Portal:Liberalism

Portal topics: Activities; Culture; Geography; Health; History; Mathematics; Nature; People; Philosophy; Religion; Society; Technology; Random portal

The Liberalism portal

Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, the right to private property and equality before the law. Liberals espouse various and often mutually warring views depending on their understanding of these principles but generally support private property, market economies, individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), liberal democracy, secularism, rule of law, economic and political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion. Liberalism is frequently cited as the dominant ideology of modern history.

Liberalism became a distinct movement in the Age of Enlightenment, gaining popularity among Western philosophers and economists. Liberalism sought to replace the norms of hereditary privilege, state religion, absolute monarchy, the divine right of kings and traditional conservatism with representative democracy, rule of law, and equality under the law. Liberals also ended mercantilist policies, royal monopolies, and other trade barriers, instead promoting free trade and marketization. Philosopher John Locke is often credited with founding liberalism as a distinct tradition based on the social contract, arguing that each man has a natural right to life, liberty and property, and governments must not violate these rights. While the British liberal tradition has emphasized expanding democracy, French liberalism has emphasized rejecting authoritarianism and is linked to nation-building. (Full article...)

Refresh with new selections below (purge)

Selected article - show another

The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) is a nonprofit progressive legal organization based in Washington, D.C. Founded by Carl Messineo and Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, the organization focuses on cases regarding free speech and dissent, domestic spying and surveillance, police misconduct, and government transparency.

The Partnership is known for litigating on behalf of protesters in First Amendment cases. It has frequently sued the District of Columbia government and D.C. police department. In addition to its litigation work in the courts, the Partnership also pursues freedom of information requests to obtain public records relating to police surveillance of activist groups. In 2003, the Washington Post called the organization "the constitutional sheriffs for a new protest generation." (Full article...)

List of selected articles

Selected biography - show another

1873 portrait by George Frederic Watts

John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 7 May 1873) was an English philosopher, political economist, politician and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of liberalism, he contributed widely to social theory, political theory, and political economy. Dubbed "the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century" by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, he conceived of liberty as justifying the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state and social control. He advocated political and social reforms such as proportional representation, the emancipation of women, and the development of labour organisations and farm cooperatives. The Columbia Encyclopedia 5th ed. says of him "at times Mill came close to socialism, a theory repugnant to his predecessors." He was a proponent of utilitarianism, an ethical theory developed by his predecessor Jeremy Bentham. He contributed to the investigation of scientific methodology, though his knowledge of the topic was based on the writings of others, notably William Whewell, John Herschel, and Auguste Comte, and research carried out for Mill by Alexander Bain. He engaged in written debate with Whewell.

A member of the Liberal Party and author of the early feminist work The Subjection of Women, Mill was also the second member of Parliament to call for women's suffrage after Henry Hunt in 1832. (Full article...)

List of selected biographies
John Locke T. H. Green John Dewey Norberto Bobbio John Rawls Isaiah Berlin David Lloyd George Jeremy Bentham

Selected quote

“

Liberals said chemical weapons would be used against our troops. That didn't happen. They predicted huge civilian casualties. That didn't happen. They said Americans would turn against the war as our troops came home in body bags. That didn't happen. They warned of a mammoth terrorist attack in America if we invaded Iraq. That didn't happen. Just two weeks ago, they claimed American troops were caught in another Vietnam quagmire. That didn't happen. The only mishap liberals can carp about is that some figurines from an Iraqi museum were broken-a relief to college students everywhere who have ever been forced to gaze upon Mesopotamiam pottery. We're not talking about Rodins here. So the Iraqis looted. Oh well. War are messy. Liberalism is part of a religious disorder that demands a belief that life is controllable.

”

— Ann Coulter, How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must), 2004.

More selected quotes

More...

General images

The following are images from various liberalism-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1John Milton's Areopagitica (1644) argued for the importance of freedom of speech. (from Liberalism)
Image 2Benjamin Constant, a Franco-Swiss political activist and theorist (from Liberalism)
Image 3Pamphlet calling for a protest of economic policy in 1983 following the economic crisis (from Neoliberalism)
Image 4Sismondi, who wrote the first critique of the free market from a liberal perspective in 1819 (from Liberalism)
Image 5Noam Chomsky's 1999 book Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order is an open critique of neoliberalism and the American economic structure. (from Neoliberalism)
Image 6As a liberal nationalist, K. J. Ståhlberg (1865–1952), the President of Finland, anchored the state in liberal democracy, guarded the fragile germ of the rule of law, and embarked on internal reforms. (from Liberalism)
Image 7Friedrich Hayek (from Neoliberalism)
Image 8John Locke was the first to develop a liberal philosophy, including the right to private property and the consent of the governed. (from Liberalism)
Image 9Ludwig Erhard (from Neoliberalism)
Image 10Per capita income during the Great Depression (from Neoliberalism)
Image 11U.S. President Bush, Canadian PM Mulroney, and Mexican President Salinas participate in the ceremonies to sign the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). (from Neoliberalism)
Image 12The Great Depression, with its periods of worldwide economic hardship, formed the backdrop against which the Keynesian Revolution took place (the image is Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother depiction of destitute pea-pickers in California, taken in March 1936). (from Liberalism)
Image 13Unemployment in Chile and South America (1980–1990) (from Neoliberalism)
Image 14Execution of José María de Torrijos y Uriarte and his men in 1831 as Spanish King Ferdinand VII took repressive measures against the liberal forces in his country (from Liberalism)
Image 15Raif Badawi, a Saudi Arabian writer and the creator of the website Free Saudi Liberals, who was sentenced to ten years in prison and 1,000 lashes for "insulting Islam" in 2014 (from Liberalism)
Image 16John Maynard Keynes, one of the most influential economists of modern times and whose ideas, which are still widely felt, formalized modern liberal economic policy. (from Liberalism)
Image 17John Stuart Mill, whose On Liberty greatly influenced 19th-century liberalism (from Liberalism)
Image 18Montesquieu, who argued for the separation of the powers of government (from Liberalism)
Image 19Julius Faucher (from Liberalism)
Image 20United States incarceration rate per 100,000 population, 1925–2014 (from Neoliberalism)
Image 21The 2017–2018 Russian protests were organized by Russia's liberal opposition. (from Liberalism)
Image 22Mary Wollstonecraft, widely regarded as the pioneer of liberal feminism (from Liberalism)
Image 23The iconic painting Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix, a tableau of the July Revolution in 1830 (from Liberalism)
Image 24The European Union–Mercosur free trade agreement, which would form one of the world's largest free trade areas, has been denounced by environmental activists and indigenous rights campaigners. (from Neoliberalism)
Image 25Member nations of the International Monetary Fund (from Neoliberalism)
Image 26Gustave de Molinari (from Liberalism)
Image 27Madame de Staël (from Liberalism)
Image 28Monument to the liberals of the 19th century in Agra del Orzán neighborhood, La Coruña, Galicia, (Spain) (from Liberalism)
Image 29T. H. Green, an influential liberal philosopher who established in Prolegomena to Ethics (1884) the first major foundations for what later became known as positive liberty and in a few years, his ideas became the official policy of the Liberal Party in Britain, precipitating the rise of social liberalism and the modern welfare state (from Liberalism)
Image 30Chilean (orange) and average Latin American (blue) rates of growth of GDP (1971–2007) (from Neoliberalism)
Image 31Wealth inequality in the United States increased from 1989 to 2013. (from Neoliberalism)
Image 32Franklin D. Roosevelt (from Liberalism)
Image 33GDP per capita in Chile and Latin America 1950–2010 (time under Pinochet highlighted) (from Neoliberalism)
Image 34Builders in West Berlin, 1952 (from Neoliberalism)