French Liberalism in the 19th Century: An Anthology


Burke [credited] educated prejudice as an antidote to its bigoted forms. This did not entail a renunciation of reason, but a suspicion of its inordinate pretensions. Bourke, in Dwan and Insole Scruton echoes Burke when he argues that beliefs that appear to be examples of prejudice may be useful and important; the attempt to justify them will merely lead to their loss.

One might show prejudice as irrational, but there will be a loss if it is discarded Scruton We are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock of reason…the stock in each man is small, and…individuals would do better to avail themselves of the general bank and capital of nations and of ages…. Prejudice is of ready application in the emergency; it previously engages the mind in a steady course of wisdom and virtue and does not leave the man hesitating in the moment of decision sceptical, puzzled, and unresolved.

Rejecting the dominant individualist cognitive tradition in Western epistemology, Burke regards political reason as historically accumulated in developed social institutions—including an unwritten constitution, practices of representation, and dispositions notably of compromise. According to Himmelfarb, there is for Burke good reason—reason itself—to praise prejudice, which exists on a continuum with theoretical reason Himmelfarb b. However, Hampsher-Monk argues that. For Hume and Burke this is a customary framework; for religious thinkers such as Cardinal Newman it is fideistic, appealing to the extra-rational authority of religious doctrine.

Prejudice is normative; the inability to subsume particular actions under a universal law does not imply radical relativism Vannatta For the classical liberal, in contrast, reason precisely does not operate within customary frameworks. Burkean conservatism influenced Continental European traditions, but these also had a separate development. De Tocqueville —59 was probably the most Burkean among 19 th century Continental conservatives in his condemnation of the French Revolution:. Our revolutionaries had the same fondness for broad generalisations, cut-and-dried legislative systems, and a pedantic symmetry; the same contempt for hard facts; the same taste for reshaping institutions on novel, ingenious, original lines…[for reconstructing] the entire system instead of trying to rectify its faulty parts.

Though Beiser argues that they arrived at their position independently. The historians von Savigny — and von Ranke — assumed a Burkean organic development of societies. To reiterate, reaction is not Burkean conservatism, however. De Maistre — was a reactionary critic of reason, intellectuals and universal rights. In an alternative tradition to Burkean conservatism, Continental conservatives have subscribed to Thomist or Hegelian traditions, resulting in rational or systematic conservatism—which might include reactionary forms.

John Gray argues that. Conservatives have sometimes disdained theoretical reflection on political life, implying that political knowledge is…best left inarticulate, uncorrupted by rationalist systematising. The [19 th and 20 th ] centuries are nevertheless replete with conservative thought…as systematic and reflective as any found in the liberal tradition.

Rational conservatives are, who maintain that a community with a hierarchy of authority is most conducive to human well-being—though they also regard agent-relative virtues such as loyalty and patriotism as fundamental, holding that it is universally true that patriotism is a virtue. This is clearly the standpoint of authority rather than the standpoint of freedom see 1. Hegel — is a key figure in the understanding of rational conservatism.

Surprisingly for a standpoint that stresses the value of experience, conservatism—Hume excepted—has been associated more with Idealism than with empiricism; philosophical empiricists have commonly been radicals. Hegel has been claimed for conservatism, but his political affiliation has been disputed since his earliest disciples.

For them, Geist did not invoke a transcendent power, as some Right Hegelians maintained, but was an anthropological and historical process of emancipation, propelled by contradiction and struggle. In the 20 th century, Hegel was regarded alternatively as a proto-totalitarian reactionary, a conservative, or a liberal.

Hegel was ambivalent towards the French Revolution, the world-historical event against which his generation thought out their political philosophy and stance towards the Enlightenment Taylor Some writers thus claim Hegel for liberalism rather than conservatism, regarding his philosophy as. The contemporary consensus sees Hegel as attempting to synthesise liberalism and conservatism. For Cristi, his rapprochement is not an eclectic blend of liberal and conservative strands of thought, but a systematic synthesis:.

While Hegel does not appeal to non-human natural law or providential order, he attempts to reconcile human reason with historical laws and institutions:.

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For Hegel, unlike Burke, the political order must ultimately be justified to human reason, although not in the individualistic manner that typifies Enlightenment rationalism. The Idea of the state unites its divine character with the Rousseauean view that it is the product of human will and rationality Franco The essence of the modern state is that the universal should be linked with the complete freedom of particularity and the well-being of individuals…the personal knowledge and volition of the particular individuals who must retain their rights…Only when both moments are present in full measure can the state be regarded as…truly organised.

Hegel argues that in morality and politics, we judge for ourselves, but not by ourselves. We come to recognise rational norms historically, as actualised; we always reason in terms of the norms of our society, which we must nonetheless endorse only reflectively. But for Skorupski, Hegel holds that free thought or natural reason must be mediated by entrenched institutions of intellectual and spiritual authority: The right and the moral must have the ethical as their support and foundation, for the right lacks…subjectivity, while morality in turn possesses this [alone].

Hegel accepts that an ethical life is historically contingent, even arbitrary, in content, yet insists on its essential role in every society, and its need to develop organically. For him, some kinds of Sittlichkeit are more advanced than others; at any one time, a more advanced society drives world history forward by realising it in its institutions, customs, culture new ideas.

This position goes beyond the minimal rationality and universality of conservatism, which makes no reference to historical advance. Samuel Taylor Coleridge is the thinker chiefly responsible for introducing German Idealism to English-speaking readers, though in the person of Kant rather than Hegel. Coleridge argued for a national Church exercising spiritual, moral and cultural leadership, maintaining schools in conjunction with the state.

The work of major Victorian thinker and writer Thomas Carlyle — bears a complex relationship with conservatism; in his later career he was a reactionary. Conservatism does not rest on a defence of a landed nobility, monarchy and established church, so even though the United States lacks these, an American conservatism is possible. Thus Gray argues that right-wing thought in the USA is almost exclusively neo-conservative and libertarian, with a.

But it is probably true that Burkean conservatism has not produced thinkers in North America of the depth of its leading British representatives, Burke himself, Coleridge and Oakeshott. Henry Sidgwick — arguably belongs in the ranks of modern conservatives. When all relevant facts are taken into consideration [he holds] it will scarcely ever be right on Utilitarian grounds for a Utilitarian openly to break or to recommend others to break the rules of morality commonly accepted in his society. Hayward notes, with exasperation, that rather than insisting. Hayward in Schultz ed. An important issue that connects the conservatism of Hume, Burke, Sidgwick is what people have reason to expect over time.

Suppose one holds that justice requires X , but that people have long been doing Y , which is incompatible with X , and have entered into life-plans that assume that X is how things are. If one tries to make society more just by preventing people doing Y , that in itself is an unjust action. But in our actual imperfect world. Every reform of an imperfect practice or institution is likely to be unfair to someone …To change the rules in the middle of the game, even when those rules were not altogether fair, will disappoint the honest expectations of those whose prior commitments and life plans were made in genuine reliance on the…old rules.

The propriety of changing the rules in a given case depends upon inter alia the degree of unfairness of the old rules and the extent and degree of the reliance placed upon them…we must weigh quite legitimate incompatible claims against each other in circumstances such that whichever judgment is reached it will be unfair to someone or other Feinberg Michael Oakeshott —90 was the last major exponent of the Idealist tradition, which enjoyed a period of eminence in Anglophone philosophy in the later 19 th and early 20 th century. He has been regarded as a liberal Franco , while others claim him for the afore-mentioned maverick right Anderson But Oakeshott is generally regarded as the most important modern conservative.

He contrasted a state that has an economy, with a state effectively reduced to an economy, and bemoaned the domination of politics by the pursuit of economic growth as opposed to the good life. For Oakeshott, human knowledge is not the mother of practice, but only its stepchild…an exfoliation from [practices] that we have inherited…When we theorise our practices, we are discerning coherences within them, not imposing form without any set of abstract principles.

Gray , Other Internet Resources. In his book of essays Rationalism in Politics , Oakeshott is concerned with how the rationalist conception of knowledge has operated to the detriment of practice. This conception of knowledge holds that all genuine knowledge can be expressed entirely in propositional terms, in a theoretical system, or a set of rules or maxims. Oakeshott holds that in the modern world, the resulting instrumental rationality has penetrated inappropriate areas such as law, education and the arts—his thought thus interestingly parallels that of Critical Theorists such as Adorno, and also Heidegger.

Means-end thinking concerning the state is particularly inappropriate, as we have no choice but to belong to it, Oakeshott maintains. Politics is not the science of setting up a permanently impregnable society, it is the art of knowing where to go next in the exploration of an already existing traditional kind of society. Ideologists make everything political, but politics is only a part of human life, he holds.

For Oakeshott, civil associations, are fundamental to modern, free democracies, and opposed to the modern interventionist state. Enterprise associations, in contrast, are defined by a common purpose; society is not one of them. Politics, for Oakeshott, belongs to the mode of practice, along with religion and morality; the two other modes are science and history.

We again see that conservatism, although a practical standpoint that appeals to experience, does not rest on philosophical empiricism. Oakeshott is a Burkean particularist sceptic, for whom politics concerns people developing ways of living together in light of their history and traditions, not driven by universal extrinsic goals such as equality or elimination of poverty:. In political activity…men sail a boundless and bottomless sea: The enterprise is to keep afloat on an even keel… When the mechanic has to mend a watch, he lets the wheels run out, but the living watchworks of the state have to be repaired while they act, and a wheel has to be exchanged for another during its revolutions.

Aesthetic Education , Letter 3. However, Gamble adds, that disposition gains substance from its connection with national ways of life and traditions:. For Oakeshott, the past conceived in this way is intensely liberating because it is a repository of a wealth of practical knowledge, which is needed to live the good life. For him, conversation is the model of education. In a position reminiscent of J. Unlike many non-Millian liberals, however, Oakeshott does not base his requirement of limited government in an abstract theory of human nature, and abstract rights.

Other notable 20 th century conservative thinkers include historian Maurice Cowling and philosopher Anthony Quinton. Probably the leading living thinker is Roger Scruton, who bases conservatism on three concepts: He rejects post-Hobbesian contractualism, which presupposes. It is only somewhat Hegelian, because for Burkean conservatives, history lacks the moral or spiritual direction that Hegel discerned; there is no moral or spiritual progress, and people think collectively toward a common goal only during a crisis such as war.

As we saw, established power that originates in revolution poses a problem for conservatism. Relativistic conservatives, in contrast, might accept these systems. On his view, tradition is inescapable, and societies rather rigid. True conservatism is a decidedly English doctrine with little appeal…in other countries [because] only English and hence British institutions have ever been decent enough to allow a decent [person] to be conservative. As conservatives such as Burke supported the Revolution, so they should support the non-violent uprisings of We saw that Burke regarded tradition and individual reason as contradictory principles, but may have endorsed a notion of collective reason Beveridge and Turnbull Conservatives would reply that Burke does stress the importance of incremental change, while Oakeshott, like MacIntyre, has an interrogative attitude to tradition.

Moreover, the communitarian opposition to liberal values is limited, and does not extend to advocacy of religious intolerance and homogeneity or patriarchal authority see Taylor ; Waldron —though neither does the anti-liberalism of Burkean conservatives. A further consideration is that traditional methods may not always yield the most practical responses Scott Millian liberalism is less subject to the conservative charge of rationalism.

As Gamble puts it,. Oakeshott rejects the universal claims of liberalism, because he is only interested in claims that are grounded in English political experience. Bentham and—on some views—Burke seem to conceive only of legal rights; but if one can make sense of moral obligation, one can make sense of abstract rights. Some writers on the left find value in conservatism. But as they are ought to read as we have made them by unjust coercion, by treacherous designs which the government is in a good position to carry out. Men make their own history, but [not] under circumstances chosen by themselves…The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.

While Lenin aimed to impose a socialist blueprint through a vanguard party of specialists, for his Marxist critics Luxemburg and Kollontai, revolutionary tasks are unknowable in advance:. Given the uncertainty of the endeavour, a plurality of experiments and initiatives will best reveal which lines of attack are fruitful…[and produce] a creative, conscious…and empowered working class.

by David M. Hart

An exploration of the history of French economic thought shows how a rich intellectual tradition developed during the nineteenth century, which has been. Political and economic liberalism has generally been considered to be of marginal import in France, but at an intellectual level, it is a different story.

Lord Hugh Cecil postulates within modern conservatism what he calls innate conservatism: D Broad, it has two sides:. The more worthy side [rational scepticism] [says] that social problems are so very complex that there is always a strong probability that some factor has been overlooked in any scheme of change…The less respectable side [mental inertia] is the dislike of novelty as such.

Rational scepticism, as a motive for rejecting a scheme that offers to remove admitted evils, involves two applications of probability. The first is…that social affairs are so complex that it is very improbable that all the effects of a given social change have been foreseen. But…we must have some ground for judging further that the unforeseen effects are more likely to be bad than good…this judgment cannot rest on the known nature of the effects of this particular measure [but only] on some general proposition, such as: It is more probable that the unforeseen effects of any social change will be bad than that they will be good.

Broad is alluding to the fact that every philosophical standpoint must confront the problem of how to treat its own defining claims, by its own lights. Conservatism seems unduly pessimistic about the possibility of individual, explicit knowledge of society, therefore.

Introduction

There are some things about society that we can come to know—and government economic policy, for instance, seems justifiably dedicated to finding them out. Conservatives must concede that radical change is sometimes acceptable; some major changes, for instance votes for women, are good. These must be prepared for—as they were in Britain in , compared with, say, —and preparing for change makes it less radical. What conservatives will insist is it that revolutionary change is unacceptable.

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Especially since the advent of green politics, there have been conservatives advocates for ecological conservation. A less noticed parallel is that between the opposition of cultural conservation and modernism, and that of conservatism and revolutionary Jacobinism Cohen , Other Internet Resources. Conservatives would criticise both developments. Leading modernist poet T. Eliot — was also an important conservative thinker, and so occupies an ambivalent position.

In contrast, the classical repertoire of Western art music is open and flexible, operating—when circumstances are propitious—as a living presence in contemporary culture. On a less exalted aesthetic level, the tuxedo is a living sartorial classic in this sense. These cultural issues are central to G. In this sense, everyone is conservative to some degree—for instance, in preferring to have cash in their pocket rather than converting to a cashless society.

Conservationism originated in the Victorian era. Morris argued that one should take delight in the history of old public buildings, and not seek to restore them to some pristine state of perfection. For Cohen, conservatives aim to conserve particular valuable things, rather than maximising value.

The conservative policy is not to keep the value rating high but to keep the things that now contribute to that rating. Conservatism is a relatively expensive taste, because it sacrifices value, in order not to sacrifice things that have value. It does not follow that conservatives welcome good new things any less than non-conservatives do, Cohen argues. However, Cohen continues, conservatives can regard modernisation as beneficial overall, while lamenting what has been lost—admiring a splendid new building, yet grieving over what it replaced.

French Liberalism in the 19th Century

Market and planning logics tend against the truth that people want particular valuable things, not just satisfaction of general desiderata…market mania is deeply anti-conservative…If you want everything to be optimal, nothing will be good. Some things have to just be…there, if anything is to be good. But although relativistic conservatives accept socially prevalent valuations, revising them piecemeal on the basis of internal inconsistency or impracticality, non-relativistic conservatives might deny that value can be quantified at all.

This model rejects the blueprint model involving an individual creator. Rather, the town or building evolves—apparently spontaneously, over generations—without reference to a blueprint, and often without stylistic consistency. The church as a building—or on the conservative model, a society—are like organisms, seemingly not the product of individual intentional action, but evolving naturally. Most English parish churches of medieval foundation were not built according to a single design, but developed by addition and subtraction; in the Middle Ages there was no profession of architect, and apparently little idea of an intentional, uniform schema generated prior to construction:.

A church building is inherently conservative, and except for the extraordinary intervention, changed very slowly.

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A large proportion of churches had been founded by at least the late 12 th century, many appearing in the Doomsday census of Elements from these early buildings often survive in the doorways or the base of towers, showing typical rounded arches and massive walls of the Norman style. Additions over time could include a reconstructed window, a new baptismal font, a tomb sculpture, or a series of carved wooden choir stalls for the clergy, attesting to differing eras of piety and style.

Stanbury and Raguin , Other Internet Resources. The parallel with conservative political thought is suggested by Scruton in his discussion of public space Scruton ; see also Hamilton, forthcoming. Scruton advocates a public art form on an urban scale, in the manner of treatises on urban decorum from the Renaissance onwards, which subordinate the style of the individual building to the whole.

Unlike models that achieve this subordination by conscious planning, Scruton envisages a process akin to the self-ordering of an ideal competitive market. The debate in architecture and aesthetics parallels that in the political sphere. For the conservative, there has to be some criterion of value in past things, involving in part their participation in a living tradition.

To develop and defend such a criterion is one of the major challenges facing conservative thinkers, in both political and cultural spheres. Conservatism First published Sat Aug 1, The Nature of Conservatism 1. The Development of Conservative Thought 2. Sidgwick, Oakeshott, Scruton 3. Critiques of conservatism 3.

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Reform must be practically and not theoretically-based: Conservatives aim to conserve the political arrangements that have historically shown themselves to be conducive to good lives thus understood For Graham, conservative scepticism is not so much a scepticism about the moral perfection of mankind, as a scepticism about the knowledge necessary in politics.

As Oakeshott argues A plan to resist all planning may be better than its opposite, but it belongs to the same style of politics. For him it is the intellectual justification of inequality and privilege, and the political justification of the authoritative relationships such inequalities and privileges demand.

While conservatism should not be assimilated with neo-conservatism or neo-liberalism, many conservatives have converted to the latter: Conservative thinking expresses the standpoint of paternalism: For Beiser, paternalism holds that the purpose of the state is to promote the welfare, religion and morality of its subjects, and not only to protect their rights. Writing in , he predicted the French Revolutionary Terror of three years later: As Steiner comments, When Burke reflected and published, the French Revolution was in its Arcadian phase [and] his bloodstained previsions seemed nearly hysterical…Retroactively… his sombre clairvoyance took on formidable weight.

In a speech of , he held it preposterous to take the theories which learned and speculative men have made from that government, and then, supposing it made on those theories which were made from it, to accuse that government as not corresponding with them. As Pocock writes, the reason of the living, though it might clearly enough discern the disadvantages, might not fully perceive the advantages of existing and ancient institutions; there is always more in laws and institutions than [meets] the eye of critical reason.

But to reiterate, Burke advocated organic and restorative reform, not reaction: Burke misrepresents the social contract of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau as a rather temporary expedient, nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico, or tobacco, or some other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties.

Ferguson Burke was a Christian thinker whose conservatism has been traced to his theological presuppositions Harris ; Cobban Mary Wollstonecraft, in her pamphlet A Vindication of the Rights of Men , said that had you been a Frenchman, you would have been, in spite of your respect for rank and antiquity, a violent revolutionist.

Marx scathingly dismissed Burke as an opportunist: Others have variously attempted to reconcile the earlier and later Burke. Churchill argued that the Burke of Liberty and the Burke of Authority [sought] the same ideals of society and Government…defining them from assaults, now from one extreme, now from the other. Burke is opposed not to reason, but to the arrogance of individual reason, therefore: De Tocqueville —59 was probably the most Burkean among 19 th century Continental conservatives in his condemnation of the French Revolution: John Gray argues that Conservatives have sometimes disdained theoretical reflection on political life, implying that political knowledge is…best left inarticulate, uncorrupted by rationalist systematising.

For Cristi, his rapprochement is not an eclectic blend of liberal and conservative strands of thought, but a systematic synthesis: Hegel thus synthesises the universal and the particular: He declared that the consequences of the heroic medicines recommended by the Revolutionists [are] far more dreadful than the disease. Thus Gray argues that right-wing thought in the USA is almost exclusively neo-conservative and libertarian, with a virtual absence…of anything comparable to European conservatism…United States conservative thought is merely an indigenous variation on classical liberal themes of limited government, individualism and economic progress [reflecting the] near-ubiquity in American intellectual culture of individualist, universalist and Enlightenment themes.

Sidgwick, Oakeshott, Scruton Henry Sidgwick — arguably belongs in the ranks of modern conservatives. Hayward notes, with exasperation, that rather than insisting that Sidgwick should be classified as this or that…it is extremely difficult to classify him at all. But in our actual imperfect world Every reform of an imperfect practice or institution is likely to be unfair to someone …To change the rules in the middle of the game, even when those rules were not altogether fair, will disappoint the honest expectations of those whose prior commitments and life plans were made in genuine reliance on the…old rules.

These are very Burkean themes. As Gray puts it, For Oakeshott, human knowledge is not the mother of practice, but only its stepchild…an exfoliation from [practices] that we have inherited…When we theorise our practices, we are discerning coherences within them, not imposing form without any set of abstract principles. Gray , Other Internet Resources In his book of essays Rationalism in Politics , Oakeshott is concerned with how the rationalist conception of knowledge has operated to the detriment of practice.

Oakeshott is a Burkean particularist sceptic, for whom politics concerns people developing ways of living together in light of their history and traditions, not driven by universal extrinsic goals such as equality or elimination of poverty: However, Gamble adds, that disposition gains substance from its connection with national ways of life and traditions: He rejects post-Hobbesian contractualism, which presupposes shared institutions and a conception of human freedom which could not have their origin in a social contract which they serve to make possible.

Communitarian critique As we saw, established power that originates in revolution poses a problem for conservatism. As Gamble puts it, Oakeshott rejects the universal claims of liberalism, because he is only interested in claims that are grounded in English political experience. The great American charters of the late 18 th century are, for him, abridgements of British political experience, solidified into an eternal document.

While Lenin aimed to impose a socialist blueprint through a vanguard party of specialists, for his Marxist critics Luxemburg and Kollontai, revolutionary tasks are unknowable in advance: D Broad, it has two sides: Cultural conservatism and conservation Especially since the advent of green politics, there have been conservatives advocates for ecological conservation.

Most English parish churches of medieval foundation were not built according to a single design, but developed by addition and subtraction; in the Middle Ages there was no profession of architect, and apparently little idea of an intentional, uniform schema generated prior to construction: Stanbury and Raguin , Other Internet Resources The parallel with conservative political thought is suggested by Scruton in his discussion of public space Scruton ; see also Hamilton, forthcoming. Turnbull, , Scotland After Enlightenment , Edinburgh: Vincent, , British Idealism: A Guide for the Perplexed , London: Miscellaneous Writings , Indianapolis: Party, Parliament and the American War— , Oxford: The French Revolution — , Oxford: The Origins of Modern Politics , London: Series of Essays , London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, Applewood Books, reprint of edition.

IV , London, Cambridge University Press, Volume 3, Accommodations , Cambridge: An Introduction and Anthology , London: Hegel, Marx, Arendt , London: An Introduction , Yale: Penn State University Press. Merquior argues that the theories of human rights, constitutionalism, and classical economics define classical liberal thought.

These scholars and others actually agree far more than they differ concerning the philosophy's components. For the purpose of this chronology and analysis, I shall apply a broad set of criteria to determine if an idea or individual fits within this intellectual tradition. In this context, classical liberalism includes the following:.

French Liberalism in the 19th Century: An Anthology, 1st Edition (Hardback) - Routledge

These characteristics do exclude certain thinkers commonly linked with classical liberalism, although they embrace far more individuals than they dismiss. Failure to exhibit them, however, does point to a very fundamental difference with the minds that compose the tradition. Two diverse cases of thinkers associated with yet not belonging to this ideology may serve as examples.

First, Jeremy Bentham and the utilitarians accepted limited rights and market economics as long as they provided the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Classical liberal ends thus served as convenient means to them, but the eventual ends they sought betrayed an intellectual collectivism incompatible with the above criteria.

From a different angle, Jean Jacques Rousseau's vision of the social contract, while also noteworthy, included an almost mystic notion of a general will. Such a concept created an unaccountable power elite to interpret and impose this will, by force if necessary. Again, vital components of classical liberal thought are offended. Neither Bentham nor Rousseau therefore are members of this legacy.

Any single attempt to chronicle the history of classical liberalism cannot do justice to the immense richness and diversity of the individuals or movements within it. In this story three distinct flavors coexist and often blend: Gray characterizes these three as competing yet complementary definitions of liberty, with Britain representing independence, France self-rule, and Germany self-realization Beyond these national differences, two parallel concepts survive throughout the history of classical liberalism irrespective of geographical boundaries.

One is predicated upon a negative view of human nature, accepting that people are equally fallen and incapable of perfection. It follows from this perspective that power must be limited because it would allow some corrupt individuals to do more harm than others.