Posted by
JDComments on Monday, January 22, 2007 3:00:50 PM
Classical Liberalism is an iconic title claimed by many but deserved by few in today's world. To understand what it means in terms of modern politics, it is necessary to consider its origin and evolution.
WIth it's roots in the Enlightenment, classical Liberalism was the intellectual revolt against the existing constraints and restrictions of the hierachical society that existed in the 18th century. A faith in rationalism led to the formulation of the liberties and rights of all men, and decried the corruption of the Catholic Church and the Royal Court.
It is always interesting to note that Rousseau , one of the founders of the movement, was anti-government, and blamed most ills on society imposing its will on the free nature of unregulated man. He was definitely a "necessary evil" proponent of government.
With the French Revolution, the standard bearers of this movement got the chance to create things in their own image, and so was born the Liberal love of social engineering and , ironically, big government.
The freedoms which had been espoused as paramount were now augmented and eventually supplanted by the imposition of "solutions" to problems which demanded government enforcement and regulation, and which replaced the goal of liberty with the aim of equality, two things which are actually mutually exclusive.
Thus European Liberalism led to Marx and his utopian Communism.
The Founding Fathers of the US adhered to the original beliefs of liberalism, as can be seen in the Bill of Rights, which seeks not equality of results but of opportunity by restricting the government's powers and forbidding them to intrude in such areas as our religious beliefs or private property.
In deciding on the liberties which were sacrosanct, many deferred to the concept of the Natural RIghts of Men, which actually were taken as Divinely ordained, Nature and God being equated in this pre-Darwinian time. The idea of license and complete personal freedom for the individual was NOT what was sought, nor would it have been seen as acceptable.
With the Great Depression, European Liberalism finally invaded our shores, and has refused to leave in the intervening decades, much to the chagrin of many of us.
So today we have the Libertarians, who believe in almost anarchy in the sense that there are no restrictions on personal behavior, the Liberals, who, in their quest for a perfect society, have sacrificed the concept of liberty at the altar of egalitarianism, with the results that Rousseau must be spinning in his grave at seeing those who claim to be his progeny creating the most massive and intrusive governments in history, and the Conservatives, a term which is used for those who are seeking to retain the existing order and thus is defined by the society in which it arises.
In the case of the US , that society's norms includes the belief in the original freedoms that Voltaire, Montague, Diderot et al would recognize as their aspirations, combined with the respect for the institutions which men have developed to tame their urge for individual license and thus make civilization possible.
In other words, the Classical Liberal ideals before the exercise of power corrupted them, and resulted in the tyranny of reason harnessed to the demands of the majority.
So all those who disparage Conservatism as antiquated and ossified should consider what it is that we are seeking to conserve. If they did they would find those classical Liberal freedoms and values that they claim to value so highly and which the Left and the Libertarians are doing their best to erode while claiming, falsely, to be their modern defenders.