classical liberal theory of democracy pdf
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CLASSICAL LIBERALISM
Classical liberalism is a political ideology and a branch of liberalism which advocates civil
liberties under the rule of law with an emphasis on economic freedom. As a term, classical
liberalism has often been applied in retrospect to distinguish earlier 19th-century liberalism
from social liberalism. Classical liberalism began with the ideas of John Locke, whose theory of
rights and labour theory of value were the foundation stones on which Adam Smith, David
Ricardo, John Stuart Mill etc. developed their ideas of liberalism. The philosophy became
popular as a response to the Industrial Revolution and urbanization in the 19th century in Europe
and the United States. It developed in the early 19th century, as an idea related to economic
liberalism. It focused on a psychological understanding of individual liberty, the theories of
natural law and utilitarianism, and a belief in progress.
Classical liberalism" is the ideology advocating private property, an uninterupted market
economy, the rule of law, constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion and of the press, and
international peace based on free trade. Up until around 1900, this ideology was generally known
simply as liberalism. The qualifying "classical" is now usually necessary, because liberalism has
come to be associated with wide-ranging interferences with private property and the market for
attaining egalitarian goals. This new version of liberalism is sometimes designated as "social,"
liberalism.
Classical lliberalism must be understood as a doctrine and movement that grew out of a
distinctive culture and particular historical circumstances. The historical circumstances were the
confrontation of the free institutions and values inherited from the Middle Ages with the
dominance of the absolutist state of the 16th and 17th centuries. The struggle of the Dutch
against the absolutism of the Spanish Habsburgs manifested basically liberal traits: the rule of
law, including especially a firm adherence to property rights; de facto religious toleration;
considerable freedom of expression; and a central government of severely limited powers. The
astonishing success of the Dutch experiment exerted a "demonstration effect" on European social
thought and, gradually, political practice. This was even truer of the later example of England.
Throughout the history of liberalism, theory and social reality interacted, with theory stimulated
and refined through the observation of practice, and attempts to reform practice undertaken with reference to more relevant theory.