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146-566: The term "Chicago Boys" has been used at least as early as the 1980s to describe Latin American economists who studied or identified with the liberal economic theories then taught at the University of Chicago , even though some of them earned degrees at Harvard University or MIT . They advocated widespread deregulation , privatization , and other free market policies for closely controlled economies. The Chicago Boys rose to prominence as leaders of

292-546: A duty to promote the common good . His ideas spread rapidly and were developed by other thinkers such as Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse and John A. Hobson . In a few years, this New Liberalism had become the essential social and political programme of the Liberal Party in Britain, and it would encircle much of the world in the 20th century. In addition to examining negative and positive liberty, liberals have tried to understand

438-409: A 189-page "Program for Economic Development" called El ladrillo ("the brick"). It was presented in 1969 as part of Jorge Alessandri 's unsuccessful presidential candidacy. Alessandri rejected El ladrillo , but it was revisited after the 1973 Chilean coup d'état on 11 September 1973 brought Augusto Pinochet to power, and it became the basis of the new regime's economic policy. After the coup when

584-539: A Country Assistance Strategy is produced in cooperation with the local government and any interested stakeholders and may rely on analytical work performed by the bank or other parties. The World Bank's negative pledge clause prohibits its debtor countries from using public assets to repay other creditors before they repay the World Bank. The World Bank Group (WBG) is a family of five international organizations that make leveraged loans to developing countries . It

730-404: A World Bank loan was France in 1947. The bank's president at the time, John McCloy , chose France over two other applicants, Poland and Chile. The loan was for US$ 250 million, half the amount requested, and came with strict conditions. France had to agree to produce a balanced budget and give priority of debt repayment to the World Bank over other governments. World Bank staff closely monitored

876-547: A borrower country to repay the loan. In 1960, the International Development Association was formed (as opposed to a UN fund named SUNFED), providing soft loans to developing countries . Before 1974, the reconstruction and development loans the World Bank made were relatively small. Its staff was aware of the need to instill confidence in the bank. Fiscal conservatism ruled, and loan applications had to meet strict criteria. The first country to receive

1022-574: A central role in the ideas of Kant and John Stuart Mill. Both thinkers believed that society would contain different conceptions of a good ethical life and that people should be allowed to make their own choices without interference from the state or other individuals. Adam Smith 's The Wealth of Nations , published in 1776, followed by the French liberal economist Jean-Baptiste Say 's treatise on Political Economy published in 1803 and expanded in 1830 with practical applications, were to provide most of

1168-433: A central role in the economy through their coordinating function. He also highlights qualities essential for successful entrepreneurship and focuses on judgement, in that they have continued to assess market needs and the means to meet them. This requires an "unerring market sense". Say views entrepreneurial income primarily as the high revenue paid in compensation for their skills and expert knowledge. He does so by contrasting

1314-467: A challenge to anyone looking for a clear definition. Although all liberal doctrines possess a common heritage, scholars frequently assume that those doctrines contain "separate and often contradictory streams of thought". The objectives of liberal theorists and philosophers have differed across various times, cultures and continents. The diversity of liberalism can be gleaned from the numerous qualifiers that liberal thinkers and movements have attached to

1460-411: A class of yeoman farmers. Beginning in the late 19th century, a new conception of liberty entered the liberal intellectual arena. This new kind of liberty became known as positive liberty to distinguish it from the prior negative version , and it was first developed by British philosopher T. H. Green . Green rejected the idea that humans were driven solely by self-interest , emphasising instead

1606-428: A dangerous existence was to form a common and supreme power capable of arbitrating between competing human desires. This power could be formed in the framework of a civil society that allows individuals to make a voluntary social contract with the sovereign authority, transferring their natural rights to that authority in return for the protection of life, liberty and property. These early liberals often disagreed about

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1752-421: A general defence for religious toleration . Three arguments are central: Locke was also influenced by the liberal ideas of Presbyterian politician and poet John Milton , who was a staunch advocate of freedom in all its forms. Milton argued for disestablishment as the only effective way of achieving broad toleration . Rather than force a man's conscience, the government should recognise the persuasive force of

1898-536: A governing framework that harmonises and minimises conflicting views but still allows those views to exist and flourish. For liberal philosophy, pluralism leads easily to toleration. Since individuals will hold diverging viewpoints, liberals argue, they ought to uphold and respect the right of one another to disagree. From the liberal perspective, toleration was initially connected to religious toleration , with Baruch Spinoza condemning "the stupidity of religious persecution and ideological wars". Toleration also played

2044-488: A mercantile society where there were no slaves, but almost everybody had to earn a living through work. Instead, the voters would elect representatives who would deliberate in Parliament on the people's behalf and would save citizens from daily political involvement. The importance of Constant's writings on the liberty of the ancients and that of the "moderns" has informed the understanding of liberalism, as has his critique of

2190-544: A new president was appointed: Ajay Banga . His term began on 2 June 2023. He was supported by the American president Joe Biden partly because he supports climate action . He is also expected to help low-income countries deal with debts. He is the first Indian American to lead the bank. The vice presidents of the bank are its principal managers, in charge of regions, sectors, networks and functions. There are two executive vice presidents, three senior vice presidents, and 24 vice presidents. The boards of directors consist of

2336-576: A pejorative remark—in the 16th and the 17th centuries. In the 16th-century Kingdom of England , liberal could have positive or negative attributes in referring to someone's generosity or indiscretion. In Much Ado About Nothing , William Shakespeare wrote of "a liberal villaine" who "hath ... confest his vile encounters". With the rise of the Enlightenment , the word acquired decisively more positive undertones, defined as "free from narrow prejudice" in 1781 and "free from bigotry" in 1823. In 1815,

2482-621: A result, reducing inequality, in this definition, had become an integral part of the World Bank’s objectives and effectively “broadened its mandate”. The World Bank has been criticized for not embracing the reduction of inequality (be it economic inequality within a country, or international inequality between countries) as a goal. Instead, the bank has taken an instrumental approach to the issue, in which inequality policies were seen as useful as long as they contributed to reducing (extreme) poverty or promoting average economic growth. As part of

2628-549: A sense of crisis within Islam , which continues to this day, leading to Islamic revivalism . Before 1920, the main ideological opponents of liberalism were communism , conservatism , and socialism ; liberalism then faced major ideological challenges from fascism and Marxism–Leninism as new opponents. During the 20th century, liberal ideas spread even further, especially in Western Europe, as liberal democracies found themselves as

2774-506: A slump as the present one, so great as to bring production altogether to a standstill". At the height of the Great Depression in 1933, Keynes published The Means to Prosperity , which contained specific policy recommendations for tackling unemployment in a global recession, chiefly counter cyclical public spending. The Means to Prosperity contains one of the first mentions of the multiplier effect . World Bank The World Bank

2920-682: A strong military rule and total political control is the cornerstone of Pinochetism, in conjunction with a strong anti-communist political platform. These policies and their effects are both highly controversial in Chile and around the World and represent a major divide in Chilean politics to this day. The economic success of the Chicago boys was a critical part of bolstering the Pinochet regime abroad. The Chilean miracle as it

3066-476: A tacit understanding between the United States and Europe, the president of the World Bank has been selected from candidates nominated by the United States, the largest shareholder in the bank. This is significant because the World Bank tends to lend more readily to countries that are friendly with the United States, not because of direct U.S. influence but because of the employees of the World Bank. In 2012, for

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3212-675: A variety of liberalism that endorses a regulated market economy and the expansion of civil and political rights , with the common good considered as compatible with or superior to the freedom of the individual. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica : "In the United States, liberalism is associated with the welfare-state policies of the New Deal programme of the Democratic administration of Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt , whereas in Europe it

3358-558: Is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual , liberty , consent of the governed , political equality , right to private property and equality before the law . Liberals espouse various and often mutually warring views depending on their understanding of these principles but generally support private property , market economies , individual rights (including civil rights and human rights ), liberal democracy , secularism , rule of law , economic and political freedom , freedom of speech , freedom of

3504-427: Is also credited with Say's law , or the law of markets which may be summarised as " Aggregate supply creates its own aggregate demand ", and " Supply creates its own demand ", or "Supply constitutes its own demand" and "Inherent in supply is the need for its own consumption". The related phrase "supply creates its own demand" was coined by John Maynard Keynes , who criticized Say's separate formulations as amounting to

3650-536: Is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purposes of economic development . The World Bank is the collective name for the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and International Development Association (IDA), two of five international organizations owned by the World Bank Group . It

3796-721: Is applied to making one product and not enough to another" (1803, pp. 178–179). Related reasoning appears in the work of John Stuart Mill and earlier in that of his Scottish classical economist father, James Mill (1808). Mill senior restates Say's law in 1808: "production of commodities creates, and is the one and universal cause which creates a market for the commodities produced". In addition to Smith's and Say's legacies, Thomas Malthus ' theories of population and David Ricardo 's Iron law of wages became central doctrines of classical economics. Meanwhile, Jean-Baptiste Say challenged Smith's labour theory of value , believing that prices were determined by utility and also emphasised

3942-555: Is based on economic size in addition to the International Development Association contributions. The following table shows the subscriptions of the top 20 member countries of the World Bank by voting power in the following World Bank institutions as of December 2014 or March 2015: the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the International Finance Corporation (IFC),

4088-462: Is considered closely tied to, or synonymous with, American libertarianism . Liberalism—both as a political current and an intellectual tradition—is mostly a modern phenomenon that started in the 17th century, although some liberal philosophical ideas had precursors in classical antiquity and Imperial China . The Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius praised "the idea of a polity administered with regard to equal rights and equal freedom of speech, and

4234-531: Is engaged in several global partnerships and initiatives, and takes a role in working toward addressing climate change . The World Bank hosts an Open Knowledge Repository for its publications. In 2020, the World Bank’s total commitments amounted to USD 77.1 billion, it had 12,300 full-time staff, and it operated in 145 countries. World Bank projects cover a range of areas from building schools to fighting disease, providing water and electricity, and environmental protection , and as such, they are linked to most of

4380-734: Is listed in the Registry of Research Data Repositories re3data.org. The World Bank also endorses the Principles for Digital Development . Together with the World Health Organization , the World Bank administers the International Health Partnership (IHP+). IHP+ is a group of partners committed to improving the health of citizens in developing countries. Partners work together to put international principles for aid effectiveness and development cooperation into practice in

4526-487: Is made up by a voluntary compact between men and women". Locke maintained that the grant of dominion in Genesis was not to men over women , as Filmer believed, but to humans over animals. Locke was not a feminist by modern standards, but the first major liberal thinker in history accomplished an equally major task on the road to making the world more pluralistic: integrating women into social theory . Locke also originated

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4672-639: Is more commonly associated with a commitment to limited government and laissez-faire economic policies." This variety of liberalism is also known as modern liberalism to distinguish it from classical liberalism , which evolved into modern conservatism . In the United States, the two forms of liberalism comprise the two main poles of American politics, in the forms of modern American liberalism and modern American conservatism . Some liberals, who call themselves classical liberals , fiscal conservatives , or libertarians , endorse fundamental liberal ideals but diverge from modern liberal thought on

4818-426: Is nothing but the consent of any number of freemen capable of a majority to unite and incorporate into such a society. And this is that, and that only, which did or could give beginning to any lawful government in the world". The stringent insistence that lawful government did not have a supernatural basis was a sharp break with the dominant theories of governance, which advocated the divine right of kings and echoed

4964-529: Is often associated with this principle, with Friedrich Hayek arguing in The Road to Serfdom (1944) that reliance on free markets would preclude totalitarian control by the state. The development into maturity of modern classical in contrast to ancient liberalism took place before and soon after the French Revolution. One of the historic centres of this development was at Coppet Castle near Geneva , where

5110-535: Is often used as a pejorative. This political philosophy is exemplified by enactment of major social legislation and welfare programs. Two major examples in the United States are Franklin D. Roosevelt 's New Deal policies and later Lyndon B. Johnson 's Great Society , as well as other accomplishments such as the Works Progress Administration and the Social Security Act in 1935, as well as

5256-459: Is primarily voluntary. Based on an agreement between the United Nations and the World Bank in 1981, Development Business became the official source for World Bank Procurement Notices, Contract Awards, and Project Approvals. In 1998, the agreement was renegotiated, and included in this agreement was a joint venture to create an online version of the publication. Today, Development Business

5402-529: Is the Liberal Party , and the Democratic Party is usually considered liberal in the United States. In the United States, conservative liberals are usually called conservatives in a broad sense. Over time, the meaning of liberalism began to diverge in different parts of the world. Since the 1930s, liberalism is usually used without a qualifier in the United States, to refer to social liberalism ,

5548-643: Is the largest and best-known development bank in the world and an observer at the United Nations Development Group . The bank is headquartered in Washington, D.C. , in the United States . It provided around $ 98.83 billion in loans and assistance to "developing" and transition countries in the 2021 fiscal year. The bank's stated mission is to achieve the twin goals of ending extreme poverty and building shared prosperity. Total lending as of 2015 for

5694-480: Is the primary publication for all major multilateral development banks, U.N. agencies, and several national governments, many of which have made the publication of their tenders and contracts in Development Business a mandatory requirement. The World Bank collects and processes large amounts of data and generates them on the basis of economic models. These data and models have gradually been made available to

5840-426: The 2030 Agenda , Sustainable Development Goal 10 aims at reducing inequalities within countries and among countries. World Bank officials participated in the negotiations for SDG 10 in the years prior to 2015. They advocated for the adoption of the bank's own preferred benchmarks. This ensured that other organizations would evaluate their success based on the bank’s own definition of inequality. Some have argued that

5986-755: The British liberal tradition has emphasized expanding democracy, French liberalism has emphasized rejecting authoritarianism and is linked to nation-building . Leaders in the British Glorious Revolution of 1688, the American Revolution of 1776, and the French Revolution of 1789 used liberal philosophy to justify the armed overthrow of royal sovereignty . The 19th century saw liberal governments established in Europe and South America , and it

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6132-530: The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 . Modern liberalism, in the United States and other major Western countries, now includes issues such as same-sex marriage , transgender rights , the abolition of capital punishment , reproductive rights and other women's rights , voting rights for all adult citizens, civil rights, environmental justice , and government protection of

6278-620: The International Development Association (IDA), and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA). Member countries are allocated votes at the time of membership and subsequently for additional subscriptions to capital (one vote for each share of capital stock held by the member). The World Bank plays a significant role in global economic governance due to its broad mandate, its vast resource base, its frequent and regular interactions with governments as clients, and its myriad publications and databases. In 2020,

6424-523: The Sustainable Development Goals . The World Bank has been criticized as promoting inflation and harming economic development . There has also been criticism of the bank's governance and response to the COVID-19 pandemic . The current president (starting in 2023) is Ajay Banga who is known to support climate action , unlike his predecessor David Malpass . The World Bank was created at

6570-527: The divine right of kings by appealing to biblical teaching, claiming that the authority granted to Adam by God gave successors of Adam in the male line of descent a right of dominion over all other humans and creatures in the world. However, Locke disagreed so thoroughly and obsessively with Filmer that the First Treatise is almost a sentence-by-sentence refutation of Patriarcha . Reinforcing his respect for consensus, Locke argued that "conjugal society

6716-467: The health sector . IHP+ mobilizes national governments, development agencies, civil society, and others to support a single, country-led national health strategy in a well-coordinated way. In September 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic , the World Bank announced a $ 12 billion plan to supply "low and middle income countries" with a vaccine once it was approved. In June 2022, the bank reported that $ 10.1 billion had been allocated to supply 78 countries with

6862-550: The right to an adequate standard of living . National social services , such as equal educational opportunities, access to health care, and transportation infrastructure are intended to meet the responsibility to promote the general welfare of all citizens as established by the United States Constitution . Classical liberalism is a political tradition and a branch of liberalism that advocates free market and laissez-faire economics and civil liberties under

7008-521: The rights of minorities . Besides liberty, liberals have developed several other principles important to the construction of their philosophical structure, such as equality, pluralism and tolerance. Highlighting the confusion over the first principle, Voltaire commented, "equality is at once the most natural and at times the most chimeral of things". All forms of liberalism assume in some basic sense that individuals are equal. In maintaining that people are naturally equal, liberals assume they all possess

7154-466: The rule of law , with special emphasis on individual autonomy, limited government , economic freedom , political freedom and freedom of speech . Classical liberalism, contrary to liberal branches like social liberalism , looks more negatively on social policies , taxation and the state involvement in the lives of individuals, and it advocates deregulation . Until the Great Depression and

7300-474: The workhouses and asylums for the mentally ill. During the Great Depression , the English economist John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) gave the definitive liberal response to the economic crisis. Keynes had been "brought up" as a classical liberal, but especially after World War I, became increasingly a welfare or social liberal. A prolific writer, among many other works, he had begun a theoretical work examining

7446-755: The "Chile Project" organized in the 1950s by the U.S. State Department , through the Point Four program , the first US program for global economic development. It was funded by the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation aimed at influencing Chilean economic thinking. The University of Chicago's Department of Economics set up scholarship programs with Chile's Catholic University. About one hundred select students between 1957 and 1970 received training, first in an apprenticeship program in Chile and then in post-graduate work in Chicago. The most influential of

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7592-653: The 1944 Bretton Woods Conference , along with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The president of the World Bank is traditionally an American . The World Bank and the IMF are both based in Washington, D.C., and work closely with each other. Although many countries were represented at the Bretton Woods Conference, the United States and United Kingdom were the most powerful in attendance and dominated

7738-486: The 20th century achieved several objectives towards both goals. Other goals often accepted by liberals include universal suffrage and universal access to education . In Europe and North America, the establishment of social liberalism (often called simply liberalism in the United States) became a key component in expanding the welfare state . Today, liberal parties continue to wield power and influence throughout

7884-646: The Chicago boys were given power and El ladrillo was implemented, the Chilean GDP fell by about 15% by 1982 and government spending increased slightly. However, this was just the initial impact, as the implemented economic policies were profoundly successful, increasing the GDP per capita more than six times in the following 40 years and making Chile one of the wealthiest countries in Latin America. In addition, this has led to greater income inequality in Chile, which still impacts

8030-472: The Chicago faculty members involved was Larry Sjaastad, who helped organize the Latin Amerian Workshop and supervised 139 doctoral dissertations, many from Latin American students, during his 42-year teaching career at Chicago. The project was uneventful until the early 1970s. The Chicago Boys' ideas remained on the fringes of Chilean economic and political thought, even after a group of them prepared

8176-633: The Chile Project ended, the training connection between Chile and the University of Chicago continued. One of the numerous networking organizations for alumni, including the Chicago Boys, is the "Latin American Business Group at Chicago Booth School of Business" (LATAM). The term continues to be used in popular culture, business magazines, press and media. In 2015, a Chilean film titled Chicago Boys

8322-546: The French Revolution. The British philosopher and historian of ideas, Sir Isaiah Berlin , has pointed to the debt owed to Constant. Liberalism in Britain was based on core concepts such as classical economics , free trade , laissez-faire government with minimal intervention and taxation and a balanced budget . Classical liberals were committed to individualism, liberty and equal rights. Writers such as John Bright and Richard Cobden opposed aristocratic privilege and property, which they saw as an impediment to developing

8468-518: The United States (15.85%), Japan (6.84%), China (4.42%), Germany (4.00%), the United Kingdom (3.75%), France (3.75%), India (2.91%), Russia (2.77%), Saudi Arabia (2.77%) and Italy (2.64%). Under the changes, known as 'Voice Reform – Phase 2', countries other than China that saw significant gains included South Korea , Turkey, Mexico , Singapore, Greece , Czech Republic , Hungary , Brazil, India , and Spain. Most developed countries' voting power

8614-493: The World Bank Group and its staff where allegation of non-observance of contracts of employment or terms of appointment had not been honored. McNamara was succeeded by U.S. President Jimmy Carter 's nominee, Alden W. Clausen , in 1980. Clausen replaced many members of McNamara's staff and crafted a different mission emphasis. His 1982 decision to replace the bank's Chief Economist, Hollis B. Chenery , with Anne Krueger

8760-414: The World Bank Group president and 25 executive directors. The president is the presiding officer, and ordinarily has no vote except to break a tie. The executive directors as individuals cannot exercise any power or commit or represent the bank unless the boards specifically authorized them to do so. With the term beginning 1 November 2010, the number of executive directors increased by one, to 25. In 2020,

8906-469: The World Bank had 12,300 full-time staff, and it operated in 145 countries. Some notable politicians who worked for the World Bank include: The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) has 189 member countries, while the International Development Association (IDA) has 174. Each member state of IBRD should also be a member of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and only members of IBRD are allowed to join other institutions within

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9052-453: The World Bank reduced the transformative potential of SDG 10 during the agenda-setting stage. The bank has stated its ambition to help catalyze the SDGs through “thought leadership, global convening, and country-level uptake”. In general, the World Bank strategically uses the power of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in its favor to reinforce its own policies or interests while minimizing

9198-616: The World Bank's 2012 annual meeting in Tokyo, a review of these safeguards was initiated, which was welcomed by several civil society organisations. As a result, the World Bank developed a new Environmental and Social Framework, which has been in implementation since 1 October 2018. The World Bank or the World Bank Group is also a sitting observer in the United Nations Sustainable Development Group . Beginning in 1989, in response to harsh criticism from many groups,

9344-404: The World Bank’s total commitments amounted to USD 77.1 billion and it operated in 145 countries. World Bank projects cover a range of areas from building schools to fighting disease, providing water and electricity, and environmental protection , and as such, they are linked to most of the Sustainable Development Goals . As a guideline to the World Bank's operations in any particular country,

9490-424: The absence of interference from government and other individuals, claiming that all people should have the freedom to develop their unique abilities and capacities without being sabotaged by others. Mill's On Liberty (1859), one of the classic texts in liberal philosophy, proclaimed, "the only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way". Support for laissez-faire capitalism

9636-503: The anarchic and brutal state of nature came together and voluntarily ceded some of their rights to an established state authority, which would create laws to regulate social interactions to mitigate or mediate conflicts and enforce justice. Whereas Hobbes advocated a strong monarchical commonwealth (the Leviathan ), Locke developed the then-radical notion that government acquires consent from the governed , which has to be constantly present for

9782-530: The bank (such as IDA). The five United Nations member states that are not members of the World Bank are Andorra, Cuba, Liechtenstein, Monaco, and North Korea. Kosovo is not a member of the UN, but is a member of the IMF and the World Bank Group, including the IBRD and IDA. In 2010, voting powers at the World Bank were revised to increase the voice of developing countries, notably China. The countries with most voting power are now

9928-566: The bank began including environmental groups and NGOs in its loans to mitigate the past effects of its development policies that had prompted the criticism. It also formed an implementing agency, in accordance with the Montreal Protocols, to stop ozone-depletion damage to the Earth's atmosphere by phasing out the use of 95% of ozone-depleting chemicals, with a target date of 2015. Since then, in accordance with its so-called "Six Strategic Themes",

10074-559: The bank has put various additional policies into effect to preserve the environment while promoting development. For example, in 1991, the bank announced that to protect against deforestation , especially in the Amazon , it would not finance any commercial logging or infrastructure projects that harm the environment. For the poorest developing countries in the world, the bank's assistance plans are based on poverty reduction strategies ; by combining an analysis of local groups with an analysis of

10220-505: The basis of liberalism based on social contract theory. To these early enlightenment thinkers, securing the essential amenities of life— liberty and private property —required forming a "sovereign" authority with universal jurisdiction. His influential Two Treatises (1690), the foundational text of liberal ideology, outlined his major ideas. Once humans moved out of their natural state and formed societies , Locke argued, "that which begins and actually constitutes any political society

10366-403: The benefit of free internal and international trade , which he thought could increase wealth through specialisation in production. He also opposed restrictive trade preferences , state grants of monopolies and employers' organisations and trade unions . Government should be limited to defence, public works and the administration of justice , financed by taxes based on income . Smith

10512-400: The chance of being itself reshaped or transformed by these goals. Scholars found that the World Bank used the growing momentum of the (SDGs) to further its strategic objectives without being influenced by the SDGs in turn. Also, the bank engaged with the SDGs selectively; efforts to integrate the goals into organizational practices remained limited; and their inclusion in country-level processes

10658-409: The citizens the right to influence politics directly through debates and votes in the public assembly. In order to support this degree of participation, citizenship was a burdensome moral obligation requiring a considerable investment of time and energy. Generally, this required a sub-group of slaves to do much of the productive work, leaving citizens free to deliberate on public affairs. Ancient Liberty

10804-410: The complex circumstances involved in the evolution of our moral character . In a very profound step for the future of modern liberalism, he also tasked society and political institutions with the enhancement of individual freedom and identity and the development of moral character, will and reason and the state to create the conditions that allow for the above, allowing genuine choice . Foreshadowing

10950-485: The concept of the separation of church and state . Based on the social contract principle, Locke argued that the government lacked authority in the realm of individual conscience , as this was something rational people could not cede to the government for it or others to control. For Locke, this created a natural right to the liberty of conscience, which he argued must remain protected from any government authority. In his Letters Concerning Toleration , he also formulated

11096-418: The context of American politics, "classical liberalism" may be described as "fiscally conservative" and "socially liberal". Despite this, classical liberals tend to reject the right 's higher tolerance for economic protectionism and the left's inclination for collective group rights due to classical liberalism's central principle of individualism . Additionally, in the United States, classical liberalism

11242-541: The country today. These policies were seen as the natural reaction to Marxism and part of Chile's role as a hotspot during the Cold War. The anti-Marxist junta supported radical free market policies promoted by the Chicago Boys as a part of their destruction of Marxism. After the end of the military rule and return to democracy this specific group lost power and many joined the private sector, although their policies and effects still remained in place in many areas. Even though

11388-556: The country's financial and economic situation the World Bank develops a plan pertaining to the country in question. The government then identifies the country's priorities and targets for the reduction of poverty, and the World Bank instigates its aid efforts correspondingly. Forty-five countries pledged US$ 25.1 billion in "aid for the world's poorest countries", aid that goes to the World Bank International Development Association (IDA), which distributes

11534-558: The critical role of the entrepreneur in the economy. However, neither of those observations became accepted by British economists at the time. Malthus wrote An Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798, becoming a major influence on classical liberalism. Malthus claimed that population growth would outstrip food production because the population grew geometrically while food production grew arithmetically. As people were provided with food, they would reproduce until their growth outstripped

11680-500: The earlier thought of Aristotle . Dr John Zvesper described this new thinking: "In the liberal understanding, there are no citizens within the regime who can claim to rule by natural or supernatural right, without the consent of the governed". Locke had other intellectual opponents besides Hobbes. In the First Treatise , Locke aimed his arguments first and foremost at one of the doyens of 17th-century English conservative philosophy: Robert Filmer . Filmer's Patriarcha (1680) argued for

11826-497: The early 18th century, building on ideas dating at least as far back as the 16th century, within the Iberian, British, and Central European contexts, and it was foundational to the American Revolution and "American Project" more broadly. Notable liberal individuals whose ideas contributed to classical liberalism include John Locke , Jean-Baptiste Say , Thomas Malthus , and David Ricardo . It drew on classical economics , especially

11972-401: The early reforms initiated in Chile during General Augusto Pinochet 's rule. Milton and Rose Friedman used the term "Chicago Boys" in their memoir: "In 1975, when inflation still raged and a world recession triggered a depression in Chile, General Pinochet turned to the "Chicago Boys"; he appointed several of them to powerful positions in the government. The training program was the result of

12118-585: The economic ideas espoused by Adam Smith in Book One of The Wealth of Nations , and on a belief in natural law . In contemporary times, Friedrich Hayek , Milton Friedman , Ludwig von Mises , Thomas Sowell , George Stigler , Larry Arnhart , Ronald Coase and James M. Buchanan are seen as the most prominent advocates of classical liberalism. However, other scholars have made reference to these contemporary thoughts as neoclassical liberalism , distinguishing them from 18th-century classical liberalism. In

12264-474: The end of the rule of the East India Company over India in 1858. In his Treatise (Traité d'économie politique), Say states that any production process requires effort, knowledge and the "application" of the entrepreneur. He sees entrepreneurs as intermediaries in the production process who combine productive factors such as land, capital and labour to meet the consumers' demands. As a result, they play

12410-437: The enterprise and supply-of-capital functions, distinguishing the entrepreneur's earnings on the one hand and the remuneration of capital on the other. This differentiates his theory from that of Joseph Schumpeter , who describes entrepreneurial rent as short-term profits which compensate for high risk (Schumpeterian rent). Say himself also refers to risk and uncertainty along with innovation without analysing them in detail. Say

12556-747: The eponymous Coppet group gathered under the aegis of the exiled writer and salonnière , Madame de Staël , in the period between the establishment of Napoleon 's First Empire (1804) and the Bourbon Restoration of 1814–1815. The unprecedented concentration of European thinkers who met there was to have a considerable influence on the development of nineteenth-century liberalism and, incidentally, romanticism . They included Wilhelm von Humboldt , Jean de Sismondi , Charles Victor de Bonstetten , Prosper de Barante , Henry Brougham , Lord Byron , Alphonse de Lamartine , Sir James Mackintosh , Juliette Récamier and August Wilhelm Schlegel . Among them

12702-430: The ethical primacy of the human being against the pressures of social collectivism ; the egalitarian element assigns the same moral worth and status to all individuals; the meliorist element asserts that successive generations can improve their sociopolitical arrangements, and the universalist element affirms the moral unity of the human species and marginalises local cultural differences. The meliorist element has been

12848-586: The fact that they were projected to hurt the economy but overall be beneficial in the long run. These policies influenced future governments and organizations tied to the neoliberal economic viewpoint such as the World Bank , International Monetary Fund , and other International Organizations and governments. However, the relations between these organizations were not always close, and rivalry between neoliberal organizations still existed. The ideology of free market capitalism and laissez faire economics in conjunction with

12994-405: The first time, two non-US citizens were nominated. The nominee is subject to confirmation by the board of executive directors to serve a five-year, renewable term. While most World Bank presidents have had banking experience, some have not. On 23 March 2012, U.S. president Barack Obama announced that the United States would nominate Jim Yong Kim as the next president of the bank. Jim Yong Kim

13140-523: The first use of liberalism appeared in English. In Spain, the liberales , the first group to use the liberal label in a political context, fought for decades to implement the Spanish Constitution of 1812 . From 1820 to 1823, during the Trienio Liberal , King Ferdinand VII was compelled by the liberales to swear to uphold the 1812 Constitution. By the middle of the 19th century, liberal

13286-439: The following major common facets of liberal thought: Enlightenment philosophers are given credit for shaping liberal ideas. These ideas were first drawn together and systematized as a distinct ideology by the English philosopher John Locke , generally regarded as the father of modern liberalism. Thomas Hobbes attempted to determine the purpose and the justification of governing authority in post-civil war England. Employing

13432-486: The food supply. Nature would then provide a check to growth in the forms of vice and misery. No gains in income could prevent this, and any welfare for the poor would be self-defeating. The poor were, in fact, responsible for their problems which could have been avoided through self-restraint. Several liberals, including Adam Smith and Richard Cobden , argued that the free exchange of goods between nations would lead to world peace. Smith argued that as societies progressed,

13578-448: The former version of Lockean equality . To contribute to the development of liberty, liberals also have promoted concepts like pluralism and tolerance. By pluralism, liberals refer to the proliferation of opinions and beliefs that characterise a stable social order . Unlike many of their competitors and predecessors, liberals do not seek conformity and homogeneity in how people think. Their efforts have been geared towards establishing

13724-509: The gospel. As assistant to Oliver Cromwell , Milton also drafted a constitution of the independents ( Agreement of the People ; 1647) that strongly stressed the equality of all humans as a consequence of democratic tendencies. In his Areopagitica , Milton provided one of the first arguments for the importance of freedom of speech—"the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties". His central argument

13870-452: The government to remain legitimate . While adopting Hobbes's idea of a state of nature and social contract, Locke nevertheless argued that when the monarch becomes a tyrant , it violates the social contract, which protects life, liberty and property as a natural right. He concluded that the people have a right to overthrow a tyrant. By placing the security of life, liberty and property as the supreme value of law and authority, Locke formulated

14016-407: The grounds that economic freedom is more important than social equality . Consequently, the ideas of individualism and laissez-faire economics previously associated with classical liberalism are key components of modern American conservatism and movement conservatism , and became the basis for the emerging school of modern American libertarian thought. In this American context, liberal

14162-458: The idea of a state of nature — a hypothetical war-like scenario prior to the state — he constructed the idea of a social contract that individuals enter into to guarantee their security and, in so doing, form the State, concluding that only an absolute sovereign would be fully able to sustain such security. Hobbes had developed the concept of the social contract, according to which individuals in

14308-674: The idea of a kingly government which respects most of all the freedom of the governed". Scholars have also recognised many principles familiar to contemporary liberals in the works of several Sophists and the Funeral Oration by Pericles . Liberal philosophy is the culmination of an extensive intellectual tradition that has examined and popularized some of the modern world's most important and controversial principles. Its immense scholarly output has been characterized as containing "richness and diversity", but that diversity often has meant that liberalism comes in different formulations and presents

14454-592: The ideas of economics until the publication of John Stuart Mill 's Principles in 1848. Smith addressed the motivation for economic activity, the causes of prices and wealth distribution , and the policies the state should follow to maximise wealth . Smith wrote that as long as supply, demand , prices and competition were left free of government regulation, the pursuit of material self-interest, rather than altruism, maximises society's wealth through profit-driven production of goods and services. An " invisible hand " directed individuals and firms to work toward

14600-723: The last 10 years through Development Policy Financing was approximately $ 117 billion. Its five organizations are: The first two are sometimes collectively referred to as the World Bank. To ensure that World Bank-financed operations do not compromise these goals but instead add to their realisation, the following environmental, social, and legal safeguards were defined: Environmental Assessment, Indigenous Peoples, Involuntary Resettlement, Physical Cultural Resources, Forests, Natural Habitats, Pest Management, Safety of Dams, Projects in Disputed Areas, Projects on International Waterways, and Performance Standards for Private Sector Activities. At

14746-492: The last 30 years, it has included NGOs and environmental groups in its loan portfolio. Its loan strategy is influenced by environmental and social safeguards. As of 2022 , the World Bank is run by a president and 25 executive directors, as well as 29 various vice presidents. IBRD and IDA have 189 and 174 member countries, respectively. The U.S., Japan, China, Germany and the U.K. have the most voting power. The bank aims loans at developing countries to help reduce poverty. The bank

14892-409: The law. Liberals also ended mercantilist policies, royal monopolies , and other trade barriers , instead promoting free trade and marketization. Philosopher John Locke is often credited with founding liberalism as a distinct tradition based on the social contract , arguing that each man has a natural right to life, liberty and property , and governments must not violate these rights . While

15038-719: The loans to eighty poorer countries. Wealthier nations sometimes fund their own aid projects, including those for diseases. Robert B. Zoellick, the former president of the World Bank, said when the loans were announced on 15 December 2007, that IDA money "is the core funding that the poorest developing countries rely on". World Bank organizes the Development Marketplace Awards , a grant program that surfaces and funds development projects with potential for development impact that are scalable and/or replicable. The grant beneficiaries are social enterprises with projects that aim to deliver social and public services to groups with

15184-462: The lowest incomes. In 2013 the bank adopted the concept of Shared Prosperity as one of the World Bank’s “Twin Goals” for that year, with the other one focusing on poverty reduction, aiming to reduce the share of people in extreme poverty to 3 percent of the global population by 2030. The bank defined Shared Prosperity as increasing the income of the bottom 40 percent of the population in each country. As

15330-466: The material means to benefit from those rights and call for a greater role for government in the administration of economic affairs. Early liberals also laid the groundwork for the separation of church and state. As heirs of the Enlightenment, liberals believed that any given social and political order emanated from human interactions , not from divine will . Many liberals were openly hostile to religious belief but most concentrated their opposition to

15476-467: The most appropriate form of government, but all believed that liberty was natural and its restriction needed strong justification. Liberals generally believed in limited government, although several liberal philosophers decried government outright, with Thomas Paine writing, "government even in its best state is a necessary evil". As part of the project to limit the powers of government, liberal theorists such as James Madison and Montesquieu conceived

15622-404: The nation's good as an unintended consequence of efforts to maximise their gain. This provided a moral justification for accumulating wealth, which some had previously viewed as sinful. Smith assumed that workers could be paid as low as was necessary for their survival, which David Ricardo and Thomas Robert Malthus later transformed into the " iron law of wages ". His main emphasis was on

15768-448: The negotiations. The intention behind the founding of the World Bank was to provide temporary loans to low-income countries that could not obtain loans commercially. The bank may also make loans and demand policy reforms from recipients. In its early years, the bank made a slow start for two reasons: it was underfunded, and there were leadership struggles between the US executive director and

15914-496: The new liberty as the freedom to act rather than to avoid suffering from the acts of others, Green wrote the following: If it were ever reasonable to wish that the usage of words had been other than it has been ... one might be inclined to wish that the term 'freedom' had been confined to the ... power to do what one wills. Rather than previous liberal conceptions viewing society as populated by selfish individuals, Green viewed society as an organic whole in which all individuals have

16060-441: The northern banks that had been the primary sources of funding. Rotberg used the global bond market to increase the capital available to the bank. One consequence of the period of poverty alleviation lending was the rapid rise of debt of developing countries . From 1976 to 1980, developing world debt rose at an average annual rate of 20%. The World Bank Administrative Tribunal was established in 1980, to decide on disputes between

16206-775: The notion of separation of powers , a system designed to equally distribute governmental authority among the executive , legislative and judicial branches. Governments had to realise, liberals maintained, that legitimate government only exists with the consent of the governed , so poor and improper governance gave the people the authority to overthrow the ruling order through all possible means, even through outright violence and revolution , if needed. Contemporary liberals, heavily influenced by social liberalism, have supported limited constitutional government while advocating for state services and provisions to ensure equal rights. Modern liberals claim that formal or official guarantees of individual rights are irrelevant when individuals lack

16352-472: The president of the organization. When the Marshall Plan went into effect in 1947, many European countries began receiving aid from other sources. Faced with this competition, the World Bank shifted its focus to non-European allies. Until 1968, its loans were earmarked for the construction of infrastructure works, such as seaports, highway systems, and power plants, that would generate enough income to enable

16498-559: The press , freedom of assembly , and freedom of religion . Liberalism is frequently cited as the dominant ideology of modern history . Liberalism became a distinct movement in the Age of Enlightenment , gaining popularity among Western philosophers and economists . Liberalism sought to replace the norms of hereditary privilege , state religion , absolute monarchy , the divine right of kings and traditional conservatism with representative democracy , rule of law, and equality under

16644-564: The proper relationship between liberty and democracy. As they struggled to expand suffrage rights , liberals increasingly understood that people left out of the democratic decision-making process were liable to the " tyranny of the majority ", a concept explained in Mill's On Liberty and Democracy in America (1835) by Alexis de Tocqueville . As a response, liberals began demanding proper safeguards to thwart majorities in their attempts at suppressing

16790-527: The public in a way that encourages reuse, whereas the recent publications describing them are available as open access under a Creative Commons Attribution License , for which the bank received the SPARC Innovator 2012 award. The World Bank hosts the Open Knowledge Repository as an official open access repository for its research outputs and knowledge products. The World Bank's repository

16936-456: The relationship between unemployment, money and prices back in the 1920s. Keynes was deeply critical of the British government's austerity measures during the Great Depression . He believed budget deficits were a good thing, a product of recessions . He wrote: "For Government borrowing of one kind or another is nature's remedy, so to speak, for preventing business losses from being, in so severe

17082-449: The rise of social liberalism, classical liberalism was called economic liberalism . Later, the term was applied as a retronym , to distinguish earlier 19th-century liberalism from social liberalism. By modern standards, in the United States , the bare term liberalism often means social liberalism, but in Europe and Australia , the bare term liberalism often means classical liberalism. Classical liberalism gained full flowering in

17228-555: The same right to liberty. In other words, no one is inherently entitled to enjoy the benefits of liberal society more than anyone else, and all people are equal subjects before the law . Beyond this basic conception, liberal theorists diverge in their understanding of equality. American philosopher John Rawls emphasised the need to ensure equality under the law and the equal distribution of material resources that individuals required to develop their aspirations in life. Libertarian thinker Robert Nozick disagreed with Rawls, championing

17374-453: The same thing. Some advocates of Say's law who disagree with Keynes have claimed that Say's law can be summarized more accurately as "production precedes consumption" and that what Say is stating is that for consumption to happen, one must produce something of value so that it can be traded for money or barter for consumption later. Say argues, "products are paid for with products" (1803, p. 153) or "a glut occurs only when too much resource

17520-487: The spoils of war would rise, but the costs of war would rise further, making war difficult and costly for industrialised nations. Cobden believed that military expenditures worsened the state's welfare and benefited a small but concentrated elite minority, combining his Little Englander beliefs with opposition to the economic restrictions of mercantilist policies. To Cobden and many classical liberals, those who advocated peace must also advocate free markets. Utilitarianism

17666-476: The structural adjustment programs of the World Bank had been responsible for "reduced health, nutritional and educational levels for tens of millions of children in Asia , Latin America , and Africa ". The president of the bank is the president of the entire World Bank Group . The president is responsible for chairing meetings of the boards of directors and for overall management of the bank. Traditionally, based on

17812-695: The subject of much controversy, defended by thinkers such as Immanuel Kant , who believed in human progress, while suffering criticism by thinkers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau , who instead believed that human attempts to improve themselves through social cooperation would fail. The liberal philosophical tradition has searched for validation and justification through several intellectual projects. The moral and political suppositions of liberalism have been based on traditions such as natural rights and utilitarian theory , although sometimes liberals even request support from scientific and religious circles. Through all these strands and traditions, scholars have identified

17958-492: The term "liberalism", including classical , egalitarian , economic , social , the welfare state , ethical , humanist , deontological , perfectionist , democratic , and institutional , to name a few. Despite these variations, liberal thought does exhibit a few definite and fundamental conceptions. Political philosopher John Gray identified the common strands in liberal thought as individualist , egalitarian, meliorist and universalist . The individualist element avers

18104-465: The union of religious and political authority, arguing that faith could prosper independently without official sponsorship or administration by the state. Beyond identifying a clear role for government in modern society, liberals have also argued over the meaning and nature of the most important principle in liberal philosophy: liberty. From the 17th century until the 19th century, liberals (from Adam Smith to John Stuart Mill ) conceptualised liberty as

18250-590: The use of the funds to ensure that the French government met the conditions. In addition, before the loan was approved, the United States Department of State told the French government that its members associated with the Communist Party would first have to be removed. The French government complied and removed the Communist coalition government —the so-called tripartite . Within hours, the loan to France

18396-537: The vaccine The US Treasury has committed $ 667 million for the World Bank's global Pandemic Fund, a third of the $ 2 billion the fund hopes to raise. The Pandemic Fund, established in September 2022, is a collaborative initiative among countries, implementing partners, philanthropies, and civil society organizations. It aims to fund investments that address critical gaps in pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response capacities at national, regional, and global levels, with

18542-612: The winners in both world wars and the Cold War . Liberals sought and established a constitutional order that prized important individual freedoms , such as freedom of speech and freedom of association ; an independent judiciary and public trial by jury ; and the abolition of aristocratic privileges. Later waves of modern liberal thought and struggle were strongly influenced by the need to expand civil rights. Liberals have advocated gender and racial equality in their drive to promote civil rights, and global civil rights movements in

18688-444: The world . The fundamental elements of contemporary society have liberal roots. The early waves of liberalism popularised economic individualism while expanding constitutional government and parliamentary authority. Liberal , liberty , libertarian , and libertine all trace their etymology to liber , a root from Latin that means " free ". One of the first recorded instances of liberal occurred in 1375 when it

18834-524: The world market. They also privatized public companies and used the free market rather than government rule to promote their economic policies. This was part of the neoliberal economic views espoused by Milton Friedman, the ideological backer for their views. Friedman and his connections to the Chicago Boys was highly politicized especially after he received the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1976. The policies are also sometimes referred to as shock therapy based on

18980-523: Was also limited to relatively small and homogenous male societies, where they could congregate in one place to transact public affairs. In contrast, the Liberty of the Moderns was based on the possession of civil liberties , the rule of law, and freedom from excessive state interference. Direct participation would be limited: a necessary consequence of the size of modern states and the inevitable result of creating

19126-604: Was also one of the first thinkers to go by the name of "liberal", the Edinburgh University -educated Swiss Protestant, Benjamin Constant , who looked to the United Kingdom rather than to ancient Rome for a practical model of freedom in a large mercantile society. He distinguished between the "Liberty of the Ancients" and the "Liberty of the Moderns". The Liberty of the Ancients was a participatory republican liberty, which gave

19272-400: Was an example of this new focus. Krueger was known for her criticism of development funding and for describing developing countries' governments as " rent-seeking states". During the 1980s, the bank emphasized lending to service debt of developing countries, and structural adjustment policies designed to streamline the economies of developing nations. UNICEF reported in the late 1980s that

19418-491: Was approved. From 1974 to 1980, the bank concentrated on meeting the basic needs of people in the developing world . The size and number of loans to borrowers greatly increased, as loan targets expanded from infrastructure into social services and other sectors. These changes can be attributed to Robert McNamara , who was appointed to the presidency in 1968 by Lyndon B. Johnson . McNamara implored bank treasurer Eugene Rotberg to seek out new sources of capital outside of

19564-454: Was called attracted a lot of necessary positive attention for the Pinochet government and allowed Pinochet to exercise political repression without condemnation by economic allies. New policies such as structural adjustment, free trade, and tax cuts became incredibly popular with conservative political groups throughout the western world. These policies eventually spread into the United States and United Kingdom via their conservative leaders. Chile

19710-412: Was elected on 27 April 2012 and reelected to a second five-year term in 2017. He announced that he would resign effective 1 February 2019. He was replaced on an interim basis by now-former World Bank CEO Kristalina Georgieva , then by David Malpass on 9 April 2019. David Malpass faced criticism in 2023 as he had "sparked outcry by appearing to question the role of humans in climate change ". In 2023,

19856-433: Was established along with the International Monetary Fund at the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference . After a slow start, its first loan was to France in 1947. In its early years, it primarily focused on rebuilding Europe. Over time, it focused on providing loans to developing world countries. In the 1970s, the World Bank re-conceptualized its mission of facilitating development as being oriented around poverty reduction . For

20002-910: Was one of the first countries to embrace these policies and they have since spread in part due to the initial success Chile experienced. Some of them are or were: Although the largest and most influential group of so-called Chicago Boys was Chilean in origin, there were many Latin American graduates from the University of Chicago around the same period. These economists continued to shape the economies of their respective countries, and include people like Mexico 's Sócrates Rizzo , Francisco Gil Díaz , Fernando Sanchez Ugarte , Carlos Isoard y Viesca , Argentina 's Ruben D. Almonacid , Adolfo Diz , Roque Fernández , Carlos Alfredo Rodríguez , Fernando de Santibañes and Ricardo Lopez Murphy , Brazil 's Paulo Guedes , as well as others in Peru , Colombia , Uruguay , Costa Rica , and Panama . Liberalism Liberalism

20148-471: Was one of the progenitors of the idea, which was long central to classical liberalism and has resurfaced in the globalisation literature of the later 20th and early 21st centuries, that free trade promotes peace. Smith's economics was carried into practice in the 19th century with the lowering of tariffs in the 1820s, the repeal of the Poor Relief Act that had restricted the mobility of labour in 1834 and

20294-454: Was reduced, along with a few developing countries such as Nigeria . The voting powers of the United States, Russia and Saudi Arabia were unchanged. The changes were brought about with the goal of making voting more universal in regards to standards, rule-based objective indicators, and transparency among other things. Now, developing countries have an increased voice in the "Pool Model", backed especially by Europe. Additionally, voting power

20440-460: Was released. As the key economic advisors of the Pinochet dictatorship, the Chicago Boys were the forerunners of the economic policies of that government. They sponsored state run policies to decrease national spending, end inflation and promote economic growth. They promoted a policy of strict austerity and cut government expenditures substantially. Free trade agreements and the breakdown of barriers to trade were also promoted to help Chile compete in

20586-431: Was seen as a political justification for implementing economic liberalism by British governments, an idea dominating economic policy from the 1840s. Although utilitarianism prompted legislative and administrative reform, and John Stuart Mill's later writings foreshadowed the welfare state, it was mainly used as a premise for a laissez-faire approach. The central concept of utilitarianism, developed by Jeremy Bentham ,

20732-518: Was that public policy should seek to provide "the greatest happiness of the greatest number". While this could be interpreted as a justification for state action to reduce poverty , it was used by classical liberals to justify inaction with the argument that the net benefit to all individuals would be higher. His philosophy proved highly influential on government policy and led to increased Benthamite attempts at government social control , including Robert Peel 's Metropolitan Police , prison reforms ,

20878-402: Was that the individual could use reason to distinguish right from wrong. To exercise this right, everyone must have unlimited access to the ideas of his fellow men in " a free and open encounter ", which will allow good arguments to prevail. In a natural state of affairs, liberals argued, humans were driven by the instincts of survival and self-preservation , and the only way to escape from such

21024-599: Was used as a politicised term for parties and movements worldwide. Yellow is the political colour most commonly associated with liberalism. The United States differs from other countries in that conservatism is associated with red and liberalism with blue. In Europe and Latin America, liberalism means a moderate form of classical liberalism and includes both conservative liberalism ( centre-right liberalism) and social liberalism ( centre-left liberalism). In North America, liberalism almost exclusively refers to social liberalism. The dominant Canadian party

21170-416: Was used to describe the liberal arts in the context of an education desirable for a free-born man. The word's early connection with the classical education of a medieval university soon gave way to a proliferation of different denotations and connotations. Liberal could refer to "free in bestowing" as early as 1387, "made without stint" in 1433, "freely permitted" in 1530, and "free from restraint"—often as

21316-660: Was well-established alongside republicanism in the United States . In Victorian Britain , it was used to critique the political establishment, appealing to science and reason on behalf of the people. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, liberalism in the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East influenced periods of reform, such as the Tanzimat and Al-Nahda , and the rise of constitutionalism , nationalism , and secularism . These changes, along with other factors, helped to create

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