Classical Liberalism Explained
John Locke and the theory of Natural Rights
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the idea of the rule of law contained within the Magna Carta came to be generalised into the idea that it was fundamentally necessary to limit the powers of the Crown to defend the rights of the subjects. This idea came to be called Liberalism.
The word Liberalism can also be used to refer to support of left-wing politics but the older meaning of the term is still seen in the phrase “liberal democracy.” Democracy is rule by the people but, because unanimous consensus on the scale of nations is impossible, democracy is functionally the rule of the majority. That is a terrible idea. In a society where the majority rule, 51 % of the people can vote to have the remaining 49 % murdered and it will be done. Liberal democracy solves this problem by explicitly severely limiting the powers of the elected government to defend the rights of the minority. And the smallest minority is the individual. It was upon this basis that the 17th Century philosopher John Locke argued in favour of the belief that the individual is entitled to certain G-d given inalienable rights called Natural Rights and the sole purpose for which governments exist is to protect these rights. Locke posited that any government that acts against the Natural Rights of its citizens must be violently overthrown and replaced with a new government that respects their rights. (For this reason, Locke was opposed to legislation restricting firearm ownership.) Locke’s ideas, known as Classical Liberalism, inspired Thomas Jefferson to write the United States Declaration of Independence, which expressed the same philosophy. Indeed, the 20th Century libertarian economist Friedrich August Hayek, in his essay Why I am not a Conservative, posited that Americans could call themselves Conservatives and still be champions of liberty because American Conservatives sought to conserve a revolution based upon Classical Liberalism.
