Q: Is Liberalism British

It is often said that OTL is a Euro/West-wank, and a Britwank more specifically; it could also be said of OTL that ours is a Liberalism-wank. Was the former a necessary precondition for the latter? And if not, how could an ATL with some other power being dominant on the world stage in the 19th and 20th centuries (eg Russia, China, Mexico, what have you) have been as or more triumphant for liberalism as/than OTL? Mind you, using a definition of liberalism that present day OTL would recognize.
Now obviously that last point is potentially tricky, since “liberalism” includes a lot of stuff from economically right libertarianism to support for a policies indistinguishable from the most radical social democrat to basic income, and even the broadest definition of liberalism can be hard to pin down; and while there are certain values that generally come to mind - civil rights democracy; freedom of speech and the press; freedom of religion and separation of church and state; at least some conception of equality of race and gender; capitalism (particularly with free labor, free markets, and/or a welfare state); and international cooperation and the free movement of goods and people - these can get messy and vague when getting into the details. (And that’s not even getting into the whole can of worms of defining Neoliberalism- though I think it sufficient, for the purposes of this thread, to establish it as a subsection of liberalism, and not its entirety.)

And yet, despite this difficulty, one thing that is considered indisputable is that liberalism is the dominant ideology (or meta-ideology, if you’d rather) of not only the worlds most powerful nations, but of the global order in general. And even those who would dispute that much will agree that liberalism, however we want to define it, has played a pivotal role in creating the world we live in today.
 
Its not that OTL is a liberalism-wank, its that liberalism is the best way to organise any society in the long term, and that more liberal societies will be wealthier, freer, and more vibrant societies than illiberal or authoritarian ones.
 
Its not that OTL is a liberalism-wank, its that liberalism is the best way to organise any society in the long term, and that more liberal societies will be wealthier, freer, and more vibrant societies than illiberal or authoritarian ones.
Whilst I am a Liberal personally is this necessarily so in all respects?. One would say that the current Chinese government are going to test this theory over the next few years and we will see whether you can have economic liberalism without social liberalism. That will be an interesting test of both Capitalist and Marxist thought.
 
I would argue that the preconditions for Liberalism are arguably more important for its success than Liberalism itself.

Liberalism doesn't just work everywhere, after all.
 
Such as? This gets to the heart of the OP, after all.

Well, a lot of the commonly cited factors, like widespread literacy, a vibrant middle class, and things like that existed in other places too, especially the Netherlands. And at least as many of the important Enlightenment thinkers at the heart of classical liberalism were French as British. That said, it's almost certainly untrue to suggest that industrialization or other forms of scientific development necessarily need liberalism - modern China's determined to get the former without the latter, and they've succeeded so far.

Also, it's important to remember that the lumping together of Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Smith, and whoever else into the broad category of liberalism is something we're doing, rather than how they'd necessarily describe themselves. It could be that we're tailoring our understanding of liberalism to accommodate the philosophy and norms we see in history, rather than the other way around.
 
Such as? This gets to the heart of the OP, after all.

Belief in freedom of expression at the heart of it, and also the willingness to allow the masses to vote and participate in public life. Some countries simply aren't equipped for what we'd call democracy, due to the very tribal nature of their societies and their belief in might equalling right.
 
Belief in freedom of expression at the heart of it, and also the willingness to allow the masses to vote and participate in public life. Some countries simply aren't equipped for what we'd call democracy, due to the very tribal nature of their societies and their belief in might equalling right.

Don't forget self-efficacy. That's really what gives Liberal systems their staying power, as if the population feels they control the direction of the society than one can impliment a solution to problems by changing policy rather than forcing a change of systems.
 
Don't forget self-efficacy. That's really what gives Liberal systems their staying power, as if the population feels they control the direction of the society than one can impliment a solution to problems by changing policy rather than forcing a change of systems.
Aye, though one does think that liberal societies are not what they were supposed to be
 
Is liberal the same thing as Left-Wing or Socialist here?
No - it’s a broad tradition that includes right, center, and left traditions; depending on the particular context, it can find plenty of common ground with socialism (or social democracy, or what have you), even as it approaches said solutions from completely different ideological foundations.
Well, a lot of the commonly cited factors, like widespread literacy, a vibrant middle class, and things like that existed in other places too, especially the Netherlands.
Belief in freedom of expression is at the heart of it, and also the willingness to allow the masses to vote and participate in public life.
So what other parts of the world at pre-1800 points in history, met or might have met these criteria? And of those, could any of them have had greater influence on the world - or, if they had a significant impact such as it is, had a "liberalizing"* effect on the world - somewhat similar to OTL's Pax Britannica?

*please note the quotation marks here
 
So what other parts of the world at pre-1800 points in history, met or might have met these criteria? And of those, could any of them have had greater influence on the world - or, if they had a significant impact such as it is, had a "liberalizing"* effect on the world - somewhat similar to OTL's Pax Britannica?

To be honest? It's tricky, at least in my conclusion that Authoritarianism (The antithithes of Liberalism, I think we can agree) thrives off insecurity and uncertainty that drive populations to more strongly conform to the surronding "tribe" for support. That's a common occurence for regions historically vulnerable to invasion and migration, which islands are perfect for producing a counterpoint to. Japan across from a permenantly Balkanized China might have been able to provide those grounds
 
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Such as? This gets to the heart of the OP, after all.
A tradition of skepticism towards absolutist power, a religious background that kept liberalism grounded in a manner that ensured support for the liberal project across class lines but did not directly oppose the liberal project substantively, the rule of law, economic growth already to some extent being dependent on foreign trade because of domestic resource shortages, and a lot less warfare afflicting the core national territory of the state in question.

These all applied to Britain, more or less, in the run up to the industrial revolution.

England was arguably the first to have something approaching nationalism in Europe as well, during the HYW. It had always been one of the most centralized kingdoms, but it had substantial checks on royal power as well. The preconditions for some kind of dynamic new way of doing things was there. That it ended up being Liberalism was not guaranteed, but the long established preconditions were there.
 
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Trying to decompose some of the aspects of 'liberalism', as I kind of understand it:

- Religious toleration: This seems less of done deal than we might think. Really, I would conjecture this as coming about because of the changes in the role of religion in life, due to more robust secular institutions and ideas about science and reason challenging the role of religious authority in providing a basis of legitimacy and justification for law.

England after all had a fair amount of troubles with / suppression of Catholicism and religious non-conformists up until not that long ago. Liberal societies today still have problems with religious toleration of groups (migrating in / radicals breaking away) who do still do hold to the view of their religious beliefs providing an alternative source of authority to the state. (As well as ideologies that give some economic theory the same authority). England had the good fortune to benefit to benefit from being at an edge of a social transformation which took in a broader region of culture.

- Laissez-faire economics: I believe it's been discussed on here before that Chinese economic or political thought in the Qing Dynasty was broadly of the opinion that low taxation rates and leaving money in the hands of 'the people' was the best arrangement for prosperity. So that's an example of thinkers who had caution about re-purposing money through taxation about.

But what did not happen there was a situation in which the government would accept limits on control, accountability, rights and rule of law in exchange for higher taxation (a long bargaining process), nor was this is in alliance to a pro-trade merchant / urban class rather than to landlord gentry. So there was more of a potential for the government to intervene to enforce a more low tax agrarian model with much more limited development, trade and urban life, even though much was laissez-faire in life (in some senses more than 'liberal' countries with higher tax take and more government interventionism).
 

Derek Pullem

Kicked
Donor
Laissez faire Liberalism was arguably a result of the British being the leading economic power of the day - don't forget that during the formative stages of the Industrial Revolution Britain was protected by quite extensive tariff barriers and it was only when they were convinced that they could out-compete the rest of the world (or in the case of agricultural tariffs needed cheap food to feed the workers) that Britain agitated for free trade. As USA did later and as China will likely agitate for soon. Except in China's case the Liberalism is constrained and doesn't come with the Great Reform Bill or similar voting reforms - effectively though China needs the economic liberalism of the world to continue to permit their industry to prosper.
 
That's probably right that the balance of protective tariffs to free trade probably altered somewhat, though I would guess (without having made extensive study!) the divergences may go back a bit further than that though. Middle-man international traders seem like they are always going to matter a bit more in circumstances where the external market is broken up into more political units and is relatively large, and where the employment structure has gone through transformations towards less agriculture and more manufacturing.

If a polity has that relatively much larger internal market, and activity is much more agricultural, it's possibly easier to continue with the idea that traders are "gougers" or parasites who are draining the "lifeblood" of agricultural producers (landlords and peasants, with an emphasis on the former), and that trade should be used as a tool to manage international relations. Latter roughly, something like, "If the foreigners acknowledge our political supremacy, they get the carrot of being allowed to buy our nice finished goods which symbolize our civilized culture. If not then they get the stick of withdrawing that privilege, and our government should intervene to make that the case, regardless of what our traders themselves think of it".
 
Trying to decompose some of the aspects of 'liberalism', as I kind of understand it

I don't think defining Liberalism in terms of policy/results is the most effective way to determine what is and isent it, as @VVD0D95 pointed out some cultures don't even have Democracy perceived as liberal. Rather, it's probably better to define Liberalism by the structure of the decision making structure (IE HOW do we pick which policy societies have). Liberalism is about spreading out the decision making power/widening the acceptable set of actions (With Libertarianism and Socialism tackling the idea of how to maximizing the freedom of choice in different ways: minimizing external barriers vs. maximizing the capability of people to actualize their preferences), while it's opposite is Authoritarianism in which decision making power being centeralized/narrowed to a particular "right" set (With the morality of the Authority, be it personal or philosophical, determining weather it's "Right"/Traditional or "Left"/Progressive)
 
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