Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
2. POLITICAL and ECONOMIC LIBERALISM, image , image , image , image , …
2. POLITICAL and ECONOMIC LIBERALISM
1. Criticism of the old regime
Most important
contributions
of
Enlightenment+ parliamentarianism
Political theories developed
To guarantee
Individual rights
Moderate the power of kings
Enlightened thinkers
Montesquieu, Voltaire and Rousseau
formulated more radical criticisms
= LIBERALISM
Describe the feudal system of their time
Characterised by
political absolutism
Enlightened thought
Liberals developed a radical opposition
Old Regime
Aspects criticised by liberals
1.The legal inequality of the estate system.
absence of equality between all people before the law
Society divided into social groups
2.The survival of a feudal economy
great commercial and market growth during previous centuries
liberals criticised obstacles to development caused by fiefdoms
price controls established
by the authorities during emergencies like poor harvests.
3.The power of absolute monarchs and the Church.
influence laws limited individual rights and freedom of expression.
Monarchs and clerics
censored criticism
development of new ideas.
4.The survival of manorialism in the fiefdoms of the nobility and the Church.
situation was not the same everywhere
inhabitants of fiefdoms
had to work for their lords, pay taxes and be subject to their laws.
Society of Old Regime
Serfs
Have to serve a lord
Subjects
Normal inhabitants
2. Ideas of political liberalism
Old Regime HEAVILY criticised
Group of ideas
Around political liberalism.
Liberal ideology
Sought alternative
Social
to existing one
Political
Ideas:
2. The existence of unalienable individual rights
These rights cannot be taken away
idea was inspired by the work of John Locke
human beings naturally possessed the right to life, liberty and property.
press, printing, education and assembly
3. The division of powers
Montesquieu’s theories
liberals argued that power had to be moderated by individual rights and by division into three powers
judicial
executive
legislative
separation between the Church and the state to prevent religious interference in civil society
1. Equality of people before the law
abolition of all privileges, fiefdoms, manorialism and the whole estate system
Everyone
4. Sovereignty resides in the nation**
Based on the parliamentary political tradition
elected by suffrage/by voting
They proposed a representative political power.
After the triunph of these ideas
People would become CITIZENS
3. Ideas of economic liberalism
Enlightened ideas also influenced the field of economics
Adam Smith
developed a theory called economic liberalism
It defended the freedom of the individual to produce and buy
free market and own private property
