Early Classical liberalism Late 17th Century To Late 19th Century Flashcards
Which era was CL in?
Late 17th Century to late 19th century
Given its timespan of two centuries, classical liberalism (or original liberalism) is itself somewhat ambiguous, and includes a diverse cast of politicians and philosophers. For this reason, it is helpful to divide it into two sections: early classical liberalism and later classical liberalism.
Early CL era
Late 17th century to 18th century
Early classical liberalism represents the attempt, during the …
late seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries, to relate the ideology’s core beliefs to the political and economic climate of the time.
Four distinctive features at the time:
revolutionary potential
negative liberty
minimal state
laissez-faire capitalism
Laissez-faire capitalism
Based on the liberal belief in private property, and the classical liberal belief in ‘negative liberty’, this is an economic system which allows private enterprise and capitalism to operate with little or no interference from the state.
Revolutionary potential
Important ‘core’ Lockean principles of liberalism
Locke’s argument for government by consent and the notion that a state should be driven by the representatives (not masters) of the people
Revolutionary potential
Locke’s argument for government by consent, and the notion that a state should be driven by the representatives (not masters) of the people, is one of the most important ‘core’ principles of liberalism; it therefore applies
to all strands of liberal thinking
Revolutionary potential
Lockean ideas in the 17th and 18th century required what?
in the context of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it needs to be emphasised that such Lockean ideas - now commonplace in western democracies - required vigorous argument and sometimes revolutionary upheaval.
Revolutionary potential
Lockean ideas in the 17th and 18th century required what?
in the context of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it needs to be emphasised that such Lockean ideas - now commonplace in western democracies - required vigorous argument and sometimes revolutionary upheaval.
Revolutionary potential
In repudiating the twin pillars of the traditional European state (absolute monarchical power and the ‘divine right of kings’), Locke’s philosophy became associated with
England’s Glorious Revolution of 1688, which duly secured constitutional government and the end of concentrated political power
Revolutionary potential
Twin pillars of the traditional European state
absolute monarchical power and the ‘divine right of kings’
Revolutionary potential
What did Locke’s blueprint for representative government also inspire ?
And what did it reflect?
also inspired both the American revolt against the British crown after 1775 and the subsequent American Constitution of 1787 — both of which reflected his insistence upon natural rights, the separation of powers and the principle of government by consent.
Revolutionary potential
the core liberal idea of rationalism -
that humanity’s prime characteristic was a capacity for reason and logic
Revolutionary potential
Attitude towards core liberal idea of rationalism
the core liberal idea of rationalism - that humanity’s prime characteristic was a capacity for reason and logic
— was far from firmly accepted in the eighteenth century; neither was the central liberal idea that society should be geared to maximum individual freedom
Revolutionary potential
Key female thinker within classical liberalism and what she argued ?
Other key thinkers within classical liberalism, such as Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-97), argued that the treatment of women during this period was a general affront to reason and a particular affront to the individual liberty of half the adult population.
Revolutionary potential
What did Wollstonecraft duly contest?
Wollstonecraft duly contested that English society in the eighteenth century could only conceive of women as emotional creatures, suited to marriage and motherhood but little else.
Revolutionary potential
As Wollstonecraft observed, instead of developing women’s’
individual potential, Hanoverian society contrived to ‘keep women in a state of listless inactivity and stupid acquiescence.
Revolutionary potential
Attitudes towards Wollstonecraft’s subsequent argument
Wollstonecraft’s subsequent argument — that individual men and women required a formal education to release their innate powers of reason — would later be seen as indisputably liberal; yet during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, such arguments were considered dangerously radical by most in authority.
Negative liberty
A key feature of classical
liberalism, this is a notion of freedom that involves individuals being left alone to pursue their destiny.
Any attempt to interfere with individual actions may therefore be judged an infringement of liberty.
Negative liberty
Which early classical liberals were conscious that individual liberty was vital to self-determination and self-reliance, as well as being the condition of government by consent?
Early classical liberals, such as :
Voltaire (1694-1778)
Charles-Louis Montesquieu (1689-1755)
Negative liberty
Early classical liberals, such as Voltaire (1694-1778) and Charles-Louis Montesquieu (1689-1755), were conscious that
individual liberty — a crucial ‘natural right’ — was vital to self-determination and self-reliance, as well as being the condition of government by consent. In England, early liberal-feminists, like Wollstonecraft, also tried to relate such ideas to the individual liberty of women.
Negative liberty
Qs around the Definition of liberty
early classical liberals were also conscious that ‘liberty’ was a somewhat vague term, which needed clarification if individualism were to be protected.
Negative liberty
Individuals should therefore assume that they
that they were ‘naturally’ free until something or someone put a brake on their actions. According to this definition, therefore, a man/women could still exercise a high degree of personal freedom: an assumption complementing one of liberalism’s core beliefs that individuals were potentially autonomous, atomistic and self-reliant. For early classical liberals, this definition would have consequences for both the size of the state and the emerging ‘science’ of economics.
Minimal state
A feature of classical liberalism, the minimal state was one that reflected the concept of ‘negative liberty’ by minimising state activities
— for example, legislating and taxing as infrequently as possible, while confining its range to areas such as defence and the protection of private property.
Minimal state
The notion of negative freedom defined the answer to another key question facing early classical liberals:
just how much governing should the new constitutional states undertake?
Minimal state
just how much governing should the new constitutional states undertake?
Given that liberty was now seen as the absence of restraint, the answer became obvious:
governments should not just be limited in terms of how they could act, but also limited in terms of what they would do. In other words, the limited state should co-exist with the minimal state.
Minimal state
The case for the minimal state was perhaps best summarised by who ?
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), one of the USA’s Founding Fathers
Minimal state
The case for the minimal state was perhaps best summarised by who and what did he note?
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), one of the USA’s Founding Fathers
‘The government that is best is that which governs least… when government grows, our liberty withers!’
Minimal state
The notion of a minimal state also served to strengthen classical liberalism’s faith in what?
the dispersal of political power: a state with assorted checks and balances, after all, would be one where bold state action was fraught with difficulty - and therefore infrequent.
Laissez-faire capitalism
Negative liberty and a belief in minimal government eventually led classical liberalism into
the realms of economic activity more specifically, it became linked to the issue of how the state should respond to the emergence of capitalism in the eighteenth century.
Laissez-faire capitalism
What two things eventually led CL into the realms of economic activity ?
Negative liberty and a belief in minimal government
Laissez-faire capitalism
The most famous response to the emergence of capitalism was by who?
That of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations (1776)
Laissez-faire capitalism
The most famous response to the emergence of capitalism.
The most famous response, that of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations (1776), , became one of the most important expressions of classical liberalism and, arguably, the original economics textbook.
Laissez-faire
What did Adam Smith argue?
Smith duly argued that capitalism, via the ‘invisible hand’ of market forces, had a limitless capacity to enrich society and the individuals within it. The wealth acquired by individuals would accordingly ‘trickle down’ to the rest of the population — just as long as the state took a laissez-faire (let-it-happen approach to the workings of a market economy.
Laissez-faire
What did Adam Smith therefore advocate with a laissez-faire system?
Attitudes to these ideas in the the UK?
Smith therefore advocated the end of tariffs and duties, which had ‘protected’ domestic producers, and the spread of ‘free trade’ between nation-states and their commercial classes. In the UK, these ideas were radical in 1776, but became orthodox in the century that followed.
