the.com/liberalism
the radical idea that you should mind your own business, scaled to a government
means A political philosophy centered on individual liberty, equality before the law, consent of the governed, and limits on state power — though the word has split into rival meanings, free-market on one side of the Atlantic and progressive on the other.
from From Latin liber, 'free' — the same root that gives us liberty, liberate, and liberal arts (the studies once thought fit for a free person rather than a slave). The '-ism' was bolted on in the early 19th century, when Spanish reformers who called themselves the Liberales gave the world the political label. The word then drifted: in Europe it kept its sense of free trade and limited government, while in America it migrated toward social reform — a single root, liber, branching into two arguing families.
- old word
- From Latin liber, free, root of liberty and library
- slippery label
- Means pro-market right and pro-state left depending on country
- founding text
- Locke argued rights exist before any king grants them
- harm principle
- Mill: your freedom ends where another's nose begins
- global default
- Most modern democracies are liberal whether they admit it
enlightenment philosophy — john locke's 'two treatises of government' (1689) established natural rights theory foundational to liberal thought
united states constitution — 1787 document enshrining separation of powers, individual rights, and representative democracy
british reform act — 1832 expansion of voting rights and parliamentary representation in britain
margaret thatcher era — 1979-1990 british prime minister who implemented classical liberal free-market economic policies