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T. H. Green, an influential liberal philosopher who established in Prolegomena to Ethics (1884) the first major foundations for what later became known as positive liberty and in a few years, his ideas became the official policy of the Liberal Party in Britain, precipitating the rise of social liberalism and the modern welfare state
According to American philosopher Ian Adams, "all US parties are liberal and always have been", they generally promote classical liberalism, which is "a form of democratized Whig constitutionalism plus the free market", and the "point of difference comes with the influence of social liberalism" and principled disagreements about the proper role ...
To define the system in practice, liberal democracies often draw upon a constitution, either codified or uncodified, to delineate the powers of government and enshrine the social contract. A liberal democracy may take various and mixed constitutional forms: it may be a constitutional monarchy or a republic.
The liberal party insists that the Government has the definite duty to use all its power and resources to meet new social problems with new social controls—to ensure to the average person the right to his own economic and political life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. [30] In 1960, John F. Kennedy defined a liberal as follows:
Freedom, according to classical liberals, was maximised when the government took a "hands off" attitude toward the economy. [54] Historian Kathleen G. Donohue argues: [A]t the center of classical liberal theory [in Europe] was the idea of laissez-faire.
Thomas Hobbes (England, 1588–1679) theorized that government is the result of individual actions and human traits, and that it was motivated primarily by "interest", a term which would become crucial in the development of a liberal theory of government and political economy, since it is the foundation of the idea that individuals can be self ...
Liberal philosopher Thomas Hill Green began to espouse a more interventionist government approach. Green's definition of liberty, influenced by Joseph Priestley and Josiah Warren, was that the individual ought to be free to do as he wishes unless he harms others. [67] Mill was also an early proponent of feminism.
Liberal conservatism shares the classical liberal tenets of a commitment to individualism, belief in negative freedom, a lightly regulated free market, and a minimal rule of law state. [6] A number of commentators have stated that many conservative currents in the 1980s, such as Thatcherism, [2] were rejuvenated classical liberals in all but ...