Reviving the Full Spirit of Classical Liberalism: Individual Liberty Plus Community Building

In recent years, there has been an apparent revival in popularity of 'classical liberalism'. The ideology of great 18th and 19th century thinkers like John Locke, Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill appears to have become fashionable once again. However, it also appears that there is no clear consensus on what 'classical liberal' means in the context of the 21st century. The term has been adopted by minarchist libertarians, moderate conservatives, and old-school JFKstyle (i.e. pre-1968) liberals alike, people who clearly have very different political views on certain important matters. It is clear that there is no unified definition of 'classical liberalism' in the 21st century.

And to a large extent, that's only to be expected. Political and economic conditions today are very different from back in the 19th century, and it's practically impossible to put the ideas of thinkers like Smith or Mill directly into practice in today's context. What people are doing in each case is basically extracting what they see as the most important elements of classical liberal thinking, and applying those elements in contemporary political practice. And it's just natural that different people would see different parts of the classical liberal heritage as more (or less) important than the other parts, which would cause great differences in how they

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would apply that heritage to today's issues. Of course, there are also core features of classical liberal thinking that are essential in any contemporary interpretation, for example the importance of free speech. Which is why contemporary 'classical liberals' of the left, right and centre alike still have some things in common, for example a staunch defense of free speech.

While not detracting from the aforementioned observations, I wish to offer my view of what I find most important and inspiring about the classical liberal tradition. For me, classical liberalism's heart and soul does not lie in dogmatic ideas like small government or any bill of rights. Rather, it is about maximizing individual freedom. Which is why, I believe, the best way to practice classical liberalism in the 21st century, in the full spirit of its values, is to consider each issue in the light of whether the proposed solutions would offer an equal and maximum amount of freedom to each individual. I believe that the classical liberal way would be to choose the solution that would offer the closest approximation of this ideal, in every case and every circumstance. Moreover, we should do this on an issue-by-issue basis, so that in every area of life we can get as close to this ideal as the contemporary circumstances would practically allow. Furthermore, we should revisit previously settled issues periodically, to examine if the circumstances have changed due to, for example, technological advancement, so that we can now further improve things to get even closer to the ideal of equal and maximum liberty for all.

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Finally, classical liberalism has always been about building better communities and societies too. It is simply not true that classical liberalism is about selfishness or 'greed is good' (a common smear from those on our left), or about the wholesale abandonment of traditional values (a somewhat common smear from those on our right). After all, none of the great classical liberal thinkers wanted to build a society that is selfish, greedy and lack morals. Instead, classical liberalism both creates the conditions required for a strong and coherent society in natural conditions of diversity, and also allows individuals to use their creativity and their moral conscience to help strengthen and improve society, by contributing their best into the free market of ideas. The liberty and equality inherent in the classical liberal tradition allows communities to be strong yet diverse in its thinking at the same time; and allows new ideas to be explored while traditions to continue to grow at the same time. Seen through this light, classical liberalism is not only not a selfish ideology; it is the best foundation for community building, especially in the contemporary age. I believe that, to revive the full spirit of classical liberalism, this community building aspect of it should be promoted and highlighted more often.

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