Since the birth of the political ideology, the principles and the ideals of the classical liberals have been the most successful in terms of popular support, and political adoption. Their principles of personal liberty and the institution of democracy to protect that liberty have stood the test of time and are seen as one of the greatest developments in history. Today however, there is a new threat to personal liberty, and it doesn’t come in the form of radical new ideas, it comes from within. The classical liberals own safe-guard, democracy, stands poised to take away more of their own freedoms than any rival ideology ever has.

In the beginning there was nothing, not in a literal sense, but in an intellectual sense. There was plenty of matter -rocks, trees, animals, dirt, humans, and et cetera -but no logically collective thoughts or organizations; everything just existed. God saw it and it was good, we all know that. But, at some point before history was recorded, human thought evolved, exactly when/where is irrelevant, but we’ll start with the first record of real advancement, ancient Greece. The Greeks invented democracy, an institution millennia ahead of its time. The people elect their leaders, and the leaders decided what the government did. It was the first real government of the people. Then the empire of Greece collapsed, not because of a revolution of the people, but because their armies weren’t big enough to protect themselves. The Roman’s rose to power and kept the idea of a senate, with representatives from the people, but they didn’t rule, they just advised the Emperor. Then the Romans fell for basically the same reason that the Greeks fell, but partially because they had lost the blessing of the people. And the idea of democracy was lost. For centuries, noblemen ruled manors, and then warlords ruled lands, and then Kings and Queens ruled countries. One by one rulers rose and fell, each one essentially the same as the last. They ruled by divine province, convincing all that they could that they were appointed by God to look after everyone, and those that they couldn’t convince they beat into submission with force. The rulers of the world had never been so few and so strong. No army however, no matter its might, could stop what would come next; the birth of the modern ideology.

The western world was soon split by words and beliefs, not by mountains, rivers, or mighty armies. There were the conservatives and the liberals. The conservatives were chiefly in favor of maintaining the status quo, and their views have become historically irrelevant, so we won’t concentrate on them here. Their counterparts however, their values were far from irrelevant. If fact the case can easily be made that the classic liberals discovered the greatest ideal in the history of the human race; personal rights.

The “father” of this movement, (though he didn’t actually conceive all these ideas himself, he merely brought them out and explained them in a way people could understand), John Locke, wrote many lengthy essays about the topic of the natural rights of man. These include Letter Concerning Toleration, Two Treatises of Government (which later became the foundation for the United States constitution), and Essay on Human Understanding.

Classic Liberalism was and inherently simple but powerful ideology. At its most basic level, it was about personal freedom. Simply put, man has basic undeniable right to live, upon which no one could infringe. He also has the freedom of choice, to choose what he wants to do, how/where he wants to live, what he eats…etc. A fundamental conclusion of classical liberalism was the invention of capitalism. Which is the theory of personal freedom applied to the economic world. Buyers and sellers of goods and services reach agreements upon the price of those goods or services. No one is forced to accept or offer goods and services at a price that they think is unfair. This concept and widespread implementation of the “free market” has directly led to an explosion of productivity and expansion of the human race never before conceived.

The reasoning for the success of capitalism lies with the initial estimation of the human condition made by classic liberals; that given the chance, human beings will choose to do what is in their best interest. But that assumption in and of itself does not account for the exponential growth of the economic status of the people. The key realization is to not underestimate the reality that most of the time, people acting in their best interest do not directly take away from the prosperity of others. In fact what is in the best interest of one person is most likely mutually beneficial to all people. While it is not known if this principle was fully understood by the originators of classic liberalism, it has undoubtedly insured the success and vast adoption of their economic system. It is quite apparent in their political philosophy and their economic approach, personal freedom is by far the centerpiece of the classical liberal’s system. But, it has been over shadowed by a secondary element of the ideal liberal governmental base.

Democracy once again became the prevalent in the classical liberal world. Government was seen as a necessary evil, whose only purpose was to ensure the liberty of the people. John Locke stated, “Government has no other end than the preservation of property" in his book, Second Treatise on Civil Government. It was supposed to be as small as possible, limiting its capabilities to violate the liberties of its citizens. Every form of government experienced and studied by the classic liberals had failed to uphold these virtues of the people. So they turned to democracy, because they reasoned that if people didn’t want their freedoms taken away, they would elect officials that would not take them away, and if they ever believed that the officials were infringing on their rights, they could easily and naturally be removed. They still however had their concerns about democracy itself. Because by the definition of majority-rule, the government could still infringe on the rights of its citizens if a majority of the citizens supported that action. There were even doubts about whether or not the new government could hold itself together, let alone rule the expanding country. James Madison even wrote of the feasibility of democracy in Federalist Paper 10, “Democracies have been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death”

This fear/concern is most easily seen in the United States Constitution, in which the first 10 amendments explicitly define things that the government cannot do. The system of checks and balances, separation of powers, and other principles were all created to prevent the government from gaining too much power and infringing on the rights of the citizens. It’s quite evident that the classics liberals embraced personal freedom as the ultimate good, and feared democracy for what it might become.

Classical liberalism essentially went unchallenged as the dominant progressive ideology until the writings of Karl Marx became popular. Marxism/Socialism and later communism took a substantially different view on the theories of government and the basic interaction of human beings. These bases are almost entirely based off the writings of Marx and Fredrick Engels. These issues, while historically important, aren’t pertinent at this point and will be explained along with their more modern incarnations later. Fascism and Nazism also have very different concepts and principles concerning the role of government and human interaction. All of these ideologies have, in their pure form, lost out to some model of classical liberalism. In the ideological battle for the wishes of the people and the adoption by the governments of the world, each has challenged for a brief period and then ultimately failed to stem the tide of widespread adoption of the classical liberal philosophy.

The first truly significant and effective challenge to pure classical liberalism came, not in the form of a distinct ideology, but from within the echelons of the American political machine. In 1929, the U.S. stock market crashed, and the great depression subsequently followed. This huge economic slump was the apparent failure of pure capitalism to improve the lives of all the citizens. From this downturn rose a new group of self-proclaimed liberals who rallied behind a plan called the, “New Deal”. Which was a large step away from the classical liberal notions of limited government. New government programs such as the WPA, Social Security, and Welfare ushered in a new role for the government, watching after the well being of each of its citizens. From the contemporary liberal point of view, this was the purpose of the government. But, for the classical liberals, it was the government stealing money from the productive members of society, and giving it to those who haven’t been successful, and in that respect, it was infringing on the rights of the productive members of society. This fundamental principle difference caused a rift within the American political scene that still stands today. A shift of this magnitude would normally signal the destruction of the existing ruling party, but in that respect, the demise of the classical liberals was unique. Their secondary adoption, a democratic government, insured that the multiple ideologies could existence within a singular government. And in that sense, at that point in history, their fail-safe had partially done its job; it had insured that their primary principles would continue to maintain a presence in the government. The world would always look back fondly at the classical liberals and the country they created. But a time would soon come when their fears and concerns about government would not only be realized, but would be realized through the very institution that they designed to protect against it.

As it turns out, the New Deal was only the beginning. Over the next 50 years, the U.S. government implemented many social programs. Slowly, the country, which once embodied everything the classical liberals believed in, was transformed into a contemporary welfare state, in which the most productive members of society are forced to support the non-productive members. While these government restrictions do pose a distinct departure from the principles that were held by the founders of the country, from a historical perspective they are relatively minor. The most interesting thing about this new intrusion is the new source of legitimacy that came with it, legitimacy attained under the ideal of democracy, legitimacy that according to the classical liberals shouldn’t be there. The basic argument against a pure democracy is the idea that the minority will always be trampled upon by the majority. The exact issues and events are really irrelevant. John Stuart Mill said of the moral legitimacy of the democratic principle, “If mankind minus one were of one opinion, then mankind is no more justified in silencing the one than the one - if he had the power - would be justified in silencing mankind.” Just as government sponsored social programs have spread, so has the power of democracy to legitimize these programs. Democracy, as it would turn out, would even have the power to resurrect ideologies long since considered failures.

The ideas of Marx and Engels were used as a basis for the governments of the U.S.S.R., Yugoslavia, and others. Each of these countries was ruled by a strong central government that carried out its acts on behalf of the people. None of these countries were democratic though. One by one, these governments lost favor with their populations, and each underwent some sort of revolution, either reforming the government, or starting from scratch with a new form. Those socialist based countries that haven’t changed their fundamental structure have struggled greatly in present times. This global environment made it nearly impossible to start new purely communist or socialist countries. So, these ideologues turned to the great legitimizer of the times, democracy. So, democratic socialism came to be.

Democratic Socialism brought most of the economic ideas of Marx and Engels, and combined a democratic form of government. The two separate systems seem to compliment each other very well. The populations of the newly reformed democratic socialist countries had a way to express their concerns with their government, and the government had a way to give their citizens the appearance of helping them all out by regulating the economy to make sure that wages and working conditions were fair. Founders of this hybrid ideology like Eduard Bernstein and Karl Kautsky as well as more modern advocates such as Michael Harrington have argued against the greed and excess that seem to permeate the capitalist system, and against nearly all forms of inequality. Their endorsement of ideas like fair-wage laws, universal healthcare, strict environmental protection, and redistribution of income are polar opposites of the principles of classical liberalism. The two ideologies have gaping philosophical differences, but share the common endorsement of democracy, the classical liberals, for what it’s not (an totalitarian institution that tramples on liberty), and the democratic socialists, for what it is (an utopian commune of people coming together to achieve their common prosperity). Both of these views have been proven wrong to some extent, the U.S. government has infringed on some liberties, and pure democracies haven’t attained prosperity to nearly the degree that other forms of governments have. With today’s political climate of admiration of progressive actions and thoughts, the prevalence of democratic socialism will surely increase.

Throughout the history of classic liberal thought, many ideological barriers and rivals have challenged the foundations of personal liberty and the other principles on which the ideology rests. Traditional conservatives doubted that people could truly rule themselves through the democratic process, and argued for the status quo. The utopian Marxists and the Communist argued against the capitalist system and precepts itself. The Fascists and Nazis struggled against the global system in an attempt to gain prestige and glory for their populations. Each of these ideologies has attempted to stand apart from the classic liberal ideals and each has fallen in the battle for the minds of the people. But one ideology has taken the one thing that the liberals had that always helped them prevail, and has incorporated it and made it their own. The inherent strategy of their ideology has turned the most popular weapon of the classic liberals against them. By using democracy, democratic socialism poses the largest and most serious threat to the predominance of classic liberal thought since it evolved out of the ashes of the renaissance.