Classical liberalism

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Various early forms of liberalism are referred to as classical liberalism : on the one hand, the teachings of the philosophical theorists John Locke and Immanuel Kant , who systematically established liberalism as a political ideology ; on the other hand, "classical liberalism" has also been used as a designation since the beginning of the 20th century naturalized for the economic policy ideas of the most important representatives of classical economics and free trade theory .

politics

Characteristic of classical liberalism in the tradition of Immanuel Kant , John Locke and Montesquieu is a legitimation theory for political rule based on the elements of human rights, the constitution and reasonable self-determination of the citizens. An essential basic value for the establishment of public institutions and for the constitution of the economy, society and culture is individual freedom. The close connection between economic freedom (especially private property and contractual freedom) and political freedom is also important for classical liberalism. In contrast to republicanism, civic virtues do not play an important role in classical political liberalism. Rather, it relies more on legal institutions, general laws and inalienable fundamental rights.

Famous representatives or forerunners of classical liberalism were the social contract theorist Thomas Hobbes , the democratic theorist Alexis de Tocqueville , the founder of the liberal educational ideal Wilhelm von Humboldt and Johann Gottlieb Fichte, who was influential in the development of national liberalism .

economy

Since the beginning of the 20th century, the Scottish-English doctrine of classical economics that emerged at the end of the 18th century has been called liberalism. This economic and political position is often given the designation "classical liberalism" (also old liberalism or derogatory paleoliberalism ). It replaced the notions of mercantilism and physiocratism . Important representatives of classical economic liberalism are Adam Smith , David Ricardo , John Stuart Mill and Jean-Baptiste Say . Smith countered the mercantilism, based on innumerable state interventions in the economy, with an economic liberalism that largely trusted the free play of forces . The authors of classical economics advocated the liberation of economic activities from all restrictions of the guild and feudal system. Were called competition , free trade , the right to private property and freedom of contract . The classical liberalism of economic character assumes that the free market as an economic expression of freedom is the optimal control instrument of the economy , which automatically ensures an optimal allocation of resources . In a free society with an “ invisible hand ”, the selfish striving of the individual serves the common good per se. For classical liberals, the state has to limit itself to three tasks: guaranteeing external and internal security, providing an impartial legal system and maintaining potentially unprofitable services, such as B. school education. This is also polemically referred to as the “ night watchman state ”.

According to Rudolf Walther , equating economic liberalism and classical economics is misleading, since the founders of the economists themselves did not use the term and there are also differences to today's positions of economic liberalism. Objectively, however, there is a dogma-historical connection.

According to Karl-Hermann Flach , for early theorists like Adam Smith and David Ricardo, liberalism was not a privilege theory, but a social doctrine based on the thesis that “the progress of the whole would be most effective if each individual tried would be to achieve the best. ”The measure of these theorists is not the happiness of a few individuals,“ but the happiness of the whole as the sum of the success of ambitious individuals. ”Flach argues that the“ free play of forces has not led to perfect competition ” rather, this would be increasingly restricted by cartels and dominant concentrations. That is why neoliberals like Wilhelm Röpke and Walter Eucken have won "the right to state intervention to create and restore competition".

Differentiation of neoliberalism from classical economic liberalism

In the middle of the 20th century the terms “old” or “paleoliberalism” were used to distinguish neoliberalism from classical liberalism (economic liberalism). The term neoliberalism was then used as a synonym for ordoliberalism . While neoliberalism has also been identified as a fighting term against a policy of an assumed market fundamentalism since the 1990s, (German) neoliberalism took the opposite position at the time, in that it distinguished itself from the purely market-based thinking of classical liberalism.

"With neoliberalism, the representatives of the social market economy share the conviction that although the old liberalism correctly saw the functional significance of competition, it did not pay sufficient attention to social and sociological problems."

- Alfred Müller-Armack

Alexander Riistow also used the term paleoliberalism on the Colloque Walter Lippmann . There, the participants agreed on the term neoliberalism, which should stand as an opposite term for a modern liberalism that differs from laissez-faire . Since then, authors, but also z. B. Alexander Riistow, Wilhelm Röpke and Alfred Müller-Armack the term old liberalism, in order to z. B. to separate the Austrian School from its conception of neoliberalism.

In his work The Failure of Economic Liberalism as a Problem in the History of Religions (1945), Alexander Rustow traced the ideological background of classical liberalism and in particular the idea of ​​the invisible hand back to a pseudo- religious general belief in harmony. This conviction has evoked the basic attitude of laissez-faire , according to which the world should be allowed to run free with trust in a pre-established harmony established with creation. Riistow considered this dogma to be the decisive reason why the economic liberalism of the 19th century was not prepared to initiate countermeasures, even in the face of obvious undesirable developments.

“The market, however, has a supra-economic framework that is formed by laws, etc., and within this framework things cannot go according to plan. (...) Unfortunately, God is still very far from this systematic framework, especially in the area of ​​social policy. This is how we new liberals distinguish ourselves from the old liberals in that we are aware of the need for the framework and its design. Unfortunately this difference is blurred by the fact that there are a number of old liberals, some of them very intransigent old liberals, especially in America, who wrongly and misleadingly call themselves 'new liberals' and thus cause great confusion. Unfortunately, we cannot proceed with patent litigation and trademark protection. "

- Alexander Riistow: Social policy on this side and on the other side of the class struggle . In: Aktiongemeinschaft Soziale Marktwirtschaft (Hrsg.): Meaningful and meaningless social policy . Ludwigsburg 1959, p. 20.

Friedrich August von Hayek sees himself in the Constitution of Freedom (1960) “very explicitly in the succession of the classical liberalism of Hume and Smith and their idea of ​​the evolutionary social development.” The economist John Kenneth Galbraith understands this work by Hayek as an anachronistic relapse into the world of thought of the laissez-faire liberalism of the 19th century. Ingo Pies, on the other hand, emphasizes that Hayek systematically rejected laissez-faire liberalism. He wanted "not a minimal state, but a purposefully established constitutional state that pursues economic policy primarily as legislation."

Even Milton Friedman looked (later) as a classic liberal, not as neoliberal.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Thomas Mayer: Kant and the Left-Kantians - Liberal Tradition and Social Democracy , in: V. Gerhard (ed.): Kant in the dispute of the faculties , De Gruyter, 2005, p. 115
  2. ^ A b Rudolf Walther: Excursion: Economic Liberalism (Art. "Liberalism"), in: Brunner / Conze / Koselleck: Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe , Vol. 3, Stuttgart 1982.
  3. ↑ Rudolf Walther: Excursion: Economic Liberalism (Art. "Liberalism"), in: Brunner / Conze / Koselleck: Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe , Vol. 3, Stuttgart 1982, p. 787.
  4. ^ Willi Albers, Anton Zottmann: Concise dictionary of economics. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1980. ISBN 3-525-10256-9 . P. 41.
  5. ↑ Ulrich van Suntum : The Invisible Hand: Economic Thinking Yesterday and Today . Edition 3, Springer 2005, ISBN 3-540-25235-5 , p. 4f.
  6. ^ Günter Meckenstock: Business ethics . Walter de Gruyter 1997. ISBN 3-110-15559-1 , p. 22.
  7. ^ Jörg Beutel: Microeconomics . Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag 2006. ISBN 3-486-58116-3 . P. 7
  8. ↑ a b c d see: Karl-Hermann Flach: Another Chance for the Liberals , 1971.
  9. ^ A b Bonn contributions to sociology , issues 3–5, F. Enke, 1964, p. 100
  10. ↑ Ralf Ptak : From Ordoliberalism to Social Market Economy , Leske + Budrich, Opladen, 2004, ISBN 3-8100-4111-4 , p. 14.
  11. ↑ Quoted from: Gerhard Stapelfeld: Economy and Society of the Federal Republic of Germany: Critique of Economic Rationality . Second volume, LIT Verlag, ISBN 978-3-8258-3627-6 , 1998, p. 267.
  12. ↑ a b Heinz Gross Ketteler: criticism of the social market economy from the perspective of the new institutional economics in: Knut Wolfgang Nörr, Joachim Starbatty: 50 years social market economy , Lucius, Lucius, 1999, ISBN 3-8282-0105-9 , p 55, Digitalisat (PDF; 2.1 MB, p. 3)
  13. ↑ Walther Müller-Jentsch: Structural Change in Industrial Relations , VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 1st edition 2007, ISBN 978-3-531-15567-8 , pp. 66, 72 ff.
  14. ↑ Katrin Meyer-Rust: Alexander Rustow - History Interpretation and Liberal Engagement , Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 978-3-608-91627-0 , p. 69
  15. ↑ Ursula Weidenfeld: Competition Theory, Economic Policy and SME Promotion: 1948–1963 - SME policy in the field of tension between claims based on competition theory and economic policy pragmatism . Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 1992. ISBN 3-515-05799-4 , p. 55.
  16. ↑ Andreas Renner: The two neoliberalisms. In: Questions of Freedom. No. Issue 256, Oct./Dec. 2000 p. 6 ( Memento of the original dated September 28, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.tristan-abromeit.de
  17. ↑ Hans Zehetmaier: Politics out of Christian responsibility , VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 1st edition 2007, ISBN 978-3-531-15491-6 , p. 112, with references from Rustow and Müller-Armack.
  18. ↑ Ralf Ptak: From Ordoliberalism to Social Market Economy , Leske + Budrich, Opladen, 2004, ISBN 3-8100-4111-4 , p. 14.
  19. ^ Jähnichen Traugott: Wirtschaftsethik , W Kollhammer GmbH, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-17-018291-2 , p. 131.
  20. ↑ Stefan Kolev in: Power and Knowledge as Determinants: On the Role of the State in Economic Policy in Walter Eucken and Friedrich August von Hayek , p. 14
  21. ↑ Iris Karabelas: Freedom instead of socialism: Reception and significance of Friedrich August von Hayek in the Federal Republic , Campus Verlag, 2010, p. 57.
  22. ^ Ingo Pies: Ordnungspolitik in der Demokratie: an economic approach to discursive policy advice , Mohr Siebeck Verlag, 2000, ISBN 3-16-147507-0 , p. 31.
  23. ↑ Taylor C. Boas, Jordan Gans-Morse: Neoliberalism: From New Liberal Philosophyto Anti-Liberal Slogan (PDF; 358 kB) p. 14: “In a 1981 interview during a visit to Chile, Hayek stated unequivocally that he was a not a neoliberal and that he was willing to improve upon, but not fundamentally change, the postulates of classical liberalism (El Mercurio April 18, 1981). While Friedman (1951) embraced the neoliberal label and philosophy in one of his earliest political writings, he subsequently distanced himself from the term, trumpeting “old-style liberalism” in later manifestoes (Friedman 1955) “.