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Chapter 2
HISTORICAL OVERVIEW Liberalism was a product of the breakdown of feudalism in Europe, and the growth, in its place, of a market or capitalist society. In many respects, liberalism reflected the aspirations of the rising middle classes, whose interests conflicted with the established power of absolute monarchs and the landed aristocracy. Liberal ideas were radical: they sought fundamental reform and even, at times, revolutionary change. The English Revolution of the seventeenth century, and the American Revolution of 1776 and French Revolution of 1789 each embodied elements that were distinctively liberal, even though the word ‘liberal’ was not at the time used in a political sense. Liberals challenged the absolute power of the monarchy, supposedly based on the doctrine of the ‘ divine right of kings’. In place of absolutism , they advocated constitutional and, later, representative government (discussed later in the chapter, in relation to liberal democracy). Liberals criticized the political and economic privileges of the landed aristocracy and the unfairness of a feudal system in which social position was determined by the ‘accident of birth’. They also supported the movement towards freedom of conscience in religion and questioned the authority of the established church.
Feudalism: A system of agrarian-based production that is characterized by fixed social hierarchies and a rigid pattern of obligations. Divine right: The doctrine that earthly rulers are chosen by God and thus wield unchallengeable authority; divine right is a defence for monarchical absolutism. Absolutism: A form of government in which political power is concentrated in the hands of a single individual or small group, in particular, an absolute monarchy. Government: The machinery through which collective decisions are made on behalf of the state, usually comprising a legislature, executive and judiciay. Classical liberalism: A tradition within liberalism that seeks to maximize the realm of unconstrained individual action, typically by establishing a minimal state and a reliance on market economics. Modern liberalism: A tradition within liberalism that provides (in contrast to classical liberalism) a qualified endorsement for social and economic intervention as a means of promoting personal development.
The nineteenth century was in many ways the liberal century. As industrialization spread throughout Western countries, liberal ideas triumphed. Liberals advocated an industrialized and market economic order ‘free’ from government interference, in which businesses would be allowed to pursue profit and states encouraged to trade freely with one another. Such a system of market-based industrial capitalism developed first in the UK, from the mid-eighteenth century onwards, and subsequently spread to North America and throughout Europe, initially into Western Europe and then, more gradually, into Eastern Europe. From the twentieth century onwards industrial capitalism exerted a powerful appeal for developing states in Africa, Asia and Latin America, especially when social and political development was defined in essentially Western terms. However, developing-world states have sometimes been resistant to the attractions of liberal capitalism because their political cultures have emphasized community rather than the individual. In such cases, they have provided more fertile ground for the growth of ideologies such as socialism, nationalism or religious fundamentalism, rather than Western liberalism. Liberalismhas undoubtedlybeen themost powerful ideological force shaping the Western political tradition. Nevertheless, historical developments since the nineteenth century have clearly influenced the nature and substance of liberal ideology. The character of liberalism changed as the rising middle classes succeeded in establishing their economic and political dominance. The radical, even revolutionary, edge of liberalism faded with each liberal success. Liberalism thus became increasingly conservative, standing less for change and reform, and more for the maintenance of existing – largely liberal – institutions. Liberal ideas, too, could not stand still. From the late nineteenth century onwards, the progress of industrialization led liberals to question, and in some ways to revise, the ideas of early liberalism. Whereas early or classical liberalism (sometimes called ‘nineteenth- century liberalism’) had been defined by the desire to minimize government interference in the lives of its citizens, modern liberalism (sometimes called
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