Chap 10 6/5/03 3:13 pm Page 195 Liberalism 1100 Liberalism has become the dominant ideology at the start of the third millennium. Like conservatism it cannot be easily identified with one particular political party. We trace the origins of liberalism back to the late seventeenth century and the political turmoil in England that followed the civil wars of the middle of the century. After this, liberalism’s ‘golden age’ during the nineteenth century is studied and the main themes of ‘classical’ and ‘New’ liberalism are outlined and discussed. The limitations of British liberalism began to become evident just before the First World War and it was almost eclipsed during the inter-war period. We discuss the apparent renaissance of liberalism that followed the collapse of Soviet communism during the late 1980s and the apparent triumph of liberal capitalist democracy on a global scale. Some of the inadequacies of contem- porary liberalism are discussed and an estimate is made of the future that lies in store for liberalism. POINTS TO CONSIDER ➤ Is liberalism culturally specific to Westernisation or is it of universal value? ➤ To what extent is the liberal focus on the individual based on a misunderstanding of human nature? ➤ At what point does liberalism end and socialism begin? ➤ Why were nineteenth-century liberals so uncomfortable with democracy and why don’t modern liberals appear to share the doubts? ➤ In the twenty-first century is the state still the main threat to the individual? ➤ How far is it true to say that the triumph of liberal ideology has been at the price of the eclipse of liberal political parties? Kevin Harrison and Tony Boyd - 9781526137951 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 09/26/2021 08:03:51PM via free access Chap 10 6/5/03 3:13 pm Page 196 196 Understanding political ideas and movements A rich man told me recently that a liberal is a man who tells other people what to do with their money. (Le Roi Jones, Home, 1966) If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. (John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859) Liberalism . it is well to record this today – is the supreme form of generosity; it is the right by which the majority concedes to minorities and hence it is the noblest cry that has ever resounded on this planet. (José Ortega y Gasset, The Revolt of the Masses, 1930) In many ways liberalism is the dominant ideology of Western society. It could be claimed that it is not just an ideology but is the ideology for all mankind, a fundamental truth that is not culturally specific to the West but is of global value. Indeed, with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the adoption of elements of liberal capitalism in most countries, some liberals were moved to declare that liberalism and liberal values were now the only future for mankind’s development. However, although liberalism has in many ways been the defining political ideology of the Western world for nearly three centuries, this very ubiquity makes it difficult to separate out from Western culture a distinctive ‘liberal’ identity. Many values once regarded as characteristically ‘liberal’, such as freedom of speech and religious toleration, have become so much part of the mainstream of Western life that only the most extreme dare challenge them. While there is no universally agreed corpus of writings that is specific to the liberal creed, several key writers appear in all lists of the liberal canon. Nor can liberalism be simply identified with a particular political party, such as the Liberal/Liberal Democrat Party. In the 1980s and 1990s one could plausibly argue that the Conservative Party was in some respects closer to the tenets of classical liberalism than were the Liberal or Liberal Democratic parties. Moreover, the term ‘liberal’ has non-political connotations, such as generous, or broadly or humanistically educated, or, in religious terms, opposed to a rigid orthodoxy. In contrast to such a positive perspective, for many on the political right in the USA today ‘liberal’ is a term of abuse, with accusations of naive or semi-socialist values that supposedly threaten ‘natural’ conservative American ones. The origins of liberalism Forewarned by these caveats, we may reasonably locate the origins of liber- alism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It arose with the early Kevin Harrison and Tony Boyd - 9781526137951 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 09/26/2021 08:03:51PM via free access Chap 10 6/5/03 3:13 pm Page 197 Liberalism 197 development of capitalism and became particularly strong with the devel- opment of an industrial middle class from the 1750s onwards. Locke, Voltaire, Montesquieu and Adam Smith were all regarded by nineteenth-century liberals seeking intellectual ancestors as being early liberals, although they themselves would never have used such a term. Before, during and to a degree after the English Civil Wars there was turmoil in political speculation and debate from which a number of theories emerged that entered into liberalism. Among these was the idea, eloquently articulated by John Locke in Two Treatises on Government (1690), that society was based on a ‘social contract’. Authority was conferred on government by the consent of the governed ‘to maintain order and justice and to uphold essential rights’ such as those of property. It followed that citizens have a right to rebel if the state abuses the rights of the citizen as included in the social contract. Another liberal value put forward by Locke, in his Letter Concerning Toleration (1689), was that of religious toleration. Indeed, many seventeenth-century writers and thinkers, such as the Englishmen Thomas Hobbes and John Milton, and Baruch Spinoza in Holland, all called for a debate on religious principles and the granting of a degree of toleration concomitant with social order and loyalty to the state. In so far as these ideas found practical expression, they did so through the Whig Party that emerged as the dominant political force in the eighteenth century. For the Whigs, ‘rights’ were applicable to all freeborn Englishmen. These rights were embodied in the Act of Settlement (1688) and the Bill of Rights (1689) that established a monarchy constrained by the rights and privi- leges of Parliament. This was the outcome of the ‘Glorious Revolution’ (1688), an outcome that the Whigs regarded as a definite conclusion to the political struggles of the seventeenth century. Dominated by a few wealthy aristocratic families, the Whigs were actually less than radical. Many of the more radical elements of the struggle emigrated, physically and intellectually, to the American colonies. Further fortified by the influx of ideas from the European Enlightenment and by further waves of the disgruntled from Britain, they provided the intellectual bases for the American Revolution and its subsequent constitution (1787). The Declaration of Independence (1776) is a classic statement of the liberal contract theory of government. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Govern- ments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organising its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and Happiness. Kevin Harrison and Tony Boyd - 9781526137951 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 09/26/2021 08:03:51PM via free access Chap 10 6/5/03 3:13 pm Page 198 198 Understanding political ideas and movements Fundamental was a belief in the right to representation (though not neces- sarily on a ‘one-man, one-vote’ basis) and a national government that incor- porated the notion of ‘balance’ between the various branches of government (legislature, executive and judiciary). This fitted well with the concept, derived from the physics of Isaac Newton, that identified a natural equilibrium of forces in the universe. Liberalism similarly identified a number of political laws of nature: a ‘balanced’ society, the universalism of political laws and the consistency and predictability of human nature. Social harmony and social cohesion could, liberals averred, be achieved if individuals established their fundamentally common interest in holding society together. The French Revolution (1789) was to have an impact on the development of liberalism by injecting into its mainstream a sharper, more radical element. Thomas Paine, in The Rights of Man (1791–92) and The Age of Reason (1794), proclaimed a radical liberal programme. Paine, having taken part in the American Revolution, took up the cause of the French Revolution. His passionate belief in human reason, his optimistic view of human nature and his robust atheism were much influenced by, and in turn influenced, conti- nental liberalism. He also attacked monarchical and hereditary government, and insisted on popular sovereignty, republicanism and human rights. He offended virtually everyone, including the British Government, the French Revolutionaries and American Radicals, but provided the basis for many liberal and socialist ideas of the nineteenth century. The nineteenth century and ‘classical liberalism’ The nineteenth century was the heyday of what can be termed ‘classical liber- alism’. Indeed, Britain can be seen as the society which took liberalism most to its heart in shaping its development during that century, as the USA was to do in the twentieth.