick’s words, liberty upsets patterns. “No end-state principle or distributional patterned principle of justice can be continuously realized without continuous interference with people’s lives” (1974: 163). To illustrate, Nozick asks you to imagine that society achieves a pattern of perfect justice by the lights of whatever principle you prefer. Then someone offers Wilt Chamberlain a dollar for the privilege of watching Wilt play basketball. Before we know it, thousands of people are paying Wilt a dollar each, every time Wilt puts on a show. Wilt gets rich. The distribution is no longer equal, and no one complains. Nozick’s question: If justice is a pattern, achievable at a given moment, what happens if you achieve perfection? Must you then prohibit everything—no further consuming, creating, trading, or even giving —so as not to upset the perfect pattern? Notice: Nozick neither argues nor presumes people can do whatever they want with their property. Nozick, recalling the focus on connecting property rights to liberty that animated liberalism in its classical form, notes that if there is anything at all people can do, even if the only thing they are free to do is give a coin to an entertainer, then even that tiniest of liberties will, over time, disturb the favored pattern. Nozick is right that if we focus on time slices, we focus on isolated moments, and take moments too seriously, when what matters is not the pattern of holdings at a moment but the pattern of how people treat each other over time. Even tiny liberties must upset the pattern of a static moment. By the same token, however, there is no reason why liberty must upset an ongoing pattern of fair treatment. A moral principle forbidding racial discrimination, for example, prescribes no particular end-state. Such a principle is what Nozick calls weakly patterned, sensitive to history as well as to pattern, and prescribing an ideal of how people should be treated without prescribing an end-state distribution. It affects the pattern without prescribing a pattern. And if a principle forbidding racial discrimination works its way into a society via cultural progress rather than legal intervention, it need not involve any interference whatsoever. So, although Nozick sometimes speaks as if his critique applies to all patterns, we should take seriously his concession that “weak” patterns are compatible with liberty. Some may promote liberty, depending on how they are introduced and maintained. See Schmidtz (2006: chap.6). For work by modern liberals that resonates with Nozick’s dissection of the dimensions of equality that plausibly can count as liberal, see also Anderson (1999), Young (1990), and Sen (1992).

Accordingly, even granting to Nozick that time-slice principles license immense, constant, intolerable interference with everyday life, there is some reason to doubt that Rawls intended to embrace any such view. In his first article, Rawls said, “we cannot determine the justness of a situation by examining it at a single moment” (1951: 191) Years later, Rawls added, “It is a mistake to focus attention on the varying relative positions of individuals and to require that every change, considered as a single transaction viewed in isolation, be in itself just. It is the arrangement of the basic structure which is to be judged, and judged from a general point of view” (1999b: 76). Thus, to Rawls, basic structure’s job is not to make every transaction work to the working class’s advantage, let alone to the advantage of each member of the class. Rawls was more realistic than that. Instead, it is the trend of a whole society over time that is supposed to benefit the working class as a class . To be sure, Rawls was a kind of egalitarian, but the pattern Rawls meant to endorse was a pattern of equal status, applying not so much to a distribution as to an ongoing relationship. This is not to say that Nozick’s critique had no point. Nozick showed what an alternative theory might look like, portraying Wilt Chamberlain as a separate person in a more robust sense (unencumbered by nebulous debts to society) than Rawls could countenance. To Nozick, Wilt’s advantages are not what Wilt finds on the table; Wilt’s advantages are what Wilt brings to the table. And respecting what Wilt brings to the table is the exact essence of respecting him as a separate person. In part due to Nozick, today’s egalitarians now acknowledge that any equality worthy of aspiration will focus less on justice as a property of a time-slice distribution and more on how people are treated: how they are rewarded for their contributions and enabled over time to make contributions worth rewarding. (Schmidtz, 2006).

3. The Debate About the Comprehensiveness of Liberalism

As his work evolved, Rawls (1996: 5ff) insisted that his liberalism was not a ‘comprehensive’ doctrine, that is, one which includes an overall theory of value, an ethical theory, an epistemology, or a controversial metaphysics of the person and society. Our modern societies, characterized by a ‘reasonable pluralism’, are already filled with such doctrines. The aim of political liberalism is not to add yet another sectarian doctrine, but to provide a political framework that is neutral between such controversial comprehensive doctrines (Larmore, 1996: 121ff). Rawls’s notion of a purely political conception of liberalism seems more austere than the traditional liberal political theories discussed above, being largely restricted to constitutional principles upholding basic civil liberties and the democratic process.

Gaus (2004) argues that the distinction between ‘political’ and ‘comprehensive’ liberalism misses a great deal. Liberal theories form a broad continuum, from those that constitute full-blown philosophical systems, to those that rely on a full theory of value and the good, to those that rely on a theory of the right (but not the good), all the way to those that seek to be purely political doctrines. Nevertheless, it is important to appreciate that, though we treat liberalism as primarily a political theory, it has been associated with broader theories of ethics, value, and society. Indeed, many believe that liberalism cannot rid itself of all controversial metaphysical (Hampton, 1989) or epistemological (Raz, 1990) commitments.

Following Wilhelm von Humboldt (1993 [1854]), in On Liberty Mill argues that one basis for endorsing freedom (Mill believes there are many), is the goodness of developing individuality and cultivating capacities:

Individuality is the same thing with development, and…it is only the cultivation of individuality which produces, or can produce, well-developed human beings…what more can be said of any condition of human affairs, than that it brings human beings themselves nearer to the best thing they can be? or what worse can be said of any obstruction to good, than that it prevents this? (Mill, 1963, vol. 18: 267)

This is not just a theory about politics: it is a substantive, perfectionist, moral theory about the good. On this view, the right thing to do is to promote development or perfection, but only a regime securing extensive liberty for each person can accomplish this (Wall, 1998). This moral ideal of human perfection and development dominated liberal thinking in the latter part of the nineteenth century, and much of the twentieth: not only Mill, but T.H. Green, L.T. Hobhouse, Bernard Bosanquet, John Dewey and even Rawls show allegiance to variants of this perfectionist ethic and the claim that it provides a foundation for endorsing a regime of liberal rights (Gaus, 1983a). And it is fundamental to the proponents of liberal autonomy discussed above, as well as ‘liberal virtue’ theorists such as William Galston (1980). That the good life is necessarily a freely chosen one in which a person develops his unique capacities as part of a plan of life is probably the dominant liberal ethic of the past century.

The main challenge to Millian perfectionism’s status as the distinctly liberal ethic comes from moral contractualism/contractarianism, which can be divided into what might very roughly be labeled ‘Kantian’ and ‘Hobbesian’ versions. According to Kantian contractualism, “society, being composed of a plurality of persons, each with his own aims, interests, and conceptions of the good, is best arranged when it is governed by principles that do not themselves presuppose any particular conception of the good…” (Sandel, 1982: 1). On this view, respect for the personhood of others demands that we refrain from imposing our view of the good life on them. Only principles that can be justified to all respect the personhood of each. We thus witness the tendency of recent liberal theory (Reiman, 1990; Scanlon, 1998) to transform the social contract from an account of the state to an overall justification of morality, or at least a social morality. This is not to deny, however, that liberalism is, after all, essentially a view that there is such a thing as minding one’s own business, and that there is a sphere within which we have the right to say “It’s my life” while politely declining invitations to justify ourselves. Liberalism is the idea that there are limits to any need for public justification.

In contrast, distinctively Hobbesian contractarianism supposes only that individuals are self-interested and correctly perceive that each person’s ability to effectively pursue her interests is enhanced by a framework of norms that structure social life and divide the fruits of social cooperation (Gauthier, 1986; Hampton, 1986; Kavka, 1986). Morality, then, is a common framework that advances the self-interest of each. The claim of Hobbesian contractarianism to be a distinctly liberal conception of morality stems from the importance of individual freedom and property in such a common framework: only systems of norms that allow each person great freedom to pursue her interests as she sees fit could, it is argued, be the object of consensus among self-interested agents (Courtland, 2008; Gaus, 2012; Ridge, 1998; Gauthier, 1995). The continuing problem for Hobbesian contractarianism is the apparent rationality of free-riding: if everyone (or enough) complies with the terms of the contract, and so social order is achieved, it would seem rational to defect, and act immorally when one can gain by doing so. This is essentially the argument of Hobbes’s ‘Foole’, and from Hobbes (1948 [1651]: 94ff) to Gauthier (1986: 160ff), Hobbesians have tried to reply to it.

Turning from rightness to goodness, we can identify three main candidates for a liberal theory of value. We have already encountered the first: perfectionism. Insofar as perfectionism is a theory of right action, it can be understood as an account of morality. Obviously, however, it is an account of rightness that presupposes a theory of value or the good: the ultimate human value is developed personality or an autonomous life. Competing with this objectivist theory of value are two other liberal accounts: pluralism and subjectivism.

In his famous defence of negative liberty, Berlin insisted that values or ends are plural, and further, the pursuit of one end necessarily implies that other ends will not be achieved. In this sense ends collide. In economic terms, the pursuit of one end entails opportunity costs: foregone pursuits which cannot be impersonally shown to be less worthy. There is no interpersonally justifiable way to rank the ends, and no way to achieve them all. Each person must devote herself to some ends at the cost of ignoring others. For the pluralist, then, autonomy, perfection or development are not necessarily ranked higher than hedonistic pleasures, environmental preservation or economic equality. All compete for our allegiance, but because they are incommensurable, no choice can be interpersonally justified.

The pluralist is not a subjectivist: that values are many, competing and incommensurable does not imply that they are somehow dependent on subjective experiences. But the claim that what a person values rests on experiences that vary from person to person has long been a part of the liberal tradition. To Hobbes, what one values depends on what one desires (1948 [1651]: 48). Locke advances a ‘taste theory of value’:

The Mind has a different relish, as well as the Palate; and you will as fruitlessly endeavour to delight all Man with Riches or Glory, (which yet some Men place their Happiness in,) as you would satisfy all men’s Hunger with Cheese or Lobsters; which, though very agreeable and delicious fare to some, are to others extremely nauseous and offensive: And many People would with reason preferr [sic] the griping of an hungry Belly, to those Dishes, which are a Feast to others. Hence it was, I think, that the Philosophers of old did in vain enquire, whether the Summum bonum consisted in Riches, or bodily Delights, or Virtue, or Contemplation: And they might have as reasonably disputed, whether the best Relish were to be found in Apples, Plumbs or Nuts; and have divided themselves into Sects upon it. For…pleasant Tastes depend not on the things themselves, but their agreeableness to this or that particulare Palate, wherein there is great variety…(1975 [1706]: 269).

The perfectionist, the pluralist and the subjectivist concur on the crucial point: the nature of value is such that reasonable people pursue different ways of living. To the perfectionist, this is because each person has unique capacities, the development of which confers value on her life; to the pluralist, it is because values are many and conflicting, and no one life can include them all, or make the interpersonally correct choice among them; and to the subjectivist, it is because our ideas about what is valuable stem from our desires or tastes, and these differ from one individual to another. All three views, then, defend the basic liberal idea that people rationally follow different ways of living. But in themselves, such notions of the good are not full-fledged liberal ethics, for an additional argument is required linking liberal value with norms of equal liberty, and to the idea that other people command a certain respect and a certain deference simply by virtue of having values of their own. To be sure, Berlin seems to believe this is a very quick argument: the inherent plurality of ends points to the political preeminence of liberty (see, for example, Gray: 2006). Guaranteeing each a measure of negative liberty is, Berlin argues, the most humane ideal, as it recognizes that ‘human goals are many’, and no one can make a choice that is right for all people (1969: 171). It is here that subjectivists and pluralists alike sometimes rely on versions of moral contractualism. Those who insist that liberalism is ultimately nihilistic can be interpreted as arguing that this transition cannot be made successfully: liberals, on their view, are stuck with a subjectivistic or pluralistic theory of value, and no account of the right emerges from it.

Throughout the last century, liberalism has been beset by controversies between, on the one hand, those broadly identified as ‘individualists’ and, on the other, ‘collectivists’, ‘communitarians’ or ‘organicists’ (for skepticism about this, though, see Bird, 1999). These vague and sweeping designations have been applied to a wide array of disputes; we focus here on controversies concerning (i) the nature of society; (ii) the nature of the self.

Liberalism is, of course, usually associated with individualist analyses of society. ‘Human beings in society’, Mill claimed, ‘have no properties but those which are derived from, and which may be resolved into, the laws of the nature of individual men’ (1963, Vol. 8: 879; see also Bentham: 1970 [1823]: chap. I, sec. 4). Herbert Spencer agreed: “the properties of the mass are dependent upon the attributes of its component parts” (1995 [1851]: 1). In the last years of the nineteenth century this individualist view was increasingly subject to attack, especially by those who were influenced by idealist philosophy. D. G. Ritche, criticizing Spencer’s individualist liberalism, denies that society is simply a ‘heap’ of individuals, insisting that it is more akin to an organism, with a complex internal life (1896: 13). Liberals such as L. T. Hobhouse and Dewey refused to adopt radically collectivist views such as those advocated by Bernard Bosanquet (2001), but they too rejected the radical individualism of Bentham, Mill and Spencer. Throughout most of the first half of the twentieth century such ‘organic’ analyses of society held sway in liberal theory, even in economics (see A.F Mummery and J. A. Hobson, 1956: 106; J.M. Keynes, 1972: 275).

During and after the Second World War the idea that liberalism was based on inherently individualist analysis of humans-in-society arose again. Karl Popper’s The Open Society and its Enemies (1945) presented a sustained critique of Hegelian and Marxist theory and its collectivist and historicist, and to Popper, inherently illiberal, understanding of society. The reemergence of economic analysis in liberal theory brought to the fore a thoroughgoing methodological individualism. Writing in the early 1960s, James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock adamantly defended the ‘individualistic postulate’ against all forms of ‘organicism’: “This [organicist] approach or theory of the collectivity….is essentially opposed to the Western philosophical tradition in which the human individual is the primary philosophical entity” (1965: 11–12). Human beings, insisted Buchanan and Tullock, are the only real choosers and decision-makers, and their preferences determine both public and private actions. The renascent individualism of late-twentieth century liberalism was closely bound up with the induction of Hobbes as a member of the liberal pantheon. Hobbes’s relentlessly individualistic account of society, and the manner in which his analysis of the state of nature lent itself to game-theoretical modeling, yielded a highly individualist, formal analysis of the liberal state and liberal morality.

Of course, as is widely known, we have recently witnessed a renewed interest in collectivist analyses of liberal society —though the term ‘collectivist’ is abjured in favor of ‘communitarian’. Writing in 1985, Amy Gutmann observed that “we are witnessing a revival of communitarian criticisms of liberal political theory. Like the critics of the 1960s, those of the 1980s fault liberalism for being mistakenly and irreparably individualistic” (1985: 308). Starting with Michael Sandel’s (1982) famous criticism of Rawls, a number of critics charge that liberalism is necessarily premised on an abstract conception of individual selves as pure choosers, whose commitments, values and concerns are possessions of the self, but never constitute the self. Although the ‘liberal-communitarian’ debate ultimately involved wide-ranging moral, political and sociological disputes about the nature of communities, and the rights and responsibilities of their members, the heart of the debate was about the nature of liberal selves. For Sandel the flaw at the heart of Rawls’s liberalism is its implausibly abstract theory of the self, the pure autonomous chooser. Rawls, he charges, ultimately assumes that it makes sense to identify us with a pure capacity for choice, and that such pure choosers might reject any or all of their attachments and values and yet retain their identity.

From the mid-1980s onwards various liberals sought to show how liberalism may consistently advocate a theory of the self which finds room for cultural membership and other non-chosen attachments and commitments which at least partially constitute the self (Kymlicka, 1989). Much of liberal theory has became focused on the issue as to how we can be social creatures, members of cultures and raised in various traditions, while also being autonomous choosers who employ our liberty to construct lives of our own.

4. The Debate About The Reach of Liberalism

In On Liberty Mill argued that “Liberty, as a principle, has no application to any state of things anterior to the time when mankind have become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion” (1963, vol. 18: 224). Thus “Despotism is a legitimate form of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement…” (1963, vol. 18: 224). This passage — infused with the spirit of nineteenth century imperialism (and perhaps, as some maintain, latent racism) — is often ignored by defenders of Mill as an embarrassment (Parekh, 1994; Parekh, 1995; Mehta, 1999; Pitts, 2005).This is not to say that such Millian passages are without thoughtful defenders. See, for example, Inder Marawah (2011). Nevertheless, it raises a question that still divides liberals: are liberal political principles justified for all political communities? In The Law of Peoples Rawls argues that they are not. According to Rawls there can be a ‘decent hierarchical society’ which is not based on the liberal conception of all persons as free and equal, but instead views persons as “responsible and cooperating members of their respective groups” but not inherently equal (1999a: 66). Given this, the full liberal conception of justice cannot be constructed out of shared ideas of this ‘people’, though basic human rights, implicit in the very idea of a social cooperative structure, apply to all peoples. David Miller (2002) develops a different defense of this anti-universalistic position, while those such as Thomas Pogge (2002: ch. 4) and Martha Nussbaum (2002) reject Rawls’s position, instead advocating versions of moral universalism: they claim that liberal moral principles apply to all states.

The debate about whether liberal principles apply to all political communities should not be confused with the debate as to whether liberalism is a state-centered theory, or whether, at least ideally, it is a cosmopolitan political theory for the community of all humankind. Immanuel Kant — a moral universalist if ever there was one — argued that all states should respect the dignity of their citizens as free and equal persons, yet denied that humanity forms one political community. Thus he rejected the ideal of a universal cosmopolitan liberal political community in favor of a world of states, all with internally just constitutions, and united in a confederation to assure peace (1970 [1795]).

On a classical liberal theory, the difference between a world of liberal communities and a world liberal community is not of fundamental importance. Since the aim of government in a community is to assure the basic liberty and property rights of its citizens, borders are not of great moral significance in classical liberalism (Lomasky, 2007). In contrast under the ‘new’ liberalism, which stresses redistributive programs to achieve social justice, it matters a great deal who is included within the political or moral community. If liberal principles require significant redistribution, then it is crucially important whether these principles apply only within particular communities, or whether their reach is global. Thus a fundamental debate between Rawls and many of his followers is whether the difference principle should only be applied within a liberal state such as the United States (where the least well off are the least well off Americans), or whether it should be applied globally (where the least well off are the least well off in the world) (Rawls, 1999a: 113ff; Beitz, 1973: 143ff; Pogge, 1989: Part Three).

Liberal political theory also fractures concerning the appropriate response to groups (cultural, religious, etc.) which endorse illiberal policies and values. These groups may deny education to some of their members, advocate female genital mutilation, restrict religious freedom, maintain an inequitable caste system, and so on. When, if ever, should a liberal group interfere with the internal governance of an illiberal group?

Suppose first that the illiberal group is another political community or state. Can liberals intervene in the affairs of non-liberal states? Mill provides a complicated answer in his 1859 essay ‘A Few Words on Non-Intervention’. Reiterating his claim from On Liberty that civilized and non-civilized countries are to be treated differently, he insists that “barbarians have no rights as a nation , except a right to such treatment as may, at the earliest possible period, fit them for becoming one. The only moral laws for the relation between a civilized and a barbarous government, are the universal rules of morality between man and man” (1963, vol. 21: 119). Although this strikes us today as simply a case for an objectionable paternalistic imperialism (and it certainly was such a case), Mill’s argument for the conclusion is more complex, including a claim that, since international morality depends on reciprocity, ‘barbarous’ governments that cannot be counted on to engage in reciprocal behavior have no rights qua governments. In any event, when Mill turns to interventions among ‘civilized’ peoples he develops an altogether more sophisticated account as to when one state can intervene in the affairs of another to protect liberal principles. Here Mill is generally against intervention. “The reason is, that there can seldom be anything approaching to assurance that intervention, even if successful, would be for the good of the people themselves. The only test possessing any real value, of a people’s having become fit for popular institutions, is that they, or a sufficient proportion of them to prevail in the contest, are willing to brave labour and danger for their liberation” (1963, vol. 21: 122).

In addition to questions of efficacy, to the extent that peoples or groups have rights to collective self-determination, intervention by a liberal group to induce a non-liberal community to adopt liberal principles will be morally objectionable. As with individuals, liberals may think that peoples or groups have freedom to make mistakes in managing their collective affairs. If people’s self-conceptions are based on their participation in such groups, even those whose liberties are denied may object to, and perhaps in some way be harmed by, the imposition of liberal principles (Margalit and Raz, 1990; Tamir, 1993). Thus rather than proposing a doctrine of intervention, many liberals propose various principles of toleration which specify to what extent liberals must tolerate non-liberal peoples and cultures. As is usual, Rawls’s discussion is subtle and enlightening. In his account of the foreign affairs of liberal peoples, Rawls argues that liberal peoples must distinguish ‘decent’ non-liberal societies from ‘outlaw’ and other states; the former have a claim on liberal peoples to tolerance while the latter do not (1999a: 59–61). Decent peoples, argues Rawls, ‘simply do not tolerate’ outlaw states which ignore human rights: such states may be subject to ‘forceful sanctions and even to intervention’ (1999a: 81). In contrast, Rawls insists that “liberal peoples must try to encourage [non-liberal] decent peoples and not frustrate their vitality by coercively insisting that all societies be liberal” (1999a: 62). Chandran Kukathas (2003) — whose liberalism derives from the classical tradition — is inclined to almost complete toleration of non-liberal peoples, with the non-trivial proviso that there must be exit rights.

The status of non-liberal groups within liberal societies has increasingly become a subject of debate, especially with respect to some citizens of faith. We should distinguish two questions: (i) to what extent should non-liberal cultural and religious communities be exempt from the requirements of the liberal state? and, (ii) to what extent can they be allowed to participate in decision-making in the liberal state?

Turning to (i), liberalism has a long history of seeking to accommodate religious groups that have deep objections to certain public policies, such as the Quakers, Mennonites or Sikhs. The most difficult issues in this regard arise in relation to children and education (see Galston, 2003; Fowler, 2010; Andersson, 2011) Mill, for example, writes:

Consider … the case of education. Is it not almost a self-evident axiom, that the State should require and compel the education, up to a certain standard, of every human being who is born its citizen? Yet who is there that is not afraid to recognize and assert this truth? Hardly any one indeed will deny that it is one of the most sacred duties of the parents (or, as law and usage now stand, the father), after summoning a human being into the world, to give to that being an education fitting him to perform his part well in life towards others and towards himself … . that to bring a child into existence without a fair prospect of being able, not only to provide food for its body, but instruction and training for its mind, is a moral crime, both against the unfortunate offspring and against society … . (1963, vol. 18)

Over the last thirty years, there has been a particular case that is at the core of this debate — Wisconsin vs. Yoder : [406 U.S. 205 (1972)]. In this case, the United States Supreme Court upheld the right of Amish parents to avoid compulsory schooling laws and remove their children from school at the age of 14 — thus, according to the Amish, avoiding secular influences that might undermine the traditional Amish way of life. Because cultural and religious communities raise and educate children, they cannot be seen as purely voluntary opt-outs from the liberal state: they exercise coercive power over children, and so basic liberal principles about protecting the innocent from unjustified coercion come into play. Some have maintained that liberal principles require that the state should intervene (against groups like the Amish) in order to [1] provide the children with an effective right of exit that would otherwise be denied via a lack of education (Okin, 2002), [2] to protect the children’s right to an autonomous and ‘open future’ (Feinberg, 1980) and/or [3] to insure that children will have the cognitive tools to prepare them for their future role as citizens (Galston, 1995: p. 529; Macedo, 1995: pp. 285–6). Other liberal theorists, on the other hand, have argued that the state should not intervene because it might undermine the inculcation of certain values that are necessary for the continued existence of certain comprehensive doctrines (Galston, 1995: p. 533; Stolzenberg, 1993: pp. 582–3). Moreover, some such as Harry Brighouse (1998) have argued that the inculcation of liberal values through compulsory education might undermine the legitimacy of liberal states because children would not (due to possible indoctrination) be free to consent to such institutions.

Question (ii) — the extent to which non-liberal beliefs and values may be employed in liberal political discussion— has become the subject of sustained debate in the years following Rawls’s Political Liberalism . According to Rawls’s liberalism — and what we might call ‘public reason liberalism’ more generally — because our societies are characterized by ‘reasonable pluralism’, coercion cannot be justified on the basis of comprehensive moral or religious systems of belief. But many friends of religion (e.g., Eberle, 2002; Perry, 1993) argue that this is objectionably ‘exclusionary’: conscientious believers are barred from voting on their deepest convictions. Again liberals diverge in their responses. Some such as Stephen Macedo take a pretty hard-nosed attitude: ‘if some people…feel “silenced” or “marginalized” by the fact that some of us believe that it is wrong to shape basic liberties on the basis of religious or metaphysical claims, I can only say “grow up!”’ (2000: 35). Rawls, in contrast, seeks to be more accommodating, allowing that arguments based on religious comprehensive doctrines may enter into liberal politics on issues of basic justice “provided that, in due course, we give properly public reasons to support the principles and policies that our comprehensive doctrine is said to support” (1999a: 144). Thus Rawls allows the legitimacy of religious-based arguments against slavery and in favor of the United States civil rights movement, because ultimately such arguments were supported by public reasons. Others (e.g., Greenawalt, 1995) hold that even this is too restrictive: it is difficult for liberals to justify a moral prohibition on a religious citizen from voicing her view in liberal political debate.

Given that liberalism fractures on so many issues — the nature of liberty, the place of property and democracy in a just society, the comprehensiveness and the reach of the liberal ideal — one might wonder whether there is any point in talking of ‘liberalism’ at all. It is not, though, an unimportant or trivial thing that all these theories take liberty to be the grounding political value. Radical democrats assert the overriding value of equality, communitarians maintain that the demands of belongingness trump freedom, and conservatives complain that the liberal devotion to freedom undermines traditional values and virtues and so social order itself. Intramural disputes aside, liberals join in rejecting these conceptions of political right.

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Define Liberalism

Political doctrines are explicit perceptions of politics and the Government’s responsibility. Several thinkers defined political thoughts as a concept of State, its nature, structure and role.

However, the distinction of old ideas is not necessary for the new ones to be acceptable in the political realm.

This article comprises every detail to define liberalism that is important for the IAS exam .

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What Is Liberalism?

Liberalism is a political and philosophical ideology to establish individual freedom, consent and equality. Different liberals adopt a vast range of views based on their understanding of this ideology. Individual rights, including civil and human rights, come first among these views.

It also supports freedom and liberty of speech, religious conscience and press, defining secularism and democracy. To define liberalism more precisely, one must understand the role, nature as well as the function of State power, which encompasses the following aspects:

• Individual Liberty: Liberalism is essentially an ideology of liberty. Its love for individual liberty is unquestionable. It has become libertarianism. For liberals, liberty is the very essence of human personality. It is a means to one’s development.
• Individual-centred: Liberalism begins and ends with the individual. For liberals, the individual is the centre of all activities, the focal point; the individual is the end while all other associations, including the state, are the means, which exist for the individual. individual is the centre around which all things move.
• Capitalistic Economy: Liberalism advocates a free-market economy, i.e., the capitalistic mode of economy. It believes in a private property system, regarding property rights as sacrosanct; maximum profit as the only motive; capitalistic mode of production and distribution as the only essence; the market forces as the controlling means of economy.
• Limited State: Liberalism advocates the concept of a limited state. The liberals view the state as a means for attaining the good of the individual. They oppose every type of totalitarian state. They are of the opinion that a more powerful state means a less free individual. Locke used to say, “because the functions of the state are limited, so are limited its powers.”
• Opposed to Traditions/Superstitions: As liberalism rose as a reaction against traditions/superstitions, it is, by its nature, opposed to all reactionary measures. Liberalism, emerging from Renaissance and Reformation, stood, and actually stands, for reason and rationalism. As against the feudal model of man as a passive being, liberalism favours a model of a man who is more active and more acquisitive.
• Democracy: Liberalism is an exponent of democratic government. It seeks to establish a government of the people, by the people and for the people; a government that functions according to the Constitution and constitutionalism; a government that upholds the rule of law; a government that secures the rights and liberties of the people. Liberalism, McGovern says, is a combination of democracy and individualism.
• Welfareism: Liberalism is closely associated with welfarism. Welfarism, as a state activity, is the idea that the state works for the welfare of the people. The liberal concept of state activity is one where the state serves the people. In other words, the welfare state is a ‘social service’ state.

Background of Liberalism

• Liberalism appeared in the Age of Enlightenment as a separate political movement and spread among western economists and philosophers.
• It challenged the existing practice of hereditary privilege, absolute monarchy, state creed, and the Divine Right of Kings.
• It rejected the classic conservatism and orthodoxy, with the rule of law and representative democracy.
• In addition, liberals end royal monopolies, mercantilist policies and other trade barriers. Instead, it advocated free trade, globalisation and marketisation.
• People trace back the origin of liberalism to a 17th-century English political theorist and philosopher, John Locke.
• According to him, every human possesses a right to life, liberty and property, which governments must protect instead of violating. This means State’s legitimate interference must function with the consent of the governed.
• Later on, legendary radicals of the Glorious, American and French Revolution espoused liberalist ideology. Its propagation became widespread, mostly after the French Revolution.
• In the 19 th century, liberal governments defeated conservatism across European, South American, and North American countries.
• Later, liberalist principles confronted Fascism and Marxism cum Leninism as new ideological challenges.
• Nevertheless, after the victory of liberal democracy in both World Wars, the spread of this ideology accelerated even further.

Also, read ⇒ What is liberalization, privatization and globalisation?

Theory of Classical Liberalism

The beginning of classical liberalism is ingrained in political changes from the 16 th to 18 th century. But the ideology turned into a political principle mostly after the 1789’s French Revolution . Later, in the 19th century, the ideology came out as retaliation to the Industrial Revolution and progressing urbanisation in European Nations and the United States.

• The classical theory emphasises minimal power and limited function of the state. It further stressed egotism, self-sufficiency and self-responsibility of own livelihood and condition.
• Classical liberalism as an economic ideology promotes a self-regulating market. It further denotes that government intervention is inessential and damaging in such market policy.
• It disables the interference of the State in human rights to protect them from potential political violation.

Theory of Modern Liberalism

Glitches of the open market economy started being visible in North America and England. Leading companies started enjoying the profits in huge margins, leaving lesser benefits for the mass. Consequently, the gap between rich and poor was extending drastically. The economy was likely to fall as there was a huge supply surplus since the poor could not consume. This brought the 19 th -century liberals to initiate an ideological reform.

One must understand the significant aspects as follows to define liberalism in the modern-day scenario:

• Equal opportunity for every individual regardless of race, sex, religion and social stand.
• Positive freedom of speech, belief, religion and press.
• Enabling State’s interference to bring social equality and justice.
• Individualism instead of egotism but developmental.
• Promoting socio-political welfare.

Liberalism in India

Liberalism in India developed through several phases as follows:

• It started with an ancient theory that stressed earthly life and materialism.
• Then, it evolved through social reforms and political independence in the middle and late 19 th century.
• It now emphasises economic and social freedom with minimal Government intervention.

To define liberalism, in conclusion, one can say that it has reformed and evolved through several ages of political activism. But the core idea is to accelerate individualism and curb the State’s uncontrolled power and function.

All these details are essential for aspirants to define liberalism in UPSC and other UPSC topics related to the same.

Frequently Asked Questions on Liberalism

Who developed the idea of liberalism.

John Locke, a 17th-century English political theorist and philosopher, developed the idea of liberalism.

Does liberalism include the “Welfare State” concept?

Yes, the idea of liberalism includes the “Welfare State” concept.

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Liberalism as a Way of Life

• Alexandre Lefebvre

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Why liberalism is all you need to lead a good, fun, worthy, and rewarding life—and how you can become a better and happier person by taking your liberal beliefs more seriously

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Where do you get your values and sensibilities from? If you grew up in a Western democracy, the answer is probably liberalism. Conservatives are right about one thing: liberalism is the ideology of our times, as omnipresent as religion once was. Yet, as Alexandre Lefebvre argues in Liberalism as a Way of Life , many of us are liberal without fully realizing it—or grasping what it means. Misled into thinking that liberalism is confined to politics, we fail to recognize that it’s the water we swim in, saturating every area of public and private life, shaping our psychological and spiritual outlooks, and influencing our moral and aesthetic values—our sense of what is right, wrong, good, bad, funny, worthwhile, and more. This eye-opening book shows how so many of us are liberal to the core, why liberalism provides the basis for a good life, and how we can make our lives better and happier by becoming more aware of, and more committed to, the beliefs we already hold. A lively, engaging, and uplifting guide to living well, the liberal way, Liberalism as a Way of Life is filled with examples from television, movies, stand-up comedy, and social media—from Parks and Recreation and The Good Place to the Borat movies and Hannah Gadsby. Along the way, you’ll also learn about seventeen benefits of being a liberal—including generosity, humor, cheer, gratitude, tolerance, and peace of mind—and practical exercises to increase these rewards. You’re probably already waist-deep in the waters of liberalism. Liberalism as a Way of Life invites you to dive in.

Liberalism may be the source of your soul

Awards and recognition.

• A New Yorker Best Book We've Read This Year

Alexandre Lefebvre is professor of politics and philosophy at the University of Sydney. His books include Human Rights as a Way of Life .

"Stirring and clarifying"—David Brooks, The New York Times

"Richly erudite and thoughtful. A lot of this book is fun, and none of it is frivolous."—Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker

"Warm and inspiring… A humane and spirited defense of the liberal good life"—Matt McManus, Jacobin

"In this spirited defense of liberalism, Lefebvre celebrates the ordinary, everyday virtues of life in a free and open society . . . a sensibility that should be celebrated, cultivated, and embraced as an ethical vision for daily life."—G. John Ikenberry, Foreign Affairs

“ Liberalism as a Way of Life is one of the most original accounts of liberalism in a generation. With immense charm, insight, and lightly carried erudition, Lefebvre moves liberalism from a set of abstract claims to the art of living. It has the singular virtue of important books: it is serious fun.” —Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Princeton University

“Alexandre Lefebvre’s brilliant book brings to light an important dimension of liberalism that is hidden, as it were, in plain sight. Liberalism is not only a procedural, political, or legal concept, but also a moral—and even spiritual—one that serves as a guide for social transformation. Given the dire situation that liberalism faces around the world today, this message is especially important, and the book deserves a wide readership.” —Helena Rosenblatt, author of The Lost History of Liberalism

“As liberalism increasingly comes under attack from both the left and the right, Alexandre Lefebvre mounts a deep and stirring defense, steeped in intellectual history and tied to contemporary culture. Lefebvre emphasizes the great joys and benefits that come from embracing reciprocity, freedom, and fairness, to live liberally; and he develops a set of spiritual exercises through which we can learn to succeed at liberalism as a way of life. This is philosophical self-help of the highest order—a literally extraordinary book.” —Daniel Markovits, author of The Meritocracy Trap

“The great virtue of Alexandre Lefebvre’s book is that it concedes one of the key points of antiliberals: Liberalism isn’t just a set of neutral procedures; it’s a comprehensive way of life that shapes the way we live and think and work and love in innumerable ways. Yet he insists that it’s a way of life worth robustly defending, which he does with a rare blend of cogency, grace, rigor, and wit. The more people who read this book, the better off we will be.” —Damon Linker, University of Pennsylvania

“ Liberalism as a Way of Life is a fresh and deeply original exploration of exactly what its title promises. Provocative and beautifully written, it will change how we think about liberalism and maybe also how we think about ourselves.” —Stephen Macedo, author of Just Married

“In his amiable and conversational style, Alexandre Lefebvre offers the most persuasive defense of what liberalism stands for in the modern world. Through an ingenious rereading of John Rawls, Lefebvre makes it clear that liberalism isn’t neutral, as some of its advocates pretend, but is premised on a robust conception of the good life. This book is nothing short of thrilling.” —Samuel Moyn, author of Liberalism against Itself

“With wit and insight, this marvelous book tells you what it’s like to be a liberal, and how to be a good liberal. It’s written by a cheerful but highly reflective liberal, for liberals of all stripes—including the grumpy, the overconfident, and the wavering. But it can also be read with profit and enjoyment by nonliberals, antiliberals, and even by the harbingers of liberalism’s doom.” —Chandran Kukathas, author of The Liberal Archipelago

“With force and subtlety, this groundbreaking book shows how everyday life inspires politics and values, and how these values are shared through popular culture. Indeed, one of the strengths of the book and what makes it so entertaining and instructive is the way Alexandre Lefebvre demonstrates how popular TV shows—not just highbrow ones—disseminate progressive ideas that have become quintessential to liberalism as a way of life and to the desire to defend it.” —Sandra Laugier, Panthéon-Sorbonne University

“It’s hard to express just how much I loved this book. With great humanity and plenty of humor, Lefebvre shows how liberal values and practices can help each of us live with generosity, integrity, and joy. Beautifully written and genuinely original—this is liberalism as you’ve never seen it before. I cannot recommend it highly enough.” —Daniel Chandler, author of Free and Equal

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Introducing Liberalism in International Relations Theory

This is an excerpt from International Relations Theory –  an E-IR Foundations beginner’s textbook. Download your free copy here.

Liberalism is a defining feature of modern democracy, illustrated by the prevalence of the term ‘liberal democracy’ as a way to describe countries with free and fair elections, rule of law and protected civil liberties. However, liberalism – when discussed within the realm of IR theory – has evolved into a distinct entity of its own. Liberalism contains a variety of concepts and arguments about how institutions, behaviours and economic connections contain and mitigate the violent power of states. When compared to realism, it adds more factors into our field of view – especially a consideration of citizens and international organisations. Most notably, liberalism has been the traditional foil of realism in IR theory as it offers a more optimistic world view, grounded in a different reading of history to that found in realist scholarship.

The basics of liberalism

Liberalism is based on the moral argument that ensuring the right of an individual person to life, liberty and property is the highest goal of government. Consequently, liberals emphasise the wellbeing of the individual as the fundamental building block of a just political system. A political system characterised by unchecked power, such as a monarchy or a dictatorship, cannot protect the life and liberty of its citizens. Therefore, the main concern of liberalism is to construct institutions that protect individual freedom by limiting and checking political power. While these are issues of domestic politics, the realm of IR is also important to liberals because a state’s activities abroad can have a strong influence on liberty at home. Liberals are particularly troubled by militaristic foreign policies. The primary concern is that war requires states to build up military power. This power can be used for fighting foreign states, but it can also be used to oppress its own citizens. For this reason, political systems rooted in liberalism often limit military power by such means as ensuring civilian control over the military.

Wars of territorial expansion, or imperialism – when states seek to build empires by taking territory overseas – are especially disturbing for liberals.   Not only do expansionist wars strengthen the state at the expense of the people, these wars also require long-term commitments to the military occupation and political control of foreign territory and peoples. Occupation and control require large bureaucracies that have an interest in maintaining or expanding the occupation of foreign territory. For liberals, therefore, the core problem is how to develop a political system that can allow states to protect themselves from foreign threats without subverting the individual liberty of its citizenry. The primary institutional check on power in liberal states is free and fair elections via which the people can remove their rulers from power, providing a fundamental check on the behaviour of the government. A second important limitation on political power is the division of political power among different branches and levels of government – such as a parliament/congress, an executive and a legal system. This allows for checks and balances in the use of power.

Democratic peace theory is perhaps the strongest contribution liberalism makes to IR theory. It asserts that democratic states are highly unlikely to go to war with one another. There is a two-part explanation for this phenomenon. First, democratic states are characterised by internal restraints on power, as described above. Second, democracies tend to see each other as legitimate and unthreatening and therefore have a higher capacity for cooperation with each other than they do with non-democracies. Statistical analysis and historical case studies provide strong support for democratic peace theory, but several issues continue to be debated. First, democracy is a relatively recent development in human history. This means there are few cases of democracies having the opportunity to fight one another. Second, we cannot be sure whether it is truly a ‘democratic’ peace or whether some other factors correlated with democracy are the source of peace – such as power, alliances, culture, economics and so on. A third point is that while democracies are unlikely to go to war with one another, some scholarship suggests that they are likely to be aggressive toward non-democracies – such as when the United States went to war with Iraq in 2003. Despite the debate, the possibility of a democratic peace gradually replacing a world of constant war – as described by realists – is an enduring and important facet of liberalism.

We currently live in an international system structured by the liberal world order built after the Second World War (1939–1945). The international institutions, organisations and norms (expected behaviours) of this world order are built on the same foundations as domestic liberal institutions and norms; the desire to restrain the violent power of states. Yet, power is more diluted and dispersed internationally than it is within states. For example, under international law, wars of aggression are prohibited. There is no international police force to enforce this law, but an aggressor knows that when breaking this law it risks considerable international backlash. For example, states – either individually or as part of a collective body like the United Nations – can impose economic sanctions or intervene militarily against the offending state. Furthermore, an aggressive state also risks missing out on the benefits of peace, such as the gains from international trade, foreign aid and diplomatic recognition.

The fullest account of the liberal world order is found in the work of Daniel Deudney and G. John Ikenberry (1999), who describe three interlocking factors:

First, international law and agreements are accompanied by international organisations to create an international system that goes significantly beyond one of just states. The archetypal example of such an organisation is the United Nations, which pools resources for common goals (such as ameliorating climate change), provides for near constant diplomacy between enemies and friends alike and gives all member states a voice in the international community.

Second, the spread of free trade and capitalism through the efforts of powerful liberal states and international organisations like the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank creates an open, market-based, international economic system. This situation is mutually beneficial as a high level of trade between states decreases conflict and makes war less likely, since war would disrupt or cancel the benefits (profits) of trade. States with extensive trade ties are therefore strongly incentivised to maintain peaceful relations. By this calculation, war is not profitable, but detrimental to the state.

The third element of the liberal international order is international norms. Liberal norms favour international cooperation, human rights, democracy and rule of law. When a state takes actions contrary to these norms, they are subject to various types of costs. However, international norms are often contested because of the wide variation in values around the globe. Nevertheless, there are costs for violating liberal norms. The costs can be direct and immediate. For example, the European Union placed an arms sale embargo on China following its violent suppression of pro-democracy protesters in 1989. The embargo continues to this day. The costs can also be less direct, but equally as significant. For example, favourable views of the United States decreased significantly around the world following the 2003 invasion of Iraq because the invasion was undertaken unilaterally (outside established United Nations rules) in a move that was widely deemed illegitimate.

Most liberal scholarship today focuses on how international organisations foster cooperation by helping states overcome the incentive to escape from international agreements. This type of scholarship is commonly referred to as ‘neoliberal institutionalism’ – often shortened to just ‘neoliberalism’. This often causes confusion as neoliberalism is also a term used outside IR theory to describe a widespread economic ideology of deregulation, privatisation, low taxes, austerity (public spending cuts) and free trade. The essence of neoliberalism, when applied within IR, is that states can benefit significantly from cooperation if they trust one another to live up to their agreements. In situations where a state can gain from cheating and escape punishment, defection is likely. However, when a third party (such as an impartial international organisation) is able to monitor the behaviour of signatories to an agreement and provide information to both sides, the incentive to defect decreases and both sides can commit to cooperate. In these cases, all signatories to the agreement can benefit from absolute gains. Absolute gains refer to a general increase in welfare for all parties concerned – everyone benefits to some degree, though not necessarily equally. Liberal theorists argue that states care more about absolute gains than relative gains. Relative gains, which relate closely to realist accounts, describe a situation where a state measures its increase in welfare relative to other states and may shy away from any agreements that make a competitor stronger. By focusing on the more optimistic viewpoint of absolute gains and providing evidence of its existence via international organisations, liberals see a world where states will likely cooperate in any agreement where any increase in prosperity is probable.

Liberal theory and American imperialism

One of the more interesting illustrations of liberalism comes from the foreign policy of the United States during the early twentieth century. During this period, the United States was liberal, but according to the dominant historical narrative, also imperialistic (see Meiser 2015). So, there appears to be a contradiction. If we take a closer look we see that the United States was more restrained than commonly believed, particularly relative to other great powers of that era. One simple measure is the level of colonial territory it accrued compared to other great powers. By 1913, the United States claimed 310,000 square kilometres of colonial territory, compared to 2,360,000 for Belgium, 2,940,000 for Germany and 32,860,000 for the United Kingdom (Bairoch 1993, 83). In fact, the bulk of American colonial holdings was due to the annexation of the Philippines and Puerto Rico, which it inherited after defeating Spain in the Spanish-American War of 1898. The United States exhibited such restraint because, as suggested by liberal theory, its political structure limited expansionism. Examining US–Mexico relations during the early twentieth century helps illustrate the causes of this American restraint.

In the spring of 1914, the United States invaded the Mexican city of Veracruz because of a dispute over the detention of several American sailors in Mexico. However, US–Mexican relations were already troubled because of President Woodrow Wilson’s liberal belief that it was the duty of the United States to bring democracy to Mexico, which was a dictatorship. The initial objectives of the American war plan were to occupy Veracruz and neighbouring Tampico and then blockade the east coast of Mexico until American honour was vindicated – or a regime change occurred in Mexico. After American forces landed in Veracruz, senior military leaders and Wilson’s top diplomatic advisor in Mexico advocated an escalation of the political objectives to include occupation of Mexico City – there were also vocal proponents who advocated the full occupation of Mexico. Wilson did not actually follow any of the advice he received. Instead, he reduced his war aims, halted his forces at Veracruz and withdrew US forces within a few months. Wilson exercised restraint because of American public opposition, his own personal values, unified Mexican hostility and the military losses incurred in the fighting. International opinion also appears to have influenced Wilson’s thinking as anti-Americanism began to sweep through Latin America. As Arthur Link points out, ‘Altogether, it was an unhappy time for a President and a people who claimed the moral leadership of the world’ (Link 1956, 405).

By 1919, a pro-interventionist coalition developed in the United States built on frustration with President Wilson’s prior restraint and new fears over the Mexican Constitution of 1917, which gave the Mexican people ownership of all subsoil resources. This potentially endangered foreign ownership of mines and oilfields in Mexico. Interventionists wanted to turn Mexico into an American protectorate – or at least seize the Mexican oil fields. This coalition moved the country toward intervention while Wilson was distracted by peace negotiations in Europe and then bedridden by a stroke. The path to intervention was blocked only after Wilson recovered sufficiently to regain command of the policy agenda and sever the ties between the interventionists. Wilson had two main reasons for avoiding the more belligerent policy path. First, he saw the Houses of Congress (with the support of some members of the executive branch) attempting to determine the foreign policy of the United States, which Wilson viewed as uncon- stitutional. In the American system, the president has the authority to conduct foreign policy. His assertion of authority over foreign policy with Mexico was therefore a clear attempt to check the power of Congress in policymaking. Second, Wilson was determined to maintain a policy consistent with the norm of anti-imperialism, but also the norm of self-determination – the process by which a country determines its own statehood and chooses its own form of government. Both of these norms remain bedrocks of liberal theory today.

US relations with Mexico in this case show how institutional and normative domestic structures restrained the use of violent power. These institutional restraints can break down if the political culture of a society does not include a strong dose of liberal norms. For example, anti-statism (a belief that the power of the government should be limited) and anti-imperialism (a belief that conquest of foreign peoples is wrong) are liberal norms. A society infused by liberal norms has an added level of restraint above and beyond the purely institutional limitations on state power. A liberal citizenry will naturally oppose government actions that threaten individual liberty and choose represen-  tatives that will act on liberal preferences. The institutional separation of powers in the United States allowed Wilson to block the interventionist efforts of Congress and others. The liberal norm of anti-imperialism restrained American expansion through the mechanisms of public opinion and the personal values of the president of the United States. Institutions and norms worked symbiotically. International opinion put additional pressure on American political leaders due to increasing trade opportunities with Latin American countries throughout the early 1900s. Precisely as liberal theory details, the absolute gains and opportunities offered by trade, together with preferences for self-determination and non-interference, acted as a restraint on US expansionism toward Mexico in this most imperial of periods in world history.

A core argument of liberalism is that concentrations of unaccountable violent power are the fundamental threat to individual liberty and must be restrained. The primary means of restraining power are institutions and norms at both domestic and international level. At the international level institutions and organisations limit the power of states by fostering cooperation and providing a means for imposing costs on states that violate international agreements. Economic institutions are particularly effective at fostering cooperation because of the substantial benefits that can be derived from economic interdependence. Finally, liberal norms add a further limitation on the use of power by shaping our understanding of what types of behaviour are appropriate. Today, it is clear that liberalism is not a ‘utopian’ theory describing a dream world of peace and happiness as it was once accused of being. It provides a consistent rejoinder to realism, firmly rooted in evidence and a deep theoretical tradition.

Find out more about this, and many other, International Relations theories with a range of multimedia resources compiled by E-IR .

Full references for citations can be found in the PDF version, linked at the top of this page.

Further Reading on E-International Relations

• Hegemony and Diversity in the ‘Liberal International Order’: Theory and Reality
• Out of Illusion, Weakness: Liberalism and Its Blind Spots
• Fear as Driver of International Relations
• Jan Smuts, Jawaharlal Nehru and the Legacies of Liberalism
• Norms, Norm Violations, and IR Theory
• America’s Democratic Shortcomings and the Liberal International Order

Jeffrey W. Meiser is an Assistant Professor in Political Science at the University of Portland, USA.

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Realism and Liberalism

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Lesson Plan: Realism and Liberalism in International Relations Theory

Lesson Plan: Realism and Liberalism

Thinking Theoretically: Realism and Liberalism

2

150-180 minutes

, Stephen McGlinchey, ed. Adapted by Charlotte Lee. (15 pages, ) , Stephen McGlinchey, ed. Adapted by Charlotte Lee. (10 pages, ) (Book 5, Chapters 84-116). Trans. Richard Crawley. London: Spottiswoode and Co., 1874. Available online at (5 pages, ) , Stephen McGlinchey, ed. Adapted by Charlotte Lee. (8 pages, ) )

 

Total page count: 43

 

By the end of this lesson plan, students will be able to:

Lecture: Review learning objectives

Lecture slides

Brainstorm/write on board: Was President Obama a realist or liberal? How do we know?

 

Lecture: Introduction to theory

Reading 1

Lecture slides

Lecture and discussion: Key concepts in realism

 

 

Reading 2

Lecture slides

 

Instructor resource:

Machiavelli, Nicolo. 1532 (2016). “Chapter XV - Concerning Things for which Men, and Especially Princes, are Praised or Blamed.” In , Project Gutenberg EBook. Available online at

 

Think Pair Share: Respond to the Melian Dialogue

Reading 3

Handout

Lecture: Key concepts in liberalism

Reading 4

Lecture slides

Think Pair Share: Debate democracy promotion

Reading 5

Prompt in lecture slides

Compare realism and liberalism

Lecture slides

Conclude and wrap-up

Lecture slides

Attached Resources

Lesson Plan_ Realism and Liberalism  

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14 Conclusion: Liberalism, Nationalism, and the Study of Political Ideas

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Where there is an attempt to discern a single liberal tradition, even in Britain, there is little agreement over what its main features are and which writers best represent its principles. For Harold Laski, liberalism was the ideology that justified bourgeois capitalism, and this view has animated much discussion of liberalism to the present day. The argument presented here differs from this view in two important respects. It is based on a distinction between philosophy or theory on the one hand and ideology on the other, a distinction which is not as clearly made in Marxism, where a historical conception of truth tends to reduce past philosophy to ideology. No distinction can be made, as has been made here, between Jeremy Bentham as a theorist of constitutional liberty within utilitarianism and Bentham as a liberal icon used by those committed more to political action than to the pursuit of truth.

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Home — Essay Samples — Government & Politics — Political Systems & Ideologies — Liberalism

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Liberalism versus Marxism Essay

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In an attempt to offer a better explanation to international political economy, observers in international relations have made use of diverse theories and perspectives.

Among the most notable theories include Liberalism and Marxism. The two theories differ with regard to varying factors and components that impact on global integration. They include the thoughts and principles on such areas as the trade unions, international organizations, state’s sovereignty, multinational corporations, globalised economic processes, and international crime.

Liberalism is based under the idea that giving people maximum freedom and liberty would help eliminate authoritarian political regimes, achieve higher levels of democracies, reduce civil wars and civil unrests and as result achieve global peace and prosperity. In Liberalism the government applies little control over freedom. It is also leveled at the same degree of moral standards as its citizens.

Liberalism is aims to achieve democracy, peace, free trade as well as international integration. Liberalism calls for commitment to tolerance as well as giving opportunity for right self-determination by citizens. It favors constitutional government which expresses the people’s democracy and that which applies collective rule of law.

Liberalism requires that citizens in a state be given the opportunity to realise intellectual and economic liberty; this should form the basis for political order which applies minimal government regulation. In this case, the government’s role is to protect and promote the citizens economic and intellectual liberty. Liberalism also gives individuals the opportunity to follow their own initiatives (Evans and Newnham 1998, p.46).

According to Evans & Newnham (1998 p.61) liberalism is founded on four core beliefs in international relations. Liberalism believes that peace can be best achieved by developing and strengthening democratic institutions on a global basis.

It founded on the ideology that treaties and laws should be consensus-oriented and that state preference and not state capabilities should be the principal determinants of the conduct of every state. This implies that each state is given the opportunity to carry out an analogy into its domestic level concerning individual motivation of its citizens while pursuing positive international relations.

It also believes that a natural harmony would enable nations and individuals make rational calculations which help integrate international interests and national interests. Thus liberalism encourages tolerance of preference through democratic institutions which are strengthened by enlightened educational institutions. This would help promote rational calculations individuals and states and hence reduce the chances of wars.

It acknowledges that preferences usually vary in states depending on the type of government, economic system and the culture of the country. Since it is governments that make war and not the people, establishing governments which represent the popular will of citizens and governance systems which employ democracy is most likely to encourage peace (Evans and Newnham 1998, p.62).

It is also founded on the belief that disputes are better solved through established judicial procedures which are instituted and operate under the rule of law. Since the rule of law applies to states just the same way it applies to individuals, it is therefore fundamental to establish a voluntary international judicial organization to fulfill international legislative functions.

This system should be able to preserve tolerance by encouraging as much independence and freedom among nations as possible. Finally, its other core belief is that collective security measures would effectively substitute the notion of self-help among states.

The ideology of liberalism believes that the international community is able to identify belligerents by putting in place an effective alliance of law-abiding institutions and nations to oppose such forces. Thus liberalism is the ideology under which the United Nations and the League of Nations were established and have developed (Evans and Newnham 1998, p.62).

Liberalism also believes on devising and implementing cooperative international economic institutions so as to enhance integration of international markets (Garrett 2000, p.108). Such actions are also aimed at achieving international economic stability.

This has been the basis of foundations for institutions for fixed exchange rates and international monetary institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and international economic organizations such as World Trade Organization. In achieving effective international economic institutions states should have the autonomy to pursue their social and economic objectives while ensuring the rules and policies of the international relations (Garrett 2000, p.108).

Marxism is founded on the idea that change and improvement of society can be best achieved by implementing socialism. In Marxist regimes the majority population spends their lives working to benefit the few rich wealthy ruling class. It applies the ideology of imperialism which integrates economic and geopolitical competition among nations (Prichard, 2007, p.409).

Marxist political economy is closer to the economics as compared to the political economy of states. It was founded on the basis of internalisation of capital, interpenetration of private capital as well as nation-state (Harvey 1999, p.242).

Marxism isolates the predispositions and laws of capitalism so as to understand the direction of capitalism; and in this case the direction of capitalism is in four phases which include the beginning, maturity, decline and finally death (Harvey 1999, p.242). This helps it identify the transition and the successor to the particular society. This implies that Marxism has a period of inherent instability as it has decline and death phases (Prichard, 2007, p.409).

In Marxism, financial capital plays a major role and as such states are rated and treated in accordance with their financial capital. It is more dependent on capital and imperialism (Prichard, 2007, p.430). Marxism employs various pragmatic measures to ensure that the finance capital achieves its goal. Marxism requires that regulations are imposed to control economic activities while pursuing the goal so as to ensure maximum profit in the least possible time (Prichard, 2007, p.430).

Marxism is characterised by; division of class, state promotion of social mobility; and provision of support to medium-sized and small businesses. These are aimed at making the social order more stable by exercising control over the poor majority. In countries that employ Marxism ideologies, regionalism, racism homophobia, xenophobia are bound to be experienced although developed states have laws prohibiting such kind of discrimination (Prichard, 2007, p.415).

Marxism integrates capitalist systems of control to achieve surplus productions (Prichard, 2007, p.415). Forces are only applied during crisis in mature systems particularly when the system is threatened. In Marxism, states labour exists in an abstract form aimed at creating quantities (surplus) for sale.

Thus the forms of control on production put in place according to Marxism are only concerned with quantity and not the welfare of the workforce. It ensures that the forms of control is particular to the means of production and is also in line with capitalistic ideals. Marxism states that competition should aim at reducing labour to its homogenised form (Prichard, 2007, p.415).

Marxism discourages the establishment of trade unions or company unions and therefore adopts several strategies to contain the workforce either by making concessions to them or even through direct repressions. It believes that such unions have political effect and can therefore lower quality and the quantity of production and as such limit the ability of firms to expand (Prichard, 2007, p.428).

Marxism does not apply social democracy since it is likely to threaten their rule. It applies various strategies to prevent unionisation of workers. Such measures may include casualisation of labour, creating divisions between long-term and temporary workers among many other tactics.

Marxism also discourages establishment of legal institutions which promote human rights either through direct oppression of human rights groups or through other illegal forms which weaken the human rights groups. It promotes the growth of the middle class since this group would enable implementation of authoritarian regimes whenever the movement of the society favoured their class (Prichard, 2007, p.428).

Marxism ensures political controls by applying bureaucracy and by applying political-legal forms of control on recruitment into the civil service (Prichard, 2007, p.410). A few individuals who control the political economy of such states control the forms of communication to ensure that vital political information are channeled through privately owned media so as to communicate agendas that favour them.

They also apply economic pressures over the individuals in the nation especially the majority low class population. Such states have highly autocratic political economic systems which are practised under the guise of democracy. In such systems, only individuals in high positions in the state are consulted. They are also not ordered on what to do but are assumed to know the best options for the system.

Such states also work to preserve a flourishing small business sector. This is mainly controlled by the public sector and the few professional middle class group thus ensuring that this group climbs up the social and economic ladder. Such states promote more and more privatisation of the public services.

Marxism encourages monopoly in the economy since the rich firms and entrepreneurs supply the small businesses with almost everything. The regulations and laws defending competition are not very effective. Such policies which protect the interests of a small rich majority are bound to bring polarisation in such states. Marxism applies socialisation of labour and production. These are bound to destabilise the internal political economic systems (Nealon 2008, p.61).

In Marxist regimes, markets are more regulated and are limited in their operations (Nealon 2008, p.54). The markets are determined by the pool of labour and the surplus production. It believes that opening up the market for the international community is bound to threaten the national economic stability and that of the few rich individuals who monopolise the economic sectors of the state.

In imperialism, free trade is destructive and is a potential cause of inter-imperialist conflict (Prichard, 2007, p.417). States which practice the ideology of imperialism or Marxism in that case believe that having direct control over the spigots where the most essential commodity in the global economy would certainly enable strengthen their economic positions and therefore have an edge over their key rivals (Garrett 2000, p.116).

Marxists regimes are likely to apply political and military wars in attempts to solve their economic crisis. Geopolitical rivalries form part dynamic imperialism. Inter-imperialist conflicts normally lead to warfare. Thus unlike liberalist states, such regimes do not believe in forming voluntary international judicial system for solving inter-state or international conflicts. Thus internationally, imperialist states dependent more on their military strength to defend their political economies (Garrett 2000, p.116).

Liberalism is bent towards political economy while Marxism is more concerned with economics and maximization of profits. Liberalism believes in equal rights and individual liberty as Marxism supports the ideology of differentiation of social class and struggle to achieve higher order social class.

States which adopt liberalisms in their governments and governance structure believe in democracy and giving individuals economic and intellectual freedom while Marxism believes in authoritarian rule where individuals are controlled by applying economic pressure on them.

Liberalism promotes democracy through institutions to encourage human rights while Marxism discourages establishment of institutions that promote individual rights. Institutions such as trade unions are seen to affect the capacity of the state and the regime to achieve maximum production and profit.

Liberalism promotes liberal democracy which promotes active political participation by all the individuals and encourages their participation by enabling access to information. Marxism applies discriminative active political participation by applying bias in recruitments in political activities and public service. Marxism does not promote free flow of vital information to the general public and instead the wealthy ruling class use private media to present information which are subjective and which work for their benefits.

Liberalism also encourages free trade through formation of international economic communities and international economic policies. It applies minimal policy regulations on trade. Marxism on the other hand is bent on protecting economic monopoly by the wealthy class and therefore views economic integration of states as destructive to the economic stability of the state. It therefore works to excessively regulate trade activities.

Liberalism believes in achieving international justice through voluntary international judicial institutions which apply the rule of law while at the same time ensuring independence and freedom of individuals and states. Marxism believes in achieving solutions to geopolitical conflicts through political and military wars.

In order to achieve democratic societies which respect the rule of law and promotes human rights governments and the international community should aim at implementing the ideals liberalism. Marxism is more authoritarian and would encourage more oppression on individuals as well as civil and international wars. Adopting the ideology of liberalism globally would encourage peaceful coexistence and stable economic growth to individuals and states.

Evans, G., & Newnham, J., 1998, The Penguin dictionary of international relations . New York: Penguin.

Garrett, G., 2000, Shrinking states? Globalization and national autonomy. In the political economy of globalization . ed. Ngaire Woods, 107-46. London: Macmillan.

Harvey, D., 1999, Limits to Capital. London: Verso. Pp. 239-324.

Nealon, J.. 2008. Genealogies of Capitalism. Stanford: Stanford UP. Pp.54-73.

Prichard, C., 2007. Responding to class theft: Theoretical and empirical links to critical management studies . Rethinking Marxism, Vol.19, No. 3, pp. 409-421.

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IvyPanda. (2018, July 25). Liberalism versus Marxism. https://ivypanda.com/essays/liberalism-versus-marxism/

"Liberalism versus Marxism." IvyPanda , 25 July 2018, ivypanda.com/essays/liberalism-versus-marxism/.

IvyPanda . (2018) 'Liberalism versus Marxism'. 25 July.

IvyPanda . 2018. "Liberalism versus Marxism." July 25, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/liberalism-versus-marxism/.

1. IvyPanda . "Liberalism versus Marxism." July 25, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/liberalism-versus-marxism/.

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IvyPanda . "Liberalism versus Marxism." July 25, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/liberalism-versus-marxism/.

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Title:	Unit-8 Liberalism & Neo-Liberalism
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Social Liberalism

Social liberalism moves outside of classical liberalism within two ways – a consignment to redistribution along with a belief in democracy. However both are affirmations of liberalism’s attachment to political liberty, not contradictions of it. The fundamental idea is which the over-concentration of energy is itself a new threat to politics freedom. Excesses of success and poverty are usually themselves threats to freedom simply because they tend to create self-perpetuating oligarchies who buy the political system. Social liberalism is a political ideology that seeks to locate a balance between individual liberty and interpersonal justice.

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Liberal Feminism: Definition, Theory & Examples

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Liberal feminism asserts that equality for women can be achieved through legal means and social reform within current social systems, rather than an overhaul of the systems themselves. It focuses on individual rights, legal equality, and ending sex-based discrimination.

Key Takeaways

• Liberal feminism believes that equality should be brought about through education and policy changes. They try to change the system from within.
• Liberal feminism has been criticized for being too optimistic about the amount of progress that has been made. It has been accused of dealing with the effects of patriarchy and not the causes.
• Marxist and Radical feminists also argue that liberal feminists fail to challenge the underlying causes of women’s oppression and changing the law is not enough to bring about equality, there needs to be a fundamental change in social structures.

What Is Liberal Feminism?

Liberal feminism is a prominent branch of feminism that aims to advocate for women’s legal and political rights. It was born in western countries and emphasizes the value of freedom which can be achieved through political and legal reform.

The ideas of liberal feminism are rooted in liberalism, a political philosophy that encourages the development of freedom, particularly in the political and economic spheres. These key ideas of liberalism include individual freedom, democracy, equal opportunities, and equal rights.

Liberal feminists apply liberalism to gender equality and claim that the oppression of women lies in their lack of political and civil rights. Liberal feminism emphasizes the rights of the individual woman and aims to grant access to equal rights and representation through legislation.

Accordingly, women’s ‘liberation’ would be achieved by putting an end to discriminatory practices and by pushing for equal rights. Liberal feminists have fought for women’s right to vote, to work, to an education, and to have equal pay.

Many liberal feminists think that their fight for these rights is largely won, but others believe that there are still issues to work on such as the gender pay gap, representation in politics, and in the media.

What Are The Principles Of Liberal Feminism?

Gender equality.

While they may not deny there may be biological differences between men and women, liberal feminists do not see these differences as justification for inequalities between the sexes.

Thus, their main principle is for women to be treated as equals to men.

This can include having the same social and political rights, having equal pay for doing the same job as men, and being equals in marriage and partnership.

Equality in women’s representation

Liberal feminists believe that women have the right to be as active in society as men, and thus be equally represented in the workplace, politics, and in the media.

This may mean that they would want to be equally represented in higher career positions such as CEOs and directors. They would also want to be equally represented in political roles such as having more women world leaders.

Moreover, they would want to be better represented in film and television, by having more female leading actors and more female directors and producers.

Reforming the system

Liberal feminists do not necessarily question the system of society as a whole, but instead, believe in its capacity to reform.

They believe that gender justice is best achieved by modifying existing social institutions and political systems. They rely on the state to gain equality and support affirmative action and legislation which grants equal rights and opportunities to both men and women.

For instance, liberal feminists would generally be supportive of employers and educational institutions which make special attempts to include women as serious applicants.

Individualistic

Liberal feminism is individualistic rather than group based. This means that the rights are granted to individual women who are assumed to be equal and thus equally deserving, rather than granting rights to a whole group.

The concept of sexism

Liberal feminists are thought to have popularized the concept of ‘sexism’ to refer to ideas and social practices that keep women in a subordinate role.

They believe that sexism is rooted in the idea of biological determinism, which is the idea that certain behaviors or abilities are inherent to women or men and are derived from biological characteristics.

Sexism, liberal feminists believe, is the fundamental cause of discrimination against women.

What Are The Goals Of Liberal Feminism?

Equality in the public sphere.

The primary goal of liberal feminism is gender equality in the public sphere. This includes equal access to education, equal pay, ending job sex segregation, and better working conditions for women. All of these are believed to be achieved through legal change.

While early liberal feminists sought to gain the right to vote and access to education for women, modern liberal feminists aim to secure equal social, political, and economic opportunities, equal civil liberties, and sexual freedoms. If there is gender inequality in existing institutions, then liberal feminists seek to eradicate this to create a fair and just society.

Equality in the private sphere

Liberal feminists also suggest that gender equality should be present in the home as well as in public life. The family can be seen as a social institution and thus should be an equal structure according to liberal feminists.

They tend to support marriage as long as it is an equal partnership. In an equal partnership, men and women share the household chores, cooking, house management, and childcare as equally as possible.

Liberal feminists also generally support abortion and other reproductive rights that are related to the control of one’s life and autonomy. They also believe that ending domestic violence and sexual harassment removes obstacles to women achieving on an equal level with men.

Examples of Liberal Feminism Today

Since liberal feminism was traditionally focused on legal equality, it could be considered almost fully achieved in some Western countries.

In practice, however, gender equality in law and legislation does not necessarily mean that there is real and productive equality, which is why liberal feminism still exists.

In the family

Feminists are critical of the family as a social institutions. They believe that the family is a tool of female oppression and in particular the nuclear family serves the needs of men rather than women. This is through issues such as unequal division of domestic labor and domestic violence.

Liberal feminists argue that families are slowly becoming more equal through changes in law and social attitudes. They do not believe that full equality has been achieved but the process is well underway.

For example, they show how parents are now socializing their children in more gender-neutral ways, with similar aspirations for both sons and daughters and chores not being determined by gender.

In the workplace

While there may be more equality in the number of women in the workplace, liberal feminists argue that there are inequalities within.

Typically, women are over-represented in positions which are traditionally ‘feminine’ roles such as nursing, teaching, and social care. These are positions which are often underpaid compared to jobs which are typically male-dominated such as in science, law, and medicine.

Likewise, there is often still a gender wage gap in many countries where women still earn less on average than a man for the same job.

While there are more women represented in sectors that were once considered ‘male’, they are often confined to lower positions in the hierarchy and there are disproportionately less women CEOs, vice-presidents, and directors. Liberal feminists would like to see more women in these higher positions.

In politics

While there may now be more women involved in politics, there is still an under-representation in the number of women in political roles.

Particularly, men still dominate political leadership such as in the United States where there has never been a female president, or in the United Kingdom where there have only been two female prime ministers.

Men still make a lot of the decisions and laws in society meaning that less women’s voices are heard. Liberal feminists would suggest that having more women in positions of power would trigger positive changes to make their views understood.

In the media

In film and television, female characters are under-represented, with women less likely to play the protagonist character. Women in film and television often play the love interest to the main male character or play a smaller role with fewer speaking parts.

There is a test known as the Bechdel test which aims to examine the presence of women in film and highlights the sexism that persists.

To pass the Bechdel test, the film must contain two named, speaking female characters who have a conversation with each other where the topic of conversation is not related to a man. There are still many films released today that do not pass the Bechdel test.

There are also fewer female directors in films. Liberal feminists suggest that having more female directors would allow for more female actors and less female stereotyped characters.

The History Of Liberal Feminism

Liberal feminism is thought to have emerged in the 18th and 19th century with the rise of the political philosophy known as classical liberalism. This was a period of great social change in western countries alongside the rise of capitalism .

Mary Wollstonecraft

Early feminist scholars drew inspiration from Mary Wollstonecraft, especially from her notable writing of A Vindication of the Rights of Women , published in 1792. Wollstonecraft was a passionate advocate of educational and social equality for women.

In her writings, she makes the case that women need to be educated just as well as men so that they can grow up to be moral and autonomous human beings. She called for the improvement of women’s status through such political change as the reform of national educational systems.

John Stuart Mill

A century after Wollstonecraft, John Stuart Mill defended the civic and legal equality of women and their right to vote in his essay titled > On the Subjection of Women , published in 1869. He argued that women’s social and political equality was rooted in liberal principles.

Mill suggested that the central problem encountered by women is that they are denied a free and rational choice as to how they are to lead their lives – that they are denied the autonomy of the individual.

He claimed that the capacities of women cannot be known until they enjoy equal access to education and the vote.

First Wave Feminism

There was a gradual rise of the liberal feminist movement over time, but the first major advancements in gender equality did not happen until the first wave of feminism hit the 20th century in the west.

The women’s suffrage movement fought for the right for women to vote.

This struggle was mainly led by liberal feminists although more revolutionary feminists also took part in the movement. This movement is known as the first victory of liberal feminists toward having equal rights to men.

Second Wave Feminism

Second wave feminism took off in the 1960s, a period marked by the civil rights movement. Although women at the time had the right to vote, and more were entering the workplace, this did not automatically result in equal rights.

Liberal feminists now demanded the right to equal pay. Women of this time also faced employment discrimination, unequal pay, legal inequalities, and poor support services for working women.

Through this wave of feminism, the Equal Pay Act of 1963 was introduced. Moreover, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was amended to prevent employers from discriminating on the basis of sex.

Strengths And Criticisms Of Liberal Feminism

A strength of liberal feminism is that it is a relatively popular branch of feminism, and the goals are ones that support a lot of public opinion.

For instance, it is easy for most people to support equal rights for both men and women to vote and work – it would be difficult to justify otherwise. Likewise, the major victories of liberal feminists are rarely questioned. For example, not many would suggest that the vote should be taken away from women.

Liberal feminists have helped to bring forward legislature which helps to protect more women. They cannot be discriminated against on the basis of their sex in the workplace, they have more rights, and they can own property. Also, liberal feminism extends its principles into the private sphere so as to protect more women from the forms of oppression specific to this sphere

Since liberal feminism is the oldest version of the feminist movement, it faces a lot of criticism, especially from other feminists.

It is argued that liberal feminists overlook how differences of race, class, and sexual orientation, among others, can intersect to create different levels of women’s oppression. Liberal feminists are accused of being ‘white feminists’ which means that they assume that the issues facing white, mostly western women are issues that all women face.

Much of the work of liberal feminism has been carried by white privileged women whose fight has mainly been for other white women.

They may question the number of women in politics, for instance, but may not argue for more women of color, or working-class women in this field. The suffrage movement saw the vote granted to women in the early 20th century as a win, despite many women of color not being granted the vote until decades later.

Many liberal feminists would celebrate a woman being promoted to a position of power without considering the values of the person.

They may overlook the fact that the woman in power has goals that are oppressive and immoral, because as long as she is in power, it is a win for the liberal feminists.

Liberal feminism does not really consider the root cause of gender inequality. Marxist feminists would argue that liberal feminists ignore the systemic discrimination – that women’s oppression coming from the patriarchy and capitalism. Instead, liberal feminists do not see the need to overthrow the system, and in fact, may even promote capitalism.

Liberal feminism often faces additional criticism for the notion of trying to make women ‘superheroes’, capable of successfully combining marriage, motherhood, and career.

While many women may desire this, it can be considered as more oppressive towards women as they are now expected to succeed in a male-dominated workplace while simultaneously managing their roles as housewife and mother.

Women who do not have the desire or time for a successful career may feel judged by liberal feminists for not living up to the male standards of success.

Cottais, C. (2020). Liberal feminism. Gender in Geopolitics Institute. Retrieved 2022, August 16 from: https://igg-geo.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/IGG_CCottais_Liberal_feminism2020.pdf

Donner, W. (1993). John Stuart Mill”s liberal feminism. Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition, 69(2/3), 155-166.

Friedan, B. (1963). The feminine mystique. WW Norton & Company.

Gerson, G. (2002). Liberal feminism: Individuality and oppositions in Wollstonecraft and Mill. Political Studies, 50(4), 794-810.

Mill, J. S. (2006). The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill.

Oxley, J. C. (2011). Liberal feminism. Just the Arguments, 100, 258262.

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