Liberal Thinkers Flashcards
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
Main work: “Leviathan” (1651).Among the earliest of a handful of writers to set out principles for liberalism. Because the natural state of man is “solitary , poor, nasty, brutish and short,” liberty for an individual is tied to the power of a sovereign, administering through laws, within a commonwealth. His detailed construction became the foundation for numerous other works examining the proper role and structure of government.
John Locke (1632-1704)
Main works: “A Letter Concerning Toleration” (1689) and “The Second Treatise of Government” (1689). Expanded on Hobbes to provide the architecture for a modern liberal state. In “A Letter” Locke argues , contrary to Hobbes, for the state to tolerate different religious beliefs. In his “Second Treatise”, he echoes Hobbes’s view of the need for strong government, writing: “where there is no law, there is no freedom”. But, rather than endorse Hobbes’s all-powerful Leviathan, Locke thought that the system should separate those who make laws from those who execute them.
Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755)
Main work: “The Spirit of the Laws” (1748). Known for: Montesquieu devised the tripartite structure of government adopted by America. His monumental work provides guidance on how governments should be structured “by fallible human beings” to serve “the people for whom they are framed” with the most liberty that would be feasible. To accomplish this requires limits: “Liberty is a right of doing whatever the laws permit, and if a citizen could do what they forbid he would no longer be possessed of liberty.” Influenced: Many citations in the Federalist Papers in essays by James Madison and Alexander Hamilton
Thomas Paine (1737-1809)
Main work: “Common Sense” (1776). Known for: In just a few dozen pages of argument, Paine creates the intellectual catalyst for the American Revolution. The work received immediate, widespread circulation in America and then in other countries. “Government,” Paine argues, “is a necessary evil”, inevitably restricting liberty. He attacked both hereditary rule and monarchy, proposing instead a government of elected representatives and a limited, rotating presidency.
Adam Smith (1723-1790)
Main work: “The Wealth of Nations” (1776). Known for: Smith laid the intellectual foundation of modern economics , markets and free trade. His assertion that an “invisible hand” is at the heart of the market is among the most cited phrases in economics. But he also explored the division of labour, the benefits of trade, the mobility of capital, the rigging of markets by businesses and government, and public goods (notably universal education).
Olympe de Gouges (Marie Gouze) (1748-1793)
Main Work: “Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen” (1791). Known for: Gouges is often heralded as a founder of modern feminism. Her “Declaration” is a response to “The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen”, drafted by the Marquis de Lafayette, Thomas Jefferson, and Honoré Mirabeau, which did not extend the natural rights of the citizen to women as well as men. Gouges was a prolific defender of free speech, women’s rights and political dialogue, as well as an abolitionist and pacifist (a person who believes that war and violence are unjustifiable). She was executed by guillotine for her support of constitutional monarchy at the beginning of Maximilien Robespierre’s “reign of terror” in 1793. Influenced: Mary Wollstonecraft, Sophie and Nicolas de Condorcet and the Girondins, a group of French republicans during and after the revolution
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)
Main Work: “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” (1792). Known for: Wollstonecraft’s treatise is considered by many to be the first feminist manifesto. Others grapple over whether her writings , which critique excessive emotion and female sexuality, are indeed feminist. “A Vindication” contains endless references to the paragon of rational thought, and a vehement defence of the importance of equal educational opportunities for men and women. Influenced: Thomas Paine, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Virginia Woolf
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
Main Work: “On Liberty” (1859). Known for: Mill has become a reference point for liberalism. “On Liberty” is a defence of individual freedom with a caveat: “The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community , against his will, is to prevent harm to others.” Mill views even a society under representative government to threaten liberty, notably, in a term he popularised, the “tyranny of the majority”.
Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)
Main work: “The Man verses the State” (1884). Known for: A lowly editor in the early years of The Economist , Spencer went on to become an intellectual rival of Marx. He is perhaps best known for coining the phrase “survival of the fittest.” An influential thinker in many fields, Spencer writes: “The degree of [man’s] slavery varies according to the ratio between that which he is forced to yield up and that which he is allowed to retain; and it matters not whether his master is a single person or society.” Influenced: Libertarians ( an advocate or supporter of a political philosophy that advocates only minimal state intervention in the free market and the private lives of citizens OR a person who advocates civil liberty )
Baruch (Benedict) de Spinoza (1632-1677)
Main political work: “Theological-Political Treatise” (1670). Known for: A polymath beloved today but often reviled in his own time , Spinoza earned his living grinding lenses and his fame by changing how people saw the world. While accepting the existence of an absolute sovereign, he argued that freedom of thought, speech and academic inquiry should not only be permitted by the state, but were essential for its survival. Influenced: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Friedrich Nietzsche
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)
Main work: “Democracy in America” (1835). Known for: His study of America remains at the heart of ongoing debates over questions with vast importance , including how to ensure democracy and individual liberty coexist. His conclusion was that America’s success stemmed from devolving responsibility to the most local of all organisations, often voluntary, an approach now threatened by the centralisation of resources and authority in Washington, DC. Influenced: John Stuart Mill, Friedrich Hayek
Frédéric Bastiat (1801-1850)
Main work: “The Law” (1850). Known for: “Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state ,” Bastiat wrote. “They forget that the state lives at the expense of everyone.” He was an incisive debunker of flawed reasoning in support of government policies that come at the cost of individual freedom. His definition of “legal plunder” (if the law takes from one to give to another) remains a living sentiment for those who resist state expansion, as does his definition of what comprises good economic policy: it must be judged on not only what would be produced but what would be lost—the innovations and activities that do not occur. Influenced: Gustave de Molinari, Ludwig von Mises, Libertarians
Harriet Taylor Mill (1807-1858)
Main work: “The Enfranchisement of Women” (1851). Known for: Though little was published under Taylor Mill’s own name , her second husband, John Stuart Mill, readily admitted the influence she had on him and his work. They were an intellectual duo to be reckoned with. Taylor Mill wrote anonymously or under a pseudonym on the nature of marriage, sex and domestic violence. She was a fierce advocate of women’s suffrage, writing along with her husband, “It is neither necessary nor just to make imperative on women, that they shall be either mothers or nothing.” Influenced: John Stuart Mill, suffragists
Jane Addams (1860-1935)
Main work: “Democracy and Social Ethics” (1902). Known for: An important voice during the progressive era and a radical for her time , Addams would probably feel at home among American liberals today. She argued that democratic processes should not belong to a separate, elite political sphere, and that democracy is, at its core, local, accessible and integral to everyday life. Addams wanted to scale up the idea of liberty so that it encompassed entire societies. “Surely the demand of an individual for decency and comfort”, she wrote, “may be widened until it gradually embraces all the members of the community.” Influenced: John Dewey, George Herbert Mead and “pragmatic liberalism”
Salvador de Madariaga y Rojo (1886-1978)
Main work: A principal author of the Oxford Manifesto (1947). Known for: Madariaga led a group of representatives from 19 countries in drawing up a charter laying out the fundamental principles of liberalism , as they defined it: a commitment to individual liberty, economic freedom, the free exchange of ideas and international coalition-building. Madariaga and his contemporaries worried that the death and destruction of the world wars were caused largely by the abandonment of these ideals. But he believed equality and liberty did not necessarily go hand in hard, writing in 1937 that “inequality is the inevitable consequence of liberty,” which may explain why “security” and “opportunity” were written into the manifesto as “fundamental rights”. Influenced: The founders of the European Union
