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229-568: Liberalism 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

458-604: A code of law in ancient India is the Manusmṛti or Laws of Manu. Chinese political philosophy dates back to the Spring and Autumn period , specifically with Confucius in the 6th century BC. Chinese political philosophy was developed as a response to the social and political breakdown of the country characteristic of the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period . Confucius was

687-517: A corporatist system of "National Councils" of experts, selected from professionals and tradespeople, elected to represent and hold legislative power over their respective areas, including labour, industry, transportation, public health, and communications, among others; and abolition of the Senate of the Kingdom of Italy . The Fascist Manifesto supported the creation of an eight-hour work day for all workers,

916-542: 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

1145-575: A holistic -national radical Third Way ", while Walter Laqueur sees the core tenets of fascism as "self-evident: nationalism; social Darwinism ; racialism, the need for leadership, a new aristocracy, and obedience; and the negation of the ideals of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution." Historian Emilio Gentile has defined fascism thusly: [A] modern political phenomenon, revolutionary , anti-liberal , and anti-Marxist , organized in

1374-460: A minimum wage , worker representation in industrial management, equal confidence in labour unions as in industrial executives and public servants, reorganization of the transportation sector, revision of the draft law on invalidity insurance, reduction of the retirement age from 65 to 55, a strong progressive tax on capital, confiscation of the property of religious institutions and abolishment of bishoprics, and revision of military contracts to allow

1603-465: A "proletarian nation" that needed to pursue imperialism in order to challenge the " plutocratic " French and British. Corradini's views were part of a wider set of perceptions within the right-wing Italian Nationalist Association (ANI), which claimed that Italy's economic backwardness was caused by corruption in its political class, liberalism, and division caused by "ignoble socialism". The ANI held ties and influence among conservatives , Catholics, and

1832-533: A 'police state' and suppressed the media, as a forerunner of fascism. According to David Thomson , the Italian Risorgimento of 1871 led to the 'nemesis of fascism'. William L Shirer sees a continuity from the views of Fichte and Hegel , through Bismarck , to Hitler; Robert Gerwarth speaks of a 'direct line' from Bismarck to Hitler. Julian Dierkes sees fascism as a 'particularly violent form of imperialism '. Marcus Garvey , founder and leader of

2061-417: A 1956 American Political Science Review report authored by Harry Eckstein , political philosophy as a discipline had utility in two ways: the utility of political philosophy might be found either in the intrinsic ability of the best of past political thought to sharpen the wits of contemporary political thinkers, much as any difficult intellectual exercise sharpens the mind and deepens the imagination, or in

2290-617: A Persian scholar and vizier of the Seljuq Empire who composed the Siyasatnama , or the "Book of Government" in English. In it, he details the role of the state in terms of political affairs (i.e. how to deal with political opponents without ruining the government's image), as well as its duty to protect the poor and reward the worthy. In his other work, he explains how the state should deal with other issues such as supplying jobs to immigrants like

2519-516: A broader scope, tackling the political nature of phenomena and categories such as identity , culture , sexuality , race , wealth , human-nonhuman relations , ethics , religion , and more. Political philosophy is a branch of philosophy , but it has also played a major part in political science , within which a strong focus has historically been placed on both the history of political thought and contemporary political theory (from normative political theory to various critical approaches ). In

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2748-573: 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

2977-433: 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

3206-465: 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

3435-410: 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

3664-592: A constant struggle in which only the strongest would survive. Futurism was both an artistic-cultural movement and initially a political movement in Italy led by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti who founded the Manifesto of Futurism (1908), that championed the causes of modernism, action, and political violence as necessary elements of politics while denouncing liberalism and parliamentary politics. Marinetti rejected conventional democracy based on majority rule and egalitarianism, for

3893-447: A critical part in economic production for the war effort and thus arose a "military citizenship" in which all citizens were involved to the military in some manner during the war. World War I had resulted in the rise of a powerful state capable of mobilizing millions of people to serve on the front lines or provide economic production and logistics to support those on the front lines, as well as having unprecedented authority to intervene in

4122-426: 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

4351-759: A defining characteristic of those ideologies. They refer to the combination of populism, authoritarianism and ultranationalism as "a marriage of convenience". Robert Paxton says: [Fascism is] a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion. Roger Eatwell defines fascism as "an ideology that strives to forge social rebirth based on

4580-517: A demonized " Other ", such as Jews , homosexuals , transgender people , ethnic minorities , or immigrants . These ideas have motivated fascist regimes to commit massacres , forced sterilizations , deportations , and genocides . During World War II , the genocidal and imperialist ambitions of the fascist Axis powers resulted in the murder of millions of people. Since the end of World War II in 1945, fascism has been largely disgraced, and few parties have openly described themselves as fascist ;

4809-544: A distinction between the "Liberty of the Ancients" and the "Liberty of the Moderns". The Liberty of the Ancients was participatory republican liberty, which gave the citizens the right to directly influence politics 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

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5038-420: 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

5267-533: 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

5496-422: A hierarchical, meritocratic government based on empathy, loyalty, and interpersonal relationships. Legalism advocated a highly authoritarian government. Mohism advocated a communal, decentralized government centered on frugality and asceticism . The Agrarians advocated a peasant utopian communalism and egalitarianism . Taoism advocated a proto- anarchism . Legalism was the dominant political philosophy of

5725-487: 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

5954-399: A militia party with a totalitarian conception of politics and the state, an activist and anti-theoretical ideology, with a mythical, virilistic and anti-hedonistic foundation, sacralized as a secular religion, which affirms the absolute primacy of the nation, understood as an ethnically homogeneous organic community, hierarchically organized in a corporate state , with a bellicose vocation to

6183-494: A mythos of national rebirth from decadence. Fascism was founded during World War I by Italian national syndicalists who drew upon both left-wing organizational tactics and right-wing political views. Italian fascism gravitated to the right in the early 1920s. A major element of fascist ideology that has been deemed to be far right is its stated goal to promote the right of a supposedly superior people to dominate, while purging society of supposedly inferior elements. In

6412-411: A natural system based on nature in a particular given system. The theory of the divine right of kings became a passing fancy, exposed to the type of ridicule with which John Locke treated it. Unlike Machiavelli and Hobbes but like Aquinas, Locke would accept Aristotle's dictum that man seeks to be happy in a state of social harmony as a social animal. Unlike Aquinas's preponderant view on the salvation of

6641-428: A necessary consequence of the size of modern states, and also the inevitable result of having created a commercial society in which there are no slaves but almost everybody must earn a living through work. Instead, the voters would elect representatives, who would deliberate in Parliament on behalf of the people and would save citizens from the necessity of daily political involvement. Moreover, Constant believed that, in

6870-504: A new form of democracy, promoting what he described in his work "The Futurist Conception of Democracy" as the following: "We are therefore able to give the directions to create and to dismantle to numbers, to quantity, to the mass, for with us number, quantity and mass will never be—as they are in Germany and Russia—the number, quantity and mass of mediocre men, incapable and indecisive." Futurism influenced fascism in its emphasis on recognizing

7099-639: A new version of Tsar Nicholas II . After World War I, fascists commonly campaigned on anti-Marxist agendas. Liberal opponents of both fascism and the Bolsheviks argue that there are various similarities between the two, including that they believed in the necessity of a vanguard leadership, showed contempt for bourgeois values, and had totalitarian ambitions. In practice, both have commonly emphasized revolutionary action, proletarian nation theories, one-party states, and party-armies; however, both draw clear distinctions from each other both in aims and tactics, with

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7328-589: A numerical sum of atomized individuals. They condemned the rationalistic, liberal individualism of society and the dissolution of social links in bourgeois society. The fin-de-siècle outlook was influenced by various intellectual developments, including Darwinian biology, Gesamtkunstwerk , Arthur de Gobineau 's racialism, Gustave Le Bon 's psychology , and the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche , Fyodor Dostoyevsky , and Henri Bergson . Social Darwinism , which gained widespread acceptance, made no distinction between physical and social life, and viewed

7557-516: 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,

7786-648: A pro-interventionist fascio called the Revolutionary Fasces of International Action in October 1914. Benito Mussolini upon being expelled from his position as chief editor of the PSI's newspaper Avanti! for his anti-German stance, joined the interventionist cause in a separate fascio . The term "fascism" was first used in 1915 by members of Mussolini's movement, the Fasces of Revolutionary Action. The first meeting of

8015-548: 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

8244-542: 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 . Political philosophy Political theory also engages questions of

8473-491: A sub-society of slaves to do much of the productive work, leaving the citizens free to deliberate on public affairs. Ancient Liberty was also limited to relatively small and homogenous societies, in which the people could be conveniently gathered together in one place to transact public affairs. The Liberty of the Moderns, in contrast, was based on the possession of civil liberties, the rule of law, and freedom from excessive state interference. Direct participation would be limited:

8702-608: A system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it." Historian John Lukacs argues that there is no such thing as generic fascism. He claims that Nazism and communism are essentially manifestations of populism , and that states such as Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy are more different from each other than they are similar. In his book How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them (2018), Jason Stanley defined fascism thusly: [A] cult of

8931-730: 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

9160-411: A well made glove fits a beautiful hand." The fusion of Maurrassian nationalism and Sorelian syndicalism influenced radical Italian nationalist Enrico Corradini . Corradini spoke of the need for a nationalist-syndicalist movement, led by elitist aristocrats and anti-democrats who shared a revolutionary syndicalist commitment to direct action and a willingness to fight. Corradini spoke of Italy as being

9389-468: A woman was married, she entered legally binding coverture with her husband; once she married her legal existence as an individual was suspended under "marital unity". While it is easy to presume that a woman would not marry under these circumstances, being unmarried had social consequences. A woman could only advance in social stature and wealth if she had a rich husband to do the groundwork. Mill uses his Utilitarian ethics to assess how gender equality would be

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9618-454: Is "a radical variant of fascism"—on the political right by explaining: "The more a person deems absolute equality among all people to be a desirable condition, the further left he or she will be on the ideological spectrum. The more a person considers inequality to be unavoidable or even desirable, the further to the right he or she will be." Fascism's origins are complex and include many seemingly contradictory viewpoints, ultimately centered on

9847-514: Is a far-right , authoritarian , and ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy , militarism , forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy , subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race , and strong regimentation of society and the economy. Opposed to anarchism , democracy , pluralism , egalitarianism , liberalism , socialism , and Marxism , fascism

10076-427: 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

10305-717: 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

10534-417: Is at the far right of the traditional left–right spectrum . Fascism rose to prominence in early-20th-century Europe. The first fascist movements emerged in Italy during World War I , before spreading to other European countries , most notably Germany . Fascism also had adherents outside of Europe. Fascists saw World War I as a revolution that brought massive changes to the nature of war, society,

10763-472: Is better seen as an elitist ideology. They cite in particular its exaltation of the Leader, the race, and the state, rather than the people. They see populism as a "thin-centered ideology" with a "restricted morphology" that necessarily becomes attached to "thick-centered" ideologies such as fascism, liberalism, or socialism. Thus populism can be found as an aspect of many specific ideologies, without necessarily being

10992-472: Is commonly considered the father of modern anarchism , specifically mutualism . Peter Kropotkin is another classic anarchist thinker, who was the most influential theorist of anarcho-communism . Mikhail Bakunin 's specific version of anarchism is called collectivist anarchism . Max Stirner was the main representative of the anarchist current known as individualist anarchism and the founder of ethical egoism which endorses anarchy. Henry David Thoreau

11221-458: 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

11450-419: Is dead" because of the "decomposition of Marxism". Sorel became a supporter of reactionary Maurrassian nationalism beginning in 1909 that influenced his works. Maurras held interest in merging his nationalist ideals with Sorelian syndicalism , known as Sorelianism , as a means to confront democracy. Maurras stated that "a socialism liberated from the democratic and cosmopolitan element fits nationalism well as

11679-567: Is does not mean that is how it ought to be, which was a very influential idea on normative politics. Known as the father of liberalism, Adam Smith explained emergence of economic benefits from the self-interested behavior (the invisible hand ) of artisans and traders. While praising its efficiency, Smith also expressed concern about the effects of industrial labor (e.g., repetitive activity) on workers. His work on moral sentiments sought to explain social bonds which enhance economic activity. Immanuel Kant argued that participation in civil society

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11908-403: Is found in traditional societies in which there is rule by one (a monarchy) or a few (an aristocracy). Though one could be worried about restrictions on liberty by benevolent monarchs or aristocrats, the traditional worry is that when rulers are politically unaccountable to the governed they will rule in their own interests, rather than the interests of the governed. Mill's explicit theory of rights

12137-452: Is introduced in Chapter V of Utilitarianism in the context of his sanction theory of duty, which is an indirect form of utilitarianism that identifies wrong actions as actions that it is useful to sanction. Mill then introduces justice as a proper part of the duty. Justice involves duties that are perfect duties—that is, duties that are correlated with rights. Justice implies something which it

12366-484: 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

12595-605: Is more aristocratic than democracy." By 1909, after the failure of a syndicalist general strike in France, Sorel and his supporters left the radical left and went to the radical right, where they sought to merge militant Catholicism and French patriotism with their views—advocating anti-republican Christian French patriots as ideal revolutionaries. Initially, Sorel had officially been a revisionist of Marxism, but by 1910 announced his abandonment of socialist literature and claimed in 1914, using an aphorism of Benedetto Croce that "socialism

12824-637: 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

13053-493: Is not only right to do, and wrong not to do, but which some individual person can claim from us as a matter of right. These perfect duties will thus create liberty and collective freedom within a state. He uses, On Liberty to discuss gender equality in society. To Mill, Utilitarianism was the perfect tool to justify gender equality in The Subjection of Women, referring to the political, lawful and social subjection of women. When

13282-583: Is notable for the theories that humans are social animals, and that the polis (Ancient Greek city state) existed to bring about the good life appropriate to such animals. Roman political philosophy was influenced by the Stoics and the Roman statesman Cicero . Medieval political philosophy in Europe was heavily influenced by Christian thinking. It had much in common with the Mutazilite Islamic thinking in that

13511-423: 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

13740-468: 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

13969-534: 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

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14198-504: Is scholarly debate surrounding the place of canon law within the Thomistic jurisprudential framework. Aquinas was an incredibly influential thinker in the Natural Law tradition . In synthesizing Christian theology and Peripatetic (Aristotelian) teaching in his Treatise on Law , Aquinas contends that God's gift of higher reason—manifest in human law by way of the divine virtues—gives way to

14427-581: Is that I cannot aid you in this noble enterprise, the finest and most respectable which the human mind can point out." After Voltaire, religion would never be the same again in France. John Locke in particular exemplified this new age of political theory with his work Two Treatises of Government . In it, Locke proposes a state of nature theory that directly complements his conception of how political development occurs and how it can be founded through contractual obligation. Locke stood to refute Sir Robert Filmer 's paternally founded political theory in favor of

14656-524: 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 ,

14885-532: Is undertaken not for self-preservation, as per Thomas Hobbes , but as a moral duty. He was the first modern thinker who fully analyzed structure and meaning of obligation. He also argued that an international organization was needed to preserve world peace. John Stuart Mill 's work on political philosophy begins in On Liberty , the most influential statement of his liberal principles. He begins by distinguishing old and new threats to liberty. The old threat to liberty

15114-571: The fin-de-siècle generation. Bergson's claim of the existence of an élan vital , or vital instinct, centred upon free choice and rejected the processes of materialism and determinism; this challenged Marxism. In his work The Ruling Class (1896), Gaetano Mosca developed the theory that claims that in all societies an "organized minority" would dominate and rule over an "disorganized majority", stating that there are only two classes in society, "the governing" (the organized minority) and "the governed" (the disorganized majority). He claims that

15343-499: The 2020–2022 United States racial unrest , have substantiated his concern about how fascist rhetoric is showing up in politics and policies around the world. Roger Griffin describes fascism as "a genus of political ideology whose mythic core in its various permutations is a palingenetic form of populist ultranationalism ." Without palingenetic ultranationalism, there is no "genuine fascism" according to Griffin. Griffin further describes fascism as having three core components: "(i)

15572-753: 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

15801-530: 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

16030-452: The Cold War and shifts in fascist organizing techniques, a number of scholars have moved toward the minimalist 'new consensus' refined by Roger Griffin: 'the mythic core' of fascism is 'a populist form of palingenetic ultranationalism .' That means that fascism is an ideology that draws on old, ancient, and even arcane myths of racial, cultural, ethnic, and national origins to develop a plan for

16259-716: The Latin word fasces . This was the name given to political organizations in Italy known as fasci , groups similar to guilds or syndicates . According to Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini 's own account, the Fasces of Revolutionary Action were founded in Italy in 1915. In 1919, Mussolini founded the Italian Fasces of Combat in Milan, which became the National Fascist Party two years later. The fascists came to associate

16488-564: The Medici family. At any rate, Machiavelli presents a pragmatic and somewhat consequentialist view of politics, whereby good and evil are mere means used to bring about an end—i.e., the acquisition and maintenance of absolute power. Thomas Hobbes , well known for his theory of the social contract , goes on to expand this view at the start of the 17th century during the English Renaissance . Although neither Machiavelli nor Hobbes believed in

16717-528: The Oxford Handbook of Political Theory (2009), the field is described as: "[...] an interdisciplinary endeavor whose center of gravity lies at the humanities end of the happily still undisciplined discipline of political science ... For a long time, the challenge for the identity of political theory has been how to position itself productively in three sorts of location: in relation to the academic disciplines of political science, history, and philosophy; between

16946-571: The Qin dynasty , but was replaced by State Confucianism in the Han dynasty . Each had religious or mythic aspects as well that played into how they viewed fairness in governance. Prior to China's adoption of communism , State Confucianism remained the dominant political philosophy of China up to the 20th century. Western political philosophy originates in the philosophy of ancient Greece , where political philosophy dates back to at least Plato . Ancient Greece

17175-474: The Renaissance . Some medieval political philosophers, such as Aquinas in his Summa Theologica , developed the idea that a king who is a tyrant is no king at all and could be overthrown. Others, like Nicole Oresme in his Livre de Politiques , categorically denied this right to overthrow an unjust ruler. Magna Carta , viewed by many as a cornerstone of Anglo-American political liberty, explicitly proposes

17404-610: The Roman Catholics thought subordinating philosophy to theology did not subject reason to revelation but in the case of contradictions, subordinated reason to faith as the Asharite of Islam. The Scholastics by combining the philosophy of Aristotle with the Christianity of St. Augustine emphasized the potential harmony inherent in reason and revelation. Scholastic political philosophy dominated European thought for centuries even unto

17633-600: The Spirit of 1914 manifested itself in the concept of the People's League of National Socialism. This National Socialism was a form of state socialism that rejected the "idea of boundless freedom" and promoted an economy that would serve the whole of Germany under the leadership of the state. This National Socialism was opposed to capitalism because of the components that were against "the national interest" of Germany but insisted that National Socialism would strive for greater efficiency in

17862-463: The Turkmens who were coming from the north (present day southern Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan). The 14th-century Arab scholar Ibn Khaldun is considered one of the greatest political theorists. The British philosopher-anthropologist Ernest Gellner considered Ibn Khaldun's definition of government , "...an institution which prevents injustice other than such as it commits itself,"

18091-494: The Universal Negro Improvement Association , insisted that he and his organisation "were the first fascists". In 1938, C. L. R. James wrote "all the things that Hitler was to do so well later, Marcus Garvey was doing in 1920 and 1921". The historian Zeev Sternhell has traced the ideological roots of fascism back to the 1880s and in particular to the fin de siècle theme of that time. The theme

18320-636: The University of Wales wrote in 2000 that "fascism" is the "most misused, and over-used word, of our times". Fascist is sometimes applied to post-World War II organizations and ways of thinking that academics more commonly term neo-fascist . Despite fascist movements' history of anti-communism , Communist states have sometimes been referred to as fascist , typically as an insult. It has been applied to Marxist–Leninist regimes in Cuba under Fidel Castro and Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh . Chinese Marxists used

18549-526: 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

18778-547: 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

19007-518: 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

19236-464: 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

19465-423: 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

19694-567: The "core" terms of the Qur'an—i.e., ibadah (worship), din (religion), rab (master) and ilah (deity)—is taken as the basis of an analysis. Hence, not only the ideas of the Muslim political philosophers but also many other jurists and ulama posed political ideas and theories. For example, the ideas of the Khawarij in the very early years of Islamic history on Khilafa and Ummah , or that of Shia Islam on

19923-432: The 'new man. ' " Griffin himself explored this 'mythic' or 'eliminable' core of fascism with his concept of post-fascism to explore the continuation of Nazism in the modern era. Additionally, other historians have applied this minimalist core to explore proto-fascist movements. Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser argue that although fascism "flirted with populism ... in an attempt to generate mass support", it

20152-610: The 1920s was sometimes called fascist . Historian Peter Amann states that, "Undeniably, the Klan had some traits in common with European fascism—chauvinism, racism, a mystique of violence, an affirmation of a certain kind of archaic traditionalism—yet their differences were fundamental ... [the KKK] never envisioned a change of political or economic system." Early influences that shaped the ideology of fascism have been dated back to ancient Greece . The political culture of ancient Greece and specifically

20381-423: The 1920s, Mussolini and Giovanni Gentile described their ideology as right-wing in the political essay The Doctrine of Fascism , stating: "We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the 'right,' a fascist century." Mussolini stated that fascism's position on the political spectrum was not a serious issue for fascists: "[F]ascism, sitting on the right, could also have sat on

20610-485: 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

20839-920: The Asharites, reason must be subordinate to the Quran and the Sunna. Islamic political philosophy , was, indeed, rooted in the very sources of Islam —i.e., the Qur'an and the Sunnah , the words and practices of Muhammad—thus making it essentially theocratic. However, in Western thought, it is generally supposed that it was a specific area peculiar merely to the great philosophers of Islam: al-Kindi (Alkindus), al-Farabi (Abunaser), İbn Sina (Avicenna), Ibn Bajjah (Avempace) and Ibn Rushd (Averroes). The political conceptions of Islam such as kudrah (power), sultan , ummah , cemaa (obligation)-and even

21068-463: The Bolsheviks emphasizing the need for an organized participatory democracy ( Soviet democracy ) and an egalitarian , internationalist vision for society based on proletarian internationalism , while fascists emphasized hyper-nationalism and open hostility towards democracy, envisioning a hierarchical social structure as essential to their aims. With the antagonism between anti-interventionist Marxists and pro- interventionist fascists complete by

21297-497: The Christian religion] is assuredly the most ridiculous, the most absurd and the most bloody religion which has ever infected this world. Your Majesty will do the human race an eternal service by extirpating this infamous superstition, I do not say among the rabble, who are not worthy of being enlightened and who are apt for every yoke; I say among honest people, among men who think, among those who wish to think. ... My one regret in dying

21526-414: The Fasces of Revolutionary Action was held on 24 January 1915 when Mussolini declared that it was necessary for Europe to resolve its national problems—including national borders—of Italy and elsewhere "for the ideals of justice and liberty for which oppressed peoples must acquire the right to belong to those national communities from which they descended." Attempts to hold mass meetings were ineffective and

21755-544: 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

21984-461: The Italian Fasces of Combat ". The Fascist Manifesto was presented on 6 June 1919 in the fascist newspaper Il Popolo d'Italia and supported the creation of universal suffrage , including women's suffrage (the latter being realized only partly in late 1925, with all opposition parties banned or disbanded); proportional representation on a regional basis; government representation through

22213-514: The Right stands for the maintenance of an economic structure, albeit an unjust one, while the Left stands for the attempt to subvert that economic structure, even though the subversion thereof would entail the destruction of much that was worthwhile." The term fascist has been used as a pejorative , regarding varying movements across the far right of the political spectrum. George Orwell noted in 1944 that

22442-557: The West. A minority (including Jean-Jacques Rousseau ) interpreted The Prince as a satire meant to be given to the Medici after their recapture of Florence and their subsequent expulsion of Machiavelli from Florence. Though the work was written for the di Medici family in order to perhaps influence them to free him from exile, Machiavelli supported the Republic of Florence rather than the oligarchy of

22671-605: The ability of political philosophy to serve as a thought-saving device by providing the political scientist with a rich source of concepts, models, insights, theories, and methods. In his 2001 book A Student's Guide to Political Philosophy , Harvey Mansfield contrasts political philosophy with political science . He argues that political science "apes" the natural sciences and is a rival to political philosophy, replacing normative words like "good", "just", and "noble" with words like "utility" or "preferences". According to Mansfield, political science rebelled from political philosophy in

22900-422: 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

23129-399: The academic field was wholly scholastic and therefore Christian in nature. One of the most influential works during this burgeoning period was Niccolò Machiavelli 's The Prince , written between 1511–12 and published in 1532, after Machiavelli's death. That work, as well as The Discourses , a rigorous analysis of classical antiquity , did much to influence modern political thought in

23358-503: 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

23587-448: The ancient Greek city state of Sparta under Lycurgus , with its emphasis on militarism and racial purity, were admired by the Nazis. Nazi Führer Adolf Hitler emphasized that Germany should adhere to Hellenic values and culture – particularly that of ancient Sparta. Georges Valois , founder of the first non-Italian fascist party Faisceau , claimed the roots of fascism stemmed from

23816-494: The assembly of righteous government. The rise of Islam , based on both the Qur'an and Muhammad strongly altered the power balances and perceptions of origin of power in the Mediterranean region. Early Islamic philosophy emphasized an inexorable link between science and religion , and the process of ijtihad to find truth —in effect all philosophy was " political " as it had real implications for governance. This view

24045-504: 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

24274-408: 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 was one of

24503-404: The best form for a state could be. These fundamental questions involved a conceptual distinction between the concepts of "state" and "government." It was decided that "state" would refer to a set of enduring institutions through which power would be distributed and its use justified. The term "government" would refer to a specific group of people who occupied the institutions of the state, and create

24732-527: The best in the history of political theory. For Ibn Khaldun, government should be restrained to a minimum for as a necessary evil, it is the constraint of men by other men. During the Renaissance secular political philosophy began to emerge after about a century of theological political thought in Europe. While the Middle Ages did see secular politics in practice under the rule of the Holy Roman Empire ,

24961-420: The best way to achieve "the greatest good for the greatest number" : "The principle that regulates the existing social relations between the two sexes … and is now one of the chief obstacles to human improvement…" The 'chief obstacle' to Mill relates to women's intellectual capability. The Subjection of Women looks at this in the women of society and argues that diminishing their intellectual potential wastes

25190-471: The best." According to Mansfield, political science and political philosophy are two distinct kinds of political philosophy, one modern and the other ancient. He stresses that the only way to understand modern political science and its ancient alternative fully is to enter the history of political philosophy and to study the tradition handed down over the centuries. Although modern political science feels no obligation to look at its roots, and might even denigrate

25419-459: The business community. Italian national syndicalists held a common set of principles: the rejection of bourgeois values, democracy, liberalism, Marxism , internationalism , and pacifism , and the promotion of heroism , vitalism, and violence. The ANI claimed that liberal democracy was no longer compatible with the modern world, and advocated a strong state and imperialism. They believed that humans are naturally predatory, and that nations are in

25648-629: The church in France was François Marie Arouet de Voltaire , a representative figure of the enlightenment. Historians have described Voltaire's description of the history of Christianity as "propagandistic". Voltaire is partially responsible for the misattribution of the expression Credo quia absurdum to the Church Fathers. In a letter to Frederick II, King of Prussia, dated 5 January 1767, he wrote about Christianity: La nôtre [religion] est sans contredit la plus ridicule, la plus absurde, et la plus sanguinaire qui ait jamais infecté le monde. "Ours [i.e.,

25877-408: 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

26106-406: 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

26335-513: The concept of Imamah are considered proofs of political thought. The clashes between the Ehl-i Sunna and Shia in the 7th and 8th centuries had a genuine political character. Political thought was not purely rooted in theism, however. Aristotleanism flourished as the Islamic Golden Age saw rise to a continuation of the peripatetic philosophers who implemented the ideas of Aristotle in

26564-451: The concept of natural order was not introduced, the social sciences could not evolve independently of theistic thinking. Since the cultural revolution of the 17th century in England, which spread to France and the rest of Europe, society has been considered subject to natural laws akin to the physical world. Political and economic relations were drastically influenced by these theories as

26793-544: The concept of the guild was subordinated to the theory of free trade , and Roman Catholic dominance of theology was increasingly challenged by Protestant churches subordinate to each nation-state , which also (in a fashion the Roman Catholic Church often decried angrily) preached in the vulgar or native language of each region. Free trade, as opposed to these religious theories, is a trade policy that does not restrict imports or exports. It can also be understood as

27022-483: 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

27251-416: 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

27480-480: The context of the Islamic world. Abunaser, Avicenna and Ibn Rushd where part of this philosophical school who claimed that human reason surpassed mere coincidence and revelation. They believed, for example, that natural phenomena occur because of certain rules (made by god), not because god interfered directly (unlike Al-Ghazali and his followers). Other notable political philosophers of the time include Nizam al-Mulk ,

27709-556: 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

27938-427: The democratic mystification of the popular will that created an impersonal collective subject. He claimed that a powerful monarch was a personified sovereign who could exercise authority to unite a nation's people. Maurras' integral nationalism was idealized by fascists, but modified into a modernized revolutionary form that was devoid of Maurras' monarchism. French revolutionary syndicalist Georges Sorel promoted

28167-475: The development of fascism. Leon Trotsky would later formulate a theory of fascism based on a dialectical interpretation of events to analyze the manifestation of Italian fascism and the early emergence of Nazi Germany from 1930 to 1933. In 1917, Mussolini, as leader of the Fasces of Revolutionary Action , praised the October Revolution, but later he became unimpressed with Lenin, regarding him as merely

28396-412: The divine right of kings, they both believed in the inherent selfishness of the individual. It was necessarily this belief that led them to adopt a strong central power as the only means of preventing the disintegration of the social order. The main practical conclusion of Hobbes' political theory is that state or society can not be secure unless at the disposal of an absolute sovereign. From this follows

28625-405: The dramatic opening lines, "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. Those who think themselves the masters of others are indeed greater slaves than they." Rousseau claimed that the state of nature was a primitive condition without law or morality, which human beings left for the benefits and necessity of cooperation. As society developed, the division of labor and private property required

28854-499: 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

29083-493: 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

29312-580: 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

29541-479: The economy and advance the interests of workers and the common people. The "fascist right" included members of the paramilitary Blackshirts and former members of the Italian Nationalist Association (ANI). The Blackshirts wanted to establish fascism as a complete dictatorship, while the former ANI members, including Alfredo Rocco , sought to institute an authoritarian corporatist state to replace

29770-405: The economy. Plenge advocated an authoritarian rational ruling elite to develop National Socialism through a hierarchical technocratic state. Fascists viewed World War I as bringing revolutionary changes in the nature of war, society, the state and technology, as the advent of total war and mass mobilization had broken down the distinction between civilian and combatant, as civilians had become

29999-472: 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

30228-534: The end of the war, the two sides became irreconcilable. The fascists presented themselves as anti-communists and as especially opposed to the Marxists . In 1919, Mussolini consolidated control over the fascist movement, known as Sansepolcrismo , with the founding of the Italian Fasces of Combat . In 1919, Alceste De Ambris and futurist movement leader Filippo Tommaso Marinetti created " The Manifesto of

30457-437: 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

30686-739: 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

30915-429: 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

31144-499: The evil of discord and civil war. Beginning from a mechanistic understanding of human beings and their passions, Hobbes postulates what life would be like without government, a condition which he calls the state of nature. In that state, each person would have a right, or license, to everything in the world. This, Hobbes argues, would lead to a "war of all against all". During the Enlightenment period, new theories emerged about what

31373-456: The far-right. Historian Stanley G. Payne 's definition is frequently cited as standard by notable scholars , such as Roger Griffin , Randall Schweller , Bo Rothstein , Federico Finchelstein , and Stephen D. Shenfield , His definition of fascism focuses on three concepts: Umberto Eco lists fourteen "features that are typical of what [he] would like to call 'Ur-Fascism', or 'Eternal Fascism'. These features cannot be organized into

31602-405: The first thinker to relate ethics to the political order. The major philosophies during the period, Confucianism , Legalism , Mohism , Agrarianism and Taoism , each had a political aspect to their philosophical schools. Philosophers such as Confucius , Mencius , and Mozi , focused on political unity and political stability as the basis of their political philosophies. Confucianism advocated

31831-521: 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

32060-437: 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

32289-483: 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,

32518-446: 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

32747-406: The free market idea applied to international trade. In government, free trade is predominantly advocated by political parties that hold liberal economic positions while economically left-wing and nationalist political parties generally support protectionism, the opposite of free trade. However, the enlightenment was an outright attack on religion, particularly Christianity. The most outspoken critic of

32976-458: 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

33205-451: 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

33434-404: 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

33663-467: The human condition as being an unceasing struggle to achieve the survival of the fittest . It challenged positivism's claim of deliberate and rational choice as the determining behaviour of humans, with social Darwinism focusing on heredity, race, and environment. Its emphasis on biogroup identity and the role of organic relations within societies fostered the legitimacy and appeal of nationalism. New theories of social and political psychology also rejected

33892-509: The human race to adopt institutions of law. In the degenerate phase of society, man is prone to be in frequent competition with his fellow men while also becoming increasingly dependent on them. This double pressure threatens both his survival and his freedom. G. W. F. Hegel emphasized the "cunning" of history, arguing that it followed a rational trajectory, even while embodying seemingly irrational forces. Hegel influenced Marx, Kierkegaard , Nietzsche , and Oakeshott . Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

34121-820: The human was and is and about the definition of reality and the way it was perceived, along with the discovery of other societies in the Americas, and the changing needs of political societies (especially in the wake of the English Civil War , the American Revolution , the French Revolution , and the Haitian Revolution ). These new theories led to new questions and insights by thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes , John Locke , Benjamin Constant and Jean-Jacques Rousseau . These theorists were driven by two basic questions: one, by what right or need do people form states; and two, what

34350-458: 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

34579-672: 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

34808-420: The ideal German society as a Volksgemeinschaft , a racially unified and hierarchically organized body in which the interests of individuals would be strictly subordinate to those of the nation, or Volk." Kershaw noted that common factors of fascism included "the 'cleansing' of all those deemed not to belong—foreigners, ethnic minorities, 'undesirables ' " and belief in its own nation's superiority, even if it

35037-587: 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

35266-537: The knowledge and skill of half of the population; such knowledge lost could formulate ideas that could maximize pleasure for society. James Madison was an American politician considered to be "Father of the Constitution " and "Father of the Bill of Rights " of the United States. As a political theorist, he believed in separation of powers and proposed a comprehensive set of checks and balances that are necessary to protect

35495-407: The late 18th century Jacobin movement, seeing in its totalitarian nature a foreshadowing of the fascist state. Historian George Mosse similarly analyzed fascism as an inheritor of the mass ideology and civil religion of the French Revolution , as well as a result of the brutalization of societies in 1914–1918. Historians such as Irene Collins and Howard C Payne see Napoleon III , who ran

35724-407: 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

35953-467: The laws and ordinances by which the people, themselves included, would be bound. This conceptual distinction continues to operate in political science , although some political scientists, philosophers, historians and cultural anthropologists have argued that most political action in any given society occurs outside of its state, and that there are societies that are not organized into states that nevertheless must be considered in political terms. As long as

36182-472: The leader who promises national restoration in the face of humiliation brought on by supposed communists, Marxists and minorities and immigrants who are supposedly posing a threat to the character and the history of a nation ... The leader proposes that only he can solve it and all of his political opponents are enemies or traitors. Stanley says recent global events as of 2020 , including the COVID-19 pandemic and

36411-466: The left. The accommodation of the political right into the Italian Fascist movement in the early 1920s created internal factions within the movement. The "fascist left" included Michele Bianchi , Giuseppe Bottai , Angelo Oliviero Olivetti , Sergio Panunzio , and Edmondo Rossoni , who were committed to advancing national syndicalism as a replacement for parliamentary liberalism in order to modernize

36640-446: The legitimacy of political violence in his work Reflections on Violence (1908) and other works in which he advocated radical syndicalist action to achieve a revolution to overthrow capitalism and the bourgeoisie through a general strike . In Reflections on Violence , Sorel emphasized need for a revolutionary political religion . Also in his work The Illusions of Progress , Sorel denounced democracy as reactionary, saying "nothing

36869-475: The liberal state in Italy while retaining the existing elites. Upon accommodating the political right, there arose a group of monarchist fascists who sought to use fascism to create an absolute monarchy under King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy . A number of post-World War II fascist movements described themselves as a Third Position outside the traditional political spectrum. Falange Española de las JONS leader José Antonio Primo de Rivera said: "[B]asically

37098-432: The lives of citizens. Fascism rejects the view that violence is inherently negative or pointless but rather views imperialism , political violence , and war as means to national rejuvenation. Fascists often advocate for the establishment of a totalitarian one-party state , and for a dirigiste economy (a market economy in which the state plays a strong directive role through economic interventionist policies), with

37327-545: The lives of citizens. Fascists viewed technological developments of weaponry and the state's total mobilization of its population in the war as symbolizing the beginning of a new era fusing state power with mass politics , technology and particularly the mobilizing myth that they contended had triumphed over the myth of progress and the era of liberalism. The October Revolution of 1917, in which Bolshevik communists led by Vladimir Lenin seized power in Russia, greatly influenced

37556-464: 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

37785-479: The modern world, commerce was superior to war. He attacked Napoleon's martial appetite, on the grounds that it was illiberal and no longer suited to modern commercial social organization. Ancient Liberty tended to be warlike, whereas a state organized on the principles of Modern Liberty would be at peace with all peaceful nations. Rousseau analyzed the social contract as an expression of the general will , and controversially argued in favor of absolute democracy where

38014-465: 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

38243-448: The most influential political philosopher of medieval Europe was St. Thomas Aquinas who helped reintroduce Aristotle 's works, which had only been transmitted to Catholic Europe through Muslim Spain, along with the commentaries of Averroes . Aquinas meticulously dealt with the varieties of philosophy of law . According to Aquinas, there are four kinds of law: Aquinas never discusses the nature or categorization of canon law . There

38472-525: The mountain of the center. ... These words in any case do not have a fixed and unchanged meaning: they do have a variable subject to location, time and spirit. We don't give a damn about these empty terminologies and we despise those who are terrorized by these words." Major Italian groups politically on the right, especially rich landowners and big business, feared an uprising by groups on the left, such as sharecroppers and labour unions. They welcomed fascism and supported its violent suppression of opponents on

38701-497: The nation from decadence. Kershaw argues that the difference between fascism and other forms of right-wing authoritarianism in the interwar period is that the latter generally aimed "to conserve the existing social order", whereas fascism was "revolutionary", seeking to change society and obtain "total commitment" from the population. In Against the Fascist Creep , Alexander Reid Ross writes regarding Griffin's view: "Following

38930-400: 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

39159-495: 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

39388-773: 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

39617-441: The notion of human behaviour being governed by rational choice and instead claimed that emotion was more influential in political issues than reason. Nietzsche's argument that "God is dead" coincided with his attack on the " herd mentality " of Christianity , democracy , and modern collectivism , his concept of the Übermensch , and his advocacy of the will to power as a primordial instinct, were major influences upon many of

39846-482: The organization was regularly harassed by government authorities and socialists. Similar political ideas arose in Germany after the outbreak of the war. German sociologist Johann Plenge spoke of the rise of a "National Socialism" in Germany within what he termed the "ideas of 1914" that were a declaration of war against the "ideas of 1789" (the French Revolution). According to Plenge, the "ideas of 1789"—such as

40075-420: The organized nature of the organized minority makes it irresistible to any individual of the disorganized majority. French nationalist and reactionary monarchist Charles Maurras influenced fascism. Maurras promoted what he called integral nationalism , which called for the organic unity of a nation, and insisted that a powerful monarch was an ideal leader of a nation. Maurras distrusted what he considered

40304-508: The outbreak of World War I in August 1914, the Italian political left became severely split over its position on the war. The Italian Socialist Party (PSI) opposed the war but a number of Italian revolutionary syndicalists supported war against Germany and Austria-Hungary on the grounds that their reactionary regimes had to be defeated to ensure the success of socialism. Angelo Oliviero Olivetti formed

40533-523: The people at large would act as sovereign . The Social Contract (1762) outlines the basis for a legitimate political order within a framework of classical republicanism, becoming one of the most influential works of political philosophy in the Western tradition. It developed some of the ideas mentioned in earlier work, the article Discours sur l'oeconomie politique ( Discourse on Political Economy ), featured in Diderot's Encyclopédie . The treatise begins with

40762-409: The placement of national interests above those of the individual. Fascist regimes often advocate for the overthrow of institutions that they view as "liberal decay" while simultaneously promoting traditional values. They believe in the supremacy of certain peoples and use it to justify the persecution of other groups. Fascist leaders often maintain a cult of personality and seek to generate enthusiasm for

40991-406: The politics of greatness, power, and conquest aimed at creating a new order and a new civilization. Historian and cultural critic Ruth Ben-Ghiat has described fascism as "the original phase of authoritarianism, along with early communism, when a population has undergone huge dislocations or they perceive that there's been changes in society that are very rapid, too rapid for their taste". Racism

41220-555: 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

41449-546: The principal goal of achieving autarky (national economic self-sufficiency). Fascism's extreme authoritarianism and nationalism centres around the own group, but that can manifest as a belief in Manifest Destiny , revival of historical greatness (like Mussolini seeking to restore the Roman Empire) or in case of Nazism, racial purity or a master race which blended with some variant of racism or discrimination against

41678-472: The principal governing body of these states, consisted of the King, Prime Minister, Commander in chief of army, Chief Priest of the King. The Prime Minister headed the committee of ministers along with head of executive (Maha Amatya). Chanakya was a 4th-century BC Indian political philosopher. The Arthashastra provides an account of the science of politics for a wise ruler, policies for foreign affairs and wars,

41907-459: 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

42136-563: 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

42365-646: The purpose of abolitionist efforts, writing A Plea for Captain John Brown and The Last Days of John Brown . Noam Chomsky is a leading critic of U.S. foreign policy, neoliberalism and contemporary state capitalism, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and mainstream news media. His ideas have proven highly influential in the anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movements, and aligns with anarcho-syndicalism and libertarian socialism. Fascism Fascism ( / ˈ f æ ʃ ɪ z əm / FASH -iz-əm )

42594-491: The rebirth myth, (ii) populist ultra-nationalism, and (iii) the myth of decadence." In Griffin's view, fascism is "a genuinely revolutionary, trans-class form of anti-liberal, and in the last analysis, anti-conservative nationalism" built on a complex range of theoretical and cultural influences. He distinguishes an inter-war period in which it manifested itself in elite-led but populist "armed party" politics opposing socialism and liberalism, and promising radical politics to rescue

42823-456: The regime by rallying massive crowds. This contrasts with authoritarian governments, which also centralize power and suppress dissent, but want their subjects to remain passive and demobilized. Scholars place fascism on the far right of the political spectrum . Such scholarship focuses on its social conservatism and its authoritarian means of opposing egalitarianism . Roderick Stackelberg places fascism—including Nazism , which he says

43052-455: 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

43281-453: The right to revolt against the ruler for justice's sake. Other documents similar to Magna Carta are found in other European countries such as Spain and Hungary. The early Christian philosophy of Augustine of Hippo was heavily influenced by Plato. A key change brought about by Christian thought was the moderation of the Stoicism and theory of justice of the Roman world, as well emphasis on

43510-464: The rights of an individual from the tyranny of the majority . Thomas Paine defended liberal democracy , the American Revolution , and the French Revolution in Common Sense and The Rights of Man . One of the first thinkers to go by the name of "liberal", Benjamin Constant looked to Britain rather than to ancient Rome for a practical model of freedom in a large, commercial society. He drew

43739-428: The rights of man, democracy, individualism and liberalism—were being rejected in favor of "the ideas of 1914" that included "German values" of duty, discipline, law and order. Plenge believed that racial solidarity ( Volksgemeinschaft ) would replace class division and that "racial comrades" would unite to create a socialist society in the struggle of "proletarian" Germany against "capitalist" Britain. He believed that

43968-446: 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

44197-523: The role of the state in applying mercy as a moral example . Augustine also preached that one was not a member of his or her city, but was either a citizen of the City of God (Civitas Dei) or the Earthly City ( Civitas Terrena). Augustine's City of God is an influential work of this period that attacked the thesis, held by many Christian Romans, that the Christian view could be realized on Earth . Perhaps

44426-552: 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

44655-451: 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

44884-463: The seventeenth century and declared itself distinct and separate in the positivist movement of the late nineteenth century. He writes: "Today political science is often said to be 'descriptive' or 'empirical,' concerned with facts; political philosophy is called 'normative' because it expresses values. But these terms merely repeat in more abstract form the difference between political science, which seeks agreement, and political philosophy, which seeks

45113-416: The social contract theory of John Locke and others as resting on a myth of some actual agreement. Hume was a realist in recognizing the role of force to forge the existence of states and that consent of the governed was merely hypothetical. He also introduced the concept of utility , later picked up on and developed by Jeremy Bentham . Hume also coined the is–ought problem , i.e. that just because something

45342-417: The soul from original sin , Locke believes man's mind comes into this world as tabula rasa . For Locke, knowledge is neither innate, revealed nor based on authority but subject to uncertainty tempered by reason, tolerance and moderation. According to Locke, an absolute ruler as proposed by Hobbes is unnecessary, for natural law is based on reason and seeking peace and survival for man. David Hume criticized

45571-485: 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

45800-454: The state, and technology. The advent of total war and the mass mobilization of society erased the distinction between civilians and combatants. A military citizenship arose, in which all citizens were involved with the military in some manner. The war resulted in the rise of a powerful state capable of mobilizing millions of people to serve on the front lines, providing logistics to support them, and having unprecedented authority to intervene in

46029-572: The subject as if it could not be of any real significance, he says, "our reasoning shows that the history of political philosophy is required for understanding its substance". Indian political philosophy in ancient times demarcated a clear distinction between (1) nation and state (2) religion and state. The constitutions of Hindu states evolved over time and were based on political and legal treatises and prevalent social institutions. The institutions of state were broadly divided into governance, diplomacy, administration, defense, law and order. Mantranga ,

46258-693: 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

46487-537: The symbol of Falangism is five arrows joined by a yoke. Historian Ian Kershaw once wrote that "trying to define 'fascism' is like trying to nail jelly to the wall." Each group described as "fascist" has at least some unique elements, and frequently definitions of "fascism" have been criticized as either too broad or too narrow. According to many scholars, fascists—especially when they're in power—have historically attacked communism, conservatism, and parliamentary liberalism, attracting support primarily from

46716-477: The system of a spy state and surveillance and economic stability of the state. Chanakya quotes several authorities including Bruhaspati, Ushanas, Prachetasa Manu, Parasara, and Ambi, and described himself as a descendant of a lineage of political philosophers, with his father Chanaka being his immediate predecessor. Another influential extant Indian treatise on political philosophy is the Sukra Neeti. An example of

46945-491: 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

47174-460: The term had been used to denigrate diverse positions "in internal politics". Orwell said that while fascism is "a political and economic system" that was inconvenient to define, " as used , the word 'Fascism' is almost entirely meaningless. ... almost any English person would accept 'bully' as a synonym for 'Fascist ' ", and in 1946 wrote that " 'Fascism' has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies something not desirable." Richard Griffiths of

47403-459: The term is often used pejoratively by political opponents. The descriptions neo-fascist or post-fascist are sometimes applied to contemporary parties with ideologies similar to, or rooted in, 20th-century fascist movements. Some opposition groups have adopted the label anti-fascist (often shortened to antifa ) to signify their stance. The Italian term fascismo is derived from fascio , meaning 'bundle of sticks', ultimately from

47632-693: The term to denounce the Soviet Union during the Sino-Soviet split , and the Soviets used the term to denounce Chinese Marxists, in addition to social democracy , coining a new term in social fascism . In the United States, Herbert Matthews of The New York Times asked in 1946: "Should we now place Stalinist Russia in the same category as Hitlerite Germany? Should we say that she is Fascist?" J. Edgar Hoover , longtime FBI director and ardent anti-communist, wrote extensively of red fascism . The Ku Klux Klan in

47861-412: The term with the ancient Roman fasces or fascio littorio , a bundle of rods tied around an axe, an ancient Roman symbol of the authority of the civic magistrate , carried by his lictors . The symbolism of the fasces suggested strength through unity: a single rod is easily broken, while the bundle is difficult to break. Similar symbols were developed by different fascist movements; for example,

48090-464: 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

48319-421: The view that no individual can hold rights of property against the sovereign, and that the sovereign may therefore take the goods of its subjects without their consent. In Leviathan , Hobbes set out his doctrine of the foundation of states and legitimate governments and creating an objective science of morality. Much of the book is occupied with demonstrating the necessity of a strong central authority to avoid

48548-413: The virile nature of violent action and war as being necessities of modern civilization. Marinetti promoted the need of physical training of young men saying that, in male education, gymnastics should take precedence over books. He advocated segregation of the genders because womanly sensibility must not enter men's education, which he claimed must be "lively, bellicose, muscular and violently dynamic." At

48777-557: 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

49006-442: 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

49235-415: The world of politics and the more abstract, ruminative register of theory; between canonical political theory and the newer resources (such as feminist and critical theory , discourse analysis , film and film theory , popular and political culture, mass media studies , neuroscience , environmental studies , behavioral science , and economics ) on which political theorists increasingly draw." In

49464-621: Was a key feature of German fascism, for which the Holocaust was a high priority. According to The Historiography of Genocide , "In dealing with the Holocaust, it is the consensus of historians that Nazi Germany targeted Jews as a race, not as a religious group." Several historians, such as Umberto Eco, Kevin Passmore, and Moyra Grant, stress racism as a characteristic component of German fascism. Historian Robert Soucy stated that "Hitler envisioned

49693-472: 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

49922-557: 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

50151-483: Was an influential anarchist thinker writing on topics such as pacifism , environmentalism and civil disobedience – notably with his written work Civil Disobedience – who influenced later important political activists such as Leo Tolstoy , Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Hard-lining on the individual citizen's right to seek justice over the state's, he was also an outspoken advocate and apologist for John Brown following his raid on Harper's Ferry for

50380-437: Was based on a revolt against materialism , rationalism , positivism , bourgeois society, and democracy . The fin-de-siècle generation supported emotionalism , irrationalism , subjectivism , and vitalism . They regarded civilization as being in crisis, requiring a massive and total solution. Their intellectual school considered the individual as only one part of the larger collectivity, which should not be viewed as

50609-436: Was challenged by the "rationalist" Mutazilite philosophers, who held a more Hellenic view, reason above revelation, and as such are known to modern scholars as the first speculative theologians of Islam; they were supported by a secular aristocracy who sought freedom of action independent of the Caliphate . By the late ancient period, however, the "traditionalist" Asharite view of Islam had in general triumphed. According to

50838-444: Was dominated by city-states, which experimented with various forms of political organization. Plato grouped forms of government into five categories of descending stability and morality: republic , timocracy , oligarchy , democracy and tyranny . One of the first, extremely important classical works of political philosophy is Plato's Republic , which was followed by Aristotle 's Nicomachean Ethics and Politics . Aristotle

51067-450: Was not biological racism like in Nazism. Fascist philosophies vary by application, but remain distinct by one theoretical commonality: all traditionally fall into the far-right sector of any political spectrum , catalyzed by afflicted class identities over conventional social inequities. According to the Council on Foreign Relations , many experts see fascism as a mass political movement centered around extreme nationalism, militarism, and

51296-429: 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 ,

51525-516: 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 ,

51754-402: 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

51983-593: 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

52212-415: 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

52441-498: 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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