Classical Liberalism

“Classical Liberalism in the Age of Revolutions” Classical Liberalism may have become integral to European and American society as a response to the Industrial Revolution and urbanization but many of the political ideologies’ most basic principles can be dated back to the Enlightenment. More specifically they can be dated back to 1689 with the publishing of John Locke’s Two Treatises on Government, which took one of the strongest and most influential stances ever taken against the divine rule of kings, as well as offering a rough but invaluable outline of human nature and how both society and government could be run to better serve the people. While Locke’s work wasn’t the first social contract theory published like it, it was the first that

All of these ideals have become building blocks for Western society today and, even though they directly defied the monarchy and majority of societies of the time they were expressed, they set the stage for the ideals of individual liberties and limited government under the rule of law that Classical Liberalism is built upon. From an economic perspective Locke also argued that government’s job should be to protect individual’s property, rather than continue to appropriate it as exemplified when he wrote “Government has no other end, but the preservation of property” (Locke, Pg.89). Classical Liberalism’s concept of the rights of the individual is almost directly drawn from Locke’s belief in the natural rights of men to life, liberty and estate, and the natural equality of all men. The Lockean principle of “the right of revolution” was instilled as a part of his social contract theory to protect these natural rights of the individuals of a society by giving them a right to instigate revolution of their government if their government continually abused its power against its people and their natural rights. An example of Locke’s feelings towards

While the idea of limiting governmental power began with Locke where he argued that a successful social contract limiting governmental power could exist between a monarch and its people, it was Thomas Paine who was the first to make the distinction that adopting a representative democracy would be the best way to protect the rights of individuals. Paine also argued against the monarchy and divine right due to the fact that religious texts not only indicated that all men are equal, but that God was against and very hesitant to allow man to have a King which implied that no men have a “natural right” to rule over one another. He even gives an example of how if a group of people were to be stranded on an island, they would eventually create a system of fair laws governing them and would not naturally select a king, but naturally form into far more of a representative democracy(Paine, Sec.III). It was Paine’s almost infallible argument that helped to spark the declaration of independence with which the American colonies invoked their “right to revolt” and explained exactly what the British had done to abuse their power over the colonists. It was only then, once the colonist’s officially had their independence, that they had the ability to