I have selected “12 Key Concepts of Liberty” to examine in more detail:
[Note: This post is part of a series on the History of the Classical Liberal Tradition]
This idea map is designed to give you an overview of what I think are the essential features of the classical liberal tradition as it has evolved over the past 400 years.
See my Study Guides on the Classical Liberal Tradition for more details.
The Grounds of CL Ideas
The Basic Principles
The foundations for these beliefs are based upon the following:
The Processes for Achieving and Sustaining a Free Society
The processes by which these principles are carried out/put into practice; how people interact with each other
Liberty as “the sum of all freedoms”
Liberty should be seen as a “bundle” or “cluster” of freedoms which together make up what is “Liberty”. Bastiat stated it in this way:
And what is liberty, this word that has the power of making all hearts beat faster and causing agitation around the world, if it is not the sum of all freedoms: freedom of conscience, teaching, and association; freedom of the press; freedom to travel, work, and trade; in other words, the free exercise of all inoffensive faculties by all men and, in still other terms, the destruction of all despotic regimes, even legal despotism, and the reduction of the law to its sole rational attribution, which is to regulate the individual law of legitimate defense or to punish injustice.
Source: Frédéric Bastiat on LIBERTY as the sum of all freedoms (1850) – quote from The Law (June 1850)
LIBERTY is compromised of three main bundles of freedoms:
When did theorists become self-conscious that they were advocating a unique, consistent and all-encompassing liberal worldview (Weltanschauung) which could be articulated in one volume; that their ideas were interconnected, were based upon a well thought out set of fundamental principles, and resulted in a comprehensive set of proposals for liberal reform?
Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835)
IHS Advanced Studies Summer Seminar, “Liberty & Scholarship: Challenges and Critiques” Bryn Mawr College, Philadelphia, PA.
Date: 13-19 June, 2015
Lectures on:
Lecture 1. “The Classical Liberal Tradition: Theory and History (A Two-Part Lecture)”
Date: 1 March, 2015
David M. Hart, “On the Spread of (Classical) Liberal Ideas” (March 2015) Liberty Matters Online Discussion Forum. I wrote the Lead Essay for this discussion as well as extensive appendices on
Abstract: In this Liberty Matters online discussion forum we explore a number of issues concerning the role ideas have had in changing societies by examining several historical examples such as the anti-slavery movement in Britain and America in the first half of the 19th century, Richard Cobden and the free trade movement, and the rebirth of classical liberal and free market ideas after the Second World War. In the Lead Essay David Hart surveys the field of ideological movements and present a theory of ideological production and distribution based upon Austrian capital theory as it might be applied to the production of ideas. The commentators are Stephen Davies who is education director at the Institute of Economic Affairs in London; David Gordon who is a Senior Fellow at the Mises Institute; Jason Kuznicki who is a Research Fellow at the Cato Institute and Editor, Cato Unbound; Peter Mentzel who is a Senior Fellow at Liberty Fund; Jim Powell who is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute; George H. Smith who is an independent scholar and contributor to <libertarianism.org>; and Jeffrey Tucker who is a distinguished fellow at the Foundation for Economic Education, editor at Laissez Faire Books, and founder of Liberty.me http://liberty.me/ .