Liberalism

Origin of liberalism

Liberalism as a political theory has its roots in the Enlightenment, a period that started at the end of the 17th century and came to a close at the beginning of the 19th century. The Enlightenment was the spawning ground for much of the modern world, with everything from capitalism and liberalism to fascism and communism having roots in the ideas that were developed throughout this period of time.

Thomas Hobbes was the first political theorist of the Enlightenment to offer a story of civilisation that could exclude god from establishing political authority by introducing the concept of a "state of nature".

Fig. 1 Portrait of Thomas Hobbes

By offering a story that stripped away the narrative of God-given rulership to kings, known officially as the "divine right of kings", Hobbes was able to open the door to new ways of theorising about what government and the state should be able to do, and what the role of citizens in society was. Hobbes famously advocates for an extremely authoritarian type of state, but many others disagreed with this sentiment and developed opposing ideas.

As the Enlightenment moved into the 18th century many thinkers were hard at work building off of each other's ideas and deconstructing notions of, amongst other things, religious authority, Christian morality, and previously held truths, especially those of a scientific nature. It was in this fertile breeding ground for fresh ideas that John Locke, an English theorist who died as the Enlightenment was beginning to pick up steam, wrote his Two Treatises of Government which would go on to serve as the official blueprint for the theory of liberalism.

Because political ideologies are not written down in one place as fully formed ideologies, the ideas put forward by Locke quickly encouraged other thinkers to explore these ideas in different ways and apply them to everything from religious toleration to economic systems. This exploration of Locke's thought led to what is now known as the "liberal tradition" which covers theory that retains the core tenets of Locke's work.

Introduction to liberalism

Liberalism sets as its foundation two primary points; first, it argues that a government and its leaders gain legitimacy through the consent of the majority. Second, it argues for the existence of natural rights, primarily those of life, liberty, and property.

Liberalism and government

Liberalism uses these two things as a foundation for establishing the limits of what government is allowed to do and usually, a liberal state will have a constitution and use democracy, though liberalism as a theory does not expressly demand democracy. The pairing between liberalism and democracy is easily seen via the argument liberalism makes regarding what legitimates a government, consent. Democracy is an incredibly effective method for understanding the intent of the people and placing into power those individuals who will have consent from the people, as the vote implies consent. Furthermore, by having a democracy, if the consent changes, an opportunity to express that shift appears in the following election cycle.

Liberalism and natural rights

Liberalism is a largely individual-centred political theory that places the individual, as opposed to the collective, at the heart and soul of politics. This makes sense when viewing liberalism's relationship with the notion of natural rights, or the idea that human beings have rights simply by virtue of being born.

As natural rights are acquired upon birth, it is the responsibility of the state in the liberal tradition to protect each individual's rights. John Locke argued in his Two Treatises of Government that the social contract which exists between the government and the individual is one in which the government adjudicates disputes and protects the citizenry from external threats that would attempt to restrict the natural rights of the population.

Fig. 2 Portrait of John Locke

Liberalism and toleration

Toleration is another hallmark of liberalism and without it, the theory begins to struggle and open itself up to pressures from other theories such as communism and fascism. Toleration allows individual liberty to flourish as there are guaranteed to be people who fundamentally disagree with each other.

A great example of this is the issue of gun rights and abortion in the United States. Both abortion and gun rights have people who are unwilling to change their stance on either subject, yet these same people have to live in the same city, neighbourhood, or street. The anti-gun individual has to see the pro-gun individual every day carrying a firearm and the anti-abortion advocate works next to an abortion clinic where they see people going in every day. In both instances, everyone involved has to tolerate the behaviour of the people around them despite finding the behaviour wrong on a fundamental level, this is tolerance for the sake of respecting others' natural rights and it is the glue that holds a liberal state together.

Liberalism – key thinkers

As mentioned earlier in the article, liberalism is not a theory recorded in a codified document; it is instead several ideas stretching across hundreds of years with its founding ideas resting largely at the feet of John Locke. Aside from Locke, hundreds have worked in the liberal tradition and gradually expanded the theory. The first major stepping stone for the theory came from Locke, Montesquieu, and Jefferson, and exploring the relationship between these three will help to understand how liberalism went from theory to practice.

Fig. 3 Portrait of Charles de Montesquieu

Understanding how liberalism went from being a theory to being the foundation of the United States requires three major thinkers from the liberal tradition: John Locke, Charles de Montesquieu, and Thomas Jefferson. Locke and Montesquieu each provided the political thought necessary for Thomas Jefferson to draft the Declaration of Independence. Where Locke provides an argument for government by consent and natural inalienable rights, Montesquieu offers an argument for the separation of powers within the government. While Montesquieu was himself a monarchist, his work provided liberal thinkers with a plethora of thoughts they could pick and choose from for establishing a liberal state that would restrain government and favour the individual.

By the time the American Revolution began Thomas Jefferson had imbedded himself within the liberal thought of his time and read the works of both Locke and Montesquieu. This direct influence by theory drove Jefferson and those he was surrounded by to create a state founded on the principles of liberalism and put all Enlightenment thought up to that point to the test.

Critique of liberalism

Understanding criticism against something allows for a more thorough understanding of the thing being criticised, in this case, liberalism. While the ideas of liberalism seem to a Western audience like "common sense" when one begins to peel back the theory more and more inconsistencies and problems begin to show themselves. No individual theorist has gone as far as the German theorist Carl Schmitt in exposing these problems and arguing against liberalism as a political theory. Schmitt, a German jurist and member of the Nazi party, helped lay the foundation for fascism and Nazism and in the process launched an attack against liberalism that modern theorists still struggle with.

For Schmitt, liberal theory fails in several areas; it lacks a clear sovereign, it cannot genuinely sustain toleration without interfering, its argument for natural rights lacks foundation, and it does not understand politics at the fundamental level. According to Schmitt, politics is nothing more than a sharp and irreconcilable friend/enemy relationship. For him, liberalism is lying to itself when it makes the proposition that irreconcilable views can be mediated through the process of debate and toleration. Referring back to the earlier example of abortion, if two people hold views that lack any room for negotiation and abortion becomes a point of political tension, liberalism has no real way to solve the tension other than to push the problem down the street. For Schmitt, this makes the society more divided and makes the state look weak.

Additionally, liberalism claims that the people are the sovereign as it is their consent that allows the government to make decisions. Schmitt looks at this claim and argues that all liberalism really does is hide the true sovereign behind the mask of the people. When a critical issue is at stake, the liberal state will act swiftly and effectively, which would not be possible if there was no sovereign. Liberalism is scared of the idea of a clear sovereign because a clear sovereign can quickly become a dictator or monarch, but by hiding the sovereign, when something goes wrong the citizenry does not know who to blame, so they blame the whole system. In essence, the citizenry consent to be governed, but have no clear picture of who exactly is doing the governing.