The Waning of Classical Liberalism
Section: 15.77:
Liberalism Changed
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Net effect of political,
economic, and
intellectual trends was:
Continued advance of
much that was basic to
liberalism
Weakening of the
grounds on which
liberalism rested
Liberalism persisted but
the classical type was
fading
Classical liberalism
• Went back to John
Locke
• 19th century
proponents were
William Gladstone,
John Stuart Mill
• Deepest principle
was the liberty and
autonomy of the
individual (actually
adult males)
• But liberal principles
fueled movement of
women’s rights
John Stuart Mill and his wife Harriet's
daughter (JSM's stepdaughter) Helen Tay
The Rational Individual
• Individual was not defined by race, color, or creed
• Individual was a free thinking being
• Capable of reason and thinking out matter
independently (apart from group)
• people of different interest could reassembly discuss
differences and make compromises
• Liberals opposed all used of force upon the individual
(physical or mental)
• View of religion was one of tolerance
• Clergy should not play a part in public affairs
• Self government through representatives
• Will of the majority
• The minority could become the majority in the future
• Originally distrustful of democracy (excess mob rule)
• Lips came to accept universal male suffrage
• Economics
• Laissez-faire, free trade
Foundations of Liberalism
• Toleration, constitutionalism,
laissez-faire, free trade,
international economic system
and progress of mankind
• Pure liberalism existed only as
a doctrine
• Europe before 1914 was
mostly liberal but began to
decline after 1880 with the new
conceptions of human behavior
and a belief in the irrational
The Decline of 19th century liberalism:
Economic trends
• free economy produced hardship for
workers and producers
• Both sought protection
• Social reforms, Tariff protection
• Depression of 1873 sent prices and
wages into steep decline
• European farmers could not compete
with American Mid West and Russian
steppes
• Both had been opened up by RR and
steamship
• Tariff revival began with agriculture and
then drifted into industry
• Junkers and Rhineland industrialist got
Bismarck to renew tariffs in 1879
• French joined with similar measures
• Show Empire of Good Intentions from
about 9-18 (Irish famine) as an example
of laissez-faire ‘s failure
• And 36-39
A Revival of List
• Many nations began resistance to
buying manufactures from England
• Friedrich List, a German economist
wrote National System of Political
Economy in 1840
• Said that Free trade only helped
England (List)
• No nation could be strong and
independent so long as it remained
an agrarian supplier of unfinished
goods
• A new Drive for colonies and
imperialism set in
• Former disinterest in colonies ended
as Industrialized nations needed raw
materials and expanding markets
Economic Nationalism
• classic liberalism divided politics from
economics but this theory began to lose
ground
• Politics and economics began to merge
• neo-mercantilism or Economic
Nationalism arose (about 1900)
• Nations used economic polices against
each other
• Tariffs, trade rivalries, internal regulation
• Changed the relationship between the
business owner and the country the
business was in (England and Russia)
• Business interests began to merge to
attain greater control and protect
themselves from uncontrolled markets
• Source of raw materials
• Manufacturing facilities
• Markets
• Corporations, monopolies, trusts, cartels
Labor Unions
• Rise of big business and Labor unions
forced libs to interfere in economic
matters
• Governments began to support organized
labor, socialist parties, universal male
suffrage, social distress
• Social insurance, enforcement of
regulations, new regulations on food and
drugs
• This doesn’t jive with Laissez faire
• Enlarged role of government directed the
social and economic affairs of the masses
• David Lloyd George, Theodore Roosevelt,
Woodrow Wilson
• Re-establish economic competition by
breaking trusts
The New Liberalism and the Welfare State
• Favorable toward workers and
disadvantaged classes
• Growing government met the
demands of the new liberals
• Growing government and
centralized authority
threatened classic liberals
who worried about individual
liberties
Intellectual and other currents
• Challenges to liberalism was also found in intellectual circles
• Dawinian evolution, Freudian mind, new art and literature trends
• Darwin implied that humans were merely a highly evolved
organism whose mind was merely an adaptation to the
environment
• Freud seemed to say that what was called reason was often only
rationalization or finding alleged reasons to justify wants
• The conscience mind governed little of human behavior
• Ideas themselves were cultural constructs
• Implies that parties or nations with conflicting interest could
never reasonably agree
• Insidious ant-intellectualism was destructive to liberal principles
• Called Intellectual Determinism
• IF Darwin, Freud, Pavlov and others were right human
perspectives were the result of non-rational an environmental
factors
• THEN the perspectives held by any individual would not change
through rational discussion
• THERFORE it is useless to discuss the differences and focus on
striving for survival of the individual’s own interests
Rejection of reason
• From the view that humans were not rational
came the cultivation the irrational
• Stress the will, intuition, impulse, and emotion
• Value violence and conflict
• Realism
– new philosophy developed out of this new view of
the irrational human
– it placed faith in the constructive value of struggle
– Tough minded rejection of ideals
• Similar to the tenets of Marxism
– Class warfare
• Nietzsche: courage, daring
• Social Darwinists: the most fit
• Sorel’s Reflections on Violence (1908):
syndicalism attained via by keeping the
workers agitated and excited and ready for
action
• These ideas later passed into fascism
The Popularity of Struggle
• Late 19th century, the greatest age of
peace in Europe abounded with
philosophies that Glorified struggle
• Violence was a positive good through
which progress could be
accomplished
• 1871 saw social questions settled by
force
• 1848 was associated with the
advance of social reforms
• Unity of Italy, Germany, and the
United Sates was confirmed by war
English Liberalism
• Economic and political matters in England
(homeland of liberalism) showed signs of
liberalism’s decline
• Joseph Chamberlain
• led a movement Tariff protection (to repeal the repeal of
the corn laws)
• Liberal party
• Abandoned laissez-faire policy
• took up Labor legislation
• Labor party
• Required its members of Parliament to vote as the party
directed
• this initiated part solidarity copied by others
• Hardened lines of opposition
• but it denied of the individual choice to think freely
• Reduced practical parliamentary discussion
• Anti-Irish prepared to resist Irish home rule by force
• Suffragettes resorted to violent political actions
• Railway and coal strikes of 1911-12 showed the power of
organized labor
Persistence of liberalism
• Yet liberalism persisted
• Tariffs existed yet goods circulated
freely
• Nationalism was high but not
totalitarian
• Racist ideas were circulating but were
of little political importance
• Laissez-faire state was disappearing
• Social legislation was humanitarian
• Doctrinaires exalted the beauty of war
– But Countries sought to maintain
peace
• Still a popular faith in progress