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Classical Liberalism
Contributor(s): Siegel, Charles (Author)
ISBN: 097887286X     ISBN-13: 9780978872861
Publisher: Preservation Institute
OUR PRICE:   $12.30  
Product Type: Paperback
Published: August 2011
Qty:
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- History | Social History
Physical Information: 0.53" H x 5.51" W x 8.5" (0.65 lbs) 250 pages
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
"Classical Liberalism is a must read. For one thing, readers should not deprive themselves of the pure enjoyment of this engaging and clear-minded narrative of a broad swath of history. For another, anyone concerned about the state of democratic civil society in the West, and worried about its future, cannot afford to neglect this disarming analysis."

- Prof. Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn, Syracuse University

According to the conventional history, liberalism went through two phases, laissez-faire liberalism and modern liberalism.

This book rediscoveers a lost tradition of liberal thought and shows that liberalism went through three phases:

  • Classical liberalism believed in positive freedom, the right of people to manage their own affairs and to govern themselves.
  • Victorian liberalism had two aspects. Laissez-faire liberalism accommodated the industrial economy by inventing the ideal of negative freedom: freedom was simply absence of government control. There was also a more idealistic aspect of Victorian liberalism which is largely forgotten today but which was central to the abolitionist and feminist movements.
  • Modernist liberalism kept the laissez-faire idea of negative freedom but applied it to a narrow realm of personal behavior. It expected centralized organizations to make important decisions, and it emphasized personal freedom.
Laissez-faire and modernist liberalism redefined freedom as negative in order to accommodate economic growth. To revitalize the liberal tradition, we need to revive the ideal of positive freedom.