Origins, Beliefs, and Strands (AQA A-Level Politics): Revision Notes

Origins, Beliefs, and Strands

Liberalism is a political ideology that places the individual and their rights at its core. The ideology has evolved significantly since its origins, developing distinct strands that share common principles but differ in their approach to key issues such as the role of the state and the nature of freedom.

Origins of liberalism

Liberalism emerged from the Enlightenment of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This intellectual movement challenged medieval politics and philosophy, rejecting faith and superstition in favour of reason and rational thought.

Early liberal thinkers made radical arguments that directly challenged the established political order. They argued that humans are born both free and morally equal, and that no one naturally possesses the right to rule over others. This directly attacked absolute monarchy, the dominant form of government at the time.

The ideology promoted several key principles:

• A belief in reason rather than faith as the basis for understanding society
• The importance of the individual as the fundamental political unit
• The centrality of freedom to human flourishing

Over time, liberalism developed different variants. Classical liberalism dominated from the late seventeenth century until the late nineteenth century. Modern liberalism has been the dominant strand since the late nineteenth century, though neo-liberalism emerged in the second half of the twentieth century as a revival of classical liberal economic ideas.

It is important to note that liberal ideas are not confined to parties called "Liberal". Liberal principles can be found across the political spectrum, including in the Liberal Democrats, Conservatives and Labour in the UK, as well as in both main parties in the USA.

Main beliefs of liberalism

Despite variations between different strands, all liberals share certain core beliefs:

Freedom and the individual

Freedom is central to all forms of liberalism because it benefits the individual. However, liberals debate how to define freedom. Classical liberals emphasise negative freedom (freedom from constraint), while modern liberals emphasise positive freedom (freedom to achieve one's potential).

Human nature

Liberals have an optimistic view of human nature, seeing humans as rational and reasonable beings. However, there are differences in emphasis:

• Classical liberals focus on humanity's natural qualities and the ability of individuals to satisfy their desires through their own efforts
• Modern liberals focus on what individuals can become given the right conditions, such as proper education and freedom from poverty

The role of the state

There is significant debate among liberals about the state's proper role:

• Classical liberals advocate a minimal role for the state, seeing it as a potential threat to individual liberty
• Modern liberals favour a more interventionist role to ensure everyone has equal life chances

Society

Liberals debate how to promote and protect a diverse, tolerant society. They also disagree about the relationship between society, freedom and the individual.

The economy

One of the deepest divisions within liberalism concerns economic policy:

• Classical liberals favour free-market capitalism to drive economic creativity and prosperity
• Modern liberals favour state intervention in the economy to ensure everyone can flourish

Liberalism has evolved over time in response to historical events and other ideologies. The emergence of modern, industrialised societies particularly influenced how liberal ideas developed.

Classical liberalism (late seventeenth to late nineteenth centuries)

Classical liberalism dominated liberal thought from the late seventeenth century until the late nineteenth century. It has several distinctive features:

Radical political ideas

Classical liberals promoted government by consent, arguing that governments should represent the will of the people rather than act as their master. This was a revolutionary idea that challenged the legitimacy of absolute monarchy and aristocratic rule.

Radical views on gender (for some classical liberals)

Some classical liberals, notably Mary Wollstonecraft, extended the optimistic view that humans are rational to include women. This was highly radical for the time and challenged prevailing assumptions about women's intellectual capacities.

Egotistical individualism

Classical liberals believed in egotistical individualism - the view that humans are naturally self-seeking, rational and independent. However, this self-interest leads individuals to practise restraint and cooperate with others, because they want their own rights respected and therefore must respect the rights of others. Society is understood as a collection of individuals rather than as comprising social groups or classes.

Negative freedom

Classical liberals define liberty in terms of negative freedom - the absence of restraint. This leaves individuals free to pursue their own view of the good life without interference. The state can only legitimately intervene to prevent harm to others (the harm principle).

Night-watchman state

Classical liberals advocate for a minimal state that acts only to protect "the peace, safety and public good of the people" (John Locke). The state only has the right to impose its power on the basis of the harm principle to ensure the widest possible freedom. The state should not paternalistically interfere with individuals' choices about their own lives.

Free-market capitalism

Classical liberals believe the market economy, based on property rights, can deliver prosperity for both individuals and society through free trade and competition. The state must not interfere with free trade and competition through subsidies, taxes or the promotion of monopolies. However, the state has a crucial role in protecting property rights and enforcing contracts.

Key thinker: John Locke (1632-1704)

John Locke was a foundational thinker in classical liberalism. His work Two Treatises of Government (1690) attacked the idea that monarchy has a natural right to rule and established a liberal justification for a minimal state.

Key principles of Locke's theory of the state:

• The state is a creation of humankind, established to protect and enhance natural rights
• The state only emerges because people consent to create it, and that consent is ongoing
• When the state breaks the contract by failing to protect and enhance natural rights, the people can withdraw their consent and replace the government
• The state is further limited by constitutionalism, with a clear separation of powers between the executive and legislature to prevent abuse of power
• The legislature should be the supreme power, but it is only a fiduciary power - it holds power in trust for the people
• The state should directly represent the will of property-owning individuals

When comparing Locke with other thinkers, it is worth noting his optimistic view of human nature and the state of nature contrasts sharply with Thomas Hobbes, who saw the state of nature as a "war of all against all" requiring a powerful state to maintain order.

Key thinker: Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-97)

Mary Wollstonecraft extended liberal thinking to gender equality through her key work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792).

By granting formal equality and giving women access to education, society would benefit from increased intellect, wisdom and morality, enabling social and economic progress.

Wollstonecraft opposed custom, tradition and practice that formed the basis for the divine right of kings and aristocratic rule, arguing these were irrational, oppressive and ignorant concepts. In their place, she argued for republicanism, formal equality for all, and constitutional protection of individual rights.

Key thinker: John Stuart Mill (1806-73)

John Stuart Mill provided the bridge between classical and modern liberalism by developing liberal thinking on freedom and individualism, especially in his work On Liberty (1859).

On education and human development:

Mill attached great importance to education in enabling people to develop. He criticised the hedonism of early liberal thinking, which focused purely on quantity of pleasure. Mill distinguished between lower pleasures (those of the body, such as eating and drinking) and higher pleasures of the mind.

Liberty is more than a natural right - it is key to the ongoing development and learning of the individual, especially through education. This focuses on what the individual has the potential to become rather than what they currently are.

On government and democracy:

Mill worried that representative government could lead to "tyranny of the majority" with universal suffrage, especially without a well-educated electorate. He feared the majority would infringe on the individualism of minorities by voting for their own narrow interests.

Democracy and liberalism

Locke's view that government should only represent property-owning men and Mill's fears about democracy raise important questions about whether liberalism and democracy are compatible.

Arguments for compatibility:

• Democracy enhances individualism by allowing individuals to use their vote rationally to shape the world
• Voting has an educational role for the individual
• Democracy through regular, free and fair elections creates government by consent, a crucial principle of liberalism
• Democracy restricts the concentration of power and places limits on the state - beliefs that classical liberals support
• Representative democracy dilutes majority rule, as elected representatives make decisions rather than the people directly

Arguments against compatibility:

• Democracy may lead to the "tyranny of the majority", especially where people have not been educated
• Universal suffrage should go hand in hand with universal education
• Classical liberals wished to restrict the franchise to those with property
• Mill suggested giving more voting power to the educated

Modern liberalism (late nineteenth century to the present)

Modern liberals questioned what freedom really means in the context of modern advanced societies and economies. Poverty and inequality appeared to restrict individuals' ability to develop, grow and pursue their own version of the good life.

Positive freedom

Modern liberals redefined the concept of freedom:

• Individualism is not about allowing self-seeking individuals to achieve their own pleasures, but about enabling individuals to flourish and grow both morally and intellectually to achieve their own individuality - developmental individualism
• Thomas Hill Green argued that in modern, capitalist societies, poverty and inequality must be tackled to "maintain the conditions without which a free exercise of human faculties is impossible"
• Liberty needed to be redefined as positive freedom - not just absence of restraint but the real ability to achieve one's individuality
• This led to a revision of the state's role - from seeing it as a potential restriction on freedom to viewing it as able to promote freedom by protecting people from social injustice

Enabling state

The concept of positive freedom led modern liberals to justify state intervention to protect freedom and individualism:

• The provision of a welfare state can be justified because it provides equality of opportunity, enabling all to flourish and develop
• This would be funded by increased taxation and public spending
• Based on the work of John Maynard Keynes, the state should intervene in the economy to bring about full employment and economic growth
• This ensures the prosperity necessary for all to be free to pursue their version of the good life

Social liberalism

Modern liberalism revises classical liberalism's position on toleration:

• Classical liberals aimed to safeguard toleration by granting formal equality to all
• Modern liberals go further, arguing that society has discriminated against minorities
• They promote greater toleration and equality of opportunity through state intervention
• The state should engage in positive discrimination to favour groups who have suffered historical discrimination, ensuring a genuinely level playing field

Key thinker: Thomas Hill Green (1836-82)

Thomas Hill Green changed liberalism's approach toward the state and developed clear arguments for positive freedom in his Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation (1895).

Key thinker: Betty Friedan (1921-2006)

Betty Friedan was a liberal feminist thinker who developed from a classical to a modern liberal position regarding gender equality.

If studying feminism as an optional ideology, you can compare Friedan's ideas with those of more radical feminist thinkers.

Key thinker: John Rawls (1921-2002)

John Rawls developed the idea of an enabling state based on the principle of equality as fairness in A Theory of Justice (1971).

Neo-liberalism (second half of the twentieth century to the present)

Neo-liberalism emerged in the second half of the twentieth century as a reaction against modern liberalism. F. A. Hayek, author of The Road to Serfdom (1944), was the most prominent neo-liberal thinker.

Hayek argued that his ideas were a strand of liberalism. He criticised modern liberal ideas and sought to return liberalism to its classical roots. However, neo-liberalism has been most closely associated with conservatives like Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.

Key ideas of neo-liberalism:

• Reapply the economic ideas of free-market capitalism and campaign for a night-watchman state
• Private property and negative freedom are central to freedom and individualism (Hayek argued that without private ownership of the press, there could be no freedom of the press)
• The welfare state betrayed individualism in favour of collectivism favoured by socialism
• The welfare state places unjustifiable restrictions on individual liberty through high taxation
• It creates a dependency culture, leading to people relying on the state rather than helping themselves
• Free trade, free markets and globalisation are the best drivers of economic and social progress

Core ideas of liberalism

Freedom and the individual

Individualism is a key liberal assumption. The individual - rather than classes, races or nations - is the fundamental unit for thinking about human nature, the state, society and the economy.

On one hand, each individual is unique with their own talents and abilities. On the other hand, everyone is morally equal on the basis that they are all individuals. Locke argued that all individuals have natural rights to "life, liberty and property".

Because each individual is unique and equal, freedom becomes the core liberal value. Humans flourish and progress when given the widest possible freedom to make rational decisions, own property and establish their own beliefs, lifestyles and values.

Two types of individualism:

Human nature

Liberalism's optimistic view of human nature emerged from the Enlightenment and opposed the religious view that humankind is imperfect and flawed (the concept of original sin).

Locke argued that humans are naturally free, equal and independent, not naturally under the authority of any other body or person. This means there is no need for an all-powerful state like Hobbes's Leviathan (1651) to protect people from themselves.

Locke's idea that individuals should be given the widest possible freedom to act according to their will is based on their possession of reason.