Portal:Liberalism

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Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property and equality before the law. Liberals espouse various and often mutually warring views depending on their understanding of these principles but generally support private property, market economies, individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), liberal democracy, secularism, rule of law, economic and political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion. Liberalism is frequently cited as the dominant ideology of modern history.

Liberalism became a distinct movement in the Age of Enlightenment, gaining popularity among Western philosophers and economists. Liberalism sought to replace the norms of hereditary privilege, state religion, absolute monarchy, the divine right of kings and traditional conservatism with representative democracy, rule of law, and equality under the law. Liberals also ended mercantilist policies, royal monopolies, and other trade barriers, instead promoting free trade and marketization. Philosopher John Locke is often credited with founding liberalism as a distinct tradition based on the social contract, arguing that each man has a natural right to life, liberty and property, and governments must not violate these rights. While the British liberal tradition has emphasized expanding democracy, French liberalism has emphasized rejecting authoritarianism and is linked to nation-building. (Full article...)

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The Prince of Orange landing at Torbay
as depicted in an illustration by Jan Hoynck van Papendrecht

The Glorious Revolution was the deposition of James II and VII in November 1688. He was replaced by his daughter Mary II, and her Dutch husband, William III of Orange, who was also James's nephew. The two ruled as joint monarchs of England, Scotland, and Ireland until Mary's death in 1694, when William became ruler in his own right. Jacobitism as a political movement persisted into the late 18th century. William's invasion was the last successful invasion of England.

Despite his own Catholicism, James became king in February 1685 with widespread backing from the Protestant majorities in England and Scotland, as well as largely Catholic Ireland. His policies quickly eroded support, and by June 1688, dissatisfaction turned into active, yet largely unarmed, resistance. The prospect of a Catholic dynasty following the birth of his son James Francis Edward on 10 June led a group of domestic opponents to issue the Invitation to William, seeking Dutch support to remove him. (Full article...)

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John Dewey (/ˈduːi/; October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the first half of the twentieth century.

The overriding theme of Dewey's works was his profound belief in democracy, be it in politics, education, or communication and journalism. As Dewey himself stated in 1888, while still at the University of Michigan, "Democracy and the one, ultimate, ethical ideal of humanity are to my mind synonymous." Dewey considered two fundamental elements—schools and civil society—to be major topics needing attention and reconstruction to encourage experimental intelligence and plurality. He asserted that complete democracy was to be obtained not just by extending voting rights but also by ensuring that there exists a fully formed public opinion, accomplished by communication among citizens, experts, and politicians. (Full article...)

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John Locke John Stuart Mill T. H. Green Norberto Bobbio John Rawls Isaiah Berlin David Lloyd George Jeremy Bentham

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I have ventured to quote scattered statements at considerable length because the picture of the immediate situation in Washington is typical. The condition at Washington reflects accurately the condition of politics throughout the country. The former has nothing to do with the realities of American life because the latter is completely out of connection. The situation explains the discontent and disgust of the people with the old parties and it constitutes the opportunity for a new party. We have long been told that politics is unimportant, that government is merely a drag and an interference; that the captains of industry and finance are the wise ones, the leaders in whose hands the fortunes of the country are safely entrusted.

The persons who keep reiterating such sayings forget, or they try to conceal from view, that the confusion, the perplexity, the triviality, the irrelevance, of politics at Washington merely reflect the bankruptcy of industrial "leadership," just as politics in general is an echo, except when it is an accomplice, of the interests of big business. The deadlocks and the impotence of Congress are definitely the mirror of the demonstrated incapacity of the captains of industry and finance to conduct the affairs of the country prosperously as an incident to the process of feathering their own nests. It would be ludicrous, were it not tragic, to believe that an appeal to the unregulated activities of those who have got us into the present crisis will get us out of it, provided they are relieved from the incubus of political action. The magic of eating a hair of the dog which bit you in order to cure hydrophobia is as nothing to the magic involved in the belief that those who have privlege and power will remedy the breakdown they have created. As long as politics is the shadow cast on society by big business, the attenuation of the shadow will not change the substance. The only remedy is new political action based on social interests and realities.

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— John Dewey, The need for a new party II: Breakdown of the old order, 1931.

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The following are images from various liberalism-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Execution of José María de Torrijos y Uriarte and his men in 1831 as Spanish King Ferdinand VII took repressive measures against the liberal forces in his country (from Liberalism)
Image 2T. H. Green, an influential liberal philosopher who established in Prolegomena to Ethics (1884) the first major foundations for what later became known as positive liberty and in a few years, his ideas became the official policy of the Liberal Party in Britain, precipitating the rise of social liberalism and the modern welfare state (from Liberalism)
Image 3Ludwig Erhard (from Neoliberalism)
Image 4The European Union–Mercosur free trade agreement, which would form one of the world's largest free trade areas, has been denounced by environmental activists and indigenous rights campaigners. (from Neoliberalism)
Image 5Raif Badawi, a Saudi Arabian writer and the creator of the website Free Saudi Liberals, who was sentenced to ten years in prison and 1,000 lashes for "insulting Islam" in 2014 (from Liberalism)
Image 6Per capita income during the Great Depression (from Neoliberalism)
Image 7U.S. President Bush, Canadian PM Mulroney, and Mexican President Salinas participate in the ceremonies to sign the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). (from Neoliberalism)
Image 8Benjamin Constant, a Franco-Swiss political activist and theorist (from Liberalism)
Image 9Franklin D. Roosevelt (from Liberalism)
Image 10The iconic painting Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix, a tableau of the July Revolution in 1830 (from Liberalism)
Image 11Chilean (orange) and average Latin American (blue) rates of growth of GDP (1971–2007) (from Neoliberalism)
Image 12Wealth inequality in the United States increased from 1989 to 2013. (from Neoliberalism)
Image 13John Locke was the first to develop a liberal philosophy, including the right to private property and the consent of the governed. (from Liberalism)
Image 14Madame de Staël (from Liberalism)
Image 15Builders in West Berlin, 1952 (from Neoliberalism)
Image 16GDP per capita in Chile and Latin America 1950–2010 (time under Pinochet highlighted) (from Neoliberalism)
Image 17John Stuart Mill, whose On Liberty greatly influenced 19th-century liberalism (from Liberalism)
Image 18Julius Faucher (from Liberalism)
Image 19Pamphlet calling for a protest of economic policy in 1983 following the economic crisis (from Neoliberalism)
Image 20Friedrich Hayek (from Neoliberalism)
Image 21Montesquieu, who argued for the separation of the powers of government (from Liberalism)
Image 22The Great Depression, with its periods of worldwide economic hardship, formed the backdrop against which the Keynesian Revolution took place (the image is Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother depiction of destitute pea-pickers in California, taken in March 1936). (from Liberalism)
Image 23John Milton's Areopagitica (1644) argued for the importance of freedom of speech. (from Liberalism)
Image 24Member nations of the International Monetary Fund (from Neoliberalism)
Image 25United States incarceration rate per 100,000 population, 1925–2014 (from Neoliberalism)
Image 26Mary Wollstonecraft, widely regarded as the pioneer of liberal feminism (from Liberalism)
Image 27The 2017–2018 Russian protests were organized by Russia's liberal opposition. (from Liberalism)
Image 28John Maynard Keynes, one of the most influential economists of modern times and whose ideas, which are still widely felt, formalized modern liberal economic policy. (from Liberalism)
Image 29Noam Chomsky's 1999 book Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order is an open critique of neoliberalism and the American economic structure. (from Neoliberalism)
Image 30Unemployment in Chile and South America (1980–1990) (from Neoliberalism)
Image 31Gustave de Molinari (from Liberalism)
Image 32Sismondi, who wrote the first critique of the free market from a liberal perspective in 1819 (from Liberalism)
Image 33As a liberal nationalist, K. J. Ståhlberg (1865–1952), the President of Finland, anchored the state in liberal democracy, guarded the fragile germ of the rule of law, and embarked on internal reforms. (from Liberalism)
Image 34Monument to the liberals of the 19th century in Agra del Orzán neighborhood, La Coruña, Galicia, (Spain) (from Liberalism)