The English political theorist Leonard Hobhouse, in his book Liberalism (1911), makes the following observation: “The modern State accordingly starts from the basis of an authoritarian order, and the protest against that order, a protest religious, political, economic, social, and ethical, is the historic beginning of Liberalism.”
The point Hobhouse is making here is that nation states, and the monarchies and empires that preceded them, were not configured to provide their citizens with the liberties we now take for granted. This is, after all, where the word liberalism comes from: liberty (from the Latin libertas, which means freedom).
So, liberalism is a political philosophy that centers on the idea of people being afforded fundamental freedoms or rights. This in turn — and this is where things can get complicated — requires the state to restrain certain practices among its citizens.
For example, I am free to worship whatever or whomever I choose. If I want, I can worship Winnie-the-Pooh. However, I cannot commit human sacrifice in the woods (or anywhere else for that matter) in my worship of Winnie-the-Pooh. The law prevents me from taking human life; this would constitute a clear and obvious infringement of the victim’s rights.
Moreover, no one or no law can force you to worship him with me. You are protected from such coercion; such coercion would be an infringement of your rights. You have the right to worship freely as well as not be murdered by a Winnie-the-Pooh cult (or by anyone else). You have rights protecting your person and property. And this is really where liberalism starts. The country’s leader cannot help himself to you, your spouse, or your property. This is liberalism’s point of departure.
Perhaps curiously, we start with English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679). In their enormous History of Political Philosophy, political scientists Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey have this to say:
“To the extent that modern liberalism teaches that all social and political obligations are derived from and in the service of the individual rights of man, Hobbes may be regarded as the founder of modern liberalism.”
Now, Hobbes is probably not the first (or even second) name that comes to mind when we think of liberalism.
Many chalk Hobbes up to a grim view of human nature and absolute, arbitrary state power. Yet, if we carefully read his masterpiece Leviathan, this is not actually what we find. For a start, he does not condemn human nature — which he says explicitly — and while he does make a case for a strong and absolute state, the state is based on protecting you from me and me from you. The substrate of Hobbes’s Leviathan is the rights of person and property and protection.
We find a similar set of arguments in the work of John Locke (1632–1704), another …
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