Liberalism

Liberalism is a political, philosophical and economic doctrine that places individual liberty, equality before the law and tolerance at the centre of social organisation. It emerged in Enlightenment Europe as a critique of absolute monarchy, the divine right of kings and inherited privilege, and has become one of the most influential ideologies of modern history.

The word derives from the Latin liber, meaning «free». The adjective appeared as early as the fourteenth century in connection with the education considered appropriate for a free-born man, but its political sense took shape in the early nineteenth century, when the so-called liberales in Spain defended the Constitution of 1812. From its earliest formulations, liberal thought rested on the idea that human beings possess individual rights prior to political power, such as life, liberty and property, as John Locke set out, and that government is legitimate only if it derives from the consent of the governed.

Liberals in different periods have championed representative democracy, the separation of powers, the rule of law, freedom of speech, of association and of religion, private property and free markets. Yet the liberal tradition is far from uniform. Nineteenth-century classical liberalism emphasised limiting the state and economic freedom; in the United States, social or modern liberalism, associated with Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, accepted a greater role for the state in promoting civil equality and welfare. A distinction is also often drawn between the Anglo-Saxon tradition, which prioritises restraining state power, and the French one, which seeks a strong state capable of guaranteeing civil equality.

Current debate turns on the tension between individual liberty and social equality, on the proper scope of state intervention in the economy, and on the relationship between liberalism, democracy and pluralism. Some thinkers defend liberalism as a safeguard against authoritarianism, while others criticise its limits in addressing structural inequality or in accommodating communities that do not share its premises.