Like most things Liberalism did not arrive fully formed, it has progressed in stages. In my opinion Liberalism has 9 stages that it has passed through and the latest one that it is still in. It has taken many wrong turns, had many false dawns and has had many failures. But because the endpoint is understood, the Autonomous Individual, that means that these can be corrected. It also means that people and organisations can start their own initiatives without any central authority. The logic of Liberalism is brilliant. This logic stops opposition as they are often reacting to something that Liberalism has begun.
The 10 stages are:
The Proto-Stage
The Reformation
The English Revolution
The Enlightenment
The French Revolution
Organisation
Progessivism
Liberal Socialism
Death of Classical Liberalism
End of the Cold War
Each stage overlaps with it's neighbour and while I will provide dates, depending upon the location these can vary.
The Proto-Stage
In the Ancient world there were Liberal ideas, it did not spring from nothing. You can find these ideas come from the Greeks, the Bible and the Romans, Republican and Imperial. But none of these survived in anything but the written word, or the implied written word. In the Middle Ages you start to find proto-Liberal ideas as well. Nearly always these are Christian ideas that the church declares to be a heresy.
The Reformation
Whether Protestantism is a heresy or not is an argument for another day, what is beyond dispute is that the Catholic Church viewed it as such. Officially, it was regarded as a heresy until the Cold War. For the history of Liberalism the Reformation is important because it allows ideas that were once kept in check to exist and even to thrive. It also introduced arguments that attacked the very foundation of Christian belief. Here is where the idea that church and state were separate things began and that the state decided that it was supreme.
The English Revolution
The English Civil War was fought in the 1640's, but it didn't end until the Glorious Revolution of 1688. The war was not simply a political conflict, it was also a religious conflict. Between Anglican and Puritan. The Puritans won, twice, and that would push ideas that started within religion to move into political philosophy. And in time into Ideology. Thomas Hobbes book Leviathan would also provide a foundation for Liberalism because he introduced the idea of the social contract, a contract between the individual and the state. Not between families, or communities, in Leviathan there is only the individual and the state. This was also the time of the Levelers and the Quakers. A time of radical thinking. The Glorious Revolution was the second victory of the puritans, it transformed England into the first Liberal state. Not a liberalism we would recognise, but the beginnings of one.
The Enlightenment
The 1700's is generally regarded as the period of the Enlightenment. What started with the Reformation takes it next big step here. The rejection of the supernatural in all it's forms, superstition, prophecy, miracles and God. And the institutions that believe in the supernatural. Man is now to take control of his own destiny. This also leads to the rejection of the past, particularly the Middle Ages. It also see's the creation of the second Liberal state, the United States.
The French Revolution
Whether the French Revolution is Liberal or not is up for debate. It certainly pushed ideas that are now regarded as Liberal. It was it's violent rejection of God, Church and King which was a radical departure from the past. This let to two different paths, one which was championed in the English speaking world said that personal liberty and property rights were supreme, that trade, free trade was the right policy. The second path was the European path which said that the state existed to make decisions and that the individual was free to do what they wanted as long as the state approved.
Organisation
Before the 1830's Liberalism was ill-defined and its adherents were generally unorganised. They came together for a campaign, against slavery for example, and then went their own way. Now they began to form more permanent organisations. Here is were most political parties start to be formed, before that they were loose groupings, now they became organised and disciplined. This also meant that they began to push their agenda in an organised way. Before this time it is unusual to find laws that are clearly Liberal, from the 1830's that changes dramatically. This is also the age of Laissez Faire.
Progressivism
From roughly 1880-1920 the Progressives seek to bridge the gap between Liberalism and the working class. Liberalism up until the Organisation Stage was hostile to the working class, it viewed them as unnecessary, even as a hindrance to property rights. Up until the 1880's it tried to ignore them, without success. Progessivism was Liberal unless that Liberalism worked against the working class. It tried to humanize Liberalism, which had revealed that it had quite a vicious side.
Liberal Socialism
The First World War saw most of Europe adopt a form of war socialism. Much of Liberalism was suspended for the duration. No free press, no free movement of labour, no free movement of goods or money. The economy in most countries saw the adoption of socialist economic policies. After the war that tended to drop of but it was not forgotten and when the Second World War came those same Socialist economic policies were taken up again. For most people the two wars showed that Socialism could be used within a Liberal Democracy. This continued into the 1980's.
Death of Classical Liberalism
Socialism is about as far from Laissez Faire economics as you can get. By the 1950's there started a revolt within Liberalism. A branch wanted to get back to a more open economy. At the same time Communist ideas had made their way into Liberalism. The idea of Class Warfare helped the death of Classical Liberalism. In it's place Right Liberals who wanted an open economy, Left Liberals who wanted what they regarded as a fairer society and Feminists who wanted women to take their place within Liberalism, came into being. Slowly the older styles of Liberalism waned to be replaced by these newer forms.
End of the Cold War
Once the Cold War ended Liberalism began to believe that it could see the endpoint, the Autonomous Individual. Certainly a lot of effort had gone into his creation. It believed that from this point on it had no serious rivals and that it was simply a case of deciding what it wanted and perfecting it. However it has started to understand that it has limitations, something it did not accept. It is like a marathon runner who isn't sure how far away the finish line is but he can feel his energy running out. But he is still running, he hasn't stopped, he is convinced that the finish line exists and that he is close.
As you can see Liberalism has had many twists and turns and I left out many of them. I wanted to present to you an overview that shows how it has changed over time and not always in the obvious way. It has, as I said at the start, taken many false paths and recovered. The genius of Liberalism is that it has an endpoint that can be worked towards. It's second genius is it's patience, something we need to learn.
For those of us who are not Liberals the finish line is not there, but that will not stop them from causing a lot of trouble trying to get there. The story of Liberalism is no where near it's end and so is the story of those of us who oppose it.
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