Liberalism Is Defined by the Desire to Minimise the Roll of the State, Discuss

Liberalism is defined by the desire to minimise the roll of the state, discuss

Liberalism as an ideology revolves around the idea of freedom for the individual. This is due to the liberal view of human nature, they see humans as rational and unique and therefore are able to make decisions based on their interests. However the role of the state is interpreted differently by modern and classic liberals. Classical liberals believe in less state intervention as the individual should not receive external constraints this is known as negative freedom. In contrast, modern liberals promote positive freedom and believe state intervention is vitally important as i prevents social disadvantage and inequality.

According to classical liberals, the state is at best as, in Thomas Paine’s words, a ‘necessary evil’. If the state is necessary it should lay down the conditions for orderly existence. They also believe the state restricts individualism as the state  composes a collective will on society, thereby limiting freedom and responsibilities  of the individual. Classical liberals such as John Locke, “the father of liberalism”, have argued that in order for the state to achieve and uphold its core principles such as individualism and liberty, then the frontiers of the state should be rolled back and state power curbed, An example of this is Thomas Jeffersons quote “an effective government is one who governs least”. This allows the government to protect individuals freedoms whilst not placing constraints.

A major debate at the heart of liberalism is how to achieve freedom, positive freedom where the state ‘enables and empowers’ the individual to do more and therefore the individual is more free, or negative freedom where the government should be rolled back and not constrain the individual and allow them be able to do thing and to allow the individual to grow with minimal state intervention. Classical  liberals mirror this with the core principle of individualism where due to classical liberals optimistic view of human nature they believe that it is in the human nature to be rational and not take advantage of less state intervention, a key argument for this being when John Locke argued that the state of nature “wasn’t bad” due to humans being sensitive and sensible, but it was as rational beings, without the need for state intervention state that we realised the state of law would be ‘better’. This argument by Locke means that even with a smaller state people would still be sensible enough to not infringe upon others rights. Similarly, Thomas Hobbes believed government was formed through a social construct and argued only a strong government, preferably a monarchy, would be able to establish order and security in society. This therefore highlights that modern liberals accept state intervention to an extent as the individuals freedom is still critically important.

Classical liberals would also reject the idea of a welfare state as due to the principle of individualism, a welfare state would only prevent the chance for the individual to grow as it would lead to a ‘dependency culture’ and not allow the individual to stand on their own two feet. Individuals make what they want, and when they can, of their own lives. This implies those with the ability to work will prosper, while incompetent will  not. This idea was portrayed by  Samuel Smiles wrote the book self help in 1859 and in it talked about how “heaven helps those who help themselves” and in not helping the individual it incentivises them to better themselves to improve. This brought along supporters of laissez-faire therefore infers minimising the state.

However classical liberals argue that the state are their to defend your natural rights so it goes along with that to suggest that some classical liberals would see minimising the role of the state as going against the very reason we moved from a state of nature to a state of law and that was for the protection of our individual rights.

Liberalism during its evolution then moved on to ‘millite or transitional liberalism.’ This period of liberalism was closely linked with the philosopher J.S. Mill. Mill argued that the state shouldn’t infringe upon our individual rights unless it was to protect the liberty of another individual due to the “harm principle”. Moreover, in order to achieve liberty, a core principle of Liberalism, the individuals liberty must be protected, and J.S Mill highlighted that “The engine of individuality is the liberty of the individual” this implies that there should be a smaller state in such that it doesn’t infringe upon the liberties of any individuals, however it could be argued that there should be a larger state so that the liberties of individuals are well protected from others such as by using ‘the harm principle’. Mill also believed that you had to liberalise before you democratise and in this sense, it is only logical that the state must expand in order to provide the education which according to mill was needed in order to liberalise society.