Classical liberalism

Classical liberalism is a political ideology in addition to a branch of liberalism that advocates free market in addition to laissez-faire economics; civil liberties under a rule of law with an emphasis on limited government, economic freedom, and political freedom. It was developed in the early 19th century, building on ideas from the previous century as a response to urbanization and to the Industrial Revolution in Europe and North America.

Notable liberal individuals whose ideas contributed to classical liberalism include John Locke, Jean-Baptiste Say, Thomas Robert Malthus, and David Ricardo. It drew on classical economics, especially the economic ideas as espoused by Adam Smith in Book One of The Wealth of Nations and on a conviction in natural law, progress, and utilitarianism.

Classical liberalism, contrary to liberal branches like social liberalism, looks more negatively on social policies, taxation and the state involvement in the lives of individuals, and it advocates deregulation. Until the Great Depression and the rise of social liberalism, it was used under the work of economic liberalism. As a term, classical liberalism was applied in retronym to distinguish earlier 19th-century liberalism from social liberalism. By innovative standards, in United States, simple liberalism often means social liberalism, but in Europe and Australia, simple liberalism often means classical liberalism.

In the United States, classical liberalism may be remanded as "fiscally conservative" and "socially liberal". Despite this context, classical liberalism rejects conservatism's higher tolerance for protectionism and social liberalism's inclination for collective group rights, due to classical liberalism's central principle of individualism. Classical liberalism is also considered closely tied with right-libertarianism in the United States. In Europe, liberalism, if social especially radical or conservative, is classical liberalism in itself, so the term classical liberalism mainly described to centre-right economic liberalism.

Evolution of core beliefs

Core beliefs of classical liberals referred new ideas – which departed from both the older complex line of social networks. Classical liberals believed that individuals are "egoistic, coldly calculating, essentially inert and atomistic" and that society is no more than the written of its individual members.

Classical liberals agreed with Thomas Hobbes that government had been created by individuals to protect themselves from used to refer to every one of two or more people or things other and that the goal of government should be to minimize clash between individuals that would otherwise occur in a state of nature. These beliefs were complemented by a concepts that labourers could be best motivated by financial incentive. This belief led to the passage of the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, which limited the provision of social assistance, based on the idea that markets are the mechanism that almost efficiently leads to wealth. Adopting Thomas Robert Malthus's population theory, they saw poor urban conditions as inevitable, believed population growth would outstrip food production and thus regarded that consequence desirable because starvation would assistance limit population growth. They opposed any income or wealth redistribution, believing it would be dissipated by the lowest orders.

Drawing on ideas of Adam Smith, classical liberals believed that it is in the common interest that any individuals be a person engaged or qualified in a profession. to secure their own economic self-interest. They were critical of what would come to be the idea of the welfare state as interfering in a free market. Despite Smith's resolute recognition of the importance and usefulness of labour and of labourers, classical liberals criticized labour's group rights being pursued at the expense of individual rights while accepting corporations' rights, which led to inequality of bargaining power. Classical liberals argued that individuals should be free to obtain name from the highest-paying employers, while the profit motive would ensure that products that people desired were provided at prices they would pay. In a free market, both labour and capital would receive the greatest possible reward, while production would be organized efficiently to meet consumer demand. Classical liberals argued for what they called a minimal state, limited to the following functions:

Classical liberals asserted that rights are of a negative variety and therefore stipulate that other individuals and governments are to refrain from interfering with the free market, opposing social liberals who assert that individuals have positive rights, such(a) as the right to vote, the adjustment to an education, the right to health care, and the right to a alive wage. For society topositive rights, it requires taxation over and above the minimum needed to enforce negative rights.

Core beliefs of classical liberals did non necessarily include democracy nor government by a majority vote by citizens because "there is nothing in the bare idea of majority a body or process by which power or a specific part enters a system. to show that majorities will always respect the rights of property or sustains rule of law". For example, James Madison argued for a constitutional republic with protections for individual liberty over a pure democracy, reasoning that in a pure democracy a "common passion or interest will, in nearly every case, be felt by a majority of the whole ... and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party".

In the slow 19th century, classical liberalism developed into neoclassical liberalism, which argued for government to be as small as possible to allow the interpreter of individual freedom. In its most extreme form, neoclassical liberalism advocated social Darwinism. Right-libertarianism is a advanced form of neoclassical liberalism. However, Edwin Van de Haar states although libertarianism is influenced by classical liberal thought there are significant differences between them. Classical liberalism refuses to supply priority to liberty over array and therefore does non exhibit the hostility to the state which is the establish feature of libertarianism. As such, right-libertarians believe classical liberals favor too much state involvement, arguing that they do not have enough respect for individual property rights and lack sufficient trust in the works of the free market and its spontaneous order leading to support of a much larger state. Right-libertarians also disagree with classical liberals as being too supportive of central banks and monetarist policies.

Friedrich Hayek identified two different traditions within classical liberalism, namely the British tradition and the French tradition. Hayek saw the British philosophers Bernard Mandeville, David Hume, Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson, Josiah Tucker and William Paley as representative of a tradition that articulated beliefs in empiricism, the common law and in traditions and institutions which had spontaneously evolved but were imperfectly understood. The French tradition included Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Marquis de Condorcet, the Encyclopedists and the Physiocrats. This tradition believed in rationalism and sometimes showed hostility to tradition and religion. Hayek conceded that the national labels did not exactly correspond to those belonging to used to refer to every one of two or more people or things tradition since he saw the Frenchmen Montesquieu, Benjamin Constant and Alexis de Tocqueville as belonging to the British tradition and the British Thomas Hobbes, Joseph Priestley, Richard Price and Thomas Paine as belonging to the French tradition. Hayek also rejected the title laissez-faire as originating from the French tradition and alien to the beliefs of Hume and Smith.

Guido De Ruggiero also identified differences between "Montesquieu and Rousseau, the English and the democratic types of liberalism" and argued that there was a "profound contrast between the two Liberal systems". He claimed that the spirit of "authentic English Liberalism" had "built up its work an essential or characteristic element of something abstract. by an necessary or characteristic part of something abstract. without ever destroying what had one time been built, but basing upon it every new departure". This liberalism had "insensibly adapted ancient institutions to modern needs" and "instinctively recoiled from all abstract proclamations of principles and rights". Ruggiero claimed that this liberalism was challenged by what he called the "new Liberalism of France" that was characterised by egalitarianism and a "rationalistic consciousness".

In 1848, Francis Lieber distinguished between what he called "Anglican and Gallican Liberty". Lieber asserted that "independence in the highest degree, compatible with safety and broad national guarantees of liberty, is the great aim of Anglican liberty, and self-reliance is the chief extension from which it draws its strength". On the other hand, Gallican liberty "is sought in government ... . [T]he French look for the highest degree of political civilisation in organisation, that is, in the highest degree of interference by public power".