POLS 102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Classical Liberalism, Limited Government, Revolutionary Struggle
30 Jan 2017
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Document Summary
Ideology term that originated at the time of the french revolution and denoted an. Best understood as a set of ideas. Classical liberalism liberalism is the most successful of all traditional ideologies. Based on the notion of the rational individual. Authority and law needs to be well justified as it limits the liberty of freedom, as such only a limited government can be justified; it"s basic task is to protect the equal liberty of citizens. Classical or laissez-faire liberty argues that state should not interfere in social or economic activities beyond basic minimum. New liberalism argues state should not intervene to ensure that all individuals enjoys at least some degree of freedom. Classical liberalism, if taken to the extremes, would allow people to starve. For believers in other ideologies, liberalism can be criticized because it prioritizes the individual over society as a whole, and because it rests on an over-optimistic assumption about individual rationality .
