Portal:Liberalism

The Liberalism portal

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 National Liberal Party–Brătianu (Romanian: Partidul Național Liberal-Brătianu, PNL; also known as Georgiști - "Georgists", from the name of their leader, Gheorghe I. Brătianu) was a right-wing political party in Romania, formed as a splinter group from the main liberal faction, the national liberals. For its symbol, PNL-Brătianu chose three vertical bars, placed at equal distance from each other. The Georgists' official voice was Mișcarea, a journal that supported an eponymous publishing house; notably, Mișcarea published art chronicles contributed by the writer Tudor Arghezi.

The National Liberal Party–Brătianu was active between June 15, 1930 and January 10, 1938. Notable members of the group, other than its founder Brătianu, included the historians Ștefan Ciobanu, Constantin C. Giurescu, Scarlat Lambrino, Constantin S. Nicolăescu-Plopşor, Petre P. Panaitescu, Victor Papacostea, and Aurelian Sacerdoţeanu, the geographer Simion Mehedinți, the novelist Mihail Sadoveanu, the actor and poet Mihail Codreanu, the linguist Alexandru Rosetti, the jurist Paul Negulescu, the Romanian Army general Artur Văitoianu, and the lawyer Mihai Antonescu; it was primarily intellectual in appeal, and was especially involved in recruiting members of social and cultural elites, whom it placed at the top of its political hierarchy. (Full article...)

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Mill, c. 1870

John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 7 May 1873) was an English philosopher, political economist, politician and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of liberalism, he contributed widely to social theory, political theory, and political economy. Dubbed "the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century" by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, he conceived of liberty as justifying the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state and social control. He advocated political and social reforms such as proportional representation, the emancipation of women, and the development of labour organisations and farm cooperatives. The Columbia Encyclopedia describes Mill as occasionally coming "close to socialism, a theory repugnant to his predecessors." He was a proponent of utilitarianism, an ethical theory developed by his predecessor Jeremy Bentham. He contributed to the investigation of scientific methodology, though his knowledge of the topic was based on the writings of others, notably William Whewell, John Herschel, and Auguste Comte, and research carried out for Mill by Alexander Bain. He engaged in written debate with Whewell.

A member of the Liberal Party and author of the early feminist work The Subjection of Women, Mill was also the second Member of Parliament to call for women's suffrage after Henry Hunt in 1832. (Full article...)

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John Locke T. H. Green John Dewey Norberto Bobbio John Rawls Isaiah Berlin David Lloyd George Jeremy Bentham

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But there is a sphere of action in which society, as distinguished from the individual, has, if any, only an indirect interest; comprehending all that portion of a person's life and conduct which affects only himself, or if it also affects others, only with their free, voluntary, and undeceived consent and participation. When I say only himself, I mean directly, and in the first instance: for whatever affects himself, may affect others through himself; and the objection which may be grounded on this contingency, will receive consideration in the sequel. This, then, is the appropriate region of human liberty. It comprises, first, the inward domain of consciousness; demanding liberty of conscience, in the most comprehensive sense; liberty of thought and feeling; absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects, practical or speculative, scientific, moral, or theological. The liberty of expressing and publishing opinions may seem to fall under a different principle, since it belongs to that part of the conduct of an individual which concerns other people; but, being almost of as much importance as the liberty of thought itself, and resting in great part on the same reasons, is practically inseparable from it. Secondly, the principle requires liberty of tastes and pursuits; of framing the plan of our life to suit our own character; of doing as we like, subject to such consequences as may follow: without impediment from our fellow-creatures, so long as what we do does not harm them, even though they should think our conduct foolish, perverse, or wrong. Thirdly, from this liberty of each individual, follows the liberty, within the same limits, of combination among individuals; freedom to unite, for any purpose not involving harm to others: the persons combining being supposed to be of full age, and not forced or deceived.

No society in which these liberties are not, on the whole, respected, is free, whatever may be its form of government; and none is completely free in which they do not exist absolute and unqualified. The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental and spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.

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— John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859.

General images

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

Image 1The 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 2GDP per capita in Chile and Latin America 1950–2010 (time under Pinochet highlighted) (from Neoliberalism)
Image 3Wealth inequality in the United States increased from 1989 to 2013. (from Neoliberalism)
Image 4Builders in West Berlin, 1952 (from Neoliberalism)
Image 5As 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 6U.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 7Raif 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 8Madame de Staël (from Liberalism)
Image 9Execution 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 10Per capita income during the Great Depression (from Neoliberalism)
Image 11Chilean (orange) and average Latin American (blue) rates of growth of GDP (1971–2007) (from Neoliberalism)
Image 12Friedrich Hayek (from Neoliberalism)
Image 13Franklin D. Roosevelt (from Liberalism)
Image 14Mary Wollstonecraft, widely regarded as the pioneer of liberal feminism (from Liberalism)
Image 15T. 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 16United States incarceration rate per 100,000 population, 1925–2014 (from Neoliberalism)
Image 17John Stuart Mill, whose On Liberty greatly influenced 19th-century liberalism (from Liberalism)
Image 18John 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 19The iconic painting Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix, a tableau of the July Revolution in 1830 (from Liberalism)
Image 20Ludwig Erhard (from Neoliberalism)
Image 21Pamphlet calling for a protest of economic policy in 1983 following the economic crisis (from Neoliberalism)
Image 22The 2017–2018 Russian protests were organized by Russia's liberal opposition. (from Liberalism)
Image 23Benjamin Constant, a Franco-Swiss political activist and theorist (from Liberalism)
Image 24Noam 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 25Julius Faucher (from Liberalism)
Image 26US federal minimum wage if it had kept pace with productivity. Also, the real minimum wage. (from Neoliberalism)
Image 27Sismondi, who wrote the first critique of the free market from a liberal perspective in 1819 (from Liberalism)
Image 28John Locke was the first to develop a liberal philosophy, including the right to private property and the consent of the governed. (from Liberalism)
Image 29Gustave de Molinari (from Liberalism)
Image 30Monument to the liberals of the 19th century in Agra del Orzán neighborhood, La Coruña, Galicia, (Spain) (from Liberalism)
Image 31Member nations of the International Monetary Fund (from Neoliberalism)
Image 32Montesquieu, who argued for the separation of the powers of government (from Liberalism)
Image 33Unemployment in Chile and South America (1980–1990) (from Neoliberalism)
Image 34The 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 35John Milton's Areopagitica (1644) argued for the importance of freedom of speech. (from Liberalism)