Differences And Similarities Of Liberalism

Differences and Similarities of Liberalism

The purpose of this paper is to treat the similarly and differences of liberalism. I will use John Locke and Adam Smith to represent classical liberals. John Stuart Mill and John Maynard Keynes will be used to show contemporary liberals.

John Locke

In John Locke's Second Treatise of Government he develops a theory of government as a product of a social contract, which when broken justifies the creation of a new government for the protection of life, liberty and property.

He begins his argument by developing a theory of the state of nature which is

...what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions and dispose of their possessions and persons as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave or depending upon the will of any other man.1

The state of nature includes the “...law of nature to govern it, which obliges everyone; and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind who will but consult it...”2 The state of nature also includes inequality

...since gold and silver, being little useful to the life of a man in proportion to food, raiment, and carriage, has its value only from the consent of men, whereof labour yet makes, in great part, the measure, it is plain that men have agreed to a disproportional and unequal possession of the earth.3

In Locke's state on nature there are also three distinct problems. First there is no established settled known law. As each man consults his own law of nature he receives a slightly different interpretation.

Secondly there no known and indifferent judge. Which creates the problem of trying to decide which is the correct law of nature which will be followed in an impartial manor.

Thirdly there is insufficient force of execution. This is the problem of how to carry out the decision of the law of nature on another when he has a different interpretation or doesn't consult the law of nature.

Locke states that the three problems in the state of nature would be best solved by coming together to form a new government to protect there property. The great and chief end therefore, of men's coming into commonwealths,

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...nbsp;Classical liberals held the believes that the government should be for thoughts who were governed and held property. Inaddision that the governments only role should be to protect peoples property and shouldn't interfere in any other part of peoples lives.

Contemporary liberals believe that the government should take a much more active role in the lives of the governed both to better society and to protect it form fluctuations of the business cycle.

All liberals believe that government should be held responsible to the governed to serve there secular purposes. That capitalism is the corner stone of the free market society and that the government should not directly interfere in the micro economy. And lastly in individualism that we are all free, rational, equal, act only according to our own consent, and have a right to voluntary association.

Concussion

In drawing this brief account of the liberal-democratic analysis of equality to a concussion we are properly struck by the significant distance which separates the contemporary, revisioist idea from that of its classical

predecessors.16