CLASSICAL LIBERALISM

Published by Daily Philosophy, April 26, 2025

The English political theorist Leonard Hobhouse, in his book Liberalism (1911), makes the following observation: “The modern State accordingly starts from the basis of an authoritarian order, and the protest against that order, a protest religious, political, economic, social, and ethical, is the historic beginning of Liberalism.”

The point Hobhouse is making here is that nation states, and the monarchies and empires that preceded them, were not configured to provide their citizens with the liberties we now take for granted. This is, after all, where the word liberalism comes from: liberty (from the Latin liber, which means freedom).

So, liberalism is a political philosophy that centers on the idea of people being afforded fundamental freedoms or rights. This in turn—and this is where things can get complicated—requires the state to restrain certain practices among its citizens. 

For example, I am free to worship whatever or whomever I choose. If I want, I can worship Winnie-the-Pooh. However, I cannot commit human sacrifice in the woods (or anywhere else for that matter) in my worship of Winnie-the-Pooh. The law prevents me from taking human life; this would constitute a clear and obvious infringement of the victim’s rights. 

Moreover, no one or no law can force you to worship him with me. You are protected from such coercion; such coercion would be an infringement of your rights. You have the right to worship freely as well as not be murdered by a Winnie-the-Pooh cult (or by anyone else). You have rights protecting your person and property. And this is really where liberalism starts. The country’s leader cannot help himself to you, your spouse, or your property. This is liberalism’s point of departure.

Perhaps curiously, we start with English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679). In their enormous History of Political Philosophy, political scientists Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey have this to say: “To the extent that modern liberalism teaches that all social and political obligations are derived from and in the service of the individual rights of man, Hobbes may be regarded as the founder of modern liberalism.” Now, Hobbes is probably not the first (or even second) name that comes to mind when we think of liberalism.

Many chalk Hobbes up to a grim view of human nature and absolute, arbitrary state power. Yet, if we carefully read his masterpiece Leviathan, this is not actually what we find. For a start, he does not condemn human nature—which he says explicitly—and while he does make a case for a strong and absolute state, the state is based on protecting you from me and me from you. The substrate of Hobbes’s Leviathan is the rights of person and property and protection.

We find a similar set of arguments in the work of John Locke (1632–1704), another English philosopher. Locke is certainly associated with the concept of liberalism. Locke’s key work on political theory, his Second Treatise on Government, makes a case for a limited government that does not encroach on the people’s rights of person and especially property. 

Like Hobbes, he begins with humans in a “state of nature.” This is humankind on its own: no laws, no religion, no government, no economy. It is humanity and the rabbits and any nuts you can find. Locke’s state of nature begins with people being equal and free. Despite there being no laws, Locke maintains there is a natural law that exists among humans:

The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions. (§6, emphasis in original)

However, regardless of everyone possessing the “executive power” of this law of nature, “inconveniencies” might arise. There will be disputes. Some will take advantage and steal or do harm to one’s person or property. And those in the state of nature will have to fend for themselves. 

This can become unstable; meting out punishment can get carried away and go wrong, and things can get worse. So, Locke suggests that “civil government”—a “common superior”—is the “proper remedy” to address this issue. 

There should exist a power that can adjudicate these disputes and prevent all hell from breaking loose. In this regard, Locke and Hobbes are not so far apart. Locke then puts in place the common-wealth, the limited government. Those in the state of nature surrender their executive power to the state. The purpose of the state, and this is the essence of liberalism, is to preserve one’s “life, liberty and estate,” which should sound familiar to readers. 

Government can preserve people’s rights, but at the same time it poses the greatest threat to those rights. Therefore, the state should be limited; it should be strong enough to settle disputes and protect its citizens, but it should not overstep and wander into authoritarianism. 

Locke provides in the Second Treatise the possibility of revolution in such instances. The people, under the tyranny of an authoritarian government or violent despot, have the right to “remove it by force.” (§155) Yet, Locke is confident that people will in general be slow to engage in such behavior: “the people, who are more disposed to suffer than right themselves by resistance, are not apt to stir.” (§230)

Locke’s thinking had the attention of the Founding Fathers, specifically Thomas Jefferson. We find overtones of Locke’s writing and thought in the Declaration of Independence; Thomas Jefferson held Locke’s work in very high esteem. Historian of political thought Alan Ryan refers to the Declaration of Independence as “a good Lockean document.” 

This is just the thinking that Jefferson had in mind when he was articulating his criticisms of the British crown. The American Revolution was, in a sense, Lockean in its orientation.

So, while the colonial aristocracy was indeed doing itself a favor, their political philosophy was sound. 

Another writer who contributed to the liberal battle cry was the English-born Thomas Paine (1737–1809). Paine is technically considered a Founding Father, and did provide much intellectual support to colonial independence from Great Britain. However, he was given short shrift by the colonial elite—less so by Jefferson, who was generally supportive of Paine—and was less than welcome to that table. 

They were genteel men of compromise; he was not. Paine was something of a rabble-rouser. And while his pamphlet Common Sense, which made a compelling argument for independence, was fabulously successful, he was looked down upon by the aristocracy and sadly died in obscurity and poverty. Paine does not mince words about monarchy in Common Sense:

[I]t is not so much the absurdity as the evil of hereditary succession which concerns mankind. Did it ensure a race of good and wise men it would have the seal of divine authority, but as it opens a door to the foolish, the wicked and the improper, it hath in it the nature of oppression. … Of more worth is one honest man to society, and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.

Elsewhere in Common Sense, Paine, in reference to Aesop’s fables, compares kings to asses wrapped in the skins of lions. Paine’s mode of analysis is thoroughly liberal: he takes a positive view of human nature, sees an opportunity for government—in a limited way—to make life for the citizenry better, and despises hereditary absolute monarchy. It was in this mindset that Thomas Paine took great pleasure defending independence and giving the crown the middle finger.

Perhaps the richest statement on classical liberalism comes from a thinker who was roughly contemporary with Jefferson and Paine, Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835). Humboldt, a Prussian philosopher and linguist, set out his thoughts on liberalism in his Limits of State Action, a book written in his youth but published well after his death. 

Now considered a classic, in Limits, Humboldt sets as his goal, “to prescribe the exact sphere to which the government … should extend or confine its operations.” His conclusion: “the proper limits of State agency must lead to a consideration of greater freedom for human energies, and a richer diversity of circumstances.” Freedom is his primary consideration:

The true end of Man … is the highest and most harmonious development of his powers to a complete and consistent whole. Freedom is the first and indispensable condition which the possibility of such a development presupposes…. Even the most free and self-reliant of men is hindered in his development, when set in a monotonous situation.

For Humboldt, “The highest ideal, therefore, of the co-existence of human beings seems to me to consist in a union in which each strives to develop himself from his own inmost nature.” 

There will, however, be disputes and threats, as in Locke. So, humans do well to establish a “supreme power,” the responsibility of which is the “maintenance of security” against “foreign enemies and internal dissensions.” (Humboldt also puts forth a philosophy of education, but we will stick to political considerations.) 

Like we saw with Paine, Humboldt views state power with suspicion. The state is an opportunity for power to project itself over people, politically and economically. And Humboldt is saying that the state should serve the needs of the citizenry. The state should foster the growth and development of the individual. Individuals are free, creative beings driven by their ability to improve or perfect themselves. 

We see this (“perfectibility”) in Enlightenment thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), who also expressed a positive view of human nature. Rousseau is far more wary about things like states and modernity than Humboldt is, but their respective points of departure, that is their philosophies of human nature, are fairly simpatico.

Noted political analyst and linguist Noam Chomsky, in his book Government in the Future, which is a published talk he gave in 1970, sees early Karl Marx in Humboldt, especially Humboldt’s thoughts about workers answering to external expectations, their creativity being suppressed. 

This calls to mind Marx’s early writings, specifically his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, in which he expounds on the concept of alienation and alienated labor. All in all, Chomsky sees classical liberalism as leading to a genuinely left-leaning politics:

I think, one must say that classical liberal ideas in their essence, though not in the way they developed, are profoundly anti-capitalist. The essence of these ideas must be destroyed for them to serve as an ideology of modern industrial capitalism.

Chomsky’s point here is a sound one. If we trace the arguments of classical liberalism, we end up with, at the very least, a truly progressive political philosophy.

I add this observation by Chomsky to round out our understanding of classical liberalism. 

There is much reference to the political spectrum in the daily news discourse, and it’s important that students and readers understand that the liberal center is where most people reside. It’s a centrist-liberal population.

There is no one on Capitol Hill who is “leftist.” There are indeed some small political parties in the United States that are legitimately leftist. (Yet, they have no presence in Washington.) But, for all intents and purposes, leftist thought is just that: it’s thought. It resides in books. It does not have a life outside the library.

The kind of political philosophy Chomsky is referencing is called anarchism. This does not mean people smashing windows and burning police cars. It does not mean lawlessness. There is a rich anarchist literature by thinkers such as Kropotkin, Bakunin, Proudhon, and Rocker that indeed has its roots in classical liberalism—specifically von Humboldt. 

If the population followed its current positions to their logical conclusions, this is where the country would find itself: a truly progressive political orientation. Food for thought.