Different Types of Liberalism

Question 1

What are the 2 strands of liberalism?

Answer 1

Classical liberalism
Modern liberalism

Question 2

What do both strands of liberalism do?

Answer 2

Uphold the core values

Question 3

What was the timespan of classical liberalism?

Answer 3

2 centuries (late 17th - late 19th century)

Question 4

How is classical liberalism divided?

Answer 4

Early classical liberalism
Later classical liberalism

Question 5

When was early classical liberalism popular?

Answer 5

Late 17th and 18th century

Question 6

What did early classical liberalism attempt to do?

Answer 6

Relate the core beliefs of liberalism to the political and economical climate at the time

Question 7

How did early classical liberalism attempt to relate the core beliefs?

Answer 7

Revolutionary Potential
Negative Liberty
Minimal State
Laissez-Faire Capitalism

Question 8

What is revolutionary potential?

Answer 8

The belief that such ideas required vigorous argument and revolutionary change in order for them to work in society

Question 9

Give an event which shows revolutionary potential

Answer 9

Glorious Revolution of 1688
It secured a constitutional government and ended a concentration of political power

Question 10

What did Mary Wollstonecraft argue?

Answer 10

The treatment of women during this period was a reason for individual liberty

Question 11

Why did Mary Wollstonecraft argue for individual liberty for women?

Answer 11

Wollstonecraft believed that English society portrayed women as “emotional creatures, suited to marriage and motherhood, and little else”

Question 12

What is negative liberty?

Answer 12

A notion of freedom that involves individuals being left alone to pursue their destiny.
Any attempt to interfere with individual actions may be judged an infringement of liberty

Question 13

Voltaire and other early classical liberalists argued that negative liberty was vital to what?

Answer 13

Vital in self-determination and self reliance

Question 14

For early classical liberalists, why would “negative liberty” be a problem?

Answer 14

It would have consequences for both the size of the state and emerging “science” of economics

Question 15

What is a minimal state?

Answer 15

A feature that reflected the concept of “negative liberty” by minimising state activities

Question 16

Give Thomas Jefferson’s summary of a minimal state

Answer 16

“The government that is best, is that which governs least”
“When the government grows, our liberty withers”

Question 17

What is Laissez-faire capitalism?

Answer 17

An economic system which allows private enterprise and capitalism to operate with no or little interference from the state

Question 18

What does “laissez-faire” mean?

Answer 18

Let it happen

Question 19

What did Adam Smith argue about capitalism in his “Wealth of Nations”?

Answer 19

Capitalism had a limitless capacity to enrich society and the wealth of individuals would “trickle down” to the rest of the population (as long as the state took a “laissez-faire” approach)

Question 20

What radical ideas did Adam Smith advocate for in 1776?

Answer 20

Free trade between nations which had protected domestic producers but became orthodox in the following century

Question 21

When was later classical liberalism popular?

Answer 21

Early - mid 19th century

Question 22

How was society different in the 1800s and how did it affect political ideologies?

Answer 22

More industrialized
Most individuals lived and worked in urban areas
Growing sense of class consciousness
resulted in a growing interest in democracy and socialism

Question 23

What challenge did later liberalists face?

Answer 23

Keeping their core ideas revelant to society

Question 24

Who was Jeremy Bentham and how did he keep core ideas relevant to society?

Answer 24

“Father” of utilitarian philosophy
He believed that individuals should “maximise pleasure and minimise pain” but acknowledged this could lead to more clashes.
Bentham also promoted democracy and claim the governments would only listen to the “greatest number” if they were elected

Question 25

Who was Herbert Spencer and how did he keep core ideas relevant to society?

Answer 25

Spencer acknowledged the importance of self-help but also recognized the presence of “the feeble, the feckless and the failing” in many victorian cities.
From this he feared state power would grow and applied Darwins “natural selection” in that negative freedom would be “survival of the fittest” and individual freedom could thrive

Question 26

Who was J.S Mill and how did he keep core ideas relevant to society?

Answer 26

He updated Locke’s idea of “representative government” to “representative democracy” in which elected representatives that make decisions on behalf of others which he argued was more conducive to the “tyranny of the majority”

Question 27

What was developmental individualism?

Answer 27

Introduced by J.S Mill
The belief that individuals should focus on what they could become, rather than what they are now.

Question 28

How did Mill’s developmental individualism promote education?

Answer 28

Mill argued that universal suffrage must be preceded by universal education hoping to produce a liberal consensus which would safeguard toleration, reason and individualism

Question 29

What else did J.S Mill promote?

Answer 29

Political education
Opportunities for debate

Question 30

Which centuries was modern liberalism popular?

Answer 30

Late 19th century - present

Question 31

What are the characteristics of modern liberalism?

Answer 31

Positive liberty
Enlarged state
Liberal democracy
Social liberalism