Classic Liberalism There Have Been Term Paper

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F.A. Hayek argued that there can be no freedom of press "if the instruments of printing are under government control, no freedom of assembly if the needed rooms are so controlled, no freedom of movement if the means of transport are a government monopoly" (Liberalism pp).

As Thomas Paine wrote in 'Common Sense,' "Government even in its best state is a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one..." (Sturgis pp). Thomas Jefferson focused on creating an independent citizenry capable of maintaining the democratic republic, and he found his key in the yeoman farmer, believing "that the self-sufficient landowner possessed the ability to cultivate himself and therefore treasure his freedom" (Sturgis pp).

William Godwin, author of 'Political Justice' 1798, and hailed by many as the father of English anarchism, blended previous forms of classical liberalism into his belief in "the self-perfectibility of man and the law of progress reflected Enlightenment emphasis on reason and evolution" (Sturgis pp).

Godwin's wife, Mary Wollstonecraft, paved the way for classical liberal feminism by expanding natural rights theory to apply to women with her 1792 work 'Vindication of the Rights of Women' in which she names "women as co-inheritors of the individualist tradition with men" (Sturgis pp).

Perhaps John Stuart Mill, 1806-1873, is the single best window into classical liberalism, representing the crossroads of English, French, and German strains of thought (Sturgis pp). The son of James Mill, utilitarian and author of the first English textbook of economics, "Mill represents the English classical liberal tradition of independence by warning against the tyranny of opinion that silences other voices and calling for a form of intellectual toleration"(Sturgis pp). Mill shows sympathy for the French tradition of self-rule by creating an ethical sphere of privacy in his theory, a space for each individual that the state and the majority cannot touch, thus, Mill is advocating limitation of the state (Sturgis pp). Sturgis writes,

His wrestling ended in a pessimistic philosophy more aware of societal entropy than evolution, with later socialistic themes perhaps anticipating modern liberalism.

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His synthesis of different strains of thought, however, underscores the consistency and yet the diversity of the rich classical liberal tradition. His publications also mark the end of the rise of classical liberalism" (Sturgis pp).

Ayn Rand's,1905-1982, unique form of individualism was formed by her personal experience with communist totalitarianism and her frustration with the West's drift towards socialism (Sturgis pp). In "For the New Intellectual" she writes:

Capitalism demands the best of every man - his rationality - and rewards him accordingly. It leaves every man free to choose the work he likes, to specialize in it, to trade his product for the product of others... His success depends on the objective value of his work and the rationality of those who recognize that value" (Sturgis pp)

Rand argued that no individual should live for another, that all persons' highest moral ends was their own happiness, and that any idea of a group rather than that of the individual threatened every person (Sturgis pp). In 1991, nine years after her death, she was listed as second in a Gallop Survey concerning influential authors in America, surpassed only by the Bible

Although there are numerous philosophies concerning liberalism, it is ultimately rooted in the belief of individual freedom.

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