Changes and Normative Sources of Liberalism: Historical and Philosophical Foundations of Its Dominance and Challenges in Modern Civic-Political Society

Introduction

Searching for philosophical and historical sources in the history of political and economic thought is not an easy task. The beginnings of liberal ideas, which later developed into a full-fledged ideology, cannot be attributed only to names such as Adam Smith (especially the economic dimension) or John Locke (the political and civic dimension). Liberalism emerged as an emancipatory idea containing a desire for individual freedom that wants to free itself from the sphere of a superior binding authority. It was precisely this value of individual freedom that divided liberalism almost immediately after its rise and establishment into two directions. Historically, liberalism is presented as a coherent value concept only in the second half of the 18th century. In various versions, of course, this designation is older and comes from the Latin word liberalis. Yet fragments of liberalism were present in the political and social discourse of Western Europe much earlier. At the dawn of the modern era, Europe registered multiple clear signals of the people's will—then chiefly of the nobility and bourgeoisie—to obtain a greater degree of autonomy in relation to the monarch and the church. As an expression of these tendencies, one can cite, for example, the Bill of Rights, through which the nobility and bourgeoisie gained certain guarantees in the area of civil and commercial rights. This document derived its values from “the ideological father of the English Revolution,” John Locke, who is also called the “ideological father of liberalism” and, in a certain sense, the Constitution of the United States of America. The Bill of Rights provided guarantees and rules for obtaining or inheriting power, which had to be approved by parliament. It also introduced certain limits on the sovereign’s arbitrariness, which was characteristic of the Stuart dynasty and the last English king of this dynasty, James II.

If we continue the historical probe, we can consider the Magna Carta Libertatum (1215 AD) as a predecessor of the Bill of Rights (1689 AD), since it significantly influenced discussion of civil and political liberties in England and, during the absolutist rule of the Stuarts, became a thorn in the eye for James I and his son Charles I. As constitutionally equally forceful a document as Magna Carta Libertatum, we consider the Petition of Right (1628 AD). It was a document establishing specific individual protections against the state and the crown, i.e., against sovereign arbitrariness, especially concerning taxation. Another important document was the Habeas Corpus Act (1679 AD), which included the possibility of reviewing the reasons for a detainee’s arrest and therefore offered some protection against unlawful or arbitrary detention. These are only some civil-law documents that address political, civic, individual, and commercial rights. Not by coincidence, we speak mainly about instruments enacted in England, the cradle of liberalism and a haven for many philosophers and intellectuals who were inconvenient in their countries due to their political views. 1

The aim of this text is to clarify the historical and philosophical (and philosophical-legal) background of the rise, successful expansion, and impact of liberalism in the ideological space (not only, but above all) in Europe. The study defines historical, philosophical, and philosophical-legal contexts of two stages of this ideology. The study intends to show that liberalism is not a uniform, unchanging, and internally coherent ideology, and this was not the case throughout its historical development either. Its original version is in sharp contradiction to the lens through which we look at liberalism today.

In an era of information overload, when it is increasingly difficult to separate reliable information from disinformation and hoaxes, the correct interpretation not only of liberalism but also of other ideologies in general is a necessary part of the knowledge base of both civil society and political representation. One cannot impose high expectations on civil society in distinguishing relevant information in a conceptual crisis if political and professional discourse also suffers from various misinterpretations, relativization, and a loss of ideological compass. In other words, we live in a post-ideological age in which it is difficult to distinguish and identify the ideological fragments and essences of individual ideologies in civic and political discourse. At least a basic knowledge of the developmental context of the most successful ideology is a good foundation for this purpose.

Historical Development of Two Stages of Liberalism in Europe

From its origin, liberalism was already marked by internal schism. The dominant theme of liberalism was individual freedom and its protection from higher authority, in the contemporary context mainly from the authority of the absolutist monarch and the church. Analyzing the historical context of liberalism’s development is important for understanding the historical and social realities in which the ideology was formed. In this part of the text we try to point to common philosophical starting points that were identical for representatives of early liberalism but were not developed in the same way, and ultimately entered into inevitable conflict. This mismatch primarily concerns freedom of the individual in civic society, from which further related issues then arise. These were chiefly topics such as: (A) private property (B) redistribution of wealth (C) possibilities for higher authority to interfere with the individual’s personal integrity (D) the individual’s responsibility for the condition of society (E) the appropriate system of government.

Liberalism in its holistic and full form appeared only at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. According to František Novosád, however, it is possible to identify much older social and political currents as liberalism, especially those rooted primarily in the ideas of John Locke, Adam Smith, and John Stuart Mill in England, or François-Marie Voltaire2 in France (Novosád, 1993, p. 7). In its initial first phase, liberalism was shaped on the ruins of European feudalism as a philosophy of the aristocracy and later the richest layers of the third estate. This social group pursued through liberalism, above all, its commercial and property rights, which it refused to continue subordinating to sovereign arbitrariness. At the same time it also claimed protection and development of political and civic rights, but only for a narrow group of the wealthiest. The social development of the second half of the 19th century in France, England, and America brought with it a new form of social and political ordering. Social unrest and revolutions enabled the adaptation of emancipatory and restorative ideas, which brought a fundamental reconstruction of social relations at all levels. The emerging liberal ideology offered a framework for, for the first time, a political struggle embedded in the process of transforming society from a pre-political state into a political one (Schwarzmantel, 1998, p. 63). As an ideology of modernity, liberalism offered a purposeful and constructive possibility of social change that could be implemented through rational methods of political organization. As Schwarzmantel states: “By using the state as a mechanism for improving individuals’ quality of life and by steering state power through political organizations, it became possible to formulate programs of social change” (Schwarzmantel, 1998, p. 63).

Liberalism as an ideology, especially in Western Europe, led the ideological struggle in the process of transforming pre-modern society into modern civic-political society. The most favorable conditions for its development were offered by already mentioned England, due to a combination of its industrial, economic, and political advancement, as well as France and the United States.

Defining precise historical milestones of the emergence of liberalism is neither simple nor philosophically possible. The inspirations for this ideology were works of early modern thinkers who did not always share exclusively the values with which we associate liberalism today. This fact itself—that is, pointing to diverse conceptions and interpretations of liberalism and then comparing them—is one of the motivations for writing this study. The philosophical-historical-legal sources of liberalism arose in direct confrontation with three negative experiences. The first was despotism, from which John Locke in particular wanted to distance himself; the second was anarchy, which Thomas Hobbes aimed to prevent through his works; and the third was alienation, which Jean-Jacques Rousseau more strongly feared (Novosád, 2013, pp. 219-236).

One way to assess the consistency, the cause of internal division, and also the subsequent dominance of liberalism from a historical perspective is the analysis and comparison of the relation of major representatives to the fiction of the “State of Nature.” 3 In it, through the main fault lines, disparities are shown between views on key concepts, especially those connected to freedom, autonomy, private property, and the ideal form of state.

A way to assess the internal coherence and the reason for liberalism’s current dominance is the analysis and comparison of its two major currents (classical and social liberalism), which developed precisely along historically created fault lines primarily on the axis individual versus state. Today, liberalism includes two basic directions—the social, now also called social-progressive, and classical, now called neoliberal or libertarian. This split occurred because of different understandings of key values of this ideology, above all of the value of individual freedom. The analysis, comparison, and synthesis mentioned will form the substance of the second part of this work.

First Undemocratic Stage of the Development of Liberalism

“Liberalism, in its broadest sense, represented a philosophy and set of ideas that attributed a primary role to the individual freedom of the individual as the highest social whole, which decides and acts without pressure from the state, other individuals, society, and the tyranny of the majority” (Švec, 2020, p. 17). Historically, one can observe the philosophical, economic, and political dimensions of liberalism. The philosophical direction is represented by authors who emphasize unrestricted personal freedom and separation from tyrannies and absolutist forms of government. In the early periods of liberalism, these positions were represented primarily by John Locke. The economic conception focused on the free market and unrestricted individual economic activity, whose representative was above all Adam Smith. It is primarily linked with capitalist organization of the socio-economic system. Representatives of political liberalism understand the role and rights of the individual in broader contexts that extend beyond the interests of protecting property and free enterprise. This form of understanding was upheld, for example, by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Liberalism became the basis for the emergence of many political parties and currents that do not have to contain the word “liberal” in their names. A fitting example is the party systems in the USA and Great Britain, where conservative parties agree with the economic dimension of liberalism in relation to market ordering, yet do not necessarily align with liberal values in cultural-religious terms. In philosophy, “We do not encounter a pure liberal doctrine” (Sobolewska; Sobolewski, 1978, p. 7). Not because one avoids it, but because it does not exist.

The first wave of liberalism can be characterized as aristocratic, elitist, and non-democratic. It was represented by the wealthy nobility, whose goal was to achieve autonomy in handling its own property, especially land and business. This social group was driven by an interest in expanding its property without restrictions, which was impeded by the feudal system, or its remnants, and by absolutism as the prevailing form of government at the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th century. The nobility also regarded the rising third estate as an obstacle. In the initial emergence of liberalism, the ideology did not represent the interests of broad masses or all bourgeoisie, but only the richest layers of society, which in many cases were better secured than the ruling dynasties. Aristocratic and noble positions contrasted strongly with contemporary understandings of liberalism. Liberalism was indeed an emancipatory means of freeing itself from the bonds of feudalism, but only for the highest social class. That class, however, like its chief opponents—feudal lords, absolutist monarchs, and top representatives of the church—did not share the democratic and pluralistic sentiment of liberalism as we understand it today. Liberalism was rather to be a means of seizing power under the auspices of elevated ideas. As Sobolewski and Sobolewska further state: “For this group, liberalism was understood as a source of reason and virtue, and democracy was identified as a tool of rule by low instincts and the new despotism of the mob—worse than the despotism of monarchy” (Sobolewska; Sobolewski, 1978, p. 18).

The fall of absolutism in Europe on one hand freed people from feudal bonds; on the other hand, the dominant part of the population found itself in a space of economic and social dominance by elites who did not consider freedom a universal value in today’s sense, and for whom democracy valid for wide social layers represented rather a threat. Even leading representatives of liberalism such as John Stuart Mill with the elitist format of liberalism agreed with this, or at least did not oppose it. John Locke, the ideological father of liberalism and capitalism, assumed social and economic inequalities in capitalist society but did not see them as a problem; he considered them a natural symptom. In the sphere of formal civic (negative) rights, he defended broad freedom; he stood chiefly on the side of the aforementioned rising third estate, i.e., the bourgeoisie—future representative of “owners of the means of production.” On the other hand, he did not defend the interests of previously privileged nobility, nor of the lowest social classes. John Stuart Mill, a major representative of Victorian liberalism, in his early works even defended a property/economic census for voting rights based on education and contributions to the state budget. Likewise, he did not consider inhabitants of colonies to have the same dignity as inhabitants of England. These were also the positions of what was called “Manchester capitalism.” It should be added that in later works John Stuart Mill revised his positions and moved from the sphere of classical elitist liberalism into social liberalism, where he toyed with some socialist ideas (Švec, 2022, pp. 95-100). The first wave of liberalism was not democratic. Different social groups saw in liberalism a means by which they could achieve their goals against the goals of higher authority, that is, against the remnants of feudal systems and dynasties and the still influential church.

Second Democratic Stage of the Development of Liberalism and Its First Phase

The transformation toward democratic forms of liberalism took place during the first half of the 19th century. In the realm of political and economic dominance by representatives of trade, owners of factories, companies, and enterprises, the democratization of liberalism again represented a process of renewal. This time, however, we speak of the emancipation of the working class, i.e., the weakest social groups of the population. The focus of this process was primarily the expansion of political rights of the working class. We divide the second stage of liberalism, i.e., the transformation of the ideology into broader democratic bounds toward more extensive civic-political rights, into two subcategories, or two further developmental phases. The first phase is labeled as the period of so-called “Manchester capitalism,” meaning the period of deepening social inequalities and poor social conditions of workers. It primarily refers to the context of the Great Industrial Revolution and industrialization, when the formerly non-privileged social class of the third estate (specifically the wealthy bourgeoisie and merchants), opposite to nobility and the church, became after the aristocracy the leading social force.4 This phase is dated roughly to the period from the 18th into the first half of the 19th century. The period was marked by a low degree of social protection for workers and high statistics of workplace accidents and deaths. With the loss of the breadwinner father’s ability to work in a manufactory, families fell into deepest poverty. Even the main representative of liberalism of that time, John Stuart Mill, was then still a proponent of elitism and modified utilitarianism, and a senior figure in the British East India Company.

One of the major milestones of liberalism’s transformation into the second democratic phase (within the second stage of liberalism’s development) was the introduction of universal suffrage, changes in principles for understanding national-state sovereignty, and parliamentary provisions. Change also occurred in the philosophy of the ideology. As one example we cite the revision of positions of the aforementioned John Stuart Mill. In his posthumously published work Chapters on Socialism (1879), written in the context of the second stage of liberalism’s second wave, he reconsiders his originally strongly individualist conceptions, his relation to redistribution, property-based voting qualifications, and state interventions in the economy, with a focus on mitigating social inequalities. At this point, a significant internal reflection occurs within liberalism—the institutionalization of so-called “social liberalism” in civic and political practice.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau already stood by social visions of liberalism, but only in the second phase of its second stage did these ideas begin to appear also in the civic-political sphere through the emergence of political forces defending, under the banner of liberalism, social rights of the weakest social groups. Liberalism was no longer concerned exclusively with freedom from higher authority, but also social freedom—that is, freedom “to” something, effective freedom rather than mere formal declaration. The object of concern of the new liberal political currents were women’s rights, eligibility and voting rights, social rights, and the right to free education for everyone. In this sense, this shift in liberalism is also seen as a kind of response to strengthening socialist movements in Western Europe, which also sought to address these problems but in a more radical form. A decisive argument for the shift of a substantial part of liberal philosophers on the political spectrum from right-liberal to left-liberal positions was the acceptance of “natural lottery,” also called “natural contingency” by John Stuart Mill.5 The argument about limited individual responsibility for personal success belonged primarily to socialists’ terrain, but for Mill this argument was also a decisive moment in transforming liberalism into modern democratic frameworks. In the space of previously elitist and partly utilitarian liberalism of the 19th century, representatives such as John Stuart Mill, Thomas Hill Green, and later John Dewey, Ronald Dworkin, or John Rawls came to the conviction that individual freedom cannot be promoted only by shielding the individual from higher authority but also by providing the individual with effective means of self-development. For social liberals, it was necessary to provide the individual with active means and real opportunities to realize individual will. Of course, this shift also reflected socialist movements that advocated strong active/effective social rights for citizens. Acceptance of the argument of “natural lottery” is also connected to another broad issue associated with freedom and its division into positive and negative forms. In the words of Adam Swift: “The fact that no one prevents us from doing something does not necessarily mean that we can actually do it. Are we free because no one prevents us? Or are we not free because we lack the necessary abilities?” (Swift, 2008, p. 61).

The dual conception, whose author is Isaiah Berlin, states simply that the individual can be negatively free in terms of autonomy “from” something, and on the other hand positively free in terms of gaining real possibilities to act in a desired way and thereby having freedom “to” do something. In general Isaiah Berlin reflects on freedom as follows: “What is the domain within which a person—or a group of people—should be allowed to do what he is able to do, or be what he is able to be, without interference by other people?” (Berlin, 1993, p. 23). The negative concept of freedom is defined by a formulation that says: “Others do not interfere with my activity. The broader the area of non-interference, the greater my freedom” (Berlin, 1993, p. 24). This form of freedom was the dominant target of liberalism until the period of its transformation during the second phase of the second stage. (...) This is what classic English political philosophers meant when they used the word freedom (Berlin, 1993, p. 24). At the same time, Berlin’s most famous work Two Concepts of Liberty also provides a definition of positive freedom: “What is freedom for those who cannot use it? What is the value of freedom without adequate conditions for its use?” (Berlin, 1993, p. 25). He then adds: “There are situations, as declared by a nineteenth-century Russian radical writer, where boots are more important than the works of Shakespeare; individual freedom is not for everyone’s foremost need. Because freedom is not merely the absence of frustration of any kind; that could lead to inflation in the meaning of the word (...); the Egyptian peasant needs clothing or medicine more than personal freedom” (Berlin, 1993, p. 122).

We argue that it was precisely the transformation of liberalism into its social version that allowed not only further development and entrenchment in Western Europe, but its very survival. This conviction follows from contemporary realities, when socialist ideas gradually transformed into a strong ideology that strongly competed with liberalism through emancipatory ideas. Precisely by accepting the strategic argument of “natural lottery,” which derived from socialist ideas, liberalism was able to remain on the “market of ideologies.” By expanding and combining general and universal democratic elements for civic and political society and simultaneously understanding the necessity of addressing social issues, liberalism offered the most suitable mix of gains and losses compared with competing ideas and emerging ideologies.

Second Democratic Stage of the Development of Liberalism, Its Second Phase, and Present-Day Challenges

The second phase within the second democratic stage of liberalism is historically registered only after World War II. On the basis of the value shift described in the previous chapter, the liberal ideology adopted part of social (leftist) positions, especially regarding the role of the state in the economy and the equalization of social inequalities in society. This shift was significantly aided by works of the social branch of liberalism. In the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, they were represented by the works of the already mentioned thinkers John Stuart Mill and Thomas Hill Green; at the beginning of the 20th century this current was chiefly represented by John Dewey, and in the second half of the 20th century philosophers John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin. While in the first half of the 20th century the social dimension of liberalism was the subject of philosophical polemics, in postwar development the idea of social liberalism took on concrete form as Welfare State policies.6 Liberalism thus demonstrated potential for broad adaptability and openness to change independent of social development. In this part of the work we want to move to an analysis of the current state of liberalism’s dominance in political discourse.

When considering the reasons for liberalism’s dominance in civic and political discourse, it is necessary first to delineate and define three basic concepts that are not content-wise identical, yet political and civic society merges into one. These concepts are: (A) Liberalism as an ideology (B) Liberal (terminologically correctly plural and electoral) democracy as a political system (C) Political liberalism

Correct interpretation of these concepts in today’s atmosphere of civil tension and the spread of pro- and anti-liberal narratives is categorically crucial, yet political communication fails in this direction. We defined liberalism in previous chapters, based on which it is possible to chronologically describe its gradual development from non-democratic to democratic forms. Liberal democracy is a form of political order whose basic virtues are freedom and plurality, but it is not directly tied to the ideology of liberalism. This fact is also emphasized in the Constitution of the Slovak Republic. It is therefore legitimate to ask whether a more appropriate name would not be one that exists and is also contained in democratic state constitutions: “pluralist and electoral democracy.” Political liberalism, by contrast, is an approach, i.e., a method, whose author is John Rawls, and which is a tool for maintaining liberal democracy and balance in its value discourse. In the sphere of liberal democracy, political liberalism ensures an equal, constitutionally corrected competition between equal ideologies (in principle liberalism, conservatism, and socialism). In other words, political liberalism is to ensure a state in which, within constitutional bounds, three major ideologies7 compete with one another, and none of them can lead this contest from a privileged position. Society’s and the state’s approach to political liberalism is crucial for preserving democratic and pluralistic society. Yet even the name of this method is unfortunate (just as the commonly used term for the political order—“liberal democracy”), because it may evoke some presumption of favor toward liberalism itself. A certain degree of preference of political liberalism toward liberalism is present for a simple reason. The ideology and method come from, or are based on, value-congruent or related conceptions of the good life, i.e., liberal values, in particular plurality, individual freedom, and absolute universal equality. If one nevertheless wished to introduce into practice an approach that does not draw value-wise near any of these three ideologies, then from a naming perspective it would be more suitable to use “political pluralism” rather than “political liberalism.” Semantically, this new designation could avoid at least some criticism from the conservative and socialist spectrum.

Conclusion

The presented study focused on analyzing the historical, philosophical, and philosophical-legal contexts of the development and subsequent dominance of liberalism in socio-political practice. Its aim was to show that liberalism does not represent a homogeneous, unchanging, and internally uniform ideology, but rather a dynamic ideological framework that repeatedly transformed over history in response to changing social, political, and economic conditions. Historical analysis of liberalism’s development showed that its early forms had primarily an elitist, aristocratic, and non-democratic character. In this phase liberalism chiefly served as an emancipatory tool for narrow social groups whose goal was to limit the power of absolutist authority and protect private property and economic autonomy. Only during the 19th century, under pressure from social conflicts, industrialization, and the growing political significance of the working class, did gradual democratization of liberalism occur, accompanied by a revision of its values. A key moment of this transformation was the acceptance of arguments that questioned the absolute degree of individual responsibility for an individual’s social position, especially through the concept of the so-called “natural lottery.” This shift enabled the emergence of social liberalism, which expanded the understanding of freedom from purely negative form (freedom “from”) to include a positive dimension (freedom “to”), that is, the need to create real social and material conditions for exercising individual autonomy. It is precisely this capacity for inner self-reflection and adaptation that represents one of the main reasons for the historical viability and long-term dominance of liberalism in the political discourse of Western societies.

In the final part of the study, we also paid attention to the terminological and conceptual distinction between liberalism as an ideology, liberal democracy as a political system, and political liberalism as a normative method of regulating ideological pluralism. It appears that their frequent identification in political and public communication contributes to misinterpretations, ideological confusion, and societal polarization. Correct understanding of these terms is a necessary condition for preserving a pluralistic and democratic society. On this basis, it can be concluded that the dominance of liberalism in the current political and social sphere is not the result of its value constancy but, on the contrary, the result of its ability to respond to the challenges of modernity, competing ideologies, and changing demands of civil society. Understanding the historical and philosophical roots of liberalism thus represents a necessary prerequisite for its correct interpretation in current political debates as well as for rational assessment of its limits and potential for the future.

Author: Mgr. Jakub Švec, PhD. Philosophical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, v. v. i., Department of Research of Normativity and Human Rights

Project dedication: The article was produced within project VEGA2/0118/24 – The Social Nature of Normativity as a Starting Point for Explaining the Relationship Between Individual and Collective Autonomy.

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1 Jean Jacques Rousseau, Karl Marx, and Charles Louis de Montesquieu also inspired the measure of freedom. 2 By his own name, François-Marie Arouet. 3 The “State of Nature” was used especially in the works of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. 4 Third estate—a designation for unprivileged social classes (in opposition to nobility and clergy). It included all groups of subjects, both bourgeoisie and peasants. It was based on the feudal tripartite division of the people. 5 Nobody chooses the social environment into which one is born, one’s sex, talents, gifts, or skin color. These determinants significantly influence, according to socialists and also social liberals, an individual’s future success in society. 6 See also: ŠVEC, J. 2018. Why the Welfare State? Defense of Vertical Redistribution Through the Ideas of John Rawls. In: EŠTOK, G.; SZABARIOVÁ, G.; BÉREŠ, M. (eds.). Challenges and Risks of 21st-Century Society. Košice: Department of Political Science, FF UPJŠ, 2018. p. 48. 7 Alasdair MacIntyre calls these three equal conceptions of the good life, i.e., three equal rationalities.