15.1 Introduction
Liberalism is the dominant ideology of the present-day Western world. The history of England, Western Europe, and America for the last 300 years is closely associated with the evolution and development of liberal thought. Liberalism was the product of the climate of opinion that emerged at the time of the Renaissance and Reformation in Europe — reflecting the economic, social, and political aspirations of the rising middle class (later the capitalist class).
The beginning of liberalism was a protest against hierarchical and privileged authority and monarchy — demanding freedom from every authority capable of acting capriciously and arbitrarily, and freedom for the individual to develop all potentialities as a rational human being. Its initial aim was more destructive than constructive: to remove hindrances in the path of individual development rather than elucidate positive aims of civilisation.
Until the later half of the 19th century, it was a progressive ideology fighting against cruelty, superstitions, intolerance, and arbitrary governments. In the mid-20th century, faced with Marxism, it became an ideology of status quo — defensive and conservative. With the fall of socialist regimes in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and the withering away of socialist ideology, classical liberalism (in its new avatar of libertarianism) is once again becoming the dominant ideology of the contemporary world.
15.2 What is Liberalism?
Liberalism is too dynamic and flexible to be contained in a precise definition. Key characterisations:
- Ablaster: liberalism should be seen not as a fixed set of unchanging values but as “a specific historical movement of ideas in the modern era that began with Renaissance and Reformation.”
- Laski: “It is not easy to describe, much less to define, for it is hardly less a habit of mind than a body of doctrine.”
- Hacker: “It is a view of the individual, of the state, and of the relations between them.”
- Grimes: “Liberalism is not a static creed or dogma… it is rather a tentative attitude towards social problems which stresses the role of reason and human ingenuity… looks ahead with a flexible approach.”
- Wellheim: “Liberalism is the belief in the value of liberty of the individual.”
- Sartori: “Liberalism is the theory and practice of individual liberty, juridical defence and the constitutional state.”
- Bullock and Shock: freedom and conscience are the twin foundations.
- Hallowed: “The embodiment of the demand for freedom in every sphere of life — intellectual, social, religious, political and economic.”
- Koerner: “Liberalism begins and ends with the ideals of individual freedom, individual human rights and individual human happiness.”
Andrew Hacker distinguishes four types of liberalism: utopian liberalism, free market liberalism, democratic liberalism, and reformist liberalism.
Barbara Goodwin (Using Political Ideas) lists the ingredients of liberalism: (i) man is free, rational, self-improving, and autonomous; (ii) government based on consent and contract; (iii) constitutionalism and rule of law; (iv) freedom as choice; (v) equality of opportunity; (vi) social justice based on merit; (vii) tolerance.
At a narrow level: political and economic dimensions. At a broad level: a mental attitude integrating intellectual, moral, religious, social, economic, and political relationships. At the social level: secularism and freedom in relation to religion and morality. At the economic level: free trade and freedom of production. At the political level: political liberty, right to property, constitutional limited government, and anti-authoritarianism.
15.3 Characteristics of Liberalism
John Hallowed pinpointed the following characteristics of classical liberalism:
- A belief in the absolute value of human personality and the spiritual equality of the individual.
- A belief in the autonomy of the individual will.
- A belief in the essential rationality and goodness of man.
- A belief in certain inalienable rights of the individual — particularly life, liberty, and property.
- The state comes into existence by mutual consent for the purpose of protecting rights.
- The relationship between state and individual is a contractual one.
- Social control can best be secured by law rather than command.
- Individual freedom in all spheres of life — political, economic, social, intellectual, and religious.
- The government that governs the least is the best.
- A belief that truth is accessible to man’s natural reason.
15.4 Rise of Liberalism
Liberalism’s most characteristic development took place in England — also strong in Holland and Spain. In Germany, it remained largely academic. In France, it was more the social philosophy of an aristocratic class, primarily critical in function, and was overshadowed by the radical and socialist working-class movements influenced by Marxist class struggle.
Only in England — the most highly industrialised country in the 19th century — did liberalism achieve the status of both a national philosophy and a national policy. It provided principles for an orderly and peaceful transition to: freedom for industry and enfranchisement of the middle class, and ultimately to the enfranchisement and protection of the working class.
Two periods of liberalism: (i) Classical or negative liberalism — philosophy of the rising middle class, highly individualistic, treated individual and social interests as contradictory; (ii) Welfare or positive liberalism — recognised the reality and value of social and community interests alongside individual interests, adapting liberalism to the changes brought by industrialism and nationalism.
15.5 Ideology of Classical Liberalism — Views on Man, Society, Economy and State
Classical liberalism is also called: negative liberalism, individualistic liberalism, laissez-faire liberalism, free market liberalism, integral liberalism, original liberalism.
Key thinkers: Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Adam Smith, Malthus, Ricardo, Bentham, James Mill, J.S. Mill, Herbert Spencer, William Senior, Thomas Paine.
Historical Context
The social structure of the Middle Ages was based on the hereditary principle of feudalism — a strict hierarchy: peasant → landlord → feudal lord → king → Pope → Christ. The Reformation broke the authority of the church. The revival of commerce challenged the ascendancy of nobility. Classical liberalism emerged as a protest against this absolute and privileged authority — expressing itself as: secularism against religious fundamentalism; free market capitalism in economics; government based on consent in politics; individualism and humanism in sociology.
Liberalism favoured an open meritocracy where any energetic individual could rise to success — opposed to the fixed-station society of feudalism. It believed in a contractual, competitive society and free market economic order. It favoured free thinking, rationalism, change, dynamism, growth, mobility, accumulation, and competition.
View of Man
Classical liberalism emphasised the autonomous individual — the idea of man as a “masterless man” was an entirely novel conception. Man was considered selfish, egoistic, alienated but simultaneously rational. Liberty was conceived as negative liberty — absence of restraints.
- Hobbes: “the silence of laws.”
- Berlin: “absence of coercion.”
- Milton Friedman: “absence of coercion of man by state, society or his fellowmen.”
- Flew: “absence of social and legal constraints.”
- Nozick: a natural right to “self-ownership.”
Man was endowed with certain inalienable natural rights based on the law of nature — rights to life, liberty, and property — inherent in the personality of the individual, not dependent on the mercy of the state or society.
View of Society
Since the individual was taken as the natural unit, classical liberalism viewed society as artificial, not natural. Society = an aggregate of autonomous individuals with wills and interests peculiar to themselves — a means to serve individual ends. Hobbes compared society to “a sack of corn” — they are associate, yet separate. Bentham viewed society as a “fictitious body” with no interest of its own apart from the interests of individual members. Macpherson termed this “free market society” — a meeting place of self-interested individuals based on free will, competition, and contract. A good society was one that guaranteed individual liberty; society had no separate interest or existence of its own.
View of Economy
The economic theory found expression in the new “science of political economy.” Originated with the Physiocrats in France (the science of the “natural order”) and culminated in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations.
Physiocrats: all social relations are admirably regulated by self-evident natural laws — expressions of God’s will. Liberty is inseparable from property; the state’s function is simply to secure the individual’s natural right to liberty and property. Government should not interfere with the economy. Slogan: Laissez-faire, laissez aller, le monde va de lui-même — “let things be alone because the world is self-regulating.”
Adam Smith: natural economic institutions were not merely good, they were providential. Man following his desire to better his own condition is accomplishing the beneficent designs of God. Self-interest and benevolence are in pre-established harmonious accord — by seeking one’s own interest, one promotes the welfare of all by some mysterious process. There is no conflict between individual self-interest and social welfare. “Every man, as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, ought to be left perfectly free to pursue his own interest in his own way.” Smith restricted state activities to: (i) security against external aggression, (ii) protection against internal injustice and oppression, (iii) certain public works and institutions.
Core economic hallmarks: free trade, free contract, competition, free market, private property rights, laissez-faire. The perfect institution for exchange = the market. “No two characters seem more inconsistent than those of trader and sovereign” (Adam Smith).
Bentham: believed in the self-regulating, uncontrolled economy with virtually no state role. In the name of utilitarianism, demanded free trade, freedom of occupation, unrestricted competition, and inviolable private property.
Laski: “The whole ethos of capitalism, in a word, is its effort to free the owner of the instruments of production from the need to obey rules which inhibit his full exploitation of them.”
View of State
Classical liberalism erected a theory of state based upon the subjective claims of the individual rather than objective reality. The social contract theory had three elements: (i) the state is not created by God but by man; (ii) it is not a natural but an artificial institution; (iii) the basis of the state and political obligation is the consent of the individuals.
The state was seen as a necessary evil — necessary because only it could provide law, order, and security of life and property; evil because it was an enemy of human liberty. Any increase in state functions was seen as a decrease in individual liberty. The state’s role was purely negative.
Adam Smith’s three functions of the state: (i) protect society from violence and invasion; (ii) protect every member from injustice and oppression; (iii) erect and maintain certain public works.
William Senior: “The essential business of government is to afford defence, to protect the community against foreign and domestic violence and fraud.”
Bentham: reduced the task of government to security and freedom.
Thomas Paine: “While society in any state is a blessing, government even in its best state is but a necessary evil.”
Herbert Spencer: advocated survival of the fittest; the state should have a minimum role in the socio-economic sphere.
Liberal slogan: “That government is the best which governs the least.”
Key Thinkers in Detail
John Locke: gave classical expression to liberalism. “No one can be subjected to the political power of another without his own consent.” State and government are restrictive institutions. Natural rights of life, liberty, and property precede the state. The basis of the state is a contract; the relationship is contractual. If terms are violated, individuals have both the right and the responsibility to revolt and establish a new government. Government is the result of individual will; civil society is sovereign.
Montesquieu: endeavoured for France what Locke did for England — developed the theory of separation of powers with far-reaching influence.
Thomas Paine: denied unlimited absolute state power; asserted political liberty of the community against possible tyranny of the monarch.
Utilitarianism (Bentham, James Mill, J.S. Mill): dominated liberal thought for more than half a century. Based on hedonism — all men seek pleasure and avoid pain; pleasure is the only thing desirable in and for itself. Formula: “the greatest happiness of the greatest number.”
Bentham: state is an instrument to satisfy desires; its sole justification is peace, order, and security; law is the expression of utility; the sovereign is the source of law. The state’s main function is to “remove all institutional restrictions on the free action of the individual.” He preferred democratic government because it is more likely to secure the greatest happiness of the greatest number through constitutional devices: suffrage, annual parliaments, vote by ballot, election of PM by parliament, competitive examination for civil servants, unicameral legislature, secret ballot, recall of public officials, civil and criminal code reform, and prison reforms.
J.S. Mill (On Liberty, 1859): the most moving plea for liberty of thought, expression, and action — not merely against state interference but also against the pressure of society, public opinion, and conventions. Liberty = “pursuing our own good in our own way so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs or impede their efforts to obtain it.”
Mill divided individual activities into: (i) self-regarding — affecting the individual himself alone (liberty of conscience, thought, feeling, scientific/moral/theological opinion; liberty of tastes and pursuits; liberty of combination/association not harming others); (ii) other-regarding — affecting others, where social control is justifiable.
“The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of the civilised community against his will is to prevent harm to others.” Mill’s argument rested on a negative concept of freedom — all restraints are evil; social progress depends on giving individuals fullest opportunity for free development of personality. Mill is criticised for the artificial distinction between self-regarding and other-regarding functions, which later liberals like Green, Hobhouse, Lindsay, and Laski did not accept.
L.T. Hobhouse (Liberalism) — key principles of classical liberalism:
- Personal liberty: freedom of speech, discussion, writing, thought, and faith; no discrimination based on caste, colour, creed, sex, race, or economic position.
- Civil liberty: government must be conducted by law, not the arbitrary will of any individual or class. Milton: all humans are by nature born free and endowed with reason. Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence.
- Economic liberty: right to property and contract; acceptance of laissez-faire.
- Political liberty and popular sovereignty: all men should have rights and equal opportunities. Sovereignty of the people — the supreme power of political decision and action. Led to universal suffrage, direct election of officials, public accountability, subordination of the executive to the legislature.
- International liberty: opposition to force as an instrument of national policy or militarism — capitalism needed peace and international cooperation for the free flow of goods.
15.6 Critical Evaluation
(i) An Amorphous Ideology
Liberalism is an amorphous ideology. Bottomore: “One can remain liberal and be for, and the other remain liberal and be against, a vast range of contradictory political propositions.” Used by everyone — businessmen, labour leaders, generals, subsidised farmers — for divergent and contradictory purposes. Bullock and Shock: even among undeniably liberal thinkers (Fox, Bentham, Cobden, Mill, Spencer, Green, Gladstone, Keynes), views are widely different in principle, especially on the role of the state and laissez-faire. Liberalism lacks political, moral, and intellectual clarity — its indecision is called open-mindedness, its absence of moral criterion is called tolerance.
(ii) Wrong View of Man and Society
The liberal view considers man as egoistic, lonely, separate from society, possessive, and concerned with selfish interests — society is an aggregate of individuals, an artificial institution with no organic unity. Socialists rejected this completely: man is dependent on others for material, cultural, and spiritual needs; man is a social, cooperative being; human nature cannot be studied apart from society. Owen: called it unethical; Box: unnatural; Marx: animal-like; Mao: poison; Morris: hell.
(iii) Philosophy of the Capitalist Class
Despite its flexible character, liberalism remained the philosophy of the capitalist class. It has been the firm ideology of the urban entrepreneurial middle class which became the industrial/capitalist class. Its welfare measures were incidental to its fundamental purpose of protecting the interests of the capitalist class. Laski: liberalism always saw the poor as having become poor because of their own mistakes; it always underplayed that property brings the power to rule over men and things. “We must, if we are to be honest, admit that liberalism… has suffered an eclipse as startling and as complete as that which attended the doctrine of the divine right of kings after the revolution of 1688.”
(iv) Negative Concept of State
Classical liberalism had no positive conception of social good. Its egoistic individualism looked with suspicion on any such conception at a time when total welfare of the community was becoming a principal object of concern. Its theory of government was almost wholly negative — at a time when government was inevitably assuming greater responsibility for general welfare. Marx showed that early political economy was full of contradictions: Ricardo emphasised that the interests of the landlord were antagonistic to both labour and capital; Marx extended this to show the interests of capitalists are antagonistic to the working class — profit is extracted from wages as surplus value, just as rent is extracted from the monopoly of land. “Negative liberalism provided Marx with a ready picture of the exploitation of labour.” Liberal economists thought the system was natural; Marx explained it was rooted in history.
Balanced Assessment
Despite these criticisms, liberalism’s historical importance cannot be belittled. During the past 400 years, liberalism has given humanistic and democratic ideas central to modern Western philosophy. Its progressive slogans — liberty, equality, fraternity, natural and inalienable rights, democracy, development of human personality — vigorously fought against the orthodoxies of monarchy, papacy, and the feudal order. Its economic philosophy drove industrial development in the West; its social philosophy established an open market society; its political philosophy paved the way for liberal democracy; its ethical philosophy led to the triumph of individualism; it promoted secularism in all walks of social life. “The drift towards authoritarianism and the decay in civil liberties… make a firm commitment to the best of liberal values and institutions all the more necessary.”
15.7 Summary (Key Takeaways)
- Classical liberalism had faith in the absolute value and spiritual equality of the individual — the autonomous, rational, masterless individual.
- Liberty = absence of restraints — freedom from all authorities that act arbitrarily. “Liberty from” not “liberty to.”
- Inalienable rights: life, liberty, and property — prior to the state, not at the mercy of state or society.
- Society = artificial institution; aggregate of individuals; means to individual ends.
- Economy = free trade, free contract, competition, free market; laissez-faire — the state should not interfere. The market is the perfect institution for exchange.
- State = a necessary evil; created by social contract; based on consent; purely negative function (law and order, protection of rights); “the government that governs the least is the best.” If terms of contract are violated, revolution is the duty of the individual.
- Classical liberalism was gradually replaced by welfare (positive) liberalism by the later half of the 19th century, in the face of Marxist challenges and the contradictions of its own premises.
