Liberty and Political Liberalism Essay Paper

Liberty and Political Liberalism
The political liberalism of the 17th and 18th centuries was far different than the contemporary conceptualization of liberal politics. In the evolution of modern liberalism, liberalism was once conceived as an absence of coercion by a sovereign. “The heart of liberty is the absence of coercion by others; consequently, the liberal state’s commitment to protecting liberty is, essentially, the job of ensuring that citizens do not coerce each other without compelling justification.” (Gaus 2010). This stood in direct contrast to the concept of the divine right of kings, which presumed that a leader, by virtue of his power, had the ability to do what he willed in relation to his subjects, without justification, and that the subjects had no right of revolt. Classical liberalism, perhaps in reaction to the once-assumed fiat of sovereigns to tax as they willed and to take property away from subjects as they willed, tended to view liberty as synonymous with property. To be free was to be able to be secure in one’s person and home, and to know that neither could be conscripted by the state. Hence, Locke’s famous assertion about the right to ‘life, liberty, and property’ as the cornerstones of liberalism.
Modern liberalism takes a different view and tends to stress the value of positive liberties, versus negative liberties. Negative liberties are viewed as ‘freedom from’ — that is, freedom from state interference. Positive liberties, in contrast, stress the responsibility of the state to protect certain rights of all human beings and to take a more proactive role in protecting those liberties. 19th century liberals onward have valued the need for “a variety of state policies, encompassing not only the criminal law and enforcement of contracts, but the licensing of professionals, health, safety and fire regulations, banking regulations, commercial infrastructure (roads, harbors and canals) and often encouraged unionization” to ensure that the liberties of citizens to live safe and healthy lives are protected (Gaus 2010). To refuse to fulfill these functions is to ultimately create a less free society, where those without natural advantages will be privileged. Merely being free to participate in the democratic process does not mean that a person is ‘free,’ say advocates of positive liberties. It is difficult to be free if one is physically wanting or forced to work in a factory job that requires laboring ten hours a day to remain economically solvent. Coercion may not necessarily take the form of actively directing a person’s actions, but can be the result of invisible social pressures.
In contrast, advocates of a negative concept of political liberty tend to be more libertarian in their political orientation. Their belief in the need for ‘freedom from’ the state is rooted in a fear that a state that is overly aggressive in protecting the rights of the majority will need to extract too many resources from the citizens to do so in the form of taxation. They believe that the will of the majority in demanding positive rights, such as healthcare, or even legislating business practices has the potential to become a tyranny.
The notion of ‘liberty’ itself has evolved over the years — classical liberals such as Locke and Rousseau tended to view ‘liberty’ as a valuable as universal value, while some contemporary theorists of social justice such as Rawls stress that the value is not in ‘liberty’ but what types of liberty are given. Rawls views a truly just society as one in which no social group can substantially advance past another, and does not view the modern capitalist state as truly ‘free’ at all. Rawls’ view reflects the fundamental difference between old and new liberalism and between positive and negative liberties: “a growing conviction that, so far from being ‘the guardian of every other right’ (Ely, 1992: 26), property rights generated an unjust inequality of power that led to a less-than-equal liberty (typically, ‘positive liberty’) for the working class” (Gaus 2010).
References
Carter, Ian. (2010). Positive and negative liberty. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
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Gaus, Gerald