Portal:Liberalism

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Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, the right to private property, and equality before the law. Liberals espouse various and often mutually conflicting 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 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 the law. Liberals also ended mercantilist policies, royal monopolies, and other trade barriers, instead promoting free trade and marketization. The 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 the British liberal tradition emphasized expanding democracy, French liberalism emphasized rejecting authoritarianism and is linked to nation-building. (Full article...)

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The Liberal Party of Canada (LPC; Quebec French: Parti libéral du Canada, PLC) is a federal political party in Canada. The party espouses the principles of liberalism, and generally sits at the centre to centre-left of the Canadian political spectrum, with their main rival, the Conservative Party, positioned to their right and the New Democratic Party positioned to their left. The party is described as "big tent", practicing "brokerage politics", attracting support from a broad spectrum of voters. The Liberal Party is the longest-serving and oldest active federal political party in the country, and has dominated federal politics of Canada for much of its history, holding power for almost 70 years of the 20th century. As a result, it has sometimes been referred to as Canada's "natural governing party".

Founded in 1867, the party first came into power in 1873 under Alexander Mackenzie, but were voted out five years later due to the economic conditions at the time. They would not come back to office until 1896; Wilfrid Laurier was prime minister from that year until the party's defeat in 1911 and his tenure was marked by several compromises between English and French Canada. The party then governed again from 1921 to 1926, 1926 to 1930, and from 1935 to 1957 first under William Lyon Mackenzie King and then Louis St. Laurent, both of whom gradually built a Canadian welfare state. Lester B. Pearson expanded the welfare state during his tenure as prime minister from 1963 to 1968, while his successor, Pierre Trudeau, continued this expansion while promoting economic nationalism, social progressivism, and a more independent foreign policy during his governance from 1968 to 1979 and from 1980 to 1984. After electoral defeats in 1984 and 1988, the party returned to power in 1993 under Jean Chrétien, who combined social liberalism with fiscal conservatism through a Third Way philosophy, a tradition which continued under his successor, Paul Martin, until the party lost power in 2006. The party regained power under Justin Trudeau, who has served as prime minister since 2015. (Full article...)

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Norberto Bobbio (Italian: [norˈbɛrto ˈbɔbbjo]; 18 October 1909 – 9 January 2004) was an Italian philosopher of law and political sciences and a historian of political thought. He also wrote regularly for the Turin-based daily La Stampa. Bobbio was a social liberal in the tradition of Piero Gobetti, Carlo Rosselli, Guido Calogero [it], and Aldo Capitini. He was also strongly influenced by Hans Kelsen and Vilfredo Pareto. He was considered one of the greatest Italian intellectuals of the 20th century. (Full article...)

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John Locke John Stuart Mill T. H. Green John Dewey John Rawls Isaiah Berlin David Lloyd George Jeremy Bentham

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The goal of liberalism is the peaceful coöperation of all men. It aims at peace among nations too. When there is private ownership of the means of production everywhere and when the laws, the tribunals, and the administration treat foreigners and citizens on equal terms, it is of little importance where a country’s frontiers are drawn. Nobody can derive any proﬁt from conquest, but many can suﬀer losses from ﬁghting. War no longer pays; there is no motive for aggression. The population of every territory is free to determine to which state it wishes to belong, or whether it prefers to establish a state of its own. All nations can coexist peacefully, because no nation is concerned about the size of its state.

This is, of course, a very cool and dispassionate plea for peace and democracy. It is the outcome of a utilitarian philosophy. It is as far from the mystical mythology of the divine right of kings as it is from the metaphysics of natural law or the natural and imperscriptible rights of man. It is founded upon considerations of common utility. Freedom, democracy, peace, and private property are deemed good because they are the best means for promoting human happiness and welfare. Liberalism wants to secure to man a life free from fear and want. That is all.

About the middle of the nineteenth century liberals were convinced that they were on the eve of the realization of their plans. It was an illusion.

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— Ludwig von Mises, Omnipotent Government, 1944.

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General images

The following are images from various liberalism-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Pamphlet calling for a protest of economic policy in 1983 following the economic crisis (from Neoliberalism)
Image 2Raif Badawi, a Saudi Arabian writer and the creator of the website Free Saudi Liberals, who was sentenced to ten years in prison and 1,000 lashes for "insulting Islam" in 2014 (from Liberalism)
Image 3Member nations of the International Monetary Fund (from Neoliberalism)
Image 4The European Union–Mercosur free trade agreement, which would form one of the world's largest free trade areas, has been denounced by environmental activists and indigenous rights campaigners. (from Neoliberalism)
Image 5John Maynard Keynes, one of the most influential economists of modern times and whose ideas, which are still widely felt, formalized modern liberal economic policy. (from Liberalism)
Image 6T. H. Green, an influential liberal philosopher who established in Prolegomena to Ethics (1884) the first major foundations for what later became known as positive liberty and in a few years, his ideas became the official policy of the Liberal Party in Britain, precipitating the rise of social liberalism and the modern welfare state (from Liberalism)
Image 7Builders in West Berlin, 1952 (from Neoliberalism)
Image 8Benjamin Constant, a Franco-Swiss political activist and theorist (from Liberalism)
Image 9United States incarceration rate per 100,000 population, 1925–2014 (from Neoliberalism)
Image 10Execution of José María de Torrijos y Uriarte and his men in 1831 as Spanish King Ferdinand VII took repressive measures against the liberal forces in his country (from Liberalism)
Image 11John Locke was the first to develop a liberal philosophy, including the right to private property and the consent of the governed. (from Liberalism)
Image 12John Stuart Mill, whose On Liberty greatly influenced 19th-century liberalism (from Liberalism)
Image 13GDP per capita in Chile and Latin America 1950–2010 (time under Pinochet highlighted) (from Neoliberalism)
Image 14Mary Wollstonecraft, widely regarded as the pioneer of liberal feminism (from Liberalism)
Image 15The iconic painting Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix, a tableau of the July Revolution in 1830 (from Liberalism)
Image 16Franklin D. Roosevelt (from Liberalism)
Image 17Friedrich Hayek (from Neoliberalism)
Image 18U.S. President Bush, Canadian PM Mulroney, and Mexican President Salinas participate in the ceremonies to sign the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). (from Neoliberalism)
Image 19Julius Faucher (from Liberalism)
Image 20Madame de Staël (from Liberalism)
Image 21As a liberal nationalist, K. J. Ståhlberg (1865–1952), the President of Finland, anchored the state in liberal democracy, guarded the fragile germ of the rule of law, and embarked on internal reforms. (from Liberalism)
Image 22Gustave de Molinari (from Liberalism)
Image 23The 2017–2018 Russian protests were organized by Russia's liberal opposition. (from Liberalism)
Image 24The Great Depression, with its periods of worldwide economic hardship, formed the backdrop against which the Keynesian Revolution took place (the image is Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother depiction of destitute pea-pickers in California, taken in March 1936). (from Liberalism)
Image 25Sismondi, who wrote the first critique of the free market from a liberal perspective in 1819 (from Liberalism)
Image 26Unemployment in Chile and South America (1980–1990) (from Neoliberalism)
Image 27Monument to the liberals of the 19th century in Agra del Orzán neighborhood, La Coruña, Galicia, (Spain) (from Liberalism)
Image 28US federal minimum wage if it had kept pace with productivity. Also, the real minimum wage. (from Neoliberalism)
Image 29Wealth inequality in the United States increased from 1989 to 2013. (from Neoliberalism)
Image 30John Milton's Areopagitica (1644) argued for the importance of freedom of speech. (from Liberalism)
Image 31Montesquieu, who argued for the separation of the powers of government (from Liberalism)
Image 32Noam Chomsky's 1999 book Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order is an open critique of neoliberalism and the American economic structure. (from Neoliberalism)
Image 33Per capita income during the Great Depression (from Neoliberalism)
Image 34Ludwig Erhard (from Neoliberalism)
Image 35Chilean (orange) and average Latin American (blue) rates of growth of GDP (1971–2007) (from Neoliberalism)