This central theme of liberalism is to protect and enhance the freedom of the individual. Liberals believe that governments are necessary to protect individuals from being harmed by other individuals, but also recognise that governments themselves can pose a threat to liberty. Laws, judges and the police are there to secure an individual’s life and freedom. There is an understanding that this system should prevent those who govern from abusing their power.
Neoclassical liberals believed that this was all that should concern governments. Modern liberalism believes that governments should also concern themselves with removing obstacles like poverty, disease, discrimination and ignorance for individuals to reach their potential.
Throughout much of history individuals have been subjected to their clan, tribe, ethic group or kingdom. Liberalism is preoccupied with the liberation of the individual from subservience to the group, a relaxation of the hold of authority and custom. Liberalism focusses on the emancipation of the individual. Underlying this system is the settling of disputes through dialogue and compromise. Contestation is also an important aspect of liberalism – electoral, market and legal.
Liberalism has a close but sometimes uncomfortable relationship with democracy. At the centre of the democratic doctrine is the belief that governments derive their authority from popular election. Liberalism is most concerned with the scope of government activity. Liberalism is averse to sudden changes in society and this sets it apart from radicals. Conservatives are concerned that change results in losses rather than gains.
History
The ambitions of rulers in the 17th and 18th centuries to expand industry and commerce led to the increased wealth and power of the state. This was a problem for the emerging middle class and this challenge played a significant role in the great revolutions in England, France and the USA. The American Revolution (1775 to 1783) and the French Revolution (1789) are significant as we consider the Pluto ingress into Aquarius as this cycle is about to start again.
The early liberals worked to free individuals from religious conformity and aristocratic privilege. Most 18th and 19th century liberals feared popular sovereignty, and for a long time voting was limited to property owners. Racial and sexual prejudice also served to limit the vote. Efforts to extend the vote to women had little success until the early 20th century. Despite the misgivings of men in the propertied classes, a slow but steady expansion of the franchise prevailed throughout Europe in the 19th century. Liberals in Britain propelled the abolishment of the slave trade in the early 1800’s.
Liberals were concerned about limiting the power of the democratic majority and the solution was the separation of powers. The government compromised the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. This system of checks and balances was a fundamental aspect of the creation of the Constitution of the United States of America.
Periodic elections was another mechanism created in a constitutional democracy to make sure the power of the current majority was checked by the verdicts of other majorities.
From a liberal perspective individuals are not only citizens who share a social contract with each other, but they are also people with rights upon which the state may not interfere. Hence people need to be free to exchange their views and also the freedom to associate and organise without fear of harm. Freedom is a fundamental right for individuals to live their own lives.
Liberalism favours the market economy. Governments should provide education, sanitation, law enforcement and other public services that are beyond the capacity of a private entity. Liberals believed that government should not do what individuals can do for themselves. The main problem was that the profit system had concentrated wealth in the hands of a few and failed to benefit those working in these factories. The new liberals asserted that the rewards of the market economy did not benefit those who lacked opportunity or those who were exploited.
To look at the distortion of wealth and income, two major strategies were developed. Workers could organise themselves into trade unions who could negotiate with employers and improve their bargaining ability. The other strategy involved the development of social services, things like free public education, work accident insurance and programs for the unemployed and those in retirement. Meeting these directives required the redistribution of wealth through a graduated income tax and inheritance tax system.
WW1 and the Great Depression significantly disrupted liberalism in the 1900’s and overturned 4 of Europe’s great imperial dynasties – Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia and Ottoman Turkey. Europe was reshaped by the Treaty of Versailles on the principal of self determination. The League of Nations was created in the hope that negotiation would replace war as a means of settling international disputes. Dissatisfaction with the peace settlement in Italy set the stage for the takeover of the Fascist Party in 1922 and the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 in Germany. Liberalism was also threatened by communism in Soviet Union. The Great Depression threatened the market economy with the boom and bust cycle and rising unemployment produced real pessimism about capitalism. The New Deal in the US expanded the government’s activities and increased regulation of business.
Liberalism’s strategic alliance with Soviet communism triumphed over fascism in WW2. Liberal democracy was once again established in West Germany, Italy and Japan. Western governments switched focus to full employment, the maximum use of industrial capacity and the maximum purchasing power of citizens. Governments concentrated on growth rates and used their power to borrow, tax and spend to counter the contractions of the business cycle. Growth was encouraged to expand the economy.
By the 1960’s the social welfare state was well established. The liberal democratic model was adopted in Africa and Asia in the 1950’s and 1960’s as new nations emerged from the dissolution of the British and French colonial empires. New nations adopted constitutions and established parliamentary governments with mixed results. Many nations became military or socialist dictatorships.
The 3 decades of prosperity in the Western world post WW2 marked the high point of modern liberalism. Slowing economic growth rates in the 1970’s presented a serious challenge to liberalism. By the end of this period economic stagnation and the growing cost of the welfare state pushed governments to unsustainable levels of debt and taxation. Governments continued to spend of social programs aimed at stimulation of the economy, but the result was often increased inflation and smaller declines in unemployment.
Contemporary liberalism remains deeply concerned with reducing inequalities and helping the poor. The American civil rights movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s fought to end discrimination against the African American minority. In the 1970’s similar movements fought for the rights of women, gays and lesbians and those physically and mentally disabled.
With the election of Thatcher and Reagan in the early 1980’s the deregulation and privatisation of the economy gathered momentum. Unregulated markets would generate prosperity. Many of the New Deal regulations were relaxed in the banking, insurance and financial sectors in the 1980’s and 1990’s. The resulting lack of oversight was a major factor in the 2008/2009 financial crisis which led to the Great Recession in the period 2012 to 2015. This sector was once again re-regulated.
Humanity finds itself once again at cross-roads. Slowing economic growth, unemployment, inequality and corruption are eating at the social cohesion in society. In the late 1700’s ordinary people got fed up with the gluttonous monarchies ruling France and Britain and the social disruptions led to the American War of Independence and the French Revolution. It was during this period that Pluto moved from Capricorn into Aquarius – April 1777 ending in December 1798. This cycle has started again with Pluto moving into Aquarius between March 2023 and Jan 2044.
