Classical liberalism

Classical liberalism is a philosophy committed to the ideal of limited government and liberty of individuals including freedom of religion, speech,press, assembly, and free markets.^[1]

Classical liberalism developed in the nineteenth century in Western Europe, and the Americas. Although classical liberalism built on ideas that had already developed by the end of the eighteenth century, it advocated a specific kind of society, government and public policy required as a result of the Industrial Revolution and urbanization.^[2] Notable individuals who have contributed to classical liberalism include Jean-Baptiste Say, Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo.^[3] It drew on the economics of Adam Smith, a psychological understanding of individual liberty,natural law and utilitarianism, and a belief in progress. Classical liberals established political parties that were called "liberal", although in the United States classical liberalism came to dominate both existing major political parties.^[1]There was a revival of interest in classical liberalism in the twentieth century led byFriedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman.^[4]

In the late 19th century, classical liberalism developed into neo-classical liberalism, which argued for government to be as small as possible in order to allow the exercise of individual freedom. In its most extreme form, it advocatedSocial Darwinism. Libertarianism is a modern form of neo-classical liberalism.^[5]

The term classical liberalism was applied in retrospect to distinguish earlier nineteenth-century liberalism from the newer social liberalism.^[6] The phrase classical liberalism is also sometimes used to refer to all forms of liberalismbefore the twentieth century, and someconservatives and libertarians use the term classical liberalism to describe their belief in the primacy of economic freedom and minimal government. It is not always clear which meaning is intended.^[7][8][9]

Many modern scholars of liberalism argue that no particularly meaningful distinction between classical and modern liberalism exists. Alan Wolfe summarises this viewpoint, which:^[72]

"reject(s) any such distinction and argue(s) instead for the existence of a continuous liberal understanding that includes bothAdam Smith and John Maynard Keynes... The idea that liberalism comes in two forms assumes that the most fundamental question facing mankind is how much government intervenes into the economy... When instead we discuss human purpose and the meaning of life, Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes are on the same side. Both of them possessed an expansive sense of what we are put on this earth to accomplish. Both were on the side of enlightenment. Both were optimists who believed in progress but were dubious about grand schemes that claimed to know all the answers. For Smith, mercantilism was the enemy of human liberty. For Keynes, monopolies were. It makes perfect sense for an eighteenth-century thinker to conclude that humanity would flourish under the market. For a twentieth century thinker committed to the same ideal, government was an essential tool to the same end... [M]odern liberalism is instead the logical and sociological outcome of classical liberalism."

According to William J. Novak, however,liberalism in the United States shifted, "between 1877 and 1937...from laissez-faireconstitutionalism to New Deal statism, from classical liberalism to democratic social-welfarism".^[73]