preview

Libertarianism Vs Classical Liberalism

Decent Essays

Classical Liberalism is an ideology with its focus on individual liberty with a limited government. The belief that an individual should have the freedom to pursue and be responsible for their own life. It stems from an idea that humans, as a whole, are generally good in nature, and that people should have rights apart from the government. These rights include the right to pursue happiness, the right to financial success, or even failure, and the right to free speech and freedom of religion. Individuals have equal opportunities in life, but not equal materialistic beginnings or gains. You had the right to own land, but it was up to the individual to obtain it. Classical Libertarians thought the role of government should be very limited, …show more content…

The basic concept that the individual has the right to liberty is still there. However the role of government has changed. The modern Liberal feels that the purpose of government not only to protect individual rights, but to also provide social welfare, benefiting society as a whole, (Downes, yaliberty.org). This would include things like financial assistance, universal health care, and free and equal education. Also todays Libertarian party supports the government enforcing more rules and regulations to big corporations. The political platform of todays Liberal can seem misleading to some. One example of this is individual abortion rights. Modern Libertarianism supports the right of the individual to be able to make their own decision to have an abortion, the government should not have a say in the matter. This shows support for the classical belief that government should not play a big part in an individuals life. However, by contrast, todays Liberal political platform also feels that the government should not perform executions – even for convicted serial killers, (Goodman ncpa.org). This directly goes against the classical view that the governments role is to protect the individuals

Get Access