Editing Classical liberalism (section)

=== 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>