In search of lost liberalism

09 August 2024

Liberalism is out of fashion, scorned on the Left of politics and hated on the Right. Whatever prestige it had in earlier times has long gone, and I almost need to use the past tense: What was liberalism? We can find its roots in early European modernity and especially the 18th-century Age of Enlightenment, but liberalism took its own shape and identity in the century that followed. It developed in the aftermath of the great revolutions in America and France, and responded to a changed social world marked by population growth, an expanding sphere of public discussion, and the beginnings of industrialisation and corporate capitalism.

Liberalism never became a unified ideology or political theory — it was more a tradition or tendency in politics. It had inputs from several groups, including religious non-conformists, free-market economists, utilitarian philosophers, and European thinkers who admired the French Revolution in its early years before the Reign of Terror. It took many directions, sometimes questioning itself, discarding ideas, and changing emphases. Still, there was some coherence and unity. There were some key liberal themes.

Liberals were hostile to any kind of unchecked power, especially arbitrary government power. They accepted that different people would try to flourish in different ways and pursue different kinds of projects and plans. Liberals argued for freedom from many constraints, not solely those imposed by governments but also those demanded by a society’s prevailing attitudes and sensibilities. They showed a degree of optimism in believing that the social life of human beings could be improved through intellectual and moral progress. Liberals opposed ranks based on birth, and sought to eliminate inequalities before the law. This included opposition to aristocracies and racial hierarchies, but it did not necessarily mean there would be no inqualities in economic outcomes.

At the level of constitutional theory, the liberal tradition favoured representative democracy, limited government, due process for people accused of wrongdoing, and more generally the rule of law.

Liberalism is sometimes accused of being atomistically individualist, but liberal writers and statesmen seldom denied the benefits of social living, the value of many social arrangements and institutions or, more fundamentally, the nature of human beings as social animals. We do, of course, find traditional liberals praising individuality, spontaneity, original thinking, free inquiry, individual liberty, and a spirit of mutual tolerance. But for liberals, intellectual and moral progress are most likely where there is freedom to criticise popular opinions and offer alternatives.

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In search of lost liberalism

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