what are some conditions for successfully imposing liberalism?

[puppy lover]

i need to know conditions that allow for liberalism to successfully take hold in a nation for a social project and i am stumped.

[staisil]

Humanism and social and political injustice.

Historically, liberalism claims to trace its roots back to the humanism of the Renaissance and the Glorious Revolution in Great Britain. However, movements generally labeled as truly "liberal" date from the Enlightenment, particularly the Whig party in England, the philosophers in France and the movement towards self-government in colonial America. These movements opposed absolute monarchy, mercantilism, and various kinds of religious orthodoxy and clericalism. They were also the first to formulate the concepts of individual rights and the rule of law, as well as the importance of self-government through elected representatives.

The focus on "liberty" as essential right of people within the polity has been repeatedly asserted through history: in the middle ages Italian city states rose against the Papal States under the banner "liberty", and a century and a half later Niccolò Machiavelli would make preservation of liberties a key trait of a republican form of government. The republics of Florence and Venice had elections, the rule of law, and pursuit of free enterprise through much of the 1400s until domination by outside powers in the 16th century.

The history of liberalism as a conscious ideology, that liberty was not an amendment to, but a fundamental basis of the rights within the polity and later the state, began to take more definite shape in response to absolutism, particularly in the United Kingdom. The definitive break was the conception that free individuals could form the basis of political stability, rather than having license to the degree that they did not threaten political stability. This is generally dated from the work of John Locke (1632-1704), whose Two Treatises on Government established two fundamental liberal ideas: economic liberty, meaning the right to have and use property, and intellectual liberty, including freedom of conscience, which he expounded in A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689). However, he would not extend his views on religious freedom to Catholics.

Locke developed further the earlier idea of natural rights, which he saw as "life, liberty and property". His "Natural Rights theory" was the distant forerunner of the modern conception of human rights. However, to Locke, property was more important than the right to participate in government and public decision-making: he did not endorse democracy, because he feared that giving power to the people would erode the sanctity of private property. Nevertheless, the idea of natural rights played a key role in providing the ideological justification for the (at least moderately democratizing) American revolution and French revolution.

On the European continent, the doctrine of laws restraining even monarchs was expounded by Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, whose The Spirit of the Laws argues that "Better is it to say, that the government most conformable to nature is that which best agrees with the humour and disposition of the people in whose ffavorit is established." rather than the mere rule of force.

Following in his footsteps would be political economist Jean-Baptiste Say and Destutt de Tracy who would be the most ardent exponents of the "harmonies" of the market, and in all probability it was they who coined the term laissez-faire.

[evangeline135]

Other points listed are good...just wanted to add that it has rarely been successfully implemented in countries that are not wealthy. When people are more economically secure, they are more willing to protect each others freedoms and have a live and let live philosophy...

[AverageJoe]

Do you mean actual liberalism or what is called liberalism currently?