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Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed and equality before the law. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but they generally support individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), liberal democracy, secularism, rule of law, economic and political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, private property and a market economy.

Liberalism became a distinct movement in the Age of Enlightenment, gaining popularity among Western philosophers and economists. Liberalism sought to replace the norms of hereditary privilege, state religion, absolute monarchy, the divine right of kings and traditional conservatism with representative democracy and the rule of law. Liberals also ended mercantilist policies, royal monopolies and other barriers to trade, instead promoting free trade and marketization. Philosopher John Locke is often credited with founding liberalism as a distinct tradition, based on the social contract, arguing that each man has a natural right to life, liberty and property and governments must not violate these rights. While the British liberal tradition has emphasized expanding democracy, French liberalism has emphasized rejecting authoritarianism and is linked to nation-building. (Full article...)

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The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties in the United Kingdom, along with the Conservative Party, in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Beginning as an alliance of Whigs, free trade–supporting Peelites and reformist Radicals in the 1850s, by the end of the 19th century it had formed four governments under William Gladstone. Despite being divided over the issue of Irish Home Rule, the party returned to government in 1905 and won a landslide victory in the 1906 general election.

Under prime ministers Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1905–1908) and H. H. Asquith (1908–1916), the Liberal Party passed reforms that created a basic welfare state. Although Asquith was the party leader, its dominant figure was David Lloyd George. Asquith was overwhelmed by the wartime role of coalition prime minister and Lloyd George replaced him in late 1916, but Asquith remained as Liberal Party leader. The split between Lloyd George's breakaway faction and Asquith's official Liberal Party badly weakened the party. (Full article...)

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Universal Declaration of Human Rights Classical liberalism Social liberalism Neoliberalism Liberal Movement (Australia) Modern liberalism in the United States Progressivism in the United States Civil rights movement Fair Deal Liberal Republican Party (United States) New Deal New Democrats Charles Sumner Radical Republicans Progressive Era The Demands of Liberal Education Great Society Square Deal Right-libertarianism The New Freedom Libertarianism New Frontier List of liberal theorists Glorious Revolution Civil liberties Liberty Judicial independence Universal suffrage Suffrage Women's suffrage History of liberalism National Liberal Party-Brătianu Liberal Party of Canada National Peasants' Party People's Party for Freedom and Democracy Social democracy Social justice Orange Revolution Partnership for Civil Justice Fund Libertarian Party (United States) Liberal Democrats (UK) Liberal Revolution of 1820 Liberal welfare reforms Liberal Alliance (Denmark) Left-wing politics Boston Tea Party Storming of the Bastille

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Thomas Hill Green (7 April 1836 – 26 March 1882), known as T. H. Green, was an English philosopher, political radical and temperance reformer, and a member of the British idealism movement. Like all the British idealists, Green was influenced by the metaphysical historicism of G. W. F. Hegel. He was one of the thinkers behind the philosophy of social liberalism. (Full article...)

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John Locke John Stuart Mill John Dewey Norberto Bobbio John Rawls Isaiah Berlin David Lloyd George Jeremy Bentham

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“ Masked in smiles and peasant charm, or in anger, the Russian Premier releases his deepest feelings, and if we are not shaken by them, it is because we are not in close touch with reality. In the West, the connections between opinion, feeling, and bodily motion have been broken. We have lost the expressive power. It is in the use of such power, falsely exploiting his Russian and peasant background, that Khrushchev has shown himself to be an adept. He has passion always ready to exploit, and thought he lies, he has the advantage. The principles of Western liberalism seem no longer to lend themselves to effective action. Deprived of the expressive power, we are awed by it, have a hunger for it, and are afraid of it. Thus we praise the gray dignity of our soft-spoken leaders, but in our hearts we are suckers for passionate outbursts, even when those passionate outbursts are hypocritical and falsely motivated. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity." ” — Saul Bellow, It All Adds Up, 1994.

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General images

The following are images from various liberalism-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1John Locke, who was the first to develop a liberal philosophy, including the right to private property and the consent of the governed (from Liberalism)
Image 2Wealth inequality in the United States increased from 1989 to 2013. (from Neoliberalism)
Image 3Friedrich Hayek (from Neoliberalism)
Image 4Builders in West Berlin, 1952 (from Neoliberalism)
Image 5John Maynard Keynes, one of the most influential economists of modern times and whose ideas, which are still widely felt, formalized modern liberal economic policy (from Liberalism)
Image 6The European Union–Mercosur free trade agreement, which would form one of the world's largest free trade areas, has been denounced by environmental activists and indigenous rights campaigners. (from Neoliberalism)
Image 7Unemployment in Chile and South America (1980–1990) (from Neoliberalism)
Image 8Raif Badawi, a Saudi Arabian writer and the creator of the website Free Saudi Liberals, who was sentenced to ten years in prison and 1,000 lashes for "insulting Islam" in 2014 (from Liberalism)
Image 9Julius Faucher (from Liberalism)
Image 10Madame de Staël (from Liberalism)
Image 11January 1933 color photo of Franklin D. Roosevelt as the Man of the Year of Time (from Liberalism)
Image 12Thomas Hill Green, an influential liberal philosopher who established in Prolegomena to Ethics (1884) the first major foundations for what later became known as positive liberty and in a few years his ideas became the official policy of the Liberal Party in Britain, precipitating the rise of social liberalism and the modern welfare state (from Liberalism)
Image 13Sismondi, who wrote the first critique of the free market from a liberal perspective in 1819 (from Liberalism)
Image 14The Great Depression with its periods of worldwide economic hardship formed the backdrop against which Keynesian Revolution took place (the image is Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother depiction of destitute pea-pickers in California, taken in March 1936) (from Liberalism)
Image 15Ludwig Erhard (from Neoliberalism)
Image 16Chilean (orange) and average Latin American (blue) rates of growth of GDP (1971–2007) (from Neoliberalism)
Image 17Benjamin Constant, a Franco-Swiss political activist and theorist (from Liberalism)
Image 18Montesquieu, who argued for the separation of the powers of government (from Liberalism)
Image 19As a liberal nationalist, K. J. Ståhlberg (1865–1952), the President of Finland, anchored the state in liberal democracy, guarded the fragile germ of the rule of law, and embarked on internal reforms. (from Liberalism)
Image 20John Stuart Mill, whose On Liberty greatly influenced the course of 19th century liberalism (from Liberalism)
Image 21Per capita income during the Great Depression (from Neoliberalism)
Image 22Execution of José María de Torrijos y Uriarte and his men in 1831 as Spanish King Ferdinand VII took repressive measures against the liberal forces in his country (from Liberalism)
Image 23Mary Wollstonecraft, widely regarded as the pioneer of liberal feminism (from Liberalism)
Image 24The iconic painting Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix, a tableau of the July Revolution in 1830 (from Liberalism)
Image 25Pamphlet calling for a protest of economic policy in 1983 following the economic crisis (from Neoliberalism)
Image 26Gustave de Molinari (from Liberalism)
Image 272017 Russian protests were organized by Russia's liberal opposition (from Liberalism)
Image 28GDP per capita in Chile and Latin America 1950–2010 (time under Pinochet highlighted) (from Neoliberalism)
Image 29Member nations of the International Monetary Fund (from Neoliberalism)
Image 30John Milton's Areopagitica (1644) argued for the importance of freedom of speech (from Liberalism)
Image 31United States incarceration rate per 100,000 population, 1925–2013 (from Neoliberalism)

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