Investigating How Far Modern Liberalism Has Departed form Classical Liberalism

Investigating How Far Modern Liberalism Has Departed form Classical Liberalism

Liberalism did not denote a political allegiance until the early part

of the nineteenth Century, and was first used in Spain in 1812. The

first real Liberal government in the UK was Gladstone’s in 1868.

Liberal ideas resulted from the breakdown of feudalism in Europe and

the growth of its replacement of a market or capitalist society. At

first, Liberal ideas were radical because they sought fundamental

reform and even revolutionary change. This early, or Classical,

liberalism advocated an industrialized and market economic order free

from government intervention. However, these views and beliefs later

changed during the twentieth century, to become, what is commonly

known as modern liberalism. The question is how far has modern

liberalism departed from the original classical liberal ideas?

Liberals believe in the supreme importance of the individual.

Therefore, they want a society in which each individual is capable of

developing to their full potential. This is where there is a

difference between classical and modern liberals. Classical liberals

believe that individuals are egoistical, this means self-interested

and self-reliant, basically selfish. Therefore, society is a

collection of self-interested individuals. This view has been called

atomistic, in that it conceives of individuals as ‘isolated atoms’

within society; in fact it can lead to the belief that society does

not exist at all, but is merely a collection of self-sufficient

individuals. C. B. Macpherson characterized classical liberalism as

‘possessive individualism’ because, he argued it rega...

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however, classical liberals believe that it has to be this way in

order for a meritocracy to be present, whereas modern liberals believe

that the government should intervene and redistribute the wealth in

order to give everyone a chance.

In conclusion, it is obvious that there are several distinct

differences in the beliefs of classical and modern liberals. In my

opinion they are not as dissimilar as to be classified as separate

distinct political ideologies, however there are at different ends of

the liberal scale. For example, the two different ideas about how the

economy should be run, they are not completely different they both

agree that there should be private enterprise, it is just that they

differ in how much private enterprise there should be, the same

applies for the society, individual and state.