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Political ideas - Coggle Diagram

- - - - The political ideas of classical liberalism are most commonly associated with the age of Enlightenment in the eighteenth century, when rationalistic ideas of science and philosophy challenged the traditional religious order and divinely ordained monarchical government.
      - Classical liberals’ ideas have been influential across the Western world. They can be
      - • Government by consent
      - • Guarantee of individual freedom
      - • Representative democracy
      - • A limited role for the state within society and the economy
      - • The belief that individuals are born with natural rights.
    - - The Enlightenment
        
        The Enlightenment, sometimes known as ‘The Age of Reason’, is estimated to have lasted from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, however its influences stretch back to the classical work of Socrates. Some key Enlightenment thinkers included Francis Bacon (1561–1626), Isaac Newton (1643–1727) and John Locke (1632–1704).
        
        Its ideas can be summarised under four basic themes:
        
        • a positive view of human nature
        
        • an expansion of knowledge
        
        • the application of reason
        
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        Enlightenment ideas informed both liberalism and socialism, while the ideas of Edmund Burke and conservatism were a reaction against this rationalistic way of thinking that was challenging the status quo. Enlightenment concepts such as human rights and rationality were attributed to white Europeans, while minority ethnic people were still seen as inferior and weren’t afforded these rights.
        
        Superstition, customs, traditions and the old order of absolute monarchy and organised religion were threatened by Enlightenment ideas, whose reason for being, French philosopher Denis Diderot (1713–84) argued, was that:
        
        ‘All things must be examined, debated, investigated, without exception and without regard for anyone’s feelings…We must ride roughshod over all those ancient puerilities, overturn the barriers that reason never erected.’
  - - - Modern
        
        Modern liberalism’s perception of individualism differs from that of classical liberalism. Modern liberalism argues that classical liberalism underplays the inequality of society. Society is not equal and some individuals have a distinct advantage over others. Likewise the idea that individuals are autonomous is also overstated. John Rawls (1921–2002) argued that one’s societal position and particular circumstance (race, gender, social class, innate intelligence, etc.) were important in determining whether an individual thrived or underachieved. Therefore, individuals can have both innate advantages and disadvantages that affect their eventual fate. The negative freedom practised by classical liberalism only exacerbates these inequalities rather than addressing them. Modern liberalism therefore critiques classical liberalism’s egotistical individualism
        
        Modern liberalism’s attitude
        
        T.H. Green (1836–82) was an early advocate of modern liberalism who argued for positive freedom whereby the state practises a form of developmental individualism to help make society a fairer place. An idea that J.S. Mill agreed with but described as individuality’
        
        Modern liberals can broadly agree with classical liberals on the concept of self-reliance but argue that the state must offer a ‘hand up’ if every individual is to achieve this goal
        
        The influence of modern liberalism’s ideas of developmental individualism can be seen in the expansion of state involvement and welfare provision in Western democracies after the Second World War Modern liberals would agree that ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ are human rights. However, whereas classical liberals argue for a minimal state to ensure these values, modern liberals believe that only an interventionist state can guarantee such freedoms
      - Classical
        
        The preservation of individual rights and freedoms above any claims by the state or groupings within society are of paramount importance to liberals. John Locke focused on the individual rights of man. Locke believed in foundational equality: that man’s natural state was one of freedom, and in particular freedom from unnecessary external interference by the state. Locke and John Stuart Mill (1806–73) perceived individuals as capable of intellectually informed ideas but as self-interested and indifferent to each other. Mill would also act as a bridge between classical and modern liberalism, with his concept of developmental individualism. Mill differentiated between the idea of the rights of individuals and how they might develop as individuals.
        
        Classical liberalism’s attitude
        
        The freedom of the individual is sacrosanct. Society would be atomistic: a collection of autonomous individuals
        
        The state should be small, limited to maintaining law and order and protecting society from invasion, so that it does not infringe on individual freedom and respects formal equality. This limited interference is sometimes called negative freedom
        
        Classical liberalism influenced the American revolutionaries, who refer specifically to ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ in the US Declaration of Independence. These are human rights that the state must uphold and protect Modern liberalism’s attitude
      - Tolerance
        
        Liberalism is also associated with the concept of individual tolerance. Locke, writing in the seventeenth century, focused on respecting alternative religious and political views, while Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–97) and Betty Friedan (1921-2006) argued for a toleration of men towards women, calling for an end to sexual discrimination. In the twenty-first century, individual tolerance has been extended towards gay and more recently transgender individuals, though transgender people in particular still face a great deal of discrimination
    - - growth
        
        The concept of freedom has evolved as liberalism has developed over the centuries. Early liberals resented how authoritarian government and absolute monarchies retained full legitimacy, often at the expense of their subjects’ freedoms.
        
        • Freedom is therefore intimately connected with the law. As Locke argued, ‘where there is no law there is no liberty’.
        
        • Freedom is a natural right; Locke asserted that the role of government was to protect people’s right to ‘life, liberty and estate’. The state is needed to mediate between competing individuals to enforce order, to protect property rights and to prevent breach of contracts and fraud.
        
        • Absolute monarchies were illegitimate and Locke argued for a state constructed by social contract where individuals are governed by consent. This idea was based on the rationalistic proposition that individuals would enter into a social contract to allow the state to act as a neutral umpire to resolve clashes. If the state broke the contract by not protecting or enhancing natural rights, then the people were within their rights to withdraw their consent and replace the government. For many classical liberals, the American Revolution was a perfect example of a broken contract between the ruled and the rulers
        
        • The state would practise limited government so that the individual might enjoy he maximum amount of freedom within a legal framework. This freedom gave heavy emphasis to the economic sphere of society and the doctrine of laissez faire capitalism as advocated by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations (1776)
      - The social contract
        
        The ‘social contract’ is a hypothetical agreement among individuals to establish a sovereign state. Its origins can be found in the ancient Greek philosophy of Socrates and Plato, and Enlightenment thinkers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78) (see page 431, Nationalism key thinker) later dubbed it a social contract. In Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) hypothetically argued that individuals would surrender their sovereignty to an all-powerful monarch to protect them from the chaotic disorder of a ‘state of nature’. For Hobbes, society could not exist before the creation of the state (see Chapter 10).
        
        Classical liberal John Locke created his own social contract theory in Two Treatises of Government (1689). Locke’s version of the state of nature was guided by rational reason and had its own ‘natural’ laws. Locke argued that individuals would rationally conclude that they would best serve their own interests by contracting into a ‘state of law’ to reconcile the competing individual interests present in a state of nature. Government would be limited to protecting the interests of the governed.
        
        For Locke, the state was a necessary evil. Individuals would choose to exchange some of their natural rights to form a social contract with other individuals, to create a state with a civil government with separate legislative, executive and judicial branches. Individuals have the right to dissolve their government if the government ceases to work solely in their best interest.
        
        While Hobbes argued the sovereignty lay with the sovereign, for Locke’s social contract, the state has no sovereignty of its own and existed only to serve the people. The people would be citizens and not subjects
    - - The liberal attitude to the state, its size, role and limits, is critical to the development of liberalism in the last 400 years. Classical liberalism argued for a minimal state (which contemporary neo-liberals support), which was subsequently altered by modern liberals to an enabling state
      - Classical liberalism
        
        The traditional liberal position is that the state is a necessary evil. Although classical liberalism (and its modern-day counterpart, neo-liberalism) advocates egotistical individualism within society and a laissez-faire attitude towards the economy, it never went as far as individualist anarchism (see Chapter 12) in arguing that there should be no state at all. The state must protect ‘life, liberty and estate’. The state must intervene to uphold the rule of law and to protect society from foreign invasion. These interventions require institutions such as police forces, armies, laws and a judiciary to uphold the laws.
        
        The kind of liberal state that Locke advocated was in direct contrast to the absolute monarchies that dominated Europe when he was writing. Monarchs in these countries received legitimacy via the religious belief of the ‘divine right of kings’, which asserted that the sovereign was ordained to rule by God. Locke disagreed with this irrational interpretation of God’s will, arguing instead for government by consent: the state would be the result of a social contract enshrining the natural state of freedom into the law of government. Individuals would enter this social contract voluntarily, whereby government was subject to the consent of the people and in return individuals would agree to obey its laws. This would ensure that ‘government should always be the servant, and not master, of the people’. The state should be organised in the following ways:
        
        • Government should be limited in its power and its jurisdiction
        
        • It should be based on rational rather than traditional ideas. A constitutional government would replace an arbitrary government and traditional monarchy.
        
        How?
        
        By limiting power
        
        • Power should be divided between different branches of government. The separation of powers idea was posited by the French philosopher Montesquieu and would see three branches of government — legislative, executive and judiciary — separated from each other. Each of these three branches would have the ability to act as a check on the others
        
        • The state should be based on Locke’s principle of ‘government by consent’. This would be done through constitutional agreements and government that is constantly accountable to the people via regular elections
        
        • These principles influenced the creation of the US Constitution
        
        By limiting jurisdiction
        
        • The state should operate under the rule of law, whereby all citizens would enjoy foundational equality
        
        • Individuals should be protected by law from actions that might harm their individual liberty. Economically, the state should protect property rights, oversee the enforcement of legal contracts by the law, and regulate monopoly power that would operate against the interests of consumers
        
        By limiting the electorate
        
        • Classical liberals were in favour of a representative democracy rather than a direct, popular democracy
        
        • J.S. Mill feared that a popular democracy might lead to a ‘tyranny of the majority’
        
        • J.S. Mill believed that only those with an appropriate formal education should be allowed to vote