UNIT TWO: FOUNDATIONS OF LIBERALISM

In this unit, you will begin a journey into the past. The English word history is derived from the ancient Greek word historia, which means to find out or to learn by asking questions and finding the answers. To improve your understanding of liberalism, you need to "find out" about its early history. This unit will help you do that.

You will learn about the ideas, people, and societies that pioneered many of the principles of liberalism. Then, you will familiarize yourself with the concept of liberalism that developed in Western Europe and America during the 18^th and 19 ^th centuries, and you will discover how these theories were put into practice.

You will evaluate the impact of 18^th and 19^th century liberalism. You will identify the successes and failures that resulted from the practical applications of liberal ideology.

This unit has two sections:

1. What are the origins of liberalism?  (Before Liberalism, Fundamental Ideas about Human Nature, Classical Liberal Thinkers, Political and Economic Ideas)
2. What was the impact of classical liberalism?  (Industrial Revolution, Revolutionary Change, Limited Government, Changes to the Class System)

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In this unit, you will explore the following big ideas based on questions arising from the issue question:

1. What is classical liberalism?
2. What ideas about the nature of human beings influenced classical liberalism?
3. What was the impact of classical liberalism?

People Make History!  Especially these thinkers who contributed to Classical Liberal thought:

Early Origins of Liberalism

In the next few pages, you will learn about how the ideas behind classical liberalism changed the Western world. These ideas were in part a reaction to the political and economic systems of the day, systems that many people felt were outdated and based on faulty premises. What was the world like before liberalism?

Aboriginal Contributions to Liberalism

These First Nations people had been at war with each other for centuries until they decided to come together, all agreeing to abide by the Great Law of Peace. The Great Law of Peace, or Great Binding Law, was their oral constitution. It laid out the way to peace and harmony among the nations. Its key principles included:

1. division of powers among various branches of government
   
2. equal participation by citizens, including women
   
3.  establishment of rights and freedoms, including freedom of speech, religion, and rights of the individual

The various nations of the confederacy came together in a strong and powerful association known as the Six Nations, including the following First Nations:

• Kanien'kehaka (Mohawk)
• Oneniote'a:ka (Oneida)
• Gan'dagwëni:io'geh (Onondaga)
• Kaion'keha:ka (Cayuga)
• Shotinontowante'a:ka (Seneca)
• Tehatiskaro:ros (Tuscarora)

 

The Great Law of Peace was an oral constitution with democratic principles. Many historians consider it to have been an inspiration to men such as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson who knew the Haudenosaunee and were impressed by the way they ran their nations. These men helped write the constitution of the United States. Consider the following similarities:

	The Great Law of Peace	Constitution of the United States of America
Preamble	"We, the people, to form a union, to establish peace, equity, and order... "	"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves, ... "
Choice of leaders	Elected on merit	Elected on merit
Equality	Established in the oral constitution	Established in the written constitution
Division of Powers	Established in the oral constitution	Established in the written constitution

When the first Europeans arrived in North America, the Haudenosaunee were based in what is now the northeastern U.S. The Confederacy ended with the American Revolution. At that time, many Haudenosaunee moved north to Canada when the land granted to them by the British was taken over by American settlers.  

Why Study Classical Liberalism?

As you learned in the previous unit, one of the determining characteristics behind any ideology is a belief about the nature of human beings. During the past 500 or so years, individualism emerged as a central tenet of political and economic theory that challenged the absolute monarchies and mercantile economies of Western Europe.

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As a result, the ideology of classical liberalism emerged from these ideas about the primacy of individual decision making in society. This unit examines this slow but steady evolution.

In the Middle Ages in Europe, almost all people had a powerful belief in God. According to the teachings of the Church, people were weak and sinful and needed the saving grace of the Church. It was also believed that those in positions of power were there because they deserved to be. Those ideas changed with the Renaissance and the Reformation.

Renaissance (14th-16th C) means "rebirth". It was a time of great social, intellectual, political, and artistic change in European history, often seen as a bridge between the Middle Ages and modern times. The Renaissance Humanists believed in individual human worth and dignity. They believed in reason over faith. They thought that people choose their own nature-a great departure from the common thinking at the time that a person's true nature was divined by a higher power.

Reformation (1517-1648) is the name given to the restructuring of the Church in Europe. It began with a German pastor (Martin Luther) who believed the Church had become corrupt and had too much power. He and others felt that the Church had strayed from its true purpose and demanded that it be reformed. Influenced by humanism, over the next years, reformers in many countries broke away from the established Roman Catholic Church and constructed new denominations according to various ideas, especially the idea that people were capable of making their own decisions based on reason. At this time, the power of the Church waned and faith in the rational nature of human beings grew.

Age of Enlightenment (17th-18th C) - As the ideas of the Renaissance and Reformation became more popular, European philosophers helped promote the ideas about human nature that led to the development of classical liberalism.

Watch this video to learn how individualism, and subsequently classical liberal ideas, emerged during this time.


The following writers became famous for promoting certain liberal ideas. Click on each hyperlinked name to learn more about these contributions. Then, use the organizer below to take notes.

Thomas Hobbes  1588-1679

John Locke  1632-1704

Jean Jacques Rousseau  1712-1778

Although Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau had various ideas about the nature of human beings, one thing they all agreed upon was "the social contract". They agreed that, no matter what human nature is truly like, we all live in an organized society in which we must agree to give up some of our freedoms in return for benefits such as good government and personal security.

After reviewing the Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau pages that identify in detail, their beliefs, watch this video to compare all three:

In the first part of this unit, you learned that in the past, people were not all considered equal, and there was no political accountability for absolute monarchs. Only a few number of merchants and professionals enjoyed some economic and political power under a rigid class structure. Due to a number of factors, many began to question the lack of political and economic power help by the masses.

Between the 1600-1800s, movements from the Reformation to the Renaissance in Europe led to a greater belief in the importance of the individual and the power of reason. These two movements led to what is known as the Enlightenment, or Age of Reason. During this time, a disparate group of people began to question certain social, political and economic ideas.

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A few of the most prominent classical liberal thinkers are below. Each one provided fundamental ideas that led to the development of classical liberal thought. Click on the hyperlink of each name to learn more about their ideas and contributions. While reading, complete the organizer available below.

Voltaire Francois-Marie Arouet 1694-1778

Baron de Montesquieu  1689-1755

John Stuart Mill  1806-1873

Specific Political & Economic Ideas

Classical Political Liberalism

The word politics refers to how power is distributed in society, including the powers of government. You have learned about the Western world before the ideas supporting classical liberalism came about. Specifically, what did these new ideas mean in terms of the distribution of power and the role of government?

In Social 20-1, you learned about the Enlightenment philosophers of France who rejected the idea of themselves as subjects of a king and replaced the concept with the idea of being citizens of a nation. Although the French Revolution was a nationalist movement, it was also a liberal movement. It represented a rejection of absolute rule by one individual in favour of rule by a government of the people. It replaced a social and governmental system based on heredity, privilege, and ties to the Church with one based on equality and rights. It replaced the substantial powers of the existing government with more limited government.

During the Enlightenment, many philosophes (French economists) questioned traditional ideas, including the existence of God, God's role in human affairs if He did exist, and the right of the king to rule over his subjects with absolute power.

Their ideas about human nature led them to believe that individual people should hold power in society by deciding who should rule. By challenging centuries-old ideas about government and the monarchs' right to rule, the thinkers of the Enlightenment laid the groundwork for the overthrow of many of Europe's monarchies. These monarchies were replaced eventually by liberal democracies.

Classical Economic Liberalism

In his 1776 work, The Wealth of Nations, Scottish economist Adam Smith argued that the freedom to own property and to produce, sell, and buy goods without government intervention would generate ultimately national wealth far more effectively that mercantilism. Smith believed that people seek instinctively what is best for them. He thought that this self-interest should be expressed freely in an environment of unlimited competition-a free-market system.

Smith held that the natural interplay between buyers and sellers and between workers and employers would ensure ultimately that goods were produced efficiently and economically. Government meddling in the economy would be unnecessary.

Competition among consumers for products, among businesses for consumers' dollars, among workers for jobs, and among employers for skilled workers would make the economy self-regulating. Smith referred to this as the invisible hand. As individuals strove to better their own economic situation, the economy of the nation as a whole would also benefit.

Classical liberals had a far more expansive understanding of the term minimal government interference than exists today. As capitalist ideals became popular, there was little government regulation or oversight of business or business practices.


In this section, you have looked at the ideas that influenced the development of classical liberalism. 

The Concept of Limited Government

What role should government have in people's lives?

Political Classical Liberalism

The revolutions in France and the United States saw a shift in the power base of these two nations. Instead of political power being held by the monarch and a handful of noblemen, it was invested in citizens who were empowered to influence the actions of government by voting for representatives. It took longer for this power to be equally shared by all men and women, but this was a start on the road to more power in the hands of the individual. This shift occurred gradually in all nations of Europe and, over a longer period of time, in most of the world today.

Economic Classical Liberalism

A desire to limit the power of the government in economic affairs of the nation is a key principle of classical liberalism. Adam Smith's idea of the invisible hand led to the development of free markets and encouraged entrepreneurship. Under classical liberalism, governments taxed less, provided fewer advantages to local businesses and encouraged individuals to own and operate almost all programs and services in a country for their own profit.

Concept of Limited Government

Because many societies like France and United States rid themselves of an absolute monarch, classical liberals supported the notion of limited government involvement both politically and economically. The government's role is only to provide public security and essential services such as road maintenance and primary education. You will consider the changing role of government in the lives of its citizens in the next unit.

The Industrial Revolution

Due to the promotion of classical liberalism, the economic structure of Britain, than the rest of the Western world, underwent a dramatic transformation.

Several factors contributed to the Industrial Revolution:

In the next unit, you will read about how society responded to the immediate effects of classical liberal principles being promoted during the Industrial Revolution.

The French Revolution

The American Revolution

As the ideas of classical liberalism took hold, society began to change. In the past, people were born into a particular social class and remained in it their whole lives. Classical liberalism valued the individual as unique and encouraged more economic opportunities.

Thanks to the promotion of classical liberal principles, the idea of rigid class system began to die away, and a social structure based on wealth began to emerge. Due to the pursuit of self-interest, private property and economic competition, people could improve their social and economic status. Hard work and self-reliance were encouraged as keys to economic success.

While greater political equality was encouraged, in many countries, this expansion of suffrage or voting rights included only men who owned property. In fact, the expansion of suffrage for men alone took several decades in Britain, Canada and the United States. For example, the U.S. and France, two nations founded on the idea of "equality", did not grant all women the right to vote until 1920 and 1945 respectively.

As a result, classical liberal societies promoted individual rights, but their practice of granting these rights to everyone was relatively slow. As a result, classical liberal societies were freer than their predecessors, but remained elitist in terms of true equality. This is why classical liberalism remains on the right side of the political spectrum, because some forms of inequality were still accepted in society.

  Unit Two Summary

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All contributed to changes in how people lived, including the power people had over their own lives and who made the political and economic decisions that impacted society.


In the next unit, you will investigate how people responded to changes that arose in society because of classical liberal ideology.

Although classical liberalism brought many positive changes, it also presented challenges. From what you have learned, can you see any reasons people might disagree with classical liberalism? Is it missing any of the key values in which you believe?