All Topics  
Contributions to liberal theory

 
Contributions To Liberal Theory

 
   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link
 

 

Contributions to liberal theory
 
 
  Topics Contributions to liberal theory Topic Home

This is a partial list of individual contributions to liberal political theory
Liberalism

Liberalism is a broad class of political philosophy that considers individualism liberty and equality to be the most important political goals....
 on a worldwide scale. These individuals are strongly associated philosophers of the Enlightenment. Liberalism as a specifically named ideology begins in the late 18th century
18th century

The 18th century lasted from 1701 to 1800 in the Gregorian calendar, in accordance with the Anno Domini/Common Era numbering system.However, historians sometimes specifically define the 18th century otherwise for the purposes of their work....
 as a movement towards self-government and away from aristocracy
Aristocracy

Aristocracy is a form of government, in which a few of the most prominent citizens rule. This may be a hereditary elite, or it may be by a system of cooption where a council of prominent citizens add leading soldiers, merchants, land owners, priests, and lawyers to their number....
. It included the ideas of self-determination, the primacy of the individual and the nation, as opposed to the family and the state, as being the fundamental units of law, politics and economy.

Since then liberalism has broadened to include a wide range of approaches from Americans
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 Ronald Dworkin
Ronald Dworkin

Ronald Dworkin, Queens Counsel, British Academy is an United States legal philosopher, currently professor of Jurisprudence at University College London and the New York University School of Law, and former professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Oxford....
, Richard Rorty
Richard Rorty

Richard McKay Rorty was an American philosopher. He had a long and diverse career in Philosophy, Humanities, and Literature departments. His complex intellectual background gave him a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the analytic philosophy tradition in philosophy he would later famously reject....
, John Rawls
John Rawls

John Rawls was an United States philosopher and a leading figure in moral and political philosophy.Rawls received the Schock Prize for Logic and Philosophy and the National Humanities Medal in 1999, the latter presented by U.S....
 and Francis Fukuyama
Francis Fukuyama

Yoshihiro Francis Fukuyama is an American philosopher, Political economy, and author....
 as well as the India
India

India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and outlying territories by total area country by geographical area, the List of countries by population country, and the most populous liberal democracy in the world....
n Amartya Sen
Amartya Sen

Amartya Kumar Sen Order of the Companions of Honour , is a Bengali people Indian economist, philosopher, and a winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1998, "for his contributions to welfare economics" for his work on famine, human development theory, welfare economics, the underlying mechanisms of poverty, and political C...
 and the Peru
Peru

Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
vian Hernando de Soto
Hernando de Soto (economist)

Hernando de Soto Polar is a Peruvian economist known for his work on the informal economy and on the importance of property rights. He is the president of Peru's Institute for Liberty and Democracy , located in Lima....
.






Discussion
Ask a question about 'Contributions to liberal theory'
Start a new discussion about 'Contributions to liberal theory'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Encyclopedia


This is a partial list of individual contributions to liberal political theory
Liberalism

Liberalism is a broad class of political philosophy that considers individualism liberty and equality to be the most important political goals....
 on a worldwide scale. These individuals are strongly associated philosophers of the Enlightenment. Liberalism as a specifically named ideology begins in the late 18th century
18th century

The 18th century lasted from 1701 to 1800 in the Gregorian calendar, in accordance with the Anno Domini/Common Era numbering system.However, historians sometimes specifically define the 18th century otherwise for the purposes of their work....
 as a movement towards self-government and away from aristocracy
Aristocracy

Aristocracy is a form of government, in which a few of the most prominent citizens rule. This may be a hereditary elite, or it may be by a system of cooption where a council of prominent citizens add leading soldiers, merchants, land owners, priests, and lawyers to their number....
. It included the ideas of self-determination, the primacy of the individual and the nation, as opposed to the family and the state, as being the fundamental units of law, politics and economy.

Since then liberalism has broadened to include a wide range of approaches from Americans
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 Ronald Dworkin
Ronald Dworkin

Ronald Dworkin, Queens Counsel, British Academy is an United States legal philosopher, currently professor of Jurisprudence at University College London and the New York University School of Law, and former professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Oxford....
, Richard Rorty
Richard Rorty

Richard McKay Rorty was an American philosopher. He had a long and diverse career in Philosophy, Humanities, and Literature departments. His complex intellectual background gave him a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the analytic philosophy tradition in philosophy he would later famously reject....
, John Rawls
John Rawls

John Rawls was an United States philosopher and a leading figure in moral and political philosophy.Rawls received the Schock Prize for Logic and Philosophy and the National Humanities Medal in 1999, the latter presented by U.S....
 and Francis Fukuyama
Francis Fukuyama

Yoshihiro Francis Fukuyama is an American philosopher, Political economy, and author....
 as well as the India
India

India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and outlying territories by total area country by geographical area, the List of countries by population country, and the most populous liberal democracy in the world....
n Amartya Sen
Amartya Sen

Amartya Kumar Sen Order of the Companions of Honour , is a Bengali people Indian economist, philosopher, and a winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1998, "for his contributions to welfare economics" for his work on famine, human development theory, welfare economics, the underlying mechanisms of poverty, and political C...
 and the Peru
Peru

Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
vian Hernando de Soto
Hernando de Soto (economist)

Hernando de Soto Polar is a Peruvian economist known for his work on the informal economy and on the importance of property rights. He is the president of Peru's Institute for Liberty and Democracy , located in Lima....
. Some of these people moved away from liberalism
Liberalism

Liberalism is a broad class of political philosophy that considers individualism liberty and equality to be the most important political goals....
, while others espoused other ideologies
Ideology

An ideology is a set of aims and ideas, especially in politics. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to all members of this society....
 before turning to liberalism. There are many different views of what constitutes liberalism, and some liberals would feel that some of the people on this list were not true liberals. It is intended to be suggestive rather than exhaustive. Theorists whose ideas were mainly typical for one country should be listed in that country's section of liberalism worldwide
Liberalism worldwide

This article gives information on liberalism in diverse countries around the world. It is an overview of parties that adhere more or less to the ideas of liberalism and is therefore a list of liberal parties around the world....
. Generally only thinkers are listed, politicians are only listed when they, beside their active political work, also made substantial contributions to liberal theory.

The list is divided in three sections:
  • Proto-liberal contributors
  • From Locke to Mill
  • Mill and further, the development of (international) liberalism


The following people are included:

Classical Contributors to Liberalism


Laozi

Laozi
Laozi

Laozi was a Chinese philosophy of Ancient history China and is a central figure in Taoism . Laozi literally means "Old Master" and is generally considered an honorific....
 (China, 6th Century BC) is the author of the classic Chinese text, the Tao Te Ching
Tao Te Ching

The Tao Te Ching or Dao De Jing , originally known as Laozi or Lao tzu , is a Chinese classic text. Its name comes from the opening words of its two sections: ? d?o "way," Chapter 1, and ? d? "virtue," Chapter 38, plus ? jing "classic." According to tradition, it was written around the 6th century...
, and the founder of Taoist
Taoism

Taoism refers to a variety of related philosophical and religious traditions and concepts. These traditions have influenced East Asia for over two thousand years and some have spread to the West....
 philosophy. A common theme that runs throughout the Tao Te Ching is that the ruler should not meddle with society; instead, the people should be left to their own devices. For example, speaking of the government in chapter 58 he wrote, "That which is meddling, touching everything, will work but ill, and disappointment bring." For Laozi, the happiness of the individual was the primary goal of society. The Taoist concept of wei wu wei
Wu wei

Wu wei is an important concept of Taoism , that involves knowing when to act and when not to act. Another perspective to this is that "Wu Wei" means...
, "do without doing", is somewhat similar to the later Western concept of laissez-faire
Laissez-faire

Laissez-faire is a term used to describe a policy of allowing events to take their own course. The term is a French language phrase literally meaning "let do"....
, "let do".

Aristotle

Aristoteles Louvre
Aristotle
Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greeks philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, Poetics , theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology....
 (Athens, 384 BC - 322 BC) is revered among political theorists for his seminal work Politics
Politics (Aristotle)

Aristotle Politics is a work of political philosophy. The Nicomachean_Ethics#Chapters_6-9:_Politics declared that the inquiry into ethics necessarily follows into politics, and the two works are frequently considered to be parts of a larger treatise, or perhaps connected lectures, dealing with the "philosophy of human affairs." The tit...
. Though Aristotle never mentioned rights, and even supported slavery, he made invaluable contributions to liberal theory through his observations on different forms of government.

He begins with the idea that the best government provides an active and "happy" life for its people. Aristotle then considers six forms of government: Monarchy
Monarchy

A monarchy is a form of government in which supreme power is absolutely or nominally lodged in an individual, who is the head of state, often for Life tenure or until abdication, and "is wholly set apart from all other members of the state." The person who heads a monarchy is called a monarch....
, Aristocracy
Aristocracy

Aristocracy is a form of government, in which a few of the most prominent citizens rule. This may be a hereditary elite, or it may be by a system of cooption where a council of prominent citizens add leading soldiers, merchants, land owners, priests, and lawyers to their number....
, and Polity
Polity

Polity was originally a term used by Aristotle to describe a political system that is a combination of an aristocracy and a democracy. Aristotle theorized that the problems of democracy such as rule of the ignorant masses would be kept in check by the wealthy....
 on one side as 'good' forms of government, and Tyranny, Oligarchy
Oligarchy

Oligarchy is a form of government where political power effectively rests with a small Elitism segment of society distinguished by royalty, wealth, family, military influence or occult spiritual hegemony....
, and Democracy
Democracy

Democracy is a form of government in which power is held directly or indirectly by citizens under a free electoral system. It is derived from the Greek language d?????at?a , "popular government" which was coined from d???? , "people" and ???t?? , "rule, strength" in the middle of the 5th-4th century BC to denote the political syst...
 as 'bad' forms. Considering each in turn, Aristotle rejects Monarchy as infantilizing of citizens, Oligarchy as too profit-motivated, Tyranny as against the will of the people, Democracy as serving only to the poor, and Aristocracy (known today as Meritocracy
Meritocracy

Meritocracy is a -cracy or other organization wherein appointments are made and responsibilities are given based on demonstrated talent and ability , rather than by wealth , family connections , social class privilege , friends , seniority , popularity or other historical determinants of social position and political power....
) as ideal but ultimately impossible. Aristotle finally concludes that a polity—a combination between democracy and oligarchy, where most can vote but must choose among the rich and virtuous for governors—is the best compromise between idealism
Idealism

Idealism is the philosophical theory which maintains that the ultimate nature of reality is based on mind or ideas. It holds that the so-called external or "real world" is inseparable from mind, consciousness, or perception....
 and realism
Realism (international relations)

Realism, also known as political realism, in the context of international relations, encompasses a variety of theories and approaches, all of which share a belief that states are primarily motivated by the desire for military and economic Power in international relations or security, rather than ideals or ethics....
.

In addition, Aristotle was a firm supporter of private property. He refuted Plato's argument for a collectivist society in which family and property are held in common: Aristotle makes the argument that when one's own son or land is rightfully one's own, one puts much more effort into cultivating that item, to the ultimate betterment of society. He references barbarian
Barbarian

"Barbarian" is a pejorative term for an uncivilized person, either in a general reference to a member of a nation or ethnos, typically a tribal society as seen by an urban civilization either viewed as inferior, or admired as a noble savage....
 tribes of his time in which property was held in common, and the laziest of the bunch would always take away large amounts of food grown by the most diligent.

"Humanism"


Niccolò Machiavelli

Machiavelli
Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò Machiavelli

Niccol? di Bernardo dei Machiavelli is the philosopher, writer, and Italian politician considered the founder of modern political science. As a Renaissance Man, he was a Diplomacy, Political philosophy, musician, poet, and playwright, but, foremost, he was a Civil Servant of the Florence....
 (Florence, 1469-1527), best known for his Il Principe was the founder of realist political philosophy, advocated republican government, citizen armies, division of power, protection of personal property, and restraint of government expenditure as being necessary to the liberties of a republic. He wrote extensively on the need for individual initiative - virtu - as an essential characteristic of stable government. He argued that liberty was the central good which government should protect, and that "good people" would make good laws, where as people who had lost their virtue could maintain their liberties only with difficulty. His Discourses on Livy outlined realism as the central idea of political study and favored "Republics" over "Principalties".

Anti-statist liberals consider Machiavelli's distrust as his main message, noting his call for a strong state under a strong leader, who should use any means to establish his position, whereas liberalism is an ideology of individual freedom and voluntary choices.

However, many people reductively associate Machiavelli as a proponent of the illiberal idea that "the end justifies the means". This is in reference to his work "The Prince" which was a mockery of the practices of the Court of Rome (Catholic Church) and a well known nobleman. "The Prince" was banned by the Church for many years because of this and the term "Machiavellian" became associated with views with which Machiavelli most likely did not agree.

  • Contributing literature:
    • Il Principe, 1513 (The Prince
      The Prince

      Il Principe is a politics treatise by the Florence Civil service and Political philosophy Niccol? Machiavelli. Originally called De Principatibus , it was originally written in 1513, but not published until 1532, five years after Machiavelli's death....
      , )
    • Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio, 1512-1517 (Discourse on the First Decade of Titus Livius)


Desiderius Erasmus

Holbein Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus (Netherlands, 1466-1536) was an advocate of the doctrine now known as humanism
Humanism

Humanism is a broad category of ethics that affirm the dignity and worth of all people, based on the ability to determine right and wrong by appealing to universal human qualities, particularly rationalism, without resorting to the supernatural or alleged divine authority from religious texts....
, critic of entrenched interests, irrationality and superstition. Erasmusian societies formed across Europe, to some extent in response to the turbulence of the Reformation
Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation was a Christian reform movement in Europe. It is thought to have begun in 1517 with Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses and may be considered to have ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648....
. He dealt with the freedom of the will, a crucial point. In his De libero arbitrio diatribe sive collatio (1524), he analyzes with great cleverness and good humour the Lutheran exaggeration of the obvious limitations on human freedom.
  • Contributing literature
    • Lof der Zotheid, 1509 (The Praise of Folly
      The Praise of Folly

      The Praise of Folly is an essay written in 1509 by Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam and first printed in 1511. Erasmus revised and extended the work, which he originally wrote in the space of a week while sojourning with Sir Thomas More at More's estate in Bucklersbury....
      , )
    • De libero arbitrio diatribe sive collatio, 1524


Hugo Grotius

Hugo Grotius
Hugo Grotius
Hugo Grotius

Hugo Grotius worked as a jurist in the Dutch Republic. With Francisco de Vitoria and Alberico Gentili he laid the foundations for international law, based on natural law....
 or Hugo de Groot (Netherlands, 1583-1645), laid the foundations for international law, based on natural law, in his book Mare Liberum (Free Seas) formulated the new principle that the sea was international territory and all nations were free to use it for seafaring trade, and in De jure belli ac pacis libri tres (Three books on laws of war and peace) presented a theory of just war and argued that all nations are bound by the principles of natural law.

Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes (portrait)
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes was an English philosophy, remembered today for his work on political philosophy. His 1651 book Leviathan established the foundation for most of Western political philosophy from the perspective of social contract theory....
 (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-governing and self-regulating. His work Leviathan, did not advocate this viewpoint, but instead that only a strong government could restrain unchecked interest: it did, however, advance a proto-liberal position in arguing for an inalienable "right of nature," the right to defend oneself, even against the state. Though it is problematic to classify Hobbes himself as a liberal, his work influenced Locke, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison and many other later liberals, leading Strauss
Leo Strauss

Leo Strauss was a Germany-born Jewish-American Political philosophy who specialized in classical political philosophy. He spent most of his career as a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, where he taught several generations of students and published 15 books....
 to indentify Hobbes as the "father of liberalism".

Baruch Spinoza

Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza

Baruch or Benedict de Spinoza was a Netherlands Philosophy of Iberian Jews origin. Revealing considerable scientific aptitude, the breadth and importance of Spinoza's work was not fully realized until years after his death....
 (Netherlands, 1632-1677) is in his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus and Tractatus Politicus a proto-liberal defending the value of separation of church and state
Separation of church and state

Separation of church and state is a political and legal doctrine that government and religion institutions are to be kept separate and independent from each other....
 as well as forms of democracy
Democracy

Democracy is a form of government in which power is held directly or indirectly by citizens under a free electoral system. It is derived from the Greek language d?????at?a , "popular government" which was coined from d???? , "people" and ???t?? , "rule, strength" in the middle of the 5th-4th century BC to denote the political syst...
. In the first mentioned book, Spinoza expresses an early criticism of religious intolerance and a defense of secular government
Government

Government is the body within any organization that has the authority to make and the power to enforce laws, regulations, or rules. Typically, the government refers to a civil government -- local, provincial, or national -- but commercial, academic, religious, or other formal organizations are also administered by governing bodies....
. Spinoza was a thoroughgoing determinist who held that absolutely everything that happens occurs through the operation of necessity
Necessity

In U.S. criminal law, necessity may be either a possible Justification or an exculpation for breaking the law. The corresponding defense in Britain is called "lawful excuse." Defendants seeking to rely on this defense argue that they should not be held liable for their action as a crime because their conduct was necessary to prevent s...
. For him, even human behaviour is fully determined, freedom being our capacity to know we are determined and to understand why we act as we do. So freedom is not the possibility to say "no" to what happens to us but the possibility to say "yes" and fully understand why things should necessarily happen that way.
  • Contributing literature:
    • Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, 1670 (Theologico-Political Treatise, )
    • Tractatus Politicus, 1677 (Political Treatise)


From Locke to Mill


John Locke

John Locke
The notions of John Locke
John Locke

John Locke was an English philosopher. Locke is considered the first of the British Empiricism, but is equally important to social contract theory....
 (United Kingdom, 1632-1704) of a "government
Government

Government is the body within any organization that has the authority to make and the power to enforce laws, regulations, or rules. Typically, the government refers to a civil government -- local, provincial, or national -- but commercial, academic, religious, or other formal organizations are also administered by governing bodies....
 with the consent of the governed" and man's natural rights
Natural rights

Some philosophy and political science make a distinction between natural and legal rights. Natural rights are rights which are not contingent upon the laws, customs, or beliefs of a particular society or polity....
—life
Life

Life is a characteristic of organisms that exhibit certain biological processes such as chemical reactions or other events that results in a transformation....
, liberty
Liberty

Liberty, the freedom to act or believe without being stopped by unnecessary force, is generally considered in modern time to be a concept of political philosophy and identifies the condition in which an individual has the right to act according to his or her own free will....
, and estate
Estate (law)

An estate is the net worth of a person at any point in time. It is the sum of a person's assets - legal rights, interests and entitlements to property of any kind - less all liabilities at that time....
 (property
Property

Property is any physical or virtual entity that is ownership by an individual or jointly by a group of individuals. An owner of property has the right to consumption, sell, Renting, mortgage, transfer and exchange his or her property....
) as well on tolerance, as laid down in A letter concerning toleration and Two treatises of government —had an enormous influence on the development of liberalism
Liberalism

Liberalism is a broad class of political philosophy that considers individualism liberty and equality to be the most important political goals....
. Developed a theory of property resting on the actions of individuals, rather than on descent or nobility. One could argue that liberal theory
Liberalism

Liberalism is a broad class of political philosophy that considers individualism liberty and equality to be the most important political goals....
 starts with Locke, influenced by the proto-liberal contributions listed above.
  • Some literature:
    • A Letter Concerning Toleration
      A Letter Concerning Toleration

      A Letter Concerning Toleration by John Locke was originally published in 1689. Its initial publication was in Latin, though it was immediately translated into other languages....
      , 1689
    • The Second Treatise of Civil Government, 1689


John Trenchard

John Trenchard
John Trenchard (writer)

John Trenchard , English writer and Commonwealthman, belonged to the same Dorset family as the Secretary of State Sir John Trenchard .Trenchard was educated at Trinity College, Dublin....
 (United Kingdom, 1662-1723) was co-author, with Thomas Gordon of Cato's Letters. These newspaper essays condemned tyranny and advanced principles of freedom of conscience and freedom of speech
Freedom of speech

Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship or limitation. The synonymous term freedom of expression is sometimes used to denote not only freedom of verbal speech but any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used....
 and were a main vehicle for spreading the concept
Concept

A concept is a cognition unit of meaning— an abstraction idea or a mental symbol sometimes defined as a "unit of knowledge," built from other units which act as a concept's characteristics....
s that had been developed by John Locke
John Locke

John Locke was an English philosopher. Locke is considered the first of the British Empiricism, but is equally important to social contract theory....
.
  • Some literature:
    • Cato's Letters
      Cato's Letters

      Cato's Letters were essays by British writers John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon , first published from 1720 to 1723 under the pseudonym of Cato the Younger , the implacable foe of Julius Caesar and a famously stubborn champion of republican principles....
       / John Trenchard & Thomas Gordon, 1720-1723


Charles de Montesquieu

Charles Montesquieu
Charles de Montesquieu
Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu

Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de La Br?de et de Montesquieu , was a France social commentator and Political philosophy who lived during the Age of Enlightenment....
 (France, 1689-1755)
  • Some literature:
    • De l'esprit des lois,1748 (The Spirit of the Laws
      The Spirit of the Laws

      File:Montesquieu Defense.jpgThe Spirit of Laws is a treatise on political theory first published anonymously by Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu in 1748 with the help of Claudine Gu?rin de Tencin....
      ) )
    • Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers
      Encyclopédie

      Encyclop?die, ou dictionnaire raisonn? des sciences, des arts et des m?tiers was a general encyclopedia published in France between 1751 and 1772, with later supplements and revisions in 1772, 1777 and 1780 and numerous foreign editions and later derivatives....
       (together with others), 1751-1772

Thomas Gordon

Thomas Gordon
Thomas Gordon (writer)

Thomas Gordon was a British writer and Commonwealthman. He was a Scot who attended the University of Aberdeen.Along with John Trenchard , he published The Independent Whig, which was a weekly periodical....
 (United Kingdom, 169?-1750) was co-author, with John Trenchard of Cato's Letters. These newspaper essays condemned tyranny and advanced principles of freedom of conscience and freedom of speech
Freedom of speech

Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship or limitation. The synonymous term freedom of expression is sometimes used to denote not only freedom of verbal speech but any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used....
 and were a main vehicle for spreading the concept
Concept

A concept is a cognition unit of meaning— an abstraction idea or a mental symbol sometimes defined as a "unit of knowledge," built from other units which act as a concept's characteristics....
s that had been developed by John Locke
John Locke

John Locke was an English philosopher. Locke is considered the first of the British Empiricism, but is equally important to social contract theory....
.
  • Some literature:
    • Cato's Letters
      Cato's Letters

      Cato's Letters were essays by British writers John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon , first published from 1720 to 1723 under the pseudonym of Cato the Younger , the implacable foe of Julius Caesar and a famously stubborn champion of republican principles....
       / John Trenchard & Thomas Gordon, 1720-1723


François Quesnay

François Quesnay
François Quesnay

Fran?ois Quesnay was a France economist of the Physiocrats school. He is known for publishing the "Tableau ?conomique" in 1758 , which provided the foundations of the ideas of the Physiocrats....
 (France, 1694-1774)
  • Some literature:
    • Tableau économique, 1758
    • Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers
      Encyclopédie

      Encyclop?die, ou dictionnaire raisonn? des sciences, des arts et des m?tiers was a general encyclopedia published in France between 1751 and 1772, with later supplements and revisions in 1772, 1777 and 1780 and numerous foreign editions and later derivatives....
       (together with others), 1751-1772

Voltaire

Voltaire
Voltaire

Fran?ois-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire, was a French Age of Enlightenment writer, essayist, and philosophy known for his wit, philosophical sport, and defense of civil liberty, including freedom of religion and free trade....
 (France, 1694-1778)
  • Some literature:
    • Lettres Philosophiques sur les Anglais, 1734 (Philosophical Letters on the English)
    • Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers
      Encyclopédie

      Encyclop?die, ou dictionnaire raisonn? des sciences, des arts et des m?tiers was a general encyclopedia published in France between 1751 and 1772, with later supplements and revisions in 1772, 1777 and 1780 and numerous foreign editions and later derivatives....
       (together with others), 1751-1772 **Essai sur l'histoire génerale et sur les moeurs et l'espirit des nations, 1756 (Essay on the Manner and Spirit of Nations and on the Principal Occurrences in History)
    • Traité sur la Tolérance à l'occasion de la mort de Jean Calas, 1763 (Treatise on Toleration In Connection with the Death of Jean Calas)
    • Dictionnaire Philosophique, 1764 (Philosophical Dictionary)


Benjamin Franklin

Franklin Benjamin Loc
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author and Printer , Satire, list of political philosophers, politician, scientist, inventor, activism, statesman, and diplomacy....
 (United States, 1706-1790) was an inventor, scientist, writer, entrepreneur, diplomat and statesman. He called for the end of mercantilism while advocating free trade, industrialization, the abolition of slavery, free public libraries, republican government and national unity. His Autobiography is also a seminal work on the life of a free individual who is self-governing in his pursuit of accomplishment, without need for an over-arching state, allegiance or religion to force adherence to basic moral and ethical principles.
  • Some literature:
    • "Progress of true science," a letter to Joseph Priestley
      Joseph Priestley

      Joseph Priestley was an 18th-century British theologian, English Dissenters clergyman, Natural philosophy, educator, and Political philosophy who published over 150 works....
      , 1780, perhaps Franklin's most radical (but brief) work, emphasizing radical ideas that are centuries ahead of his time related to natural
      Natural science

      In science, the term natural science refers to a methodological naturalism approach to the study of the universe, which is understood as obeying rules or law of nature origin....
       scientific inquiry
      Scientific method

      Scientific method refers to techniques for investigating phenomenon, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and Measure evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning....
      , morality
      Morality

      Morality has three principal meanings.In its first, descriptive usage, morality means a code of conduct which is held to be authoritative in matters of right and wrong....
       and humanity
      Humanism

      Humanism is a broad category of ethics that affirm the dignity and worth of all people, based on the ability to determine right and wrong by appealing to universal human qualities, particularly rationalism, without resorting to the supernatural or alleged divine authority from religious texts....
      .


David Hume

David Hume
David Hume
David Hume

David Hume was a Scotland philosopher, economist, historian and a key figure in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment....
 (United Kingdom, 1711-1776)
  • Some literature:
    • An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, 1751


Denis Diderot

Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot

Denis Diderot was a French philosopher and writer. He was a prominent figure during the Age of Enlightenment and is best known for serving as chief editor and contributor to the Encyclop?die....
 (France, 1713-1784)
  • Some literature:

Jean le Rond d'Alembert

Jean le Rond d'Alembert
Jean le Rond d'Alembert

Jean le Rond d'Alembert was a France mathematician, mechanics, physicist and philosopher. He was also co-editor with Denis Diderot of the Encyclop?die....
 (France, 1717-1783)
  • Some literature:

Samuel Adams

Samuel Adams
Samuel Adams

Samuel Adams was a statesman, Political philosophy, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. As a politician in Province of Massachusetts Bay, Adams was a leader of the movement that became the American Revolution, and was one of the architects of the principles of Republicanism in the United States that shaped the political cul...
 (United States, 1722-1803)

Richard Price

Richard Price
Richard Price

Richard Price , was a Wales moral and political philosopher....
 (United Kingdom, 1723-1791)
  • Some literature:
    • Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt, 1771
    • Observations on Reversionary Payments, 1771
    • Observations on Civil Liberty and the Justice and Policy of the War with America, 1776


Anders Chydenius

Anders Chydenius
Anders Chydenius
Anders Chydenius

Anders Chydenius was the leading classical liberalism of Nordic countries history. Born in Sotkamo and having studied under Pehr Kalm at Royal Academy of Turku, Finland Chydenius became a priest, Age of Enlightenment philosopher and member of the Swedish Riksdag of the Estates....
 (Finland (then a part of the Swedish realm), 1729-1803) His book Den Nationale Winsten (engl. The National Gain) proposed roughly same the ideas as Adam Smith
Adam Smith

Adam Smith was a Scotland Ethics and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations....
's Wealth of Nations, a decade earlier, including foundations of liberalism
Liberalism

Liberalism is a broad class of political philosophy that considers individualism liberty and equality to be the most important political goals....
 and capitalism
Capitalism

Capitalism is an economic system in which wealth, and the means of producing wealth, are private property and controlled rather than commonly, publicly, or state-owned and controlled....
 and (roughly) the invisible hand
Invisible hand

In economics, the invisible hand is the term economists use to describe the self-regulating nature of the marketplace. The invisible hand is a metaphor coined by the economist Adam Smith....
. He demanded complete economic and individual freedom, including the freedom of religion (although he was a priest), worker's rights to freely move and choose their professions and employers, the freedom of speech and trade and abolitions of all privileges and price and wage controls.

He was also a member of the Swedish four-estates parliament, elected three times as representative of the clergy in the northern and western parts of Finland. In his first parliamentary session, 1765-66, he was very successful as a member of the subcommittee that wrote Swedens famous Constitutional Law of the Freedom of Printing, Tryckfrihetsförordningen, of 1766. In this law Chydenius combined freedom of the press, and abolishment of the political censorship
Censorship

Censorship is the suppression of freedom of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable, harmful or sensitive, as determined by a censor....
, with free access for the citizens to most government documents. Chydenius liberal system, where transparency reinforces press freedom, and the right for everyone to print the public document reinforces transparency, has been a fundamental constitutional principle in Sweden ever since, except for the years of royal autocracy 1772-1809. Chydenius model for press freedom and freedom of information was reestablished and strengthened in the Swedish Constitution 1809. It is now the foundation of the present Tryckfrihetsförordningen of 1949, which is one of the fundamental laws of Sweden.

In diluted form, and without the strong constitutional protection of the Swedish free press model, the principle of free access to public documents that originated in Chydenius law of 1766, has in recent decades been spread from Sweden to the Freedom of Information Acts
Freedom of information legislation

Freedom of information legislation, also described as open records or sunshine laws, are laws which set rules on access to information or records held by government bodies....
 of many countries. This way, Anders Chydenius, has become one of the older liberal thinkers that has most practical influence on politics and public administration of modern western societies.

An edition of Anders Chydenius Complete Works, in Finnish, Swedish and English, is under preparation by the Chydenius Foundation in Finland.

  • Some literature:
    • Americanska Näfwerbåtar, 1753 (American birchbark canoes)
    • Källan Til Rikets Wan-Magt, 1765 (The cause of the weakness of the Kingdom)
    • Den Nationnale Winsten, 1765 (The National Gain
      The National Gain

      The National Gain is the main work of the Swedish-speaking Finns scientist, philosopher and politician Anders Chydenius, published in 1765....
      ) )


Adam Smith

Adam Smith
Adam Smith
Adam Smith

Adam Smith was a Scotland Ethics and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations....
 (United Kingdom, 1723-1790), often considered the founder of modern economics
Economics

File:Ballard Farmers' Market - vegetables.jpgEconomics is the Social sciences that studies the Production theory basics, Distribution , and Consumption of Good and Service ....
, was a key figure in formulating and advancing economic doctrine of free trade and competition. In his Wealth of Nations Adam Smith outlined the key idea that if the economy is basically left to its own devices, limited and finite resources will be put to ultimately their most efficient use through people acting purely in their self interest. This he called the invisible hand
Invisible hand

In economics, the invisible hand is the term economists use to describe the self-regulating nature of the marketplace. The invisible hand is a metaphor coined by the economist Adam Smith....
 of the market.

Smith also advanced property rights and personal civil liberties
Civil liberties

Civil liberties are Freedom that protect the individual from the government. Civil liberties set limits for government so that it cannot abuse its Political power and interfere with the lives of its citizens....
, including stopping slavery, which today partly form the basic liberal ideology. He was also opposed to stock-holding companies, what today is called a "corporation", because he predicated the self-policing of the free market upon the free association of moral individuals; it is doubtful he would have welcomed the 15th Amendment to the US Constitution, making corporations, if abstractly, "moral individuals."

  • Some literature:
    • An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
      The Wealth of Nations

      An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations is the magnum opus of the Scotland economist Adam Smith. It is a clearly written account of economics at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, as well as a rhetorical piece written for the generally educated individual of the 18th century - advocating a free market econom...
      , 1776
    • The Theory of Moral Sentiments
      The Theory of Moral Sentiments

      'The Theory of Moral Sentiments' was written by Adam Smith in 1759. It provided the ethics, philosophical, psychological and methodological underpinnings to Smith's later works, including The Wealth of Nations , A Treatise on Public Opulence , Essays on Philosophical Subjects , and Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue, and A...
      , 1759


William Blackstone

Sir William Blackstone (United Kingdom 1723-1780)
  • Some literature:
    • Commentaries on the Laws of England


Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant (painted Portrait)
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant was an 18th-century German Philosophy from the Kingdom of Prussia city of K?nigsberg . He is regarded as one of the most influential thinkers of modern Europe and of the late Age of Enlightenment....
 (Germany, 1724-1804)
  • Some literature:
    • Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, 1785 (Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals)
    • Kritik der praktischen Vernunft
      Critique of Practical Reason

      The Critique of Practical Reason is the second of Immanuel Kant's three critiques, first published in 1788. It follows on from his Critique of Pure Reason and deals with his moral philosophy....
      , 1788 (Critique of Practical Reason )
    • Über den Gemeinspruch: Das mag in der Theorie richtig sein, taugt aber nicht für die Praxis, 1793 (On the common saying: this may be true in theory but it does not apply in practice)
    • Zum ewigen Frieden, 1795 (Perpetual Peace)
    • Metaphysik der Sitten, 1797 (Metaphysics of Morals )


Anne Robert Jacques Turgot

Anne Robert Jacques Turgot
Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Baron de Laune

Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, Baron de Laune, often referred to as Turgot , was a France economist and statesman....
 (France, 1727-1781)
  • Some literature:
    • Le Conciliateur, 1754
    • Lettre sur la tolérance civile, 1754
    • Réflexions sur la formation et la distribution des richesses, 1766
    • Lettres sur la liberté du commerce des grains, 1770


Edmund Burke

Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke

Edmund Burke was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist, and philosophy who, after relocating to Great Britain, served for many years in the British House of Commons as a member of the British Whig Party party....
 (United Kingdom 1729-1797, Whig
British Whig Party

The Whigs are often described as one of two political party in Kingdom of England and later the United Kingdom from the late 17th to the mid-19th centuries....
 politician) contributed to liberal theory by emphasizing the importance of rationality in politics, self-interest as the basis for government and moderation against extremes. He is also considered important for his contributions to Conservatism
Conservatism

Conservatism is a political and social term whose meaning has changed in different countries and time periods, but which usually indicates support for the status quo or the status quo ante....
 because of his belief in respect for tradition.

  • Some literature:
    • 1770
    • 1774
    • 1775
    • 1774
    • 1790


Joseph Priestley

Joseph Priestley
Joseph Priestley

Joseph Priestley was an 18th-century British theologian, English Dissenters clergyman, Natural philosophy, educator, and Political philosophy who published over 150 works....
 (United Kingdom/United States, 1733-1804)
  • Some literature:
    • Essay on the First Principles of Government, 1768
    • The Present State of Liberty in Great Britain and her Colonies, 1769
    • Remarks on Dr Blackstone's Commentaries, 1769
    • Observations on Civil Liberty and the Nature and Justice of the War with America, 1772


August Ludwig von Schlözer

August Ludwig von Schlözer (Germany, 1735-1809)

Patrick Henry

Patrick Henry
Patrick Henry

Patrick Henry was a prominent figure in the American Revolution, known and remembered for his "Give me Liberty, or give me Death!" speech. Along with Samuel Adams and Thomas Paine, he is remembered as one of the most influential advocates of the American Revolution and Republicanism in the United States, especially in his denunciations of c...
 (United States, 1736-1799)
  • Some literature:
    • Liberty or Death, 1775


Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine was a UK pamphleteer, revolutionary, Radicalism , inventor, and intellectual. He lived and worked in Britain until age 37, when he emigrated to the British American colonies, in time to participate in the American Revolution....
 (United Kingdom/United States, 1737-1809)
  • Some literature:
    • Rights of Man
      Rights of Man

      Rights of Man , by Thomas Paine, posits that popular political revolution is permissible when a government does not safeguard its people, their natural rights, and their national interests....
      , 1791-1792





Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was the List of Presidents of the United States President of the United States , the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence , and one of the most influential Founding Fathers of the United States for his promotion of the ideals of republicanism in the United States....
 (United States, 1743-1826) was the third President
President of the United States

The President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States and is the highest political official in the United States by influence and recognition....
 of the United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 and author of the Declaration of Independence
Declaration of independence

This article is about declarations of independence in general. Specific declarations of independence are listed below in alphabetical order. For the painting of this name, see Trumbull's Declaration of Independence....
. He also wrote Notes on the State of Virginia
Notes on the State of Virginia

Notes on the State of Virginia was a book written by Thomas Jefferson. Originally written in 1781, it was subsequently updated and enlarged in 1782-83, and anonymously published in Paris in 1784....
. He was a champion of inalienable individual rights and the separation of church and state. His ideas were repeated in many other liberal revolutions around the world, including the (early) French Revolution
French Revolution

The French Revolution was a period of political and social upheaval and radical change in the history of France, during which the French governmental structure, previously an absolute monarchy with feudalism for the aristocracy and Roman Catholic Church clergy, underwent radical change to forms based on Age of Enlightenment principles of cit...
.



Marquis de Condorcet

Marquis de Condorcet
Marquis de Condorcet

Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, marquis de Condorcet was a France philosopher, mathematician, and early political science who devised the concept of a Condorcet method....
 (France, 1743-1794)
  • Some literature:
    • Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progrés de l'esprit humain, 1795 (Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind)


Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham was an England jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. He was the brother of Samuel Bentham. He was a political radical, and a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law....
 (United Kingdom, 1748-1832) An early advocate of utilitarianism
Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is the idea that the morality of an action is determined solely by its contribution to overall utility: that is, its contribution to happiness or pleasure as summed among all persons....
, animal welfare
Animal welfare

Animal welfare refers to the viewpoint that it is morally acceptable for humans to use nonhuman animals for food, in Animal testing, as clothing, and in entertainment, so long as unnecessary suffering is avoided....
 and women's rights. He had many students all around the world, including John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill , United Kingdom philosopher, political economy, civil servant and Parliament of the United Kingdom, was an influential liberalism thinker of the 19th century....
 and several political leaders. Bentham demanded economic and individual freedom, including the separation of the state and church, freedom of expression, completely equal rights for women, the end of slavery and colonialism, uniform democracy, the abolition of physical punishment, also on children, the right for divorce, free prices, free trade and no restrictions on interest. Bentham was not a libertarian: he supported inheritance tax, restrictions on monopoly power, pensions, health insurance and other social security, but called for prudence and careful consideration in any such governmental intervention.

Emmanuel Sieyès

Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès
Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès

Emmanuel Joseph Siey?s was a France Roman Catholic abb? and clergyman, one of the chief theorists of the French Revolution, French Consulate, and First French Empire....
 (France, 1748-1836) played an important role in the opening years of the French Revolution
French Revolution

The French Revolution was a period of political and social upheaval and radical change in the history of France, during which the French governmental structure, previously an absolute monarchy with feudalism for the aristocracy and Roman Catholic Church clergy, underwent radical change to forms based on Age of Enlightenment principles of cit...
, drafting the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, expanding on the theory of national sovereignty, popular sovereignty
Popular sovereignty

Popular sovereignty or the sovereignty of the people is the belief that the legitimacy of the state is created by the will or Consent of the governed, who are the source of all political power....
, and representation
Representative democracy

File:Electoral democracies.pngRepresentative democracy is a form of government founded on the principle of Election individuals representing the people, as opposed to either autocracy or direct democracy....
 implied in his pamphlet What is the Third Estate?
What is the Third Estate?

Qu'est-ce que le tiers ?tat? is a pamphlet written by Abb? Siey?s in January 1789. In it, Siey?s argued that the Third Estate was a complete nation and would be better off without the "dead weight" of the privileged orders....
.

James Madison

James Madison
James Madison

James Madison was an American politician and political philosopher who served as the List of Presidents of the United States President of the United States , and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States....
 (United States, 1751-1836) was co-Author, with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay of The Federalist Papers, and one of the architects of both the American Constitution of 1787, as well as the Bill of Rights (1789). Later 4th President of the United States (1809-1817).
  • Some literature:
    • Federalist Papers
      Federalist Papers

      The Federalist Papers are a series of List of Federalist Papers advocating the History of the United States Constitution#Ratification of the United States United States Constitution....
       / Alexander Hamilton, John Jay & James Madison, 1787
    • Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, 1785


Destutt de Tracy

Destutt de Tracy
Destutt de Tracy

Antoine Louis Claude Destutt, comte de Tracy , was a France The Enlightenment aristocrat and philosopher who coined the term "ideology"....
 (1754–1836) He was born in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël

Anne Louise Germaine de Sta?l-Holstein , commonly known as Madame de Sta?l, was a French language-speaking Swiss people author living in Paris and abroad....
 (France, 1766-1817)
  • Some literature:
    • De l’influence des passions sur le bonheur des individus et des nations, 1796
    • Des circonstances actuelles qui peuvent terminer la Révolution et des principes qui doivent fonder la république en France, 1798
    • Considérations sur les principaux événements de la révolution française, 1813
    • Appel aux souverains réunis à Paris pour en obtenir l’abolition de la traite des nègres, 1814


Benjamin Constant

Benjamin Constant
Benjamin Constant

Henri-Benjamin Constant de Rebecque was a Switzerland-born, nobleman, thinker, writer and France politician....
 (France, 1767-1830)
  • Some literature:
    • De l'esprit de conquête et l'usurpation (On the spirit of conquest and on usurpation), 1814
    • "The Liberty of Ancients Compared with that of Moderns," 1816


Jean-Baptiste Say

Jean-Baptiste Say
Jean-Baptiste Say

Jean-Baptiste Say was a France economics and businessman. He had classically liberal views and argued in favour of competition, free trade, and lifting restraints on business....
 (France, 1767-1832)
  • Some literature:
    • Traité d'économie politique (Treatise on Political Economy), 1803


Wilhelm von Humboldt

Wilhelmvonhumboldt
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Wilhelm von Humboldt

Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand Freiherr von Humboldt , government functionary, diplomat, philosopher, founder of Humboldt Universit?t in Berlin, friend of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and in particular of Friedrich Schiller, is especially remembered as a Linguistics who made important contributions to the philosophy of lang...
 (Germany, 1767-1835)
  • Some literature:
    • Ideen zu einem Versuch, die Grenzen der Wirksamkeit des Staats zu bestimmen (On the Limits of State Action), 1792


David Ricardo

David Ricardo
David Ricardo

David Ricardo was a political economy, often credited with systematizing economics, and was one of the most influential of the classical economicss, along with Thomas Malthus and Adam Smith....
 (United Kingdom, 1772-1823)

James Mill

James Mill
James Mill

James Mill was a Scotland historian, economist, political theorist, and philosopher. He was the father of influential philosopher of classical liberalism, John Stuart Mill....
 (United Kingdom, 1773-1836)
  • Some literature:
    • Elements of Political Economy, 1821


José María Luis Mora

José María Luis Mora (Mexico, 1794-1850)
  • Some literature:
    • Méjico y sus revoluciones', 1836


Frédéric Bastiat

Frédéric Bastiat
Frédéric Bastiat

Claude Fr?d?ric Bastiat was a French classical liberalism theorist, political economy, and member of the French assembly....
 (France, 1801-1850)
  • Some literature:
    • La Loi (The Law
      The Law (1849 book)

      The Law, original French title La Loi, is a 1850 book by Fr?d?ric Bastiat. It was written at Mugron two years after the third French Revolution of 1848 and a few months before his death of tuberculosis at age 49....
      ), 1849
    • Harmonies économiques (Economic Harmonies), 1850
    • Ce qu'on voit et ce qu'on ne voit pas (What is Seen and What is Not Seen), 1850


Johan Rudolf Thorbecke

The Dutch statesman Johan Rudolf Thorbecke
Johan Rudolf Thorbecke

was one of the most important Netherlands politicians. In 1848, he virtually singlehandedly drafted the revision of the Constitution of the Netherlands, giving less power to the king, and more to the parliament....
 (Netherlands, 1798-1872) was the main theorist of Dutch liberalism in the nineteenth century, outlining a more democratic alternative to the absolute monarchy, the constitutional monarchy. The constitution of 1848 was mainly his work. His main theoretical article specifically labeled as 'liberal' was 'Over het hedendaagsche staatsburgerschap' (on modern citizenship) from 1844. He became prime minister in 1849, thus starting numerous fundamental reforms in Dutch politics.

Harriet Martineau

Harriet Martineau
Harriet Martineau

Harriet Martineau was an England writer and philosopher, renowned in her day as a controversial journalist, political economist, abolitionist and life-long feminist....
 (United Kingdom, 1802-1876)
  • Some literature:
    • Illustrations of Political Economy, 1832-1834
    • Theory and Practice of Society in America, 1837
    • The Martyr Age of the United States, 1839


Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, philosopher, poet, and leader of the transcendentalism movement in the early 19th century. His teachings directly influenced the growing New Thought movement of the mid 1800s....
 (United States, 1803-1882) was an American philosopher who argued that the basic principles of government were mutable, and that government is required only insofar as people are not self-governing. Proponent of Democracy, and of the idea that a democratic people must have a democratic ethics.
  • Some literature:
    • Self-Reliance
    • Circles
    • Politics
    • The Nominalist and the Realist


Alexis de Tocqueville

Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville

Alexis-Charles-Henri Cl?rel de Tocqueville was a French political philosophy and historian best known for his Democracy in America and The Old Regime and the Revolution ....
 (France, 1805-1859)
  • Some literature:
    • De La Démocratie en Amérique
      Democracy in America

      De la d?mocratie en Am?rique is a Western canon France text by Alexis de Tocqueville on the United States in the 1830s and its strengths and weaknesses....
      , 1831-1840 (Democracy in America, )
    • L'Ancien Régime et la Révolution, 1856


William Lloyd Garrison

William Lloyd Garrison
William Lloyd Garrison

William Lloyd Garrison was a prominent United States abolitionism, journalist, and social reformer. He is best known as the editor of the radical abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator, and as one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society, he promoted "immediate emancipation" of slaves in the United States....
 (United States, 1805-1879)
  • Some literature:
    • Articles advocating abolition of slavery in the newspaperThe Liberator
      The Liberator

      The Liberator was an Abolitionism newspaper founded by William Lloyd Garrison in 1831. Garrison published weekly issues of The Liberator from Boston, Massachusetts continuously for 35 years, from January 1, 1831, to the final issue of January 1, 1866....
      , 1831-1866


Friedrich Schiller

Friedrich Schiller
Friedrich Schiller

Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller [johan/jo?han kr?st?f fri?t??? f?n ??l??/??l?] was a Germany poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright....
 (Germany, 1759-1805)

Mill and further, the development of (international) liberalism

See for the somewhat different development of an American liberalism after World War II the section on American liberal theory
Liberalism in the United States

Liberalism in the United States is a broad political and philosophical mindset, favoring individual liberty, and opposing restrictions on liberty, whether they come from established religion, from government regulation, or from the existing Social class structure....
. American liberal theorists who also had influence on liberalism outside the United States are included in this section.


John Stuart Mill

Johnstuartmill
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill , United Kingdom philosopher, political economy, civil servant and Parliament of the United Kingdom, was an influential liberalism thinker of the 19th century....
 (United Kingdom, 1806-1873) is one of the first champions of modern "liberalism." As such, his work on political economy
Political economy

Political economy originally was the term for studying production, buying and selling, and their relations with law, custom, and government. Political economy originated in moral philosophy....
 and logic
Logic

Logic is the study of the principles of valid demonstration and inference. Logic is a branch of philosophy, a part of the classical Trivium . The word derives from Greek language ?????? , fem....
 helped lay the foundation for advancements in empirical science and public policy based on verifiable improvements. Strongly influenced by Bentham's utilitarianism
Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is the idea that the morality of an action is determined solely by its contribution to overall utility: that is, its contribution to happiness or pleasure as summed among all persons....
, he disagrees with Kant's intuitive notion of right and formulates the "highest normative principle" of morals as: Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.

Some consider Mill as the founder of Social liberalism
Social liberalism

Social liberalism is a political position that supports heavier economic regulation and more welfare than other types of liberalism, particularly classical liberalism....
. Although Mill was mainly for free markets, he accepted interventions in the economy, such as a tax on alcohol, if there were sufficient utilitarian grounds. Mill was also a champion of women's rights.

  • Some literature:
    • On Representative Government, 1862
    • On Liberty
      On Liberty

      On Liberty is a philosophical work by 19th century England philosopher John Stuart Mill, first published in 1859. To the Victorian readers of the time it was a radical work, advocating moral and economic freedom of individuals from the state....
      , 1868


Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was the List of Presidents of the United States President of the United States. He successfully led the country through its greatest internal crisis, the American Civil War, preserving the Union and ending slavery....
 (United States, 1809-1865) is best known as the President of the United States from 1861-1865. He argued for the theory of political equality and the supremacy of natural law over present political arrangements. Most famous for his debates with Stephen Douglas, Cooper Union speech on Congress's right to ban slavery from US territories, Second Inaugural Address and Gettysburg Address, as well as the Emancipation Proclamation - which converted the American Civil War into a struggle to end slavery.

Juan Bautista Alberdi

Juan Bautista Alberdi
Juan Bautista Alberdi

Juan Bautista Alberdi was an Argentine political theory and diplomacy. Although he lived most of his life in exile in Montevideo and Chile, he was one of the most influential Argentine liberals of his age....
 (Argentina, 1810-1884)
  • Some literature:
    • Bases y puntos de partida para la organización política de la República Argentina (Bases and Points of Departure for the Political Organization of the Argentine Republic), 1852
    • Sistema económico y rentistico de la Confederación Argentina, según su Constitución de 1853 (Economic and rentistic system of the Argentine Confederation, according to its 1853 Constitution), 1854


Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau was an United States author, poet, Natural history, tax resistance, development criticism, surveyor, historian, philosophy, and leading Transcendentalism....
 (1817-1862)
  • Some literature:
    • Civil Disobedience
      Civil Disobedience (Thoreau)

      Civil Disobedience is an essay by Henry David Thoreau that was first published in 1849. It argues that people should not permit governments to overrule or atrophy their consciences, and that people have a duty to avoid allowing such acquiescence to enable the government to make them the agents of injustice....
    • Walden
      Walden

      Walden by Henry David Thoreau is one of the best-known non-fiction books written by an United States. Published in 1854, it details Thoreau's sojourn in a cabin near Walden Pond, amidst woodland owned by his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, near Concord, Massachusetts....


Jacob Burckhardt

Jacob Burckhardt
Jacob Burckhardt

Carl Jacob Christoph Burckhardt was a Switzerland historian of art history and cultural history, and an influential figure in the historiography of each field....
 (Switzerland, 1818-1897) State as derived from cultural and economic life
  • Some literature:
    • The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy


Herbert Spencer

Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer

Herbert Spencer was an England philosopher, prominent Classical liberalism political theorist, and sociological theorist of the Victorian era....
 (United Kingdom, 1820-1903) was an agitator against the newer forms of liberalism espoused by Mills or Bentham. He wanted a smaller state that was only concerned with the defense of persons and property rights. For Spencer, voluntary cooperation was the way for humans to live peacefully together.

  • Some literature:
    • Social Statics, 1851
    • First Principles, 1862
    • The Man versus the State, 1884
    • Essays, Scientific, Political and Speculative, 1892


Thomas Hill Green

Thomas Hill Green
Thomas Hill Green

Thomas Hill Green was an England philosopher, political Radicalism and Temperance movement reformer, and a member of the British idealism movement....
 (United Kingdom, 1836-1882)

Auberon Herbert

Auberon Herbert
Auberon Herbert

Auberon Edward William Molyneux Herbert was a writer, theorist, philosopher, and member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, son of the Henry John George Herbert, 3rd Earl of Carnarvon, brother of Henry Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon, the 4th Earl, and father of the Auberon Thomas Herbert, 9th Baron Lucas of Crudwell....
 (United Kingdom, 1838–1906)

Carl Menger

Carl Menger
Carl Menger

Carl Menger was the founder of the Austrian School of economics, famous for contributing to the development of the theory of marginal utility that refuted the cost-of-production theories of value developed by the classical economics such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo....
 (Austria, 1840-1921)
  • Some literature:
    • Grundsätze der Volkswirtschaftslehre (Principles of Economics), 1871
    • Untersuchungen über die Methode der Sozialwissenschaften und der Politischen Ökonomie insbesondere (Investigations into the Method of the Social Sciences: with special reference to economics), 1883
    • Irrthumer des Historismus in der deutschen Nationalokonomie (The Errors of Historicism in German Economics), 1884
    • Zur Theorie des Kapitals (The Theory of Capital), 1888


William Graham Sumner

Sumner
William Graham Sumner
William Graham Sumner

William Graham Sumner was an United States academic and professor at Yale College. For many years he had a reputation as one of the most influential teachers there....
 (United States, 1840-1910)
  • Some literature:
    • Socialism, 1878
    • The Argument Against Protective Tariffs, 1881
    • Protective Taxes and Wages, 1883
    • The Absurd Effort to Make the World Over, 1883
    • State Interference, 1887
    • Protectionism: the -ism which teaches that waste makes wealth, 1887
    • The Forgotten Man, and Other Essays, 1917


Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (United States, 1841-1935) was a jurist and writer. He wrote the influential book on legal theory The Common Law, which traced the creation of individual rights from familial rights common under Roman and Feudal law, and presented the "objective" theory of judicial interpretation. Specifically that the standard for intent and culpability should be that of the "reasonable man", and that individuals can be said to objectively intend the reasonable consequences of their actions.

Lujo Brentano

Ludwig Joseph Brentano (Germany, 1844-1931)

Tomáš Masaryk

Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk
Tomáš Masaryk

Tom? Garrigue Masaryk , sometimes called Thomas Masaryk in English, was an Austria-Hungary and Czechoslovak statesman, sociologist and philosopher, who as the keenest advocate of Czechoslovak independence during World War I became the first List of Presidents of Czechoslovakia and founder of Czechoslovakia....
 (Czechoslovakia, 1850-1937)

Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk

Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk
Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk

Eugen Ritter von B?hm-Bawerk was an Austrian Empire economist who made important contributions to the development of Austrian School. Trained in the University of Vienna as a lawyer where he read Carl Menger's Principles of Economics. Though he never studied under Menger, he quickly became an adherent of his theories....
 (Austria, 1851-1914)
  • Some literature:
    • Kapital und Kapitalzins (Capital and Interest), in three volumes, 1884, 1889 and 1909
    • Die Positive Theorie des Kapitals (The positive theory of capital and its critics), in three volumes, 1895 and 1896
    • Zum Abschluss des Marxschen Systems (Karl Marx and the Close of his system),1898


Louis Brandeis

Louis Brandeis
Louis Brandeis

Louis Dembitz Brandeis was an American lawyer, Supreme Court Justice, advocate of privacy, and developer of the Brandeis Brief in Muller v. Oregon....
 (1856-1941)

Thorstein Veblen

Thorstein Veblen
Thorstein Veblen

Thorstein Bunde Veblen was a Norwegian-American sociology and economist and a founder, along with John R. Commons, of the Institutional economics movement....
 (1857-1926) is best known as the author of Theory of the Leisure Class. Veblen was influential to a generation of American liberalism searching for a rational basis for the economy beyond corporate consolidation and "cut throat competition". Veblen's central argument was that individuals require sufficient non-economic time to become educated citizens. He caustically attacked pure material consumption for its own sake, and the idea that utility equalled conspicuous consumption.

John Dewey

John Dewey
John Dewey

John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist, and school reform whose thoughts and ideas have been highly influential in the United States and around the world....
 (United States, 1859-1952)
  • Some literature:
    • Liberalism and Social Action, 1935
    • Democracy and Education


Friedrich Naumann

Friedrich Naumann
Friedrich Naumann

Friedrich Naumann was a Germany politician and Protestant parish priest. In 1894 he founded the weekly magazine Die Hilfe to address the social question from a non-marxist middle class point of view....
 (Germany, 1860-1919)

Santeri Alkio

Santeri Alkio
Santeri Alkio

Santeri Alkio was a Finland politician, author and journalist. He is also considered to be the ideological father of Centre Party ....
 (Finland, 1862-1930)

Max Weber

Max Weber
Max Weber

Maximilian Carl Emil Weber was one of the most profoundly influential thinkers of the twentieth century. Born in Germany, Weber became a lawyer, politician, scholar, political economy, and sociology....
 (Germany, 1864-1920) was a theorist of state power and the relationship of culture to economics. Argued that there was a moral component to capitalism rooted in "Protestant" values. Weber was along with Friedrich Naumann
Friedrich Naumann

Friedrich Naumann was a Germany politician and Protestant parish priest. In 1894 he founded the weekly magazine Die Hilfe to address the social question from a non-marxist middle class point of view....
 active in the National Social Union and later in the German Democratic Party
German Democratic Party

The German Democratic Party, or Deutsche Demokratische Partei , was founded by leaders of the former Progressive People's Party and the left wing of the National Liberal Party in the early days of the Weimar Republic....
.
  • Some literature:
    • Die protestantische Ethik und der 'Geist' des Kapitalismus
      The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

      The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism is a book written by Max Weber, a Germany economist and sociologist, in 1904 and 1905 that began as a series of essays....
      ,1904 (The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism )


Leonard Hobhouse

Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse
Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse

Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse was a United Kingdom liberalism politician, one of the theorists of social liberalism. He worked as an academic and a journalist: he was the first professor of sociology appointed in a British university....
 (United Kingdom, 1864-1929)
  • Some literature:
    • Liberalism, 1911


Benedetto Croce

Benedetto Croce
Benedetto Croce

Benedetto Croce was an Italy critic, idealist philosophy philosopher, and politician. He wrote on numerous topics, including philosophy of history and aesthetics, and was a prominent Liberalism, although he opposed laissez-faire free trade....
 (Italy, 1866-1952)
  • Some literature:
    • Che cosa è il liberalismo, 1943


Walther Rathenau

Walther Rathenau
Walther Rathenau

Walther Rathenau was a Germany industrialist, politician, writer, and statesman who served as Foreign Minister of Germany during the Weimar Republic....
 (Germany, 1867-1922)

William Beveridge

William Beveridge
William Beveridge

William Henry Beveridge, 1st Baron Beveridge was a British economist and social reformer. He is perhaps best known for his 1942 report Social Insurance and Allied Services which served as the basis for the post-World War II Labour government's Welfare State, especially the National Health Service....
 (United Kingdom, 1879-1963)
  • Some literature:
    • Full Employment in a Free Society, 1944
    • Why I am a liberal, 1945


Ludwig von Mises

Ludwig von Mises
Ludwig von Mises

Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises was an Austrian economics, philosopher, and liberalism who had a major influence on the modern libertarianism movement....
 (Austria/United States, 1881-1973)
  • Some literature:
    • Socialism, 1922
    • Liberalism, 1927
    • Omnipotent Government
      Omnipotent Government

      Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War is a book by influential Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises first published in 1944 by Yale University Press....
      , 1944
    • Human Action
      Human Action

      Human Action: A Treatise on Economics is the magnum opus of the Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises. It presents a case for laissez-faire capitalism based on Mises' praxeology, or rational investigation of human decision-making....
      , 1949


José Ortega y Gasset

José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset

Jos? Ortega y Gasset was a Spain philosophy....
 (Spain, 1883-1955)
  • Some literature:
    • La rebelión de las masas (The Rebellion of the Masses), 1930


Salvador de Madariaga

Salvador de Madariaga
Salvador de Madariaga

Salvador de Madariaga y Rojo was a Spain diplomat, writer, historian and pacifism. He was the father of Nieves Mathews and professor/historian Dr....
 (Spain, 1886-1978). One of the principal authors of the Oxford Manifesto
Oxford Manifesto

The Oxford Manifesto, drawn up in April 1947 by representatives from nineteen liberalism political parties at Wadham College in Oxford, led by Salvador de Madariaga, is a document which describes the basic political principles of the Liberal International....
 in 1947.

Adolf Berle

Adolf Berle
Adolf Berle

Adolf Augustus Berle, Jr. was an educator, author, and United States of America diplomat....
 (United States, 1895-1971) was author of The Modern Corporation and Private Property, detailing the importance of differentiating between the management of corporations and the share holders who are the owners. Influential in the theory of New Deal policy.
  • Some literature with Gardiner Means
    Gardiner Means

    Gardiner C. Means was an American economist. He worked at Harvard University where he met Adolf Berle. Together they wrote the seminal work of corporate governance, The Modern Corporation and Private Property....
    :
    • The Modern Corporation and Private Property


Wilhelm Röpke

Wilhelm Röpke
Wilhelm Röpke

Wilhelm R?pke was one of the most important spiritual fathers of the German social market economy.For R?pke , rights, moral habits , and social norms and values were decisive elements with which not the market, but the state and central bank continually need to be concerned....
 (Germany, 1899-1966)
  • Some literature:
    • International Economic Disintegration, 1942
    • The Social Crisis of Our Time, 1942
    • Civitas Humana, 1944
    • International Order and Economic Integration, 1945
    • The Solution of the German Problem, 1946


Bertil Ohlin

Bertil Ohlin
Bertil Ohlin

Bertil Gotthard Ohlin was a Sweden economist and politician. He was a professor of economics at the Stockholm School of Economics from 1929 to 1965....
 (Sweden, 1899-1979)
  • Some literature:
    • Interregional and International Trade, 1933


Friedrich Hayek

Friedrich Hayek
Friedrich Hayek

Friedrich August von Hayek Order of the Companions of Honour was an Austrian economist and philosopher known throughout the world for his defense of classical liberalism and free market capitalism against socialism and collectivism thought....
 (Austria/United Kingdom/United States/Germany, 1899-1992) In Hayek's view, the central role of the state should be to maintain the rule of law, with as little arbitrary intervention as possible.
  • Some literature:
    • The Road to Serfdom
      The Road to Serfdom

      The Road to Serfdom is a book written by Friedrich Hayek which has significantly shaped the political ideologies of Margaret Thatcher and of Ronald Reagan and the concepts of ?Thatcherism? and of ?Reagonomics?....
      , 1944
    • The Constitution of Liberty
      The Constitution of Liberty

      The Constitution of Liberty is one of the most important books by Austrian school and recipient Friedrich A. Hayek. The book was first published in 1960 and it is an interpretation of civilization as being made possible by the fundamental principles of liberty, which the author presents as prerequisites for wealth and growth, rather th...
      , 1960
    • Law, Legislation and Liberty
      Law, Legislation and Liberty

      Law, Legislation and Liberty is the 1973 magnum opus in three volumes by Nobel laureate economist and political philosopher Friedrich Hayek....
      , in three volumes, 1973, 1976 and 1979


Karl Popper

Karl Raimund Popper
Karl Popper

Knight Bachelor Karl Raimund Popper Order of the Companions of Honour, Fellow of the Royal Society, Fellow of the British Academy was an Austrian and British philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics....
 (Austria/United Kingdom, 1902-1994) developed the idea of the open society
Open society

The open society is a concept originally developed by philosopher Henri Bergson. In open societies, government is responsive and tolerant, and political mechanisms are Transparency and flexible....
, characterized by respect for a wide variety of opinions and behaviors and a preference for audacious but piecemeal political reform over either conservative stasis or revolutionary utopianism. In his view, all overly simplistic and grand theories of history and society shared a common feature he called historicism
Historicism

Historicism refers to philosophy theories that include one or both of two claims:# that there is an organic succession of developments, a notion also known as historism , and/or;...
, which he traces back to Plato, while the open society mirrors the methodological fallibilism pioneered by Popper in his earlier works on philosophy of science.

  • Some literature:
    • The Open Society and Its Enemies
      The Open Society and Its Enemies

      The Open Society and Its Enemies, is an influential two-volume work by Karl Popper written during World War II. Failing to find a publisher in the United States, it was first printed in London, by Routledge, in 1945....
      , 1945
    • The Poverty of Historicism, 1961


Alan Paton

Alan Paton
Alan Paton

Alan Stewart Paton was a white South African author and liberal political activist....
 (South Africa, 1903-1988) contributed with his book Cry, The beloved country to a clear anti-apartheid stand of South African liberalism. His party, the South African Liberal Party
South African Liberal Party

The Liberal Party of South Africa was a South African political party from 1953 to 1968....
 was banned by the apartheid government.
  • Some literature:
    • Cry, The Beloved Country, 1948


John Hicks

John Hicks
John Hicks

Sir John Richard Hicks was one of the most important and influential economists of the twentieth century. The most familiar of his many contributions in the field of economics were his statement of consumer theory in microeconomics, and the IS/LM model, which summarised a Keynesian view of macroeconomics....
 (United Kingdom, 1904-1989) is known for his work in macro-economics and social choice theory
Social choice theory

Social choice theory studies how measures of individual interests, values, or welfares in theory could be aggregated to reach a collective decision....
. His macro-economic work produced the IS-LM model of macro-economics, which would be the basis for much theory since then, including the work of Paul Krugman
Paul Krugman

Paul Robin Krugman is an United States economist, columnist, and author. He is a professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton University, a centenary professor at the London School of Economics, and an op-ed columnist for The New York Times....
 and Robert Mundell
Robert Mundell

Robert Alexander Mundell, Order of Canada is a professor of economics at Columbia University. Mundell was born in Canada and is a graduate of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver....
. In the area of social choice he argued for the necessity of placing freedom of choice in balance against social welfare to produce the best practical outcomes.

Raymond Aron

Raymond Aron
Raymond Aron

Raymond-Claude-Ferdinand Aron was a French philosopher, sociologist and political scientist, well known to the broad public for his skeptical analyses of the post-war vogue in France for leftist ideologies that largely took their inspiration from a Marxism tradition....
 (France, 1905-1983)
  • Some literature:
    • Essais sur les libertés, 1965
    • Démocratie et totalitarisme, 1965


Simone de Beauvoir

Simone de Beauvoir
Simone de Beauvoir

Simone de Beauvoir was a France author and philosopher. She wrote novels, monographs on philosophy, politics, and social issues, essays, biographies, and an autobiography in several volumes....
 (France 1908-1986) argued in her book The Second Sex
The Second Sex

The Second Sex is one of the best known works of the France Existentialism Simone de Beauvoir. It is a work on the treatment of women throughout history and often regarded as a major work of feminist literature....
 that women were treated as legal and social inferiors, and that this was morally untenable. She was influential in the Women's Liberation movement and these arguments also contributed to those about race and racism.
  • Some literature:
    • The Second Sex
      The Second Sex

      The Second Sex is one of the best known works of the France Existentialism Simone de Beauvoir. It is a work on the treatment of women throughout history and often regarded as a major work of feminist literature....


John Kenneth Galbraith

Johnkennethgalbraithowi
John Kenneth Galbraith
John Kenneth Galbraith

John Kenneth "Ken" Galbraith, Order of Canada was a Canadian-American economics. He was a Keynesian economics and an institutional economics, a leading proponent of 20th-century American liberalism and Progressivism in the United States....
 (Canadian-born Economist who worked in the United States, 1908-2006)
  • Some literature:
    • The Affluent Society, 1958
    • The Liberal Hour, 1960


Isaiah Berlin

Isaiah Berlin
Isaiah Berlin

Sir Isaiah Berlin, Order of Merit was a philosopher and historian of ideas, regarded as one of the leading liberal thinkers of the twentieth century....
 (Latvia/United Kingdom, 1909-1997) is most famous for his attempt to distinguish 'two conceptions of liberty'. Berlin argued that what he called 'positive' and 'negative' liberty were mutually opposing concepts. Positive conceptions assumed that liberty could only be achieved when collective power (in the form of church or state) acted to 'liberate' mankind from its worst aspects. These, Berlin felt, tended towards totalitarianism. Negative conceptions, by contrast, argued that liberty was achieved when individuals were given maximal freedom from external constraints (so long as these did not impinge on the freedom of others to achieve the same condition). Berlin was also a critic of dogmatic Enlightenment rationalism on the grounds that it was unable to accommodate value pluralism.
  • Some literature:
    • Two Concepts of Liberty, 1958
    • Four Essays on Liberty, 1969
    • From Hope and Fear Set Free, 1978


Arthur Schlesinger Jr.

Arthur Schlesinger Jr. (United States, 1917- 2007) was an historian and philosopher of history, who chronicled the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and theorized on the importance of progressive moments in advancing liberalism.
  • Some literature:
    • The Vital Center
      The Vital Center

      The Vital Center: The Politics of Freedom is a 1949 book, by Harvard University historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., defending liberal democracy and a economic interventionism market economy against the totalitarianism of communism and fascism....
    • The Age of Roosevelt
    • The Cycles in American History


James Buchanan

James Buchanan
James M. Buchanan

James McGill Buchanan, Jr. is an United States economist renowned for his work on public choice theory, for which he won the 1986 Nobel Prize in Economics....
 (United States, * 1919) is known for his economic theories of the political process, which were among the first to take seriously the concept of politicians as rational actors that respond to incentives.
  • Some literature:
    • The Calculus of Consent / James Buchanan & Gordon Tullock, 1962
    • The Limits of Liberty, 1975
    • Democracy in Deficit / James Buchanan & Richard E. Wagner, 1977
    • The Power to Tax / James Buchanan & Geoffrey Brennan, 1980
    • The Reason of Rules / James Buchanan & Geoffrey Brennan, 1985


John Rawls

John Rawls
John Rawls

John Rawls was an United States philosopher and a leading figure in moral and political philosophy.Rawls received the Schock Prize for Logic and Philosophy and the National Humanities Medal in 1999, the latter presented by U.S....
 (United States, 1921-2002) is widely considered one of the most important English-language political philosophers of the 20th century. There is general agreement that the publication of his landmark work, A Theory of Justice, led to a revival in the academic study of political philosophy. The importance of this book in contemporary liberal thought and social contract
Social contract

Social contract describes a broad class of theories that try to explain the ways in which people form nations and maintain social order. The notion of the social contract implies that the people give up some rights to a government or other authority in order to receive or maintain social order....
 theory is perhaps best described by an early libertarian rival and critic, Robert Nozick
Robert Nozick

Robert Nozick was an United States philosopher and Joseph Pellegrino University Professor at Harvard University. He was educated at Columbia University , where he studied with Sydney Morgenbesser, at Princeton University , and Oxford University as a Fulbright Scholar....
, who called it a "work in political and moral philosophy that has not seen its equal since the writings of John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill , United Kingdom philosopher, political economy, civil servant and Parliament of the United Kingdom, was an influential liberalism thinker of the 19th century....
, if then.... Political philosophers must now work within Rawls' theory or explain why not." (Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, p. 183) Some of Rawls's contributions include the ideas of Justice as Fairness
Justice as Fairness

Justice as Fairness is the phrase used by the philosophy John Rawls to refer to his distinctive theory of justice. It is also the title of an essay on the subject written in 1958....
, the original position
Original position

The original position is a hypothetical situation developed by American philosopher John Rawls as a thought experiment to replace the imagery of a savage state of nature of prior political philosophers like Thomas Hobbes....
, reflective equilibrium
Reflective equilibrium

Reflective equilibrium is a state of balance or coherence among a set of beliefs arrived at by a process of deliberative mutual adjustment among general principles and particular judgments....
, overlapping consensus
Overlapping consensus

Overlapping consensus is a term coined by John Rawls in Political Liberalism.The term refers to how supporters of different comprehensive doctrines can agree on a specific form of political organization....
, public reason
Public reason

Public reason is the phrase used by American philosopher John Rawls to refer to the common reason of all citizens in a Pluralism society. Public reason giving involves justifying a particular position by way of reasons that people of different moral or political backgrounds could accept....
, and the veil of ignorance. Rawls has the distinction among contemporary political philosophers of being frequently cited by the courts of law in the United States and referred to by practicing politicians in the United Kingdom.

  • Some literature:
    • A Theory of Justice
      A Theory of Justice

      A Theory of Justice is a widely-read book of political philosophy and ethics by John Rawls. It was originally published in 1971 and revised in both 1975 and 1999....
      , 1971
    • Political Liberalism
      Political liberalism

      Political liberalism or constitutional liberalism is a body of thought that attempts to provide justification for the principles of limited government, including most or all of the following: restrictions against arbitrary use of power, constitutional definition of legitimate government power, the rule of law, government that exists by...
      , 1996
    • The Law of Peoples
      The Law of Peoples

      The Law of Peoples is United States Philosopher John Rawls's work on international relations. First published in 1993 as a short article , in 1999 it was expanded and joined with another essay "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited" to form a full length book....
      , 1999
    • Justice as Fairness: A Restatement
      Justice as Fairness: A Restatement

      Justice as Fairness: A Restatement is a book of political philosophy by John Rawls, a revision of his classic A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press, 2001....
      , 2001


Murray Newton Rothbard

Murray Rothbard
Murray Rothbard

Murray Newton Rothbard was an American economics of the Austrian School who helped define modern libertarianism and founded a form of free-market anarchism he termed "anarcho-capitalism"....
 (United States, 1926-1995) was the originator of modern anarcho-capitalism
Anarcho-capitalism

Anarcho-capitalism , usually regarded to be an individualist anarchism political philosophy, advocates the elimination of the state and the elevation of the sovereign individual in a free market....
 and an economist and economic historian of the Austrian school
Austrian School

The Austrian School is a Heterodox economics school of economics. It emphasizes the spontaneous organizing power of the price mechanism, holds that the complexity of subjective human choices makes mathematical modelling of the evolving market extremely difficult and therefore advocates a laissez faire approach to the economy....
. He is widely considered one of the foremost advocates of liberty
Liberty

Liberty, the freedom to act or believe without being stopped by unnecessary force, is generally considered in modern time to be a concept of political philosophy and identifies the condition in which an individual has the right to act according to his or her own free will....
 and freedom in the late 20th century. He was involved with various political movements throughout his life, notably with Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand , was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her best-selling novels and for developing a philosophical system called Objectivism ....
 and, later, the Libertarian Party
Libertarian Party (United States)

The Libertarian Party is a United States political party founded on December 11, 1971. More than 200,000 voters are registered with the party, making it one of the largest of America's alternative political parties....
 of United States. His influence is lasting in the libertarian and anarcho-capitalist movements.
  • Some Literature:
    • Man, Economy, and State, 1962
    • For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto, 1973
    • Conceived in Liberty, 1975-1979
    • The Ethics of Liberty, 1982
    • An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, 1995


Ralf Dahrendorf

Ralf Dahrendorf
Ralf Dahrendorf

Ralf Gustav Dahrendorf, Baron Dahrendorf, Order of the British Empire is a German-British sociologist, philosopher, political scientist and politician....
 (Germany/United Kingdom, 1929- )
  • Some literature:
    • Die Chancen der Krise: über die Zukunft des Liberalismus, 1983
    • Fragmente eines neuen Liberalismus, 1987


Karl-Hermann Flach

The journalist Karl-Hermann Flach
Karl-Hermann Flach

Karl-Hermann Flach was a well known Germany journalist of the Frankfurter Rundschau. He became an active member of the Freie Demokratische Partei ....
 (Germany, 1929-1973) was in his book Noch eine Chance für die Liberalen one of the main theorist of the new social liberal principles of the Free Democratic Party (Germany)
Free Democratic Party (Germany)

The Free Democratic Party is a centre-right Liberalism political party in Germany. The party's ideology combines beliefs in individual liberty, in a state or government "that is as limited as possible and as extensive as necessary" ....
. He places liberalism clearly as the opposite of conservatism
Conservatism

Conservatism is a political and social term whose meaning has changed in different countries and time periods, but which usually indicates support for the status quo or the status quo ante....
 and opened the road for a government coalition with the social democrats.

Joseph Raz

Joseph Raz
Joseph Raz

Joseph Raz is an influential legal philosophy, moral philosophy and political philosophy philosopher. He is one of the most prominent living advocates of legal positivism....
 (United Kingdom)
  • Some literature:
    • The Morality of Freedom


Ronald Dworkin

Ronald Dworkin
Ronald Dworkin

Ronald Dworkin, Queens Counsel, British Academy is an United States legal philosopher, currently professor of Jurisprudence at University College London and the New York University School of Law, and former professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Oxford....
 (United States, 1931- )

Richard Rorty

Richard Rorty
Richard Rorty

Richard McKay Rorty was an American philosopher. He had a long and diverse career in Philosophy, Humanities, and Literature departments. His complex intellectual background gave him a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the analytic philosophy tradition in philosophy he would later famously reject....
 (United States, 1931-2007) was one of the leading contemporary philosophers of liberalism. His fundamental claims, among others, are that liberalism is best defined as the attempt to avoid cruelty to others; that liberals need to accept the historical 'irony' that there is no metaphysical justification for their belief that not being cruel is a virtue; that literature plays a crucial role in developing the empathy necessary to promote solidarity (and therefore lack of cruelty) between humans; and that private philosophising and public political discourse are separate practices and should remain so.

Amartya Sen

Amartya Sen
Amartya Sen

Amartya Kumar Sen Order of the Companions of Honour , is a Bengali people Indian economist, philosopher, and a winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1998, "for his contributions to welfare economics" for his work on famine, human development theory, welfare economics, the underlying mechanisms of poverty, and political C...
 (India, 1933- ) is an economist whose early work was based on Kenneth Arrow
Kenneth Arrow

Kenneth Joseph Arrow is an United States economist and joint winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics with John Hicks in 1972. To date, he is the youngest person to receive this award, at 51....
's General Possibility Theorem, and on the impossibility of both complete pareto optimality and solely procedural based rights. Won Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on famine
Famine

A famine is a widespread shortage of food that may apply to any faunal species, which phenomenon is usually accompanied by regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased death....
, welfare economics
Welfare economics

Welfare economics is a branch of economics that uses microeconomics techniques to simultaneously determine allocative efficiency within an economy and the income Distribution associated with it....
 and social choice theory
Social choice theory

Social choice theory studies how measures of individual interests, values, or welfares in theory could be aggregated to reach a collective decision....
. Advocate of rationality as the fundamental safe guard of freedom and justice.
  • Some literature:
    • Development as Freedom
    • The Argumentative Indian


Robert Nozick

Robert Nozick
Robert Nozick

Robert Nozick was an United States philosopher and Joseph Pellegrino University Professor at Harvard University. He was educated at Columbia University , where he studied with Sydney Morgenbesser, at Princeton University , and Oxford University as a Fulbright Scholar....
 (United States, 1938-2002) was a libertarian (or minarchist). He advocated an unapologetically reductionist political philosophy characterized by meticulous analysis of the moral aspects of each social interaction, and did not shy away from addressing hard philosophical issues such as the original appropriation of property. Nozick is best known for providing the justification of a minimal state by showing that it can be established without any unjust steps.
  • Some literature:
    • Anarchy, State, and Utopia
      Anarchy, State, and Utopia

      Anarchy, State, and Utopia is a work of political philosophy written by Robert Nozick in 1974. This libertarian book was the winner of the 1975 National Book Award....
      , 1974


Hernando de Soto

The economist Hernando de Soto
Hernando de Soto (economist)

Hernando de Soto Polar is a Peruvian economist known for his work on the informal economy and on the importance of property rights. He is the president of Peru's Institute for Liberty and Democracy , located in Lima....
 (Peru, 1941- ) is an advocate of transparency and private property rights, arguing that intransparent government leads to property not being given proper title, and therefore being "dead capital" which cannot be used as the basis of credit. Argues that laws which allocate property to those most able to use them for economic growth, so called "squatter's rights", are an important innovation.
  • Some literature:
    • The Other Path, 1986
    • The Mystery of Capital, 2000


Bruce Ackerman

Bruce Ackerman
Bruce Ackerman

Bruce Arnold Ackerman is an United States constitutional law scholar. He is a Sterling Professor at Yale Law School and one of the most frequently cited legal academics in the country....
 (United States)
  • Some literature:
    • We, The People


Joseph Stiglitz

The economist Joseph Stiglitz was awarded a Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prize , established in the 1895 will of Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel; it was first awarded in Nobel Prize in Physics, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Nobel Prize in Literature, and Nobel Peace Prize in 1901....
 for his work on market failures caused by imperfect information. While this work is rather dry to a non-economist it demonstrates how states can give great benefits to their populations with a light hand and avoid socialist policies like nationalisation. He is best known politically for his work first as an adviser to international institutions like the World Trade Organisation, and then as a commentator supportive of their principles but critical of their practices. (United States, 1943- )

  • Some literature
    • Globalization and its Discontents
    • Making Globalization Work


Martha Nussbaum

Martha Nussbaum
Martha Nussbaum

Martha Nussbaum is an United States philosophy with a particular interest in Greek philosophy and Roman philosophy, political philosophy and ethics....
 (United States, 1947-present) elaborates the Rawlsian Theory of Justice. For her, Rawls's Liberty Principle is only meaningful if viewed in terms of substantial freedoms, i.e. real opportunities based on personal and social circumstance. Likewise, inequality
Inequality

In mathematics, an inequality is a statement about the relative size or order of two objects, or about whether they are the same or not *The notation a < b means that a is less than b....
 in the Difference Principle has to be clarified in terms of capabilities.

Will Kymlicka

Will Kymlicka
Will Kymlicka

Will Kymlicka is a Canadian political philosophy best known for his work on multiculturalism. He is currently Professor of Philosophy and Canada Research Chair in Political Philosophy at Queen's University at Kingston, and Recurrent Visiting Professor in the Nationalism Studies program at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary....
 (Canada, * 1962) tries in his philosophy to determine if forms of ethnic or minority nationalism
Nationalism

Nationalism refers to an ideology, a feeling, a form of culture, or a social movement that focuses on the nation. While there is significant debate over the historical origins of nations, nearly all Expert accept that nationalism, at least as an ideology and social movement, is a Modernity phenomenon originating in Europe....
 are compatible with liberal-democratic principles of individual freedom, social equality and political democracy. In his book Multicultural Citizenship. A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights he argues that certain "collective rights" of minority cultures can be consistent with these liberal-democratic principles.

Charles Arthur Willard

(USA)"Liberalism and the Problem of Knowledge: A New Rhetoric for Modern Democracy." University of Chicago Press, 1996. Debunks the discourse of liberalism, arguing that its exaggerated ideals of authenticity, unity, and community have deflected attention from the pervasive incompetence of the rule by experts. He proposes a ground of communication that emphasizes common interests rather than narrow disputes.

Footnotes