Classical
liberalism is a
political ideology that began with the writings of
Thomas Hobbes and
John Locke. This form of
liberalism is considered to be the first ideology of the
west, as well as that of
the Enlightenment. It shakes off the
fatalism and disinterest in the
secular world characteristic of
medieval Christianity.
Of paramount importance to this
doctrine is the concept of
individual liberty. Classical
liberalism completely redefined the role that
government should take. Before its advent, the consensus was that
kings rule because of
divine right. Essentially, it was thought that they had been appointed by
God. This is known as an organic view of the state. Each individual is an
organ: not important except insofar as they contribute to the
whole. A defining factor of
liberalism is its
individualistic philosophy.
Under classical
liberalism, especially that of
John Locke,
government is seen as existing in a
social contract with its
citizens. This radical idea implies that each group is living up to a
bargain and doing so for its own benefit.
Thomas Hobbes, in his book “Leviathan”, argued for
obedience of the
monarch, as did
Locke. It was not his conclusions that alarmed the
aristocracy but rather
Hobbes’ reasoning for them. The focus on
reason in both
Hobbes’ and
Locke’s
arguments clearly emphasizes how the
Enlightenment focus on
logic had found its way into
political thought.
The reason
Hobbes sought a non-religious justification for the
monarch’s rule was obvious. He wrote during the
Reformation when a string of monarchs alternating between
Catholicism and
Protestantism took the
British throne. When the populace will not acknowledge the religious justification for a monarch of the opposite faith, another line of argumentation for
obedience is needed.
Hobbes found this, in traditional
Enlightenment fashion, through a
thought experiment. He challenged his readers to imagine man in the
state of nature. Without
laws and
government,
Hobbes concluded that life in such a world would be “
nasty, brutish, and short.” Virtually any
government, he concluded, would be better than none. He concludes that since it benefits us to do so, we should be loyal to
monarch.
It seems that
Hobbes has ended where be begun, but it is not so. By shifting the focus of why somebody
obeys to their own
self interest,
Hobbes opens the field to greater challenges to the establishment.
The first such major challenge was issued by
John Locke. It was not his intent to have the
monarch overthrown, but rather to re-enforce the idea of why one should
obey.
Locke’s “
Two Treatises on Government”, published in
1680, explain that in order to avoid the dangers inherent to living in the
state of nature, man creates government to lift him out of
anarchy.
This is another radical shift in thought. Not only is the
monarchy not derived from
God himself, but it is a creation of the people!
Locke argued that all men had certain
natural rights. These include the right to
life,
liberty, and
property. Along with the right to possess each of these things,
Locke claimed that man has the right to
defend them as well.
Locke saw society as a
contract in which people give up their
natural right to defend themselves and their property to a
government that does this for them. The view of government as a
tool is known as an
instrumental political philosophy. The
government enters into a
contract with the people to provide
protection and
impartial courts in exchange for
obedience.
Locke claimed that if a
government starts to act outside of the role we created it for, or fails to live up to its side of the bargain, then we have a right to
rebel against it. Of course,
Locke said, poor people don’t have enough property to enter into the
social contract and the well-being of
women is represented by their
fathers or
husbands. As such, members of these groups have no
right to
rebel.
While it may not be very
egalitarian,
Locke’s idea that a people can be
justified in
disobeying a
government that has broken the
social contract was earth-shaking. His appeal was on the grounds of explaining why the people should obey the
government but it was this very powerful
exception that provided the ideological basis for the
American Revolution.
If one examines the
American Constitution, the ideas of the
classical liberals are throughout it. The purpose of the
government is to protect the
individual rights of the people and that
government derives its
authority from the people themselves.
While
classical liberalism is not
democracy, remember both
Locke and
Hobbes were defending the
secular justification for
monarchy, it was a vital step along that path.