Different Types Of Liberalism

Question 1

Classical liberalism

Answer 1

• negative freedom/ liberty -absence of restraint
• minimal state/ mechanistic theory (state is a machine created to serve not control).
• laissez-faire capitalism.
• equal rights - early advocates of women’s rights Mary Wollstonecraft.
• Revolutionary potential - against absolute monarchy’s and divine right of kings.

Question 2

John Stuart Mill - classical liberalism - main beliefs

Answer 2

• John Stuart Mill - representative democracy, harm principal and developmental individualism (what you could become). He feared the ‘tyranny of the majority’.

Question 3

Modern Liberalism

Answer 3

• social justice and positive liberty - individuals need help achieving their potential which may be restrained by socio-economic factors beyond their control.
• equality of opportunity.
• led to a bigger ‘enabling state’. Liberal social reform, Keynesian economics, Beveridge Report and welfare state.

Question 4

Further developments in modern liberalism

Answer 4

• constitutional reform - HoL reform, devolution
• social liberalism - tolerance of minorities, affirmative action.
• Betty Friedan - argued social liberalism continues Mill’s ‘no harm’ rule by preventing harm to minorities.

Question 5

Neo Liberalism

Answer 5

• rejection of the movement to an enlarged state under modern liberalism - no more Beveridge, Keynes or Rawls.
• free people from the state and reduce public spending.