Evolutionary Liberalism in Great Britain
Examines Changes in Liberal Economic and Political Thought
Classical Liberalism
Great Britain was after all the country that witnessed classical liberalism develop sooner than anywhere else, especially British philosophers, political thinkers, and economists had a noticeable influence of government policies in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and also the nineteenth centuries.
British liberals included John Locke, Adam Smith, David Riccardo, as well as John Mill, and they were responsible for developing the main components of classical liberalism. Generally these classical liberal thinkers were against the state intervening in social and economic affairs apart from ensuring the protection of personal freedom as well as the respecting of property rights.
Evolutionary Liberalism in Great Britain started to emerge in the later part of the nineteenth century whilst it took decades before the British government started to intervene in social and economic policies. Evolutionary liberalism in fact took its time to become almost as important as classic liberalism.
The Emergence of Evolutionary Liberalism
It was in the 1870s that Evolutionary Liberalism in Great Britain began to have a noticeable affect upon social and economic policies carried out by British governments. For instance during the 1870s the British government passed legislation to introduce compulsory primary school education, reduce working hours within industries, as well as introducing the first rudimentary safety standards for factories. These were small steps towards greater levels of state intervention in social and economic matters.
Evolutionary Liberalism Turned into New Liberalism
Evolutionary Liberalism in Great Britain then evolved into New Liberalism at the end of the nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth century. The Liberal governments of William Gladstone had slowly extended the electoral franchise yet they had not introduced wide-ranging social and economic reforms. Gladstone’s administrations however became increasingly distracted over the issue of Irish Home Rule to alter economic policy to any extent at all.
The New Liberalism of the Liberal governments between 1906 and 1914 was arguably when Evolutionary Liberalism in Great Britain had the most influence in the country. The Liberal governments introduced the first old age pensions as well as well as very limited social security measures. The Liberal party itself was destined to lose its position as one of the main political parties in Great Britain due to its own divisions and the emergence of the Labour party.
Although the British Liberal party declined sharply after the First World War Evolutionary Liberalism in Great Britain did not as much. In a sense Evolutionary Liberalism in Great Britain reached its zenith at the end of the Second World War with the adoption of Keynesian economic policies and the creation of the welfare state as recommended by the Beveridge Report.
Bibliography
Gardiner & Wenborn (1995) The History Today Companion to British History, Little, Brown & Co, London
Lenman B, (2004) Chambers Dictionary of World History, Edinburgh
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