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Contributions to liberal theory
From Debatepedia
This is a partial list of individuals strongly associated with the liberal tradition and instrumental in the exposition of political liberalism as a philosophy, in approximately chronological order, in a long line from Dutchman Baruch Spinoza, the Englishman John Locke and the Frenchman Voltaire to the Americans Ronald Dworkin, Richard Rorty and Francis Fukuyama as well as the Indian Amartya Sen and the Peruvian Hernando de Soto. Some of these people moved away from liberalism, while others espoused other ideologies before turning to liberalism. There are many different views of what constitute liberalism, and some liberals would feel that some of the people on this list were not true liberals. It is intended to be suggestive rather than exhaustive.
- It is the intention to add one or two lines of information on the theorists explaining why they are on the list with reference to the works important in this matter.
The following people are included:
Niccolo Machiavelli
Niccolo Machiavelli (Florence, 1469-1527), best known for his Il Principe was founder of realist political philosophy, advocated republican government, citizen armies, division of power, protection of personal property, and restraint of government expenditure as being necessary to the liberties of a republic. Wrote extensively on the need for individual initiative - virtu - as an essential characteristic of stable government. Argued that liberty was the central good which government should protect, and that "good people" would make good laws, where as people who had lost their virtu would maintain their liberties only with difficulty.
Erasmus (Netherlands, 1466-1536)
Advocate of the doctrine now known as humanism, critic of entrenched interests, irrationality and superstition. Erasmusian societies formed across Europe, to some extent in response to the turbulence of the Reformation.
Thomas Hobbes (England, 1568-1679)
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza (Netherlands, 1632-1677) is in his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus and Tractatus Politicus a proto-liberal defending values as separation of church and state as well as forms of democracy.
John Locke
The notions of John Locke (England, 1632-1704) of a "government with the consent of the governed" and man's natural rights—life, liberty, and estate (property) as well on tolerance, as laid down in A letter concerning toleration and Two treatises of government —had an enormous influence on the development of liberalism.
Voltaire (France, 1694-1778)
Benjamin Franklin (United States, 1706-1790)
Inventor, scientist, writer, entrepreneur, diplomat and statesman was an advocate for free trade and the end of mercantilism, industrialization, abolition of slavery, free public libraries, democratic government and national unity. His Autobiography is also a seminal work on the life of a free individual who is self-governing in his pursuit of accomplishment, without need for an over-arching state, allegiance or religion to force adherence to basic moral and ethical principles.
David Hume (United Kingdom, 1711-1776)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (France, 1712-1778)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau promulgated the idea that men were naturally free, but had to be educated to live in society, but that this did not represent an argument for absolutism, but instead for a natural liberty and a "national will" which could be directed to improvement of the society. He is famous for the quote "men are born free, but are everywhere in chains", and urging that Europeans through off the restrictions that they lived under, and substitute, instead, a self-governing moral basis.
Denis Diderot (France, 1713-1784)
Adam Smith (United Kingdom, 1723-1790)
Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (France, 1689-1755)
Immanuel Kant (Germany, 1724-1804)
Anders Chydenius (Finland, 1729-1803)
Edmund Burke (England, 1729-1797)
August Ludwig Schloezer (Germany, 1735-1809)
Thomas Paine (United Kingdom/United States, 1737-1809)
Thomas Jefferson (United States, 1743-1826)
Marquis de Condorcet (France, 1743-1794)
Jeremy Bentham (United Kingdom, 1748-1832)
Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès (France, 1748-1836)
James Madison
James Madison (United States, 1751-1836) was co-Author, with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay of The Federalist Papers, and one of the architects of both the American Constitution of 1787, as well as the Bill of Rights (1789). Later President of the United States (1809-1817).
Alexander Hamilton (United States, 1755-1804)
Benjamin Constant (France, 1767-1830)
Wilhelm von Humboldt (Germany, 1767-1835)
David Ricardo (United Kingdom, 1772-1823)
James Mill (United Kingdom, 1773-1836)
Johan Rudolf Thorbecke (Netherlands, 1798-1872)
Frédéric Bastiat (France, 1801-1850)
Ralph Waldo Emerson (United States, 1803-1882)
American philosopher who argued that the basic principles of government were mutable, and that government is required only in so far as people are not self-governing. Proponent of Democracy, and of the idea that a democratic people must have a democratic ethics.
Alexis de Tocqueville (France, 1805-1859)
John Stuart Mill (United Kingdom, 1806-1873)
Abraham Lincoln (United States, 1809-1865)
Abraham Lincoln (United States, 1809-1865) was the President of the United States from 1861-1865. He argued for the theory of political equality and the supremacy of natural law over present political arrangements. Most famous for his debates with Stephen Douglas, Second Inaugural Address and Gettysburg Address, as well as the Emmancipation Proclamation - which converted the American Civil War into a struggle to end slavery.
Herbert Spencer (United Kingdom, 1820-1903)
Thomas Hill Green (United Kingdom, 1836-1882)
HG Wells (United Kingdom)
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (United States, 1841-1935)
Jurist and writer, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. wrote the influential book on legal theory The Common Law, which traced the creation of individual rights from familial rights common under Roman and Feudal law, and presented the "objective" theory of judicial interpretation. Specifically that the standard for intent and culpability should be that of the "reasonable man", and that individuals can be said to objectively intend the reasonable consequences of their actions.
Ludwig Joseph Brentano (Germany, 1844-1931)
Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (Czechoslovakia, 1850-1937)
Woodrow Wilson (United States, 1856-1924)
Louis Brandeis (1856-1941)
Thorstein Veblen (1857-1926)
Thorstein Veblen (1857-1926) is best known as the author of Theory of the Leisure Class. Veblen was influential to a generation of American liberalism searching for a rational basis for the economy beyond corporate consolidation and "cut throat competition". Veblen's central argument was that individuals require sufficient non-economic time to become educated citizens.
Émile Durkheim (France, 1858-1917)
John Dewey (United States, 1859-1952)
Friedrich Naumann (Germany, 1860-1919)
Max Weber (Germany, 1864-1920)
Theorist of state power, the relationship of culture to economics and founder of what is now called "sociology". Argued that there was a moral component to capitalism rooted in "protestant" values.
Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse (United Kingdom, 1864-1929)
Benedetto Croce (Italy, 1866-1952)
Walther Rathenau (Germany, 1867-1922)
Upton Sinclair
While Upton Sinclair (United States, 1878-1968) himself was a socialist, his novels and writings attacking the excesses of corporations and industrialization, particularly The Jungle would have a tremendous influence towards persuading the public and political classes that regulation of products and labor standards was essential.
William Beveridge (United Kingdom, 1879-1973)
Ludwig von Mises (Austria, 1881-1973)
John Maynard Keynes (United Kingdom, 1883-1946)
This economist is best known for his work on monetary theory and macroeconomics, which was an attempt to restructure private sector capitalist economies in the wake of the lessons of World War I and the The Great Depression. He proposed policies which included short term intervention in the market, statistical econometrics as an important instrument of social policy, and an active use of government power. He was sharply critical of using economics for purely nationalist goals, or economic punishment as a means of attaining political ends, as well as the architect of the Bretton-Woods system.
José Ortega y Gasset (Spain, 1883-1955)
Salvador de Madariaga (Spain, 1886-1978)
Adolf Berle
Adolf Berle (United States, 1895-1971) was author of The Modern Corporation and Private Property, detailing the importance of differentiating between the management of corporations and the share holders who are the owners. Influential in the theory of New Deal policy.
Wilhelm Röpke (Germany, 1899-1966)
Bertil Ohlin (Sweden, 1899-1979)
Friedrich Hayek (Austria, 1899-1992)
Karl Raimund Popper (Austria/United Kingdom, 1902-1994)
Alan Paton
Alan Paton (South Africa, 1903-1988) contributed with his book Cry, The beloved country to a clear anti-apartheid stand of South African liberalism. His party, the South African Liberal Party was banned by the apartheid government.
John Hicks (United Kingdom, 1904-1989)
Raymond Aron (France, 1905-1983)
John Kenneth Galbraith (Candian who worked in the United States, 1908- )
Simone de Beauvoir (France 1908-1986)
Her book The Second Sex argued that women were treated as legal and social inferiors, and that this was morally untenable. Influential in the Women's Liberation movement.
Isaiah Berlin (Latvia/United Kingdom, 1909-1997)
Milton Friedman (United States, 1912- )
James M. Buchanan (United States, 1919- )
John Rawls (United States, 1921-2002)
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. (United States)
Historian and philosopher of history, chronicled the Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and theorized on the importance of progressive politics in advancing liberalism.
Ralf Dahrendorf (Germany/United Kingdom, 1929- )
Karl-Hermann Flach
The journalist Karl-Hermann Flach (Germany, 1929-1973) was in his book Noch eine Chance für die Liberalen one of the main theorist of the new social liberal principles of the Free Democratic Party (Germany). He places liberalism clearly as the opposite of conservatism and opened the road for a government coalition with the social democrats.
Ronald Dworkin (United States, 1931- )
Richard Rorty (United States, 1931- )
Amartya Sen (India, 1933- )
Robert Nozick (United States, 1938-2002)
Joseph Stiglitz (United States)
Hernando de Soto
Hernando de Soto (Peru, 1941- ) is an advocate of transparency and private property rights, arguing that intransparent government leads to property not being given proper title, and therefore being "dead capital" which cannot be used as the basis of credit. Argues that laws which allocate property to those most able to use them for economic growth, so called "squatter's rights", are an important innovation in US history.
William Kymlicka (Canada)
Martha Nussbaum
Martha Nussbaum (United States, 1947- ) elaborates the Ralwsian Theory of Justice. For her, Rawls's Liberty Principle is only meaningful if viewed in terms of substantial freedoms, i.e. real opportunities based on personal and social circumstance. Likewise, inequality in the Difference Principle has to be clarified in terms of capabilities.
