liberalism is really tricky to Define and you might hate my answer for it because it really depends on the context you're looking at and even who you ask for example if you're thinking about liberalism in an international relations context it might be vastly different than if you're discussing say American politics liberalism is one of the most complex ideologies to unpack and has undergone some significant Evolution throughout the years so make sure to watch to the very end as we Trace some of this Evolution and really try to understand what liberalism means today at its heart liberalism is rooted in the idea of individualism the belief that the role of government especially in society is to protect individual rights and freedoms all expressions of liberalism will believe in a democratic system of government where there's regular elections and government has to represent the will of the people and the legitimacy of government comes from the people different liberal Democratic states might have completely different ways their governments are structured but at the end of the day there's going to be regular election as well as a system of separation of powers so that different parts of government can keep each other in check liberalism also believes in the importance of codifying individual rights and freedoms and this two might come in different ways be it through a country's Constitution or bills of Rights or charters of rights and freedoms that might have been added after finally economically liberalism and capitalism are also closely linked and since capitalism is all about economic freedom when individual rights and freedoms are protected that's going to encourage and motivate people to want to earn a profit that capitalism will then say benefit society as a whole and that all drives economic growth all right then we've defined liberalism woohoo okay not so fast liberalism is also one of those ideas that has evolved tremendously over time and is sometimes seen differently in different parts of the world and depending on the context let's start with Classical liberalism which is sort of that OG liberalism that's grounded in the ideas of philosophers like John Lock and John Stewart Mill and economic philosophers like Adam Smith Lo's central idea was that government should be based on the will of the people and that government's only role really is to protect the three inalienable rights as Lo saw them which were life liberty and property if the those are protected people will be secure in pursuing their interests John Stuart Mill another liberal philosopher coined what we consider to be the harm principle that government should only create laws that prevent harm from coming to others otherwise people should be free to live lives how they wish to ensure these rights stay protected philosophers like Montes believe that liberal Democratic systems of government should be divided into three separate branches of government the judicial the executive and the legislative through this any one part of government would never grow too powerful economically Classical liberalism focuses on free market capitalism based on the ideas of Adam Smith his idea was that you guessed it governments stay away from economic matters as much as possible and let the free market and individual Choice guide where the economy goes and that's the best way to create economic growth taxes should stay low and so government should didn't really spend too much on Social Services as those are the kinds of things that classical liberals would say best belong in the hands of Civil Society the idea that individuals who are most interested in any particular cause invest themselves into making things better and that government simply would just not be able to handle so many things there were however several major events that challenge this conception of liberalism and limited government and so liberalism started a shift especially in North America towards more government involvement in spending which in some ways sounds like the exact opposite of what liberalism was supposed to be but wait because what's important is what the point of this increased government action is supposed to be during the Great Depression when we saw high unemployment and lots of people struggling to even put food on the table US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt created the New Deal program which in many ways created lots of government agency and massive government spending projects the idea here wasn't to get government more involved in people's lives but in order to get capitalism smoothly running again well people needed work people need to needed to have money to spend people needed jobs and so government stepped in to actually create some of those jobs with these big spending programs Roosevelt's Administration also created government programs to give people some more security so Social Security Programs for ex example uh were created so that when people potentially lose their jobs there's some government funding to help them out as they look for new work and get back up on their feet creating what we call a social safety net that people fall back on in hard times let's also think about Healthcare spending here again big government expenditure on universal healthcare in the liberal Democratic countries that have it which is most of them the idea here again is that when people are sick when people aren't able to get the health care they need well then they're at home not working not earning money leading to some of those same issues of there not being enough spending and money in the economy and unemployment right so universal healthcare even though the idea is that it's a government program where there's a lot of money being spent on it is actually also fueling the liberal economic system of capitalism and the population is healthier so it's a win-win so as the idea of liberalism evolves we see increased government involvement not only to create new programs but also through taking on social justice causes to ensure that people who have been affected by sexism or racism or other forms of discrimination also have their rights protected all of this has been up to much debate both in the last several decades as well as it continues to be now right so one of the biggest questions in Liberal Democratic societies today is when does this type of government action crossed the line into actually infringing on our rights it's something that I'm sure liberal Democratic societies will continue to Grapple with moving forward in the 1980s There Rose an ideological push back to this idea of liberalism becoming maybe even too modern and many politicians expressed a desire to bring liberalism back to those classical Roots especially in economics leaders such as Margaret Thatcher in the UK and Ronald Reagan in the United States began to peel back some of this increased government in involvement with big tax guts and deregulation of business and industry today we call these policies neoliberalism this idea that liberalism is coming full circle back to its roots the leaders that followed Thatcher and Reagan Bill Clinton and the United States and Tony Blair in the UK tried to find a balance in what we sometimes called the Third Way and that's through keeping economics relatively free while still pursuing some of these social justice issues to prevent discrimination so then where does liberalism fit today within our current spectrum of ideologies well that's actually really tricky in North America liberalism is more tied to the modern liberal idea with big government spending in government action in many ways the idea of liberalism in North America has taken on many elements of democratic socialism but that's a topic for a whole another video whereas outside of North America like in Europe for example where Democratic socialism be a little bit more mainstream the term liberalism is seen as being much closer to its classical roots or more closely tight to neoliberalism I'd love to have some of you weigh in in the comments on what liberalism means where you come from however the simple answer is that most countries today have governments that are rooted in the liberal democratic tradition and most mainstream political parties in North America in Europe in Japan Australia and many other places are rooted in the core ideas of liberalism of course will disagree on many things but all of them will believe in preserving Democratic traditions and institutions as well as protecting individual rights and freedoms finally you might also hear about liberalism being used in a global politics context it's an international relations theory that tries to explain why States behave the way they do the liberal belief is that states see a lot of benefit working together and an idea coined by Emanuel K called the Democratic peace Theory posits that the more countries that are liberal Democratic there will be in the world the more likely they'll want to work together avoid conflict because they'll see the benefit of cooperation and trade and basically just seeing eye to eye on things like individualism and protecting rights and freedoms this idea has given rise to International organizations like the United Nations whose entire goal is to provide this platform for states to be able to cooperate and pursue diplomacy as with anything in the real world though how something like liberalism behaves out in the real world doesn't always align with its theoretical foundations as we've seen in situations like the covid pandemic sometimes liberal democratic governments will suspend rights for the greater public good okay quick review liberalism in general agrees on the protection of individual rights and freedoms as well as preserving liberal Democratic systems of government and institutions Classical liberalism was the purest expression of this idea where it focused on limited government and government action only existing to prevent harm to people's life liberty and property with a very limited government involvement in society and economics modern liberalism sees increased government involvement to create a more just Society by extending the protection of rights to marginalized groups and more government spending to create this social safety net of social services to ensure people are secure neoliberalism is the economic reaction to Modern liberalism and focuses more on reducing taxes and deregulating business and industry liberalism in international relations tries to explain that states often look to cooperation as a way to ensure their security and benefit from working together for security and to attain their goals woo that was a lot to go over liberalism is a hefty ideology and has been a dominant one in the world for the better part of two centuries now but as countries like China show us it's not necessarily the only way to succeed in today's world what do you think is liberalism's place in society today let us know in the comments below and as always if you learned something today give this video a like maybe leave some super thanks subscribe if you haven't already and we'll see you again next time