6720441 – Anish Padalkar

What is liberalism and in what sense could it be said to be the dominant ideology of contemporary
western societies?

Liberalism is a term which in the modern political system gets thrown around with various amounts of
definitions. There is no one concrete way to define the term because of the way you can adopt the
concept. For example, you can have liberals who tend to be left leaning, this is called social liberalism.
On the other hand, you can have a group who tend to be liberals but leaning slightly more right. You can
also adopt the term across countries, with the USA being social liberals, the UK being social liberals as
well, but allowing for the market forces and state intervention to run the political system, and lastly the
German system which they stand by as ordo liberalism, which highlights that the government or state
sees a crucial role in ensuring that the free market achieves the economic objectives, however it is
important to note that they do not account for a welfare state.

Liberalism started as a political and economic principle which tried to heavily stress the right and
freedoms of the individual and the importance of less intervention from the state. (The Editors of
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2011). The political background to the ideology was first strung together in
the Enlightenment period with Thomas Hobbes moving away from the theories of God given power and
opening the door to discuss the role of citizens within the state. This was further picked up by John
Locke who brought forward the idea and very key foundation called natural rights allowing for theorist
and thinkers to take theory forward and build their own variants of liberalism. The economic aspect
really blasted through in the 19th century with the emphasis on ending state intervention within
economic sector. Further argued by Adam Smith who stressed the laissez-faire doctrinaire (Falkner,
1997) which simply stated that the economic system should allow for the free-market forces to control
the economic system and that it would do a better job than the government or state when intervening.
However, after time it was clear after the Industrial Revolution which took place in Europe and North
America found that a mix of both state intervention and free market forces is vital in the running of an
economy. American President Franklin Roosevelt epitomised modern liberalism with the introduction of
the New Deal by increasing the role of the state and their activities and the stringent approach to
business regulations. Moving to the aftermath of WWII we saw a resurgence in classical liberalism were
the emphasis again relied on the implementation of free market forces but also remembering the social
liberalism view. Bringing on more recent times, we have seen liberalism to take on the political theory of
modernity (Gray, 1986), where there is additional attention which strives towards reducing inequality
and ever-increasing individual rights.

This is what liberalism can be seen to be by the vast majority, however, it is important to note that not
everybody sees liberalism as the dominant ideology of contemporary western society, and this is what is
going to be covered in the essay. I will provide points for both arguments and then round off with the
conclusion at the very end.

There are many reasons liberalism can be seen as a dominant ideology of western society. The first
reason is that liberalism has many subsets and one subset which is argued to hold value is toleration.
Toleration is a very key element to liberalism as without it, it allows itself to be criticised heavily by other
ideologies such as communism and fascism. The theory behind toleration is simple, it allows for the
freedom of individual liberty, and this works because there are going to be people who fundamentally
disagree with their choices in life. An example of this in contemporary western society is in the USA
where there is a fundamental disagreement on gun laws and abortion laws. For both these laws there
are citizens that stand by their stance and are unwilling to change their views and must live in the same
neighbourhood, state, and city as their fellow citizens. There would be a large case of anti-gun citizen
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seeing a fellow citizen carrying a gun or an anti-abortion activist working besides an abortion clinic and
seeing people enter maybe every day. For both sets of people, tolerance is needed as they
fundamentally disagree with the other persons set of values, otherwise it would descend into violence
and around the clock arguments about why the other is wrong. Tolerance therefore respects other
citizens’ natural rights and their free will which allows for the liberal state to work in harmony. With this
example we can see how the various inputs of different variants of liberalism, can bring a set of values
which everyone can work around and a prospering society. This links to the point of liberalism having a
profound impact on social issues that were being faced in the western society. Views on abortion,
contraception, divorce, and homosexuality was due to the inspired tradition of liberalism and allowing
individual choice. Another reason to suggest that it has been a dominant ideology in the western world.

Moving to the First World War it was clear to see that liberalism had lost its way in the western world.
Liberalism had suffered a massive blow during the events of the First World War. A liberalist view had
created the Treaty of Versailles along with the League of Nations where both failed disastrously and
were hugely inefficient. Therefore, we saw a stagnation within globalisation and a step backwards of the
prospering world economy. Along with this there was the failure of being able to deal with the radical
movement of fascism and communism leading to the Second World War. At the time, fascism and
communism were the youthful and more vibrant ideologies and it seemed as it was the changing of the
old guard. However, come the twentieth century, liberalism had once again taken the mantle as the
dominant ideology as both communism and fascism had run their course. There was the return of the
free trade system, and a moderate welfare system was talked about being implemented again.
Liberalism once again showed how dominant of an ideology it was as politicians were looking to the likes
of Milton Friedman and Karl Popper to help get out of a period of stagflation and due to interpreted
version of liberalism, and free market and laissez-faire economics, there was a period of prosperous
economics and stable inflation (Kevin & Bond, 2018). Showing how there truly was a dominant ideology
in the western world at that point in time and how it did take economy and society as a whole forward.

Today, liberalism faces many challenges and due to the we find that the global scene is very different.
One of these challenges arises from Populism. Populism originated when a group of farmers came
together in the 19th century to try and overcome the struggles that were put on them by the economy,
such as lowering the price of crop or the ever-increasing price of transport. The term itself means “of the
people” which in the political sense means that the party is a representation of the common people who
usually are up against the elites in society. In recent times we have seen a real use of the populism
theory and therefore has taken up a real stronghold in the ideology of politics today. Examples include
after the 2008 Financial Crisis the Occupy Wall Street movement demanded economics and financial
reforms after major banks had failed and wanted to make sure that they were held accountable for the
financial loses that many had made. The Occupy movements did not consist of a leader and rallied many
around the world to create change through marches and protest camps. This did create change as banks
now are even more regulated than before through the Basel Accords and reforms were made. We also
saw the use of populism ideology by President Trump in the 2016 elections by proposing the isolationist
views and allowing for local business to prosper. Trump also made the promise of deterring immigrants
into the country by building a boarder. With all these populist promises and saying that he wanted to
make America great again through the people helped boost the dominance of populism (Moffitt, 2016).
We also saw this through Brexit, and the people wanting to leave the European Union in the chance that
power will be returned to the people of Britain.

Another ideology which has taken a dominant hold in the political spectrum in western society is
conservatism. Conservatism, a bit like liberalism has a very broad approach to politics and there is no
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one concrete definition to the term, however a common way of defining it would be to say that
conservatives look to hold an emphasis on traditional values, institutions, and gradual change (Burke, et
al., 2003). We have seen the importance of these characteristics within the UK. The conservative party
that has been in power for many years have consistently been adapting their policies and views to help
keep up with the times and allow for them to be voted back into power. However, it is key to
understand that in recent times, the conservative party especially in the UK has gone away from the
traditional Edmund Burke approach and from Thatcher, has seen an implementation of libertarianism.
Maybe she saw this as the approach that would best suit the economy however, she was very liberal in
her views, and this has needed to be carried on through the years as the conservative views on marriage
would not stand currently.

From this essay it is key to understand that Liberalism has a very profound impact on contemporary
western society. From this it is clear that liberalism holds a lot of truth within a lot of ideologies as in
today’s world of politics, theorists and politicians pick and choose what they want their political
framework to look like. Through many political systems in the west and economic systems, the idea of
liberalism holds a lot of influence and therefore, believe it is a dominant ideology that prevails as it
incorporates a bit of everything and aligns values with the left and the right of the political spectrum. It
is also important to note that just because they hold a value through politicians using the ideology,
doesn’t mean that it will forever be like this, new movements like the green party can do good and the
ideology behind this is starting to be implemented into every political and economic system in the
contemporary west. Especially after the Financial Crisis of 2008, citizens are understanding that they will
not be exploited by big banking firms and this is being pushed extensively by groups such as the Green
thought and so to round off, the argument shows that in this current political stance in the west,
liberalism is the dominant political ideology, however, this can be taken away by the likes of populism
and green thought.

Bibliography
Burke, E., Turner, F. M. & McMahon, D. M., 2003. Reflections on the Revolution in France. New
Haven: Yale University Press.
Falkner, R., 1997. Adam Smith, 1723-1790. [Online]
Available at: https://liberalhistory.org.uk/history/smith-adam/
[Accessed 21 April 2023].
Gray, J., 1986. Liberalism. 1st Edition ed. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
Kevin, H. & Bond, T., 2018. Liberalism. In: Understanding . Understanding political ideas and
movements: Manchester University Press, pp. 196-212.
Moffitt, B., 2016. Understanding Contemporary Populism: Populism as a Political Style . In: The
Global Rise of Populism: Performance, Political Style, and Representation . Redwood: Stanford
University Press, pp. 28-50.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2011. Liberalism Summary. [Online]
Available at: https://www.britannica.com/summary/liberalism
[Accessed 21 April 2023].
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