Liberalism is a political ideology founded on the ideas of liberty and equality. Typical liberal views include support for freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, free markets, civil rights, democratic societies, secular governments, gender equality, and international cooperation. Liberalism developed in Western Europe during the Age of Enlightenment, rejecting the prevailing social and political norms of hereditary privilege, state religion, absolute monarchy, and divine right of kings. The founder of liberalism, John Locke, argued that each man has a natural right to life, liberty, and property, and that governments must not violate these rights based on the social contract. Liberals opposed traditionalist conservatism and sought to replace absolutism in government with representative democracy and rule of law, and the ideology inspired the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the American Revolutionary War in 1776, and the French Revolution in 1789. Liberalism spread rapidly after the latter event, and the nineteenth century saw the establishment of liberal governments across Europe and South America. After 1920, liberalism was not only challenged by conservatism, but also by socialism and fascism. During the 20th century, liberal ideas spread further as liberal democracies found themselves on the winning sides of both world wars. In Europe and North America, the establishment of social liberalism became a key component in the expansion of the welfare state, leading to demise of classical social democracy. On top of that, Americanization was strongly felt in many countries, making liberalism even more widespread. Perhaps the peak of liberal domination was in the 1990s, as later after the Great Recession liberal ideas started to be questioned again. Today, liberal parties continue to wield power and influence in the developed world, but they still have challenges to overcome in Asia and Africa.
Liberalism has been there for 250 years and grew into a few variants:
- classical liberalism (right-liberalism), focused on the free market and personal responsibility. Since the 1980s it's often known as neoliberalism
- libertarianism, a hardline form of classical liberalism
- social liberalism (left-liberalism), focused on lifestyle freedom, unlike classical liberalism promotes government intervention in the economy to protect weaker individuals.
- progressivism is quite similar to social liberalism, but it encourages stronger restriction on personal freedom in some issues (especially free speech) to stop discrimination and victimization
Neoconservatism is usually not considered a form of liberalism, but has many similarities to classical liberalism.
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