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Classical liberalism is a political ideology, a branch of liberalism which advocates civil liberties and political freedom with representative democracy under the rule of law and emphasizes economic freedom.[1][2]

Classical liberalism developed in the 19th century in Europe and the United States. Although classical liberalism built on ideas that had already developed by the end of the 18th century, it advocated a specific kind of society, government and public policy as a response to the Industrial Revolution and urbanization.[3] Notable individuals whose ideas have contributed to classical liberalism include John Locke,[4]Jean-Baptiste Say, Thomas Malthus, and David Ricardo. It drew on the economics of Adam Smith and on a belief in natural law,[5]utilitarianism,[6] and progress.[7]

In the late 19th century, classical liberalism developed into neo-classical liberalism, which argued for government to be as small as possible to allow the exercise of individual freedom. In its most extreme form, neo-classical liberalism advocated Social Darwinism.[8]Right-libertarianism is a modern form of neo-classical liberalism.[8]

The term classical liberalism was applied in retrospect to distinguish earlier 19th-century liberalism from the newer social liberalism.[9] The phrase classical liberalism is also sometimes used to refer to all forms of liberalism before the 20th century, and some conservatives and libertarians use the term classical liberalism to describe their belief in the primacy of individual freedom and minimal government. It is not always clear which meaning is intended.[10][11][12]

Core beliefs of classical liberals included new ideaswhich departed from both the older conservative idea of society as a family and from later sociological concept of society as complex set of social networksthat individuals were "egoistic, coldly calculating, essentially inert and atomistic"[13] and that society was no more than the sum of its individual members.[14]

Classical liberals agreed with Thomas Hobbes that government had been created by individuals to protect themselves from one another, and that the purpose of government should be to minimize conflict between individuals that would otherwise arise in a state of nature.

These beliefs were complemented by a belief that labourers could be best motivated by financial incentive.[citation needed] This led classical liberal politicians at the time to pass the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, which limited the provision of social assistance, because classical liberals believed in markets as the mechanism that would most efficiently lead to wealth. Adopting Thomas Malthus's population theory, they saw poor urban conditions as inevitable; they believed population growth would outstrip food production, and they regarded that consequence desirable, because starvation would help limit population growth. They opposed any income or wealth redistribution, which they believed would be dissipated by the lowest orders.[15]

Drawing on selected ideas of Adam Smith, classical liberals believed that it is in the common interest that all individuals must be able to secure their own economic self-interest, without government direction.[16] They were critical of the welfare state[17] as interfering in a free market. They criticised labour's group rights being pursued at the expense of individual rights,[18] while they accepted big corporations' rights being pursued at the expense of inequality of bargaining power noted by Adam Smith:[19]

A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, a merchant, though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks which they have already acquired. Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year without employment. In the long run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him; but the necessity is not so immediate.

Classical liberals believed that individuals should be free to obtain work from the highest-paying employers, while the profit motive would ensure that products that people desired were produced at prices they would pay. In a free market, both labour and capital would receive the greatest possible reward, while production would be organised efficiently to meet consumer demand.[20]

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Classical liberalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia