Before anything, let's look at the article from The Economist.
What is the perspective of the author? What are they saying?
To begin, the second unit will be answering the following question:
We will be looking at the Beginnings of Liberalism and answering the following questions:
To what extent is is resistance to Liberalism justified?
To begin, let's look at a definition of Liberalism:
"A collection of ideologies all committed to the principle of the dignity and freedom of the individual as the foundation of society. Liberalism has faith in human progress and tends to favour decentralized power, both in political and economic affairs, and respect for the sovereignty of the reasoning individual."
Is this different than what we have seen thus far? Why do you think so?
In order to understand this, we need to look at the development of liberalism.
To begin, we need to look at a summary the things that are important to classic liberalism:
Rule of Law
Individual Rights and Freedoms
Private Property
Economic Freedom
Self Interest
Competition
Look familiar?
It also promotes 'free market economics' and 'limited government'
What do these mean?
Now: Here are the principles of CLASSIC LIBERALISM!
-the primacy of individual rights and freedoms, to be exercised in the individual's self interest.
-the belief that humams are reasonable and can make rational decisions that will benefit both themselves and society as a whole
-economic freedom, involving the ownership of private property and free markets(markets with limited government intervention)
-the protection of civil liberties
-constitutional limitations on the government
Class discussion:
How can this be said to be 'liberal'? For each principle, where do we see it being practiced? More importantly, where is it not being practiced?
For homework, please read 105-110 in your textbook.(up to The origins of Laissez-Faire Economics).