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e. Modern liberalism in the United States is based on the combined ideas of civil liberty and equality with support for social justice. It is one of two major political ideologies of the United States. Economically, modern liberalism supports government regulation on private industry, opposes corporate monopolies, and supports labor rights. [1]
As an ideology, modern liberalism is generally considered to be in the center of the economic spectrum and is based upon the idea of a mixed economy that includes elements from both the left and right. It first emerged out of the late 19th and early 20th centuries with the rise of socialist movements and values that swept across Europe and ...
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- General characteristics
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.
Who were the intellectual founders of liberalism?
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.
John Locke
Learn more about John Locke.
Adam Smith
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).
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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.
In North America, social liberalism (as Europe would refer to it) tends to be the dominant form of liberalism present, so in common parlance, "liberal" refers to social liberals. In Canada, social liberalism is held by the Liberal Party of Canada, while in the United States, social liberalism is a significant force within the Democratic Party.
Liberalism in the United States is based on concepts of unalienable rights of the individual. The fundamental liberal ideals of freedom of the press, freedom of religion, the separation of church and state, the right to due process, and equality before the law are widely accepted as a common foundation of liberalism.
This tradition of constitutional liberalism—classical political liberalism—emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries, culminated in the American and French revolutions, and continues to pro-vide the foundation of the modern liberal state. The classical liberals generally stood for religious liberty, freedom of thought
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Where did American liberalism come from?
Jan 18, 1999 · Second, the extra-liberal or nongovernmental reservoirs from which liberalism has drawn in the past to foster the virtues necessary to maintain itself—in particular, the family, religion, and the array of associations in civil society—have undergone substantial transformations and can no longer be counted on in the way that the classic ...
