LIBERALISM Origins and development of liberalism Liberalism was

LIBERALISM

Origins and development of liberalism Liberalism: • was a product of the breakdown of feudalism in Europe (19 th c. ) and influenced by the Enlightenment. • reflected the aspirations of the rising middle classes more than absolutism. • was revolutionary and radical. • spread in the nineteenth century and had predominance in the West

Principles of liberalism Liberalism holds a central belief in personal autonomy and the prevalence of human reason. It principally values: • • freedom reason justice toleration

Classical liberalism • Often called ‘nineteenth-century liberalism’, its principles still appear in liberal ideologies from the twentieth and twentyfirst centuries. • The belief in egoistical individualism, negative freedom, that the state is a ‘necessary evil’ and that civil society is ultimately a good thing.

Principles of classical liberalism • • • natural rights utilitarianism economic liberalism social Darwinism neoliberalism

Modern liberalism • Sometimes described as ‘twentieth-century’ liberalism, and linked to the secondary effects of industrialization. • Inequality in industrialized societies led modern liberals to reevaluate the role of the state in rectifying the injustices and inequalities of civil society.

Principles of modern liberalism • • Individuality Positive freedom Social liberalism Economic management

Liberalism in a global age • • Global liberalism as neoliberalism Global liberalism as global democracy Global liberalism and cosmopolitanism The threat to global liberalism…