Editing Classical liberalism (section)

== History ==

=== Great Britain ===
French [[physiocracy]] heavily influenced British classical liberalism, which traces its roots to the [[Whigs (British political party)|Whigs]] and [[Radicals (UK)|Radicals]]. Whiggery had become a dominant ideology following the [[Glorious Revolution]] of 1688 and was associated with supporting the British Parliament, upholding the rule of law, defending [[landed property]] and sometimes included freedom of the press and freedom of speech. The origins of rights were seen as being in an [[ancient constitution]] existing from [[time immemorial]]. Custom rather than as [[natural rights]] justified these rights. Whigs believed that executive power had to be constrained. While they supported limited suffrage, they saw voting as a privilege rather than as a right. However, there was no consistency in Whig ideology and diverse writers including [[John Locke]], [[David Hume]], [[Adam Smith]] and [[Edmund Burke]] were all influential among Whigs, although none of them were universally accepted.{{sfn|Vincent|pp=28–29}}

From the 1790s to the 1820s, British radicals concentrated on parliamentary and electoral reform, emphasising natural rights and popular sovereignty. [[Richard Price]] and [[Joseph Priestley]] adapted the language of Locke to the ideology of radicalism.{{sfn|Vincent|pp=28–29}} The radicals saw parliamentary reform as a first step toward dealing with their many grievances, including the treatment of [[English Dissenters|Protestant Dissenters]], the slave trade, high prices, and high taxes.<ref>{{cite book|first=Michael J.|last=Turner|year=1999|title=British Politics in an Age of Reform|location=Manchester|publisher=Manchester University Press|isbn=978-0719051869|page=86}}</ref> There was greater unity among classical liberals than there had been among Whigs. Classical liberals were committed to individualism, liberty, and equal rights, as well as some other important tenants of [[Left-wing politics|leftism]], since classical liberalism was introduced in the late 18th century as a leftist movement.<ref name=":1" /> They believed these goals required a free economy with minimal government interference. Some elements of Whiggery were uncomfortable with the commercial nature of classical liberalism. These elements became associated with conservatism.{{sfn|Vincent|pp=29–30}}

[[File:1846 - Anti-Corn Law League Meeting.jpg|left|thumb|A meeting of the [[Anti-Corn Law League]] in [[Exeter Hall]] in 1846]]

Classical liberalism was the dominant political theory in Britain from the early 19th century until the First World War. Its notable victories were the [[Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829]], the [[Reform Act 1832]] and the repeal of the [[Corn Laws]] in 1846. The [[Anti-Corn Law League]] brought together a coalition of liberal and radical groups in support of free trade under the leadership of [[Richard Cobden]] and [[John Bright]], who opposed aristocratic privilege, militarism, and public expenditure and believed that the backbone of Great Britain was the [[yeoman]] farmer. Their policies of low public expenditure and low taxation were adopted by [[William Ewart Gladstone|William Gladstone]] when he became [[Chancellor of the Exchequer]] and later [[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom|Prime Minister]]. Classical liberalism was often associated with religious dissent and [[Nonconformist (Protestantism)|nonconformism]].{{sfn|Gray|pp=26–27}}

Although classical liberals aspired to a minimum of state activity, they accepted the principle of [[government intervention]] in the economy from the early 19th century on, with passage of the [[Factory Acts]]. From around 1840 to 1860, ''laissez-faire'' advocates of the [[Manchester capitalism|Manchester School]] and writers in ''[[The Economist]]'' were confident that their early victories would lead to a period of expanding economic and personal liberty and world peace, but would face reversals as government intervention and activity continued to expand from the 1850s. [[Jeremy Bentham]] and [[James Mill]], although advocates of ''laissez-faire'', non-intervention in foreign affairs, and individual liberty, believed that social institutions could be rationally redesigned through the principles of [[utilitarianism]]. The [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative]] Prime Minister [[Benjamin Disraeli]] rejected classical liberalism altogether and advocated [[Tory democracy]]. By the 1870s, [[Herbert Spencer]] and other classical liberals concluded that historical development was turning against them.{{sfn|Gray|p=28}} By the First World War, the [[Liberal Party (UK)|Liberal Party]] had largely abandoned classical liberal principles.{{sfn|Gray|p=32}}

The changing economic and social conditions of the 19th century led to a division between neo-classical and social (or welfare) liberals, who while agreeing on the importance of individual liberty differed on the role of the state. Neo-classical liberals, who called themselves "true liberals", saw Locke's ''[[Two Treatises of Government#Second Treatise|Second Treatise]]'' as the best guide and emphasised "limited government" while social liberals supported government regulation and the welfare state. Herbert Spencer in Britain and [[William Graham Sumner]] were the leading neo-classical liberal theorists of the 19th century.{{sfn|Ishiyama|Breuning|p=596}} The evolution from classical to social/welfare liberalism is for example reflected in Britain in the evolution of the thought of [[John Maynard Keynes]].<ref>See the studies of Keynes by [[Roy Harrod]], [[Robert Skidelsky]], [[Donald Moggridge]] and [[Donald Markwell]].</ref>

Helena Vieira, writing for the [[London School of Economics]], argued that classical liberalism "may contradict some fundamental democratic principles as they are inconsistent with the ''principle of unanimity'' (also known as the ''[[Pareto principle|Pareto Principle]]'') – the idea that if everyone in society prefers a policy A to a policy B, then the former should be adopted."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Vieira |first=Helena |date=2017-02-01 |title=The contradiction of classical liberalism and libertarianism |url=https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2017/02/01/the-contradiction-of-classical-liberalism-and-libertarianism/ |access-date=2023-07-03 |website=LSE Business Review}}</ref>

=== Ottoman Empire ===
The [[Ottoman Empire]] had [[Economic liberalism|liberal]] free trade policies by the 18th century, with origins in [[capitulations of the Ottoman Empire]], dating back to the first commercial treaties signed with France in 1536 and taken further with [[Capitulation (treaty)|capitulations]] in 1673, in 1740 which lowered [[Duty (economics)|duties]] to only 3% for imports and exports and in 1790. Ottoman free trade policies were praised by British economists advocating free trade such as [[J. R. McCulloch]] in his ''Dictionary of Commerce'' (1834) but criticized by British politicians opposing free trade such as [[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom|Prime Minister]] [[Benjamin Disraeli]], who cited the Ottoman Empire as "an instance of the injury done by unrestrained competition" in the 1846 [[Corn Laws]] debate, arguing that it destroyed what had been "some of the finest manufactures of the world" in 1812.<ref>{{cite book |author=Paul Bairoch |url=https://www.scribd.com/document/193124153/Economics-and-World-History-Myths-and-Paradoxes-Paul-Bairoch |title=Economics and World History: Myths and Paradoxes |publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]] |year=1995 |pages=31–32 |author-link=Paul Bairoch |access-date=2017-08-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171012060209/https://www.scribd.com/document/193124153/Economics-and-World-History-Myths-and-Paradoxes-Paul-Bairoch |archive-date=2017-10-12 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

=== United States ===
{{Liberalism US|schools}}
{{Libertarianism US|history}}
{{Conservatism US|principles}}
In the United States, liberalism took a strong root because it had little opposition to its ideals, whereas in Europe liberalism was opposed by many reactionary or feudal interests such as the nobility; the aristocracy, including army officers; the landed gentry; and the established church.<ref>{{cite book|first=Louis|last=Hartz|title=The Liberal Tradition in America|date=1955|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e1bQY1CDx2IC&pg=PA3|chapter=The Concept of a Liberal Society|isbn=978-0156512695|publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt|url=https://archive.org/details/liberaltradition00hart_0}}</ref> [[Thomas Jefferson]] adopted many of the ideals of liberalism, but in the [[United States Declaration of Independence|Declaration of Independence]] changed Locke's "life, liberty and property" to the more [[Social liberalism|socially liberal]] "[[Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness]]".<ref name="Steven M. Dworetz 1994" /> As the United States grew, industry became a larger and larger part of American life; and during the term of its first [[Populism|populist]] [[President of the United States|President]], [[Andrew Jackson]], economic questions came to the forefront. The economic ideas of the [[Jacksonian democracy|Jacksonian era]] were almost universally the ideas of classical liberalism.<ref>{{cite book|author=Jeremy M. Brown|title=Explaining the Reagan Years in Central America: A World System Perspective|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=k9N1duU9zgMC&pg=PA25|year=1995|publisher=University Press of America|isbn=978-0819198136|page=25}}</ref> Freedom, according to classical liberals, was maximised when the government took a "hands off" attitude toward the economy.<ref>{{cite book|author=Paul Kahan|title=The Homestead Strike: Labor, Violence, and American Industry|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ctaTAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA28|year=2014|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1136173974|page=28|quote=Called the "Jacksonian Era," this era was characterized by greater voting rights for white men, a hands-off approach to economic issues, and a desire to spread U.S. culture and government west (an outlook called "[[Manifest Destiny]]").}}</ref> Historian Kathleen G. Donohue argues:
<blockquote>[A]t the center of classical liberal theory [in Europe] was the idea of ''laissez-faire''. To the vast majority of American classical liberals, however, ''laissez-faire'' did not mean no government intervention at all. On the contrary, they were more than willing to see government provide tariffs, railroad subsidies, and internal improvements, all of which benefited producers. What they condemned was intervention on behalf of consumers.<ref>{{cite book|author=Kathleen G. Donohue|title=Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Idea of the Consumer|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ud7TN4Asro8C&pg=PA2|year=2005|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|page=2|isbn=978-0801883910}}</ref></blockquote>

''[[The Nation]]'' magazine espoused liberalism every week starting in 1865 under the influential editor [[Edwin Lawrence Godkin]] (1831–1902).<ref>{{cite book|first=Gustav|last=Pollak|url=https://archive.org/details/fiftyyearsofamer00poll|title=Fifty Years of American Idealism: 1865–1915|date=1915|publisher=Houghton Mifflin Company}}</ref> The ideas of classical liberalism remained essentially unchallenged until a series of [[Depression (economics)|depressions]], thought to be impossible according to the tenets of [[classical economics]], led to economic hardship from which the voters demanded relief. In the words of [[William Jennings Bryan]], "[[Cross of Gold speech|You shall not crucify this nation on a cross of gold]]". Classical liberalism remained the orthodox belief among American businessmen until the [[Great Depression]].<ref name="Voegelin">Eric Voegelin, Mary Algozin, and Keith Algozin, "Liberalism and Its History", ''Review of Politics'' 36, no. 4 (1974): 504–520. {{JSTOR|1406338}}.</ref> The [[Great Depression in the United States]] saw a sea change in liberalism, with priority shifting from the producers to consumers. [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]]'s [[New Deal]] represented the dominance of [[Modern liberalism in the United States|modern liberalism]] in politics for decades. In the words of [[Arthur Schlesinger Jr.]]:<ref>Arthur Schelesinger Jr., [http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/schleslib.html "Liberalism in America: A Note for Europeans"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180212050753/http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/schleslib.html |date=12 February 2018}}, in ''The Politics of Hope'' (Boston: Riverside Press, 1962).</ref> {{blockquote|When the growing complexity of industrial conditions required increasing government intervention in order to assure more equal opportunities, the liberal tradition, faithful to the goal rather than to the dogma, altered its view of the state. ... There emerged the conception of a social welfare state, in which the national government had the express obligation to maintain high levels of employment in the economy, to supervise standards of life and labour, to regulate the methods of business competition, and to establish comprehensive patterns of social security.|sign=|source=}}

[[Alan Wolfe]] summarizes the viewpoint that there is a continuous liberal understanding that includes both [[Adam Smith]] and [[John Maynard Keynes]]:
{{blockquote|The idea that liberalism comes in two forms assumes that the most fundamental question facing mankind is how much government intervenes into the economy. ... When instead we discuss human purpose and the meaning of life, Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes are on the same side. Both of them possessed an expansive sense of what we are put on this earth to accomplish. ... For Smith, mercantilism was the enemy of human liberty. For Keynes, monopolies were. It makes perfect sense for an eighteenth-century thinker to conclude that humanity would flourish under the market. For a twentieth century thinker committed to the same ideal, government was an essential tool to the same end.<ref>{{cite magazine|first=Alan|last=Wolfe|url=http://www.tnr.com/blog/alan-wolfe/false-distinction|title=A False Distinction|magazine=The New Republic|date=12 April 2009|access-date=31 May 2010|archive-date=7 April 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200407070846/https://newrepublic.com/article/49001/false-distinction|url-status=live}}</ref>}}

The view that modern liberalism is a continuation of classical liberalism is controversial and disputed by many.<ref>{{cite book|author=D. Conway|title=Classical Liberalism: The Unvanquished Ideal|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lvLMCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA26|year= 1998 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK|isbn=978-0230371194|page=26}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://reason.com/archives/2012/08/12/classical-liberalism-vs-modern-liberalis|title=Classical Liberalism vs. Modern Liberalism|last1=Richman|first1=Sheldon|date=12 August 2012|work=Reason|publisher=Reason Foundation|access-date=4 November 2016|archive-date=8 October 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181008084836/http://reason.com/archives/2012/08/12/classical-liberalism-vs-modern-liberalis|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://haciendapublishing.com/articles/classical-liberalism-vs-modern-liberalism-socialism-%E2%80%94-primer|title=Classical Liberalism vs Modern Liberalism (Socialism) – A Primer|last1=Faria|first1=Miguel A. Jr.|date=21 March 2012|website=haciendapublishing.com|publisher=Hacienda Publishing|access-date=4 November 2016|archive-date=13 April 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190413153321/https://haciendapublishing.com/articles/classical-liberalism-vs-modern-liberalism-socialism-%E2%80%94-primer|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Alan Ryan|title=The Making of Modern Liberalism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KfpnzJuy1XcC&pg=PA23|year= 2012|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-1400841950|pages=23–26}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Andrew Heywood|title=Political Ideologies: An Introduction|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=poYdBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA59|year=2012|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|isbn=978-0230369948|page=59}}{{Dead link|date=December 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes}}</ref> [[James Kurth]], [[Robert E. Lerner]], [[John Micklethwait]], [[Adrian Wooldridge]] and several other political scholars have argued that classical liberalism still exists today, but in the form of [[Conservatism in the United States|American conservatism]].<ref>{{cite book|author1=Nathan Schlueter|author2=Nikolai Wenzel|title=Selfish Libertarians and Socialist Conservatives?: The Foundations of the Libertarian–Conservative Debate|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YKosDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA8|year= 2016|publisher =Stanford University Press|isbn=978-1503600294|page=8|quote=American conservatism is a form of classical liberalism.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author1=John Micklethwait|author2=Adrian Wooldridge|title=The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America|url=https://archive.org/details/rightnationconse00mick|url-access=registration|year=2004|publisher=Penguin|isbn=978-1594200205|page=[https://archive.org/details/rightnationconse00mick/page/343 343]|quote=Whichever way you look at it, American conservatism has embraced a great chunk of classical liberalism-so much of it that many observers have argued that American conservatism was an oxymoron; that it is basically classical liberalism in disguise.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=James R. Kirth|author-link=James Kurth|editor=Sanford V. Levinson|others=Melissa S. Williams, Joel Parker|title=American Conservatism: NOMOS LVI|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XgrMCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA26|year=2016|publisher=NYU Press|isbn=978-1479865185|page=26|chapter=A History of Inherent Contradictions: The Origins and Ends of American Conservatism|quote=Of course, the original conservatives had not really been conservatives either. They were merely classical liberals. It seems to be the case in American that most so-called conservatives have really been something else. This has confused not only external observers of American conservatism (be they on the European Right or on the American Left), but it has confused American conservatives as well.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author1=Robert Lerner|author2=Althea K. Nagai|author3=Stanley Rothman|title=American Elites|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=hvQ8D0Rp56UC&pg=PA41|year=1996|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0300065343|page=41|quote=Moreover, Americans do not use the term liberalism in the same way that Europeans do. In fact, classical European liberalism more closely resembles what we (and what Americans generally) call conservatism.}}</ref> According to [[Deepak Lal]], only in the United States does classical liberalism continue to be a significant political force through American conservatism.<ref>{{cite book|author=Deepak Lal|title=Reviving the Invisible Hand: The Case for Classical Liberalism in the Twenty-first Century|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qU1f2XP_NfQC&pg=PA51|year= 2010|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-1400837441|page=51|quote=The major votaries of classical liberalism today are American conservatives. For as Hayek noted: "It is the doctrine on which the American system of government is based. "But, contemporary American conservatism is a novel brew which Micklethwait and Wooldridge rightly note is a mixture of the individualism of classical liberalism and "ubertraditionalism." It represents adherence to the bourgeois organization of society epitomized by that much-maligned word, "Victorian": with its faith in individualism, capitalism, progress, and virtue. Having been silenced by the seemingly endless march of "embedded liberalism" since the New Deal, American conservatism has, since the late 1960s, regrouped, and under Presidents Reagan and George W. Bush created a new powerful political movement. Thus, apart from the brief period of Margaret Thatcher's ascendancy in Britain, it is only in the United States that the classical liberal tradition continues to have political force.}}</ref> [[American libertarians]] also claim to be the true continuation of the classical liberal tradition.<ref>{{cite web |last1=McMaken |first1=Ryan |title='Libertarian' Is Just Another Word for (Classical) Liberal |url=https://mises.org/wire/libertarian-just-another-word-classical-liberal |website=Mises Wire |date=12 September 2019 |publisher=Mises Institute |access-date=6 November 2020}}</ref>

Tadd Wilson, writing for the libertarian [[Foundation for Economic Education]], noted that "Many on the left and right criticize classical liberals for focusing purely on economics and politics to the neglect of a vital issue: culture."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Wilson |first=Tadd |date=1998-12-01 |title=The Culture of Classical Liberalism |url=https://fee.org/articles/the-culture-of-classical-liberalism/ |access-date=2023-07-03 |website=[[Foundation for Economic Education]] |language=en}}</ref>