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If you pay attention to politics, you may hear the word “liberal” get thrown around a lot. When one thinks of the word “liberal,” a clear and specific image comes to mind, usually associated with progressivism. You may have seen ads from Donald Trump’s third presidential campaign, where he used his platform to label his opponent Vice President Harris as “dangerously liberal.” If you’re like me, you may have wondered what exactly he meant by this.
In a modern context, the liberal position generally favors the expansion of welfare programs and ensuring rights for minority groups through government intervention in social issues, as well as greater regulation of the economy. However, this has not always been the meaning of the term.
The origins of the doctrine of liberalism, what political theorists refer to as “classical liberalism,” differs from the modern definition in many ways. Although a characteristically rich and diverse movement of thought, classical liberalism generally advocates a more relaxed role of government in the affairs of citizens and the economy, emphasizing the role of the individual.
Although political labeling can get exhausting, tracing the history behind philosophies such as liberalism offer an understanding of politics more nuanced than the misnomers and mudslinging that have come to define modern discourse.
To trace the evolution of terms like “liberal” offers a more nuanced understanding of politics and the philosophies that develop to inform it.
The “classical liberalism” I refer to characterizes a rich period of political theory dating back to the 17th century in Great Britain. It was formed and contributed to by numerous diverse thinkers and writers as a part of the greater Enlightenment Period.
To help define this movement and to clarify its difference from modern liberalism, I spoke to Andrew Taylor and Jim Zink, both professors in NC State’s Department of Political Science.
According to them, the central thinkers most representative of this movement are John Locke, an English philosopher from the 17th century, and Adam Smith, a Scottish economist from the 18th century. Locke is one of the greatest contributors to classical liberalism and one of the most influential figures within the Enlightenment, a transformative intellectual movement of the 17th and 18th centuries that promoted reason, individual liberty, scientific inquiry and human progress.
Locke’s notion of rights was truly groundbreaking in his time. He formulated a conception of rights that were natural — inherent by being human — and inalienable, never to be taken away or have their definition changed.
“His work on the social contract and the understanding of natural rights is central to the classical liberal tradition,” Taylor said.
Additionally, “Locke bases an idea of political right on this concept of individual natural rights … a radical transformation from which he constructs his theory of government,” Zink said.
Locke enumerated them as three fundamental principles: life, liberty and property, which likely ring a bell in the American context.
Adam Smith is more known for his contributions to Liberal economics, especially in his work “The Wealth of Nations,”which isone of the most central contributions to political economy in history. He advocated free market economics with little intervention, believing that the market would regulate itself.
On one hand, Locke believed that by laboring over something, like land, we imbue that thing with a part of ourselves. Through this, it is taken out of the community and becomes an extension of the laborer.
Smith, on the other hand, believed that social good is achieved through individuals’ pursuit of self-interest. We cannot expect a stylist to cut our hair or a truck driver to deliver cargo out of the goodness of their hearts but out of their self-interest, their desire to generate good for themselves. It is through this self-interest that we reap the mutual benefits of each other’s labor, through both choice and want.
This brief overview of just two of the key thinkers from this period paint just a partial picture of what their ideas led to. Locke and Smith are foundational figures in the development of republicanism and free market capitalism, both operating within the tradition of classical liberalism.
So why did this definition change so drastically from its endorsement of small government and deregulated markets to its modern, progressive iteration? And why is it important to think about?
At the risk of further overgeneralization, the basic core of liberalism, common between both classic and modern, is the protection of fundamental rights, political equality and the rule of law. While they agree, more or less, on the ends of political activity, they disagree as to the means of achieving them. The goal is freedom, equality and political participation for the greatest number, operating within an organized political system. The means of achieving said goal, however, is more complicated.
Taylor clarified what the classical liberal’s approach to government is.
“If you need the touch of government, it needs to be light,” Taylor said. “We need to not violate the natural rights of human beings, this is a central feature of what it means to be human. It’s the only thing we come into life with, and it needs to be protected. You create institutional constructs that galvanize this, so that it generates a social value.”
The ideas of Locke and Smith appear to be good, supported by sound logic, although they are much more complex than I’ve represented them to be in one article. These ideas, however, operate under the assumption that through their own ingenuity and activity, individuals can exercise their natural rights without intervention or aid from the government.
Unfortunately, historical reality has not reflected perfect applications of these positions in their ideal forms. The dream of Locke simply does not seem as attainable as the period in which he wrote it. As much as I’d love to move to a hut in the woods, forage my own food and knit my own tunics out of nettles and dirt, it’s no longer realistic to assume that this is possible.
This isn’t necessarily what Locke meant by his theory of labor, but the glaring criticism still stands — that there does not exist a commons large enough for each person to imbue their own part with their labor to fully enjoy their natural right to acquire and keep property and that people would reasonably claim land with restraint to begin with.
“If you’re unfortunate enough to be born in a time when all that property has been distributed, then you don’t have a realistic opportunity to exercise your natural right to acquire property,” Zink said. “The transition from classical to modern liberalism is through working out some problems with classical liberalism assumptions.”
The rights that Locke took to be inalienable are no longer restricted by tyrannical monarchs, but instead by external conditions like class structures and economic conditions. It may help understanding to view our revered “American Dream” as a manifestation of the classical liberal ideal, yet this concept inspires fewer and fewer people each year.
The Progressive Era, a movement that took place at the beginning of the 20th century in America, is one of the key periods in which classical liberal philosophy conflicted with reality and thus saw a change in definition. This movement aimed to address the defects of liberal capitalism, the very system that Locke and Smith influenced.
During a period in which monopolies gained strangleholds on industries and were able to run rampant without regulation or restriction, the sacred labor of classical liberals was denigrated and exploited. Workers, including children, labored long and grueling hours in dirty, unsafe conditions for close to nothing in return. Muckrakers, reformers and trust-busters emerged, redefining what liberalism meant in the context of American politics.
What this means to me is that a key similarity between modern and classical liberalism is their reactive quality. Political positions aren’t formed in a vacuum or all at once, they arise, are developed, contradicted, and disseminated over time. Classical liberals reacted to and opposed alternatives to authoritarian monarchies, seeing them as threats to natural rights. When these monarchies became a thing of the past, liberals like the progressives of the early 20th century turned their sights elsewhere, seeing unfettered capitalism and monopolistic greed as the new threat.
Nowadays, “liberal” is used both as a descriptor or as a pejorative. For instance, although President-elect Donald Trump sought to triumph over the “dangerously liberal” Kamala Harris, according to the Pew Research center, nearly a third of Americans believe Trump has a mix of liberal and conservative views. One’s reaction to these terms should be rooted in proper background rather than simple gut reactions to the first impression of these terms.
It suffices to say that definitions in politics are often shifting, and this can at times feel stifling. For example, there used to be a Democratic-Republican party, and the South used to run Democrat, with electoral maps like a sea of blue.
Understanding the social and historical context behind changes like these, and changing definitions of political theories, offers a lens through which politics can be viewed with more depth and more nuance. Understanding this history, and the philosophies behind these ideas, is integral to a deeper conception of politics.