From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1851_French_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat Liberal socialism is a political philosophy that incorporates liberal principles to socialism. This synthesis sees liberalism as the political theory that takes the inner freedom of the human spirit as a given and adopts liberty
as the goal, means and rule of shared human life. Socialism is seen as
the method to realize this recognition of liberty through political and
economic autonomy and emancipation from the grip of pressing material
necessity. Liberal socialism opposes abolishing certain components of capitalism and supports something approximating a mixed economy that includes both social ownership and private property in capital goods.
Liberal socialism has been particularly prominent in British and Italian politics. Its seminal ideas can be traced to John Stuart Mill, who theorised that capitalist societies should experience a gradual process of socialisation through worker-controlledenterprises, coexisting with private enterprises. Mill rejected centralised
models of socialism that he thought might discourage competition and
creativity, but he argued that representation is essential in a free
government and democracy could not subsist if economic opportunities
were not well distributed, therefore conceiving democracy not just as a
form of representative government, but as an entire social organisation.
While some socialists have been hostile to liberalism, accused of
"providing an ideological cover for the depredation of capitalism", it
has been pointed out that "the goals of liberalism are not so different
from those of the socialists", although this similarity in goals has
been described as being deceptive due to the different meanings
liberalism and socialism give to liberty, equality and solidarity. In a modern context, liberal socialism is sometimes used interchangeably with modern social liberalism or social democracy.
Liberal socialism opposes laissez-faire-style economic liberalism and state socialism. It considers both liberty and equality
as compatible with each other and mutually needed to achieve greater
economic equality that is necessary to achieve greater economic liberty.
To Polanyi, liberal socialism's goal was overcoming exploitative
aspects of capitalism by expropriation of landlords and opening to all
the opportunity to own land. It represented the culmination of a tradition initiated by the physiocrats, among others.
It emphasises the need for a morally conscious economy based upon the principles of service, cooperation and social justice while opposing possessive individualism.
Ethical socialism is distinct in its focus on criticism of the ethics
of capitalism and not merely criticism of material issues of capitalism.
Tawney denounced the self-seeking amoral and immoral behaviour that he
claimed is supported by capitalism.
He opposed what he called the "acquisitive society" that causes private
property to be used to transfer surplus profit to "functionless
owners"—capitalist rentiers.
However, Tawney did not denounce managers as a whole, believing that
management and employees could join together in a political alliance for
reform. He supported the pooling of surplus profit through means of progressive taxation to redistribute these funds to provide social welfare, including public health care, public education and public housing.
Tawney advocated nationalisation of strategic industries and services.
He also advocated worker participation in the business of management in
the economy as well as consumer, employee, employer and state
cooperation in the economy.
Though he supported a substantial role for public enterprise in the
economy, Tawney stated that where private enterprise provided a service
that was commensurate with its rewards that was functioning private
property, then a business could be usefully and legitimately be left in
private hands. Ethical socialist Thomas Hill Green supported the right of equal opportunity
for all individuals to be able freely appropriate property, but he
claimed that acquisition of wealth did not imply that an individual
could do whatever they wanted to once that wealth was in their
possession. Green opposed "property rights of the few" that were preventing the ownership of property by the many.
Chantal Mouffe is a prominent Belgian advocate of liberal socialism. She describes liberal socialism as follows:
To deepen and enrich the pluralist
conquests of liberal democracy, the articulation between political
liberalism and individualism must be broken, to make possible a new
approach to individuality that restores its social nature without
reducing it to a simple component of an organic whole. This is where the
socialist tradition of thought might still have something to contribute
to the democratic project and herein lies the promise of a liberal
socialism.
The main classical liberal English thinker John Stuart Mill's early economic philosophy was one of free markets.
However, he accepted interventions in the economy. He also accepted the
principle of legislative intervention for the purpose of animal
welfare. Mill originally believed that equality of taxation meant equality of sacrifice and that progressive taxation penalised those who worked harder and saved more and therefore was a "mild form of robbery".
Given an equal tax rate regardless of income, Mill agreed that inheritance
should be taxed. A utilitarian society would agree that everyone should
be equal one way or another. Therefore, receiving inheritance would put
one ahead of society unless taxed on the inheritance. Those who donate
should consider and choose carefully where their money goes—some
charities are more deserving than others. Public charities boards such
as a government (i.e. social welfare) will disburse the money equally.
However, a private charity board like a church would disburse the monies
fairly to those who are in more need than others.
Mill later altered his views toward a more socialist bent, adding chapters to his Principles of Political Economy in defence of a socialist outlook and defending some socialist causes.
Within this revised work, he also made the radical proposal that the
whole wage system be abolished in favour of a co-operative wage system. Nonetheless, some of his views on the idea of flat taxation remained, albeit altered in the third edition of the Principles of Political Economy to reflect a concern for differentiating restrictions on unearned incomes which he favoured; and those on earned incomes which he did not favour.
In the case of Oxford University, Mill's Principles of Political Economy, first published in 1848, was the standard text until 1919 when it was replaced by Alfred Marshall's Principles of Economics. As Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations had during an earlier period, Mill's Principles of Economy dominated economics teaching and was one of the most widely read of all books on economics in the period.
In later editions of Principles of Political Economy, Mill
would argue that "as far as economic theory was concerned, there is
nothing in principle in economic theory that precludes an economic order
based on socialist policies". Mill also promoted substituting capitalist businesses with worker cooperatives, writing:
The form of association, however, which if mankind
continue to improve, must be expected in the end to predominate, is not
that which can exist between a capitalist as chief, and work-people
without a voice in the management, but the association of the labourers
themselves on terms of equality, collectively owning the capital with
which they carry on their operations, and working under managers elected
and removable by themselves.
Ethical socialism in Britain
Liberal socialism has exercised influence in British politics, especially in the variant known as ethical socialism. Ethical socialism is an important ideology of the Labour Party. Labour Prime MinisterClement Attlee supported the ideology, which played a large role in his party's policies during the postwar 1940s. Half a century after Attlee's tenure, Tony Blair,
another Labour Prime Minister, also described himself as an adherent of
ethical socialism, which for him embodies the values of "social
justice, the equal worth of each citizen, equality of opportunity,
community". Influenced by Attlee and John Macmurray (who himself was influenced by Green), Blair has defined the ideology in similar terms as earlier adherents—with an emphasis on the common good, rights and responsibilities as well as support of an organic society in which individuals flourish through cooperation.
Blair argued that Labour ran into problems in the 1960s and 1970s when
it abandoned ethical socialism and that its recovery required a return
to the values promoted by the Attlee government.
However, Blair's critics (both inside and outside Labour) have accused
him of completely abandoning socialism in favour of capitalism.
While Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was a revolutionary, his social revolution did not mean civil war
or violent upheaval, but rather the transformation of society. This
transformation was essentially moral in nature and demanded the highest ethics
from those who sought change. It was monetary reform, combined with
organizing a credit bank and workers associations, that Proudhon
proposed to use as a lever to bring about the organization of society
along new lines. Proudhon's ethical socialism has been described as part of the liberal socialist tradition which is for egalitarianism and free markets, with Proudhon taking "a commitment to narrow down the sphere of activity of the state".
Proudhon was a supporter of both free markets and property, but he distinguished between the privileged private property that he opposed and the earned personal property that he supported.
In his in-depth analysis of this aspect of Proudhon's ideas, K. Steven
Vincent noted that "Proudhon consistently advanced a program of
industrial democracy which would return control and direction of the
economy to the workers".
For Proudhon, "strong workers' associations [...] would enable the
workers to determine jointly by election how the enterprise was to be
directed and operated on a day-to-day basis".
An early version of liberal socialism was developed in Germany by Franz Oppenheimer. Although he was committed to socialism, Oppenheimer's theories inspired the development of the social liberalism that was pursued by German ChancellorLudwig Erhard, who said the following: "As long as I live, I will not forget Franz Oppenheimer! I will be as happy if the social market economy—as
perfect or imperfect as it might be—continues to bear witness to the
work, to the intellectual stance of the ideas and teachings of Franz
Oppenheimer."
In the 1930s, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), a reformist socialist political party that was up to then based upon revisionist Marxism, began a transition away from orthodox Marxism towards liberal socialism. After it was banned by the Nazi regime in 1933, the SPD acted in exile through the Sopade. In 1934, the Sopade began to publish material that indicated that the SPD was turning towards liberal socialism.
Curt Heyer [de], a prominent proponent of liberal socialism within the Sopade, declared that Sopade represented the tradition of Weimar Republicsocial democracy (a form of liberal democratic socialism)
and declared that Sopade's held true to its mandate of traditional
liberal principles combined with the political realism of socialism. After the restoration of democracy in West Germany, the SPD's Godesberg Program in 1959 eliminated the party's remaining Marxist policies. The SPD then became officially based upon liberal socialism (German: freiheitlicher Sozialismus). West German Chancellor Willy Brandt has been identified as a liberal socialist.
Hungary
In 1919, the Hungarian politician Oszkár Jászi declared his support for what he termed "liberal socialism" while denouncing "communist socialism". Opposed to classical social democracy's prevalent focus on support from the working class, Jászi saw the middle class and smallholder peasants as essential to the development of socialism and spoke of the need of a "radical middle-class". His views were especially influenced by events in Hungary in 1919 involving the Bolshevik revolution and establishment of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, after the collapse of which he specifically denounced the Marxist worldview, calling his views "Anti-Marx". His criticism of orthodox Marxism was centered on its mechanical, valueless, and amoral methodology.
He argued that "[i]n no small measure, the present terrible,
bewildering world crisis is a consequence of Marxism's mechanical
Communism and amoral nihilism. New formulas of spirit, freedom and
solidarity have to be found".
Jászi promoted a form of co-operative socialism that included liberal principles of freedom, voluntarism and decentralization.
He juxtaposed this ideal version of socialism with the then-existing
political system in the Soviet Union, which he identified as being based
upon dictatorial and militarist perils, statism, and a crippled economic order where competition and quality are disregarded.
Jászi's views on socialism and works denouncing Bolshevik communism
came back into Hungarian public interest in the 1980s when copies of
his manuscripts were discovered and were smuggled into Hungary that was
then under communist party-rule.
Another famous Hungarian politician, Bibó Istvan, was a prolific and unique liberal socialist writer. After the Second World War and the crushing of the Revolution of 1956, he wrote essays from a similar viewpoint. His views were unique in the sense that he had accepted the political system prevalent in the nation at that time, yet remained a follower of liberal and socialist ideas, such as private property and free speech. Therefore, he wished to reconcile them in his works. He felt that Marxism and socialism are (and must be) the road to the goals and ideals
of liberalism. ("kisember szocializmus", "kispolgár szocializmus":
"little people's socialism" (as white and blue collar worker/lower
middle class socialism), "petite bourgeoisie socialism")
Going back to Italian revolutionaries and socialists such as Giuseppe Garibaldi and Giuseppe Mazzini, Italian socialist Carlo Rosselli was inspired by the definition of socialism by the founder of social democracy, Eduard Bernstein,
who defined socialism as "organised liberalism". Rosselli expanded on
Bernstein's arguments by developing his notion of liberal socialism (Italian: socialismo liberale).
In 1925, Rosselli defined the ideology in his work of the same name in
which he supported the type of socialist economy defined by socialist
economist Werner Sombart in Der modern Kapitalismus
(1908) that envisaged a new modern mixed economy that included both
public and private property, limited economic competition and increased
economic cooperation.
While appreciating principles of liberalism as an ideology that
emphasised liberation, Rosselli was deeply disappointed with liberalism
as a system that he described as having been used by the bourgeoisie
to support their privileges while neglecting the liberation components
of liberalism as an ideology and thus viewed conventional liberalism as a
system that had merely become an ideology of "bourgeois capitalism".
At the same time, Rosselli appreciated socialism as an ideology, but he
was also deeply disappointed with conventional socialism as a system.
In response to his disappointment with conventional socialism in
practice, Rosselli declared: "The recent experiences, all the
experiences of the past thirty years, have hopelessly condemned the
primitive programs of the socialists. State socialism
especially—collectivist, centralising socialism—has been defeated".
Rosselli's liberal socialism was partly based upon his study and
admiration of British political themes of the Fabian Society and John
Stuart Mill (he was able to read the English versions of Mill's work On Liberty
prior to its availability in Italian that began in 1925). His
admiration of British socialism increased after his visit to the United
Kingdom in 1923 where he met George Drumgoole Coleman, R. H. Tawney and other members of the Fabian Society.
An important component of Italian liberal socialism developed by Rosselli was its anti-fascism. Rosselli opposed fascism and believed that fascism would only be defeated by a revival of socialism. Rosselli founded Giustizia e Libertà as a resistance movement founded in the 1930s in opposition to the Fascist regime in Italy. Ferruccio Parri—who later became Prime Minister of Italy—and Sandro Pertini—who later became President of Italy—were among Giustizia e Libertà's leaders. Giustizia e Libertà was committed to militant action to fight the Fascist regime and it saw Benito Mussolini as a ruthless murderer who himself deserved to be killed as punishment.
Various early schemes were designed by the movement in the 1930s to
assassinate Mussolini, including one dramatic plan of using an aircraft
to drop a bomb on Piazza Venezia where Mussolini resided. Rosselli was also a prominent member of the liberal-socialist Action Party.
After Rosselli's death, liberal socialism was developed in Italian political thought by Guido Calogero [it]. Unlike Rosselli, Calogero considered the ideology as a unique ideology called liberalsocialism (Italian: liberalsocialismo) that was separate from existing liberal and socialist ideologies. Calogero created the "First Manifesto of Liberalsocialism" in 1940 that stated the following:
At the basis of liberalsocialism
stands the concept of the substantial unity and identity of ideal
reason, which supports and justifies socialism in its demand for justice
as much as it does liberalism in its demand for liberty. This ideal
reason coincides with that same ethical principle to whose rule humanity
and civilization, both past and future, must always measure up. This is
the principle by which we recognize the personhood of others in
contrast to our own person and assign to each of them a right to own
their own.
After World War II, Ferruccio Parri of the liberal socialist Action Party briefly served as Prime Minister of Italy in 1945. In 1978, liberal socialist Sandro Pertini of the Italian Socialist Party was elected President of Italy in 1978 and served as President until 1985.
Lula da Silva (President of Brazil
from 2003 to 2010, re-elected President in 2022) set out to show that
contemporary 'liberal socialism' can work with the market and capitalism
for the benefit of all the people, while promoting public services. While advocating socialism, Lulism aims for a 'social liberal' approach that gradually resolves the gap between the rich and the poor in a market-oriented way.
Before socialism
emerged as a mainstream political ideology, radicalism represented the
left-wing of liberalism and thus of the political spectrum. As social
democracy came to dominate the centre-left in place of classical
radicalism, they either re-positioned as conservative liberals or joined forces with social democrats. Thus, European radical parties split (as in Denmark, where Venstre undertook a conservative-liberal rebranding, while Radikale Venstre
maintained the radical tradition), took up a new orientation (as in
France, where the Radical Party aligned with the centre-right, later
causing the split of the Radical Party of the Left) or dissolved (as in Greece, where the heirs of Venizelism joined several parties). After World War II, European radicals were largely extinguished as a major political force except in Denmark, France, Italy (Radical Party), and the Netherlands (Democrats 66). Latin America still retains a distinct indigenous radical tradition, for instance in Argentina (Radical Civic Union) and Chile (Radical Party).
Overview
Radicalism and liberalism
The two Enlightenment philosophies of liberalism
and radicalism both shared the goal of liberating humanity from
traditionalism. However, liberals regarded it as sufficient to establish
individual rights that would protect the individual while radicals
sought institutional, social/economic, and especially
cultural/educational reform to allow every citizen to put those rights
into practice. For this reason, radicalism went beyond the demand for
liberty by seeking also equality, i.e. universality as in Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité.
In some countries, radicalism represented a minor wing within the Liberal political family, as in the case of England's Radical Whigs.
Sometimes, the radical wing of the liberals were hardline or
doctrinaire and in other cases more moderate and pragmatic. In other
countries, radicalism had had enough electoral support on its own, or a
favourable electoral system or coalition partners, to maintain distinct
radical parties such as in Switzerland and Germany (Freisinn), Bulgaria, Denmark, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands, but also Argentina (Radical Civic Union), Chile and Paraguay.
Victorian era Britain possessed both trends: In England the Radicals were simply the left wing of the Liberal coalition, though they often rebelled when the coalition's socially conservative Whigs resisted democratic reforms, whereas in Ireland Radicals
lost faith in the ability of parliamentary gradualism to deliver
egalitarian and democratic reform and, breaking away from the main body
of liberals, pursued a radical-democratic parliamentary republic through
separatism and insurrection. This does not mean that all radical
parties were formed by left-wing liberals. In French political
literature, it is normal to make a clear separation between Radicalism
as a distinct political force to the left of Liberalism but to the right
of Socialism. Over time, as new left-wing parties formed to address the
new social issues, the right wing of the Radicals would splinter off in
disagreement with the main Radical family and became absorbed as the
left wing of the Liberal family—rather than the other way around, as in
Britain and Belgium.
The distinction between Radicals and Liberals was made clear by
the two mid-20th-century attempts to create an international for
centrist democratic parties. In 1923–24, the French Radicals created an Entente Internationale des Partis Radicaux et des Partis Démocratiques similaires:
it was joined by the centre-left Radical parties of Europe, and in the
democracies where no equivalent existed—Britain and Belgium—the liberal
party was to allowed attend instead. After the Second World War the
Radical International was not reformed; instead, a centre-right Liberal International was established, closer to the conservative-liberalism of the British and Belgian Liberal parties.
This marked the end of Radicalism as an independent political force in
Europe, though some countries such as France and Switzerland retained
politically-important Radical parties well into the 1950s–1960s. Many
European parties that are nowadays categorised in the group of social-liberal parties have a historical affinity with radicalism and may therefore be called "liberal-radical".
According to Encyclopædia Britannica, the first use of the term radical in a political sense is generally ascribed to the English parliamentarianCharles James Fox, a leader of the left wing of the Whig party who dissented from the party's conservative-liberalism and looked favourably upon the radical reforms being undertaken by French republicans, such as universal male suffrage. In 1797, Fox declared for a "radical reform" of the electoral system. This led to a general use of the term to identify all supporting the movement for parliamentary reform.
Initially confined to the upper and middle classes, in the early 19th century "popular radicals" brought artisans and the "labouring classes" into widespread agitation in the face of harsh government repression. More respectable "philosophical radicals" followed the utilitarian philosophy of Jeremy Bentham
and strongly supported parliamentary reform, but were generally hostile
to the arguments and tactics of the "popular radicals". By the middle
of the century, parliamentary Radicals joined with others in the Parliament of the United Kingdom to form the Liberal Party, eventually achieving reform of the electoral system.
Origins
The Radical movement had its beginnings at a time of tension between the American colonies and Great Britain, with the first Radicals, angry at the state of the House of Commons, drawing on the Leveller
tradition and similarly demanding improved parliamentary
representation. These earlier concepts of democratic and even
egalitarian reform had emerged in the turmoil of the English Civil War and the brief establishment of the republicanCommonwealth of England amongst the vague political grouping known as the Levellers, but with the English Restoration of the monarchy such ideas had been discredited. Although the Glorious Revolution of 1688 had increased parliamentary power with a constitutional monarchy and the union of the parliaments brought England and Scotland together, towards the end of the 18th century the monarch still had considerable influence over the Parliament of Great Britain which itself was dominated by the English aristocracy and by patronage. Candidates for the House of Commons stood as Whigs or Tories, but once elected formed shifting coalitions of interests rather than splitting along party lines. At general elections,
the vote was restricted to property owners in constituencies which were
out of date and did not reflect the growing importance of manufacturing
towns or shifts of population, so that in many rotten borough
seats could be bought or were controlled by rich landowners while major
cities remained unrepresented. Discontent with these inequities
inspired those individuals who later became known as the "Radical Whigs".
William Beckford fostered early interest in reform in the London area. The "Middlesex radicals" were led by the politician John Wilkes, an opponent of war with the colonies who started his weekly publication The North Briton in 1764 and within two years had been charged with seditious libel and expelled from the House of Commons. The Society for the Defence of the Bill of Rights
which he started in 1769 to support his re-election, developed the
belief that every man had the right to vote and "natural reason"
enabling him to properly judge political issues. Liberty consisted in
frequent elections and for the first time middle-class radicals obtained
the backing of the London "mob". Middlesex and Westminster were among the few parliamentary constituencies with a large and socially diverse electorate including many artisans as well as the middle class and aristocracy and along with the county association of Yorkshire led by the Reverend Christopher Wyvill were at the forefront of reform activity. The writings of what became known as the "Radical Whigs" had an influence on the American Revolution.
Major John Cartwright also supported the colonists, even as the American Revolutionary War began and in 1776 earned the title of the "Father of Reform" when he published his pamphlet Take Your Choice! advocating annual parliaments, the secret ballot and manhood suffrage. In 1780, a draft programme of reform was drawn up by Charles James Fox and Thomas Brand Hollis and put forward by a sub-committee of the electors of Westminster. This included calls for the six points later adopted in the People's Charter (see Chartists below).
The American Revolutionary War ended in humiliating defeat of a policy which King George III
had fervently advocated and in March 1782 the King was forced to
appoint an administration led by his opponents which sought to curb
Royal patronage. In November 1783, he took his opportunity and used his
influence in the House of Lords to defeat a Bill to reform the British East India Company, dismissed the government and appointed William Pitt the Younger
as his Prime Minister. Pitt had previously called for Parliament to
begin to reform itself, but he did not press for long for reforms the
King did not like. Proposals Pitt made in April 1785 to redistribute
seats from the "rotten boroughs" to London and the counties were defeated in the House of Commons by 248 votes to 174.
Popular agitation
Mary Wollstonecraft
In the wake of the French Revolution of 1789, Thomas Paine wrote The Rights of Man (1791) as a response to Edmund Burke's counterrevolutionary essay Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), itself an attack on Richard Price's sermon that kicked off the so-called "pamphlet war" known as the Revolution Controversy. Mary Wollstonecraft, another supporter of Price, soon followed with A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. They encouraged mass support for democratic reform along with rejection of the monarchy, aristocracy
and all forms of privilege. Different strands of the movement
developed, with middle class "reformers" aiming to widen the franchise
to represent commercial and industrial interests and towns without
parliamentary representation, while "Popular radicals" drawn from the
middle class and from artisans
agitated to assert wider rights including relieving distress. The
theoretical basis for electoral reform was provided by "Philosophical
radicals" who followed the utilitarian philosophy of Jeremy Bentham and strongly supported parliamentary reform, but were generally hostile to the arguments and tactics of the "popular radicals".
In Ireland, the United Irishmen movement took another direction, adding to the doctrine of a secular and parliamentary republic inspired by the American and French republican revolutions, another doctrine of the French Revolution: civic nationalism.
Dismayed by the inability of British parliamentarianism to introduce
the root-and-branch democratic reforms desired, Irish Radicals
channelled their movement into a republican form of nationalism that
would provide equality as well as liberty. This was pursued through
armed revolution and often with French assistance at various points over the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Popular Radicals were quick to go further than Paine, with Newcastle schoolmaster Thomas Spence demanding land nationalisation to redistribute wealth in a penny periodical he called Pig's Meat in a reference to Burke's phrase "swinish multitude". Radical organisations sprang up, such as the London Corresponding Society of artisans formed in January 1792 under the leadership of the shoemaker Thomas Hardy to call for the vote. One such was the ScottishFriends of the People society which in October 1793 held a British convention in Edinburgh with delegates from some of the English corresponding societies.
They issued a manifesto demanding universal male suffrage with annual
elections and expressing their support for the principles of the French
Revolution. The numbers involved in these movements were small and most
wanted reform rather than revolution, but for the first time working men
were organising for political change.
The government reacted harshly, imprisoning leading Scottish radicals, temporarily suspending habeas corpus in England and passing the Seditious Meetings Act 1795 which meant that a license was needed for any meeting in a public place consisting of fifty or more people. Throughout the Napoleonic Wars,
the government took extensive stern measures against feared domestic
unrest. The corresponding societies ended, but some radicals continued
in secret, with Irish sympathisers in particular forming secret
societies to overturn the government and encourage mutinies. In 1812, Major John Cartwright formed the first Hampden Club, named after the English Civil War Parliamentary leader John Hampden, aiming to bring together middle class moderates and lower class radicals.
After the Napoleonic Wars, the Corn laws (in force between 1815 and 1846) and bad harvests fostered discontent. The publications of William Cobbett were influential and at political meetings speakers like Henry Hunt complained that only three men in a hundred had the vote. Writers like the radicals William Hone and Thomas Jonathan Wooler spread dissent with publications such as The Black Dwarf
in defiance of a series of government acts to curb circulation of
political literature. Radical riots in 1816 and 1817 were followed by
the Peterloo massacre of 1819 publicised by Richard Carlile, who then continued to fight for press freedom from prison. The Six Acts of 1819 limited the right to demonstrate or hold public meetings. In Scotland,
agitation over three years culminated in an attempted general strike
and abortive workers' uprising crushed by government troops in the "Radical War" of 1820. Magistrates powers were increased to crush demonstrations by manufacturers and action by radical Luddites.
To counter the established Church of England doctrine that the aristocratic social order was divinely ordained, radicals supported LamarckianEvolutionism, a theme proclaimed by street corner agitators as well as some established scientists such as Robert Edmund Grant.
Political reform
Economic conditions improved after 1821 and the United Kingdom government made economic and criminal law improvements, abandoning policies of repression. In 1823, Jeremy Bentham co-founded the Westminster Review with James Mill as a journal for "philosophical radicals", setting out the utilitarian philosophy that right actions were to be measured in proportion to the greatest good they achieved for the greatest number. Westminster elected two radicals to Parliament during the 1820s.
The Whigs gained power and despite defeats in the House of Commons and the House of Lords the Reform Act 1832
was put through with the support of public outcry, mass meetings of
"political unions" and riots in some cities. This now enfranchised the
middle classes, but failed to meet radical demands. The Whigs introduced
reforming measures owing much to the ideas of the philosophic radicals,
abolishing slavery and in 1834 introducing MalthusianPoor Law reforms which were bitterly opposed by "popular radicals" and writers like Thomas Carlyle. Following the 1832 Reform Act, the mainly aristocratic Whigs in the House of Commons were joined by a small number of parliamentary Radicals as well as an increased number of middle class Whigs. By 1839, they were informally being called "the Liberal party".
Flyer for the Chartist demonstration on Kennington Common, 1848
From 1836, working class Radicals unified around the Chartist cause of electoral reform expressed in the People's Charter drawn up by six members of Parliament and six from the London Working Men's Association (associated with OweniteUtopian socialism), which called for six points: universal suffrage, equal-sized electoral districts, secret ballot,
an end to property qualification for Parliament, pay for Members of
Parliament and Annual Parliaments. Chartists also expressed economic
grievances, but their mass demonstrations and petitions to parliament
were unsuccessful.
Despite initial disagreements, after their failure their cause was taken up by the middle class Anti-Corn Law League founded by Richard Cobden and John Bright
in 1839 to oppose duties on imported grain which raised the price of
food and so helped landowners at the expense of ordinary people.
When the Liberal government led by Lord Russell and William Ewart Gladstone
introduced a modest bill for parliamentary reform, it was defeated by
both Tories and reform Liberals, forcing the government to resign. The
Tories under Lord Derby and Benjamin Disraeli
took office and the new government decided to "dish the Whigs" and
"take a leap in the dark" to take the credit for the reform. As a
minority government, they had to accept radical amendments and
Disraeli's Reform Act 1867 almost doubled the electorate, giving the vote even to working men.
The Radicals, having been strenuous in their efforts on behalf of
the working classes, earned a deeply loyal following—British trade
unionists from 1874 until 1892, upon being elected to Parliament, never
considered themselves to be anything other than Radicals and were
labeled Lib-Lab candidates. Radical trade unionists formed the basis for what later became the Labour Party.
The territories of modern Belgium had been merged into the Kingdom of
the Netherlands in 1815. Aside from various religious and socioeconomic
tensions between the Dutch north and proto-Belgian south, over the
1820s a young generation of Belgians, heavily influenced by French
Enlightenment ideas, had formulated criticisms of the Dutch monarchy as
autocratic. The monarch enjoyed broad personal powers, his ministers
were irresponsible before parliament; the separation of powers was
minimal; freedom of press and association were limited; the principle of
universal suffrage was undermined by the fact that the largely Catholic
south, despite possessing two-thirds of the population, received as
many seats to the Estates-General (parliament) as the smaller Protestant
north; and the Dutch authorities were suspected of forcing
Protestantism onto Catholics. These concerns combined to produce a
pro-Catholic Radicalism distinct from both the anticlerical Radicalism
of France, and the Protestant Liberalism of the Dutch north.
Following the political crisis of 1829, where the Crown Prince
was named prime minister, a limited reform was introduced establishing
constitutional rights, similar to the charter of rights of France's
autocratic Restoration Monarchy; the Belgian Radicals, like their French
counterparts, regarded such a charter of rights as insufficient,
potentially revocable by a whim of the monarch. Belgian Radicals closely
followed the situation in France when, on 26 July to 1 August 1830, a
conservative-liberal revolution broke out, overthrowing the autocratic monarchy for a liberal constitutional monarchy.
Within a month a revolt had erupted in Brussels before spreading to the
rest of the Belgian provinces. After Belgian independence, the
Constitution of 1831 established a constitutional monarchy and
parliamentary regime, and provided a list of fundamental civil rights
inspired by the French Declaration of the Right of Man.
As in Britain, Radicals in Belgium continued to operate within
the Liberal Party, campaigning throughout the 19th Century for the
property-restricted suffrage to be extended. This was extended a first
time in 1883, and universal male suffrage was achieved in 1893 (though
female suffrage would have to wait until 1919). After this Radicalism
was a minor political force in Belgium, its role taken over by the
emergence of a powerful social-democratic party.
Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre. He belonged to The Mountain of the Jacobin Club, a radical force during the French Revolution.
During the nineteenth century, the Radicals in France were the political group of the far-left, relative to the centre-left "opportunists" (Gambetta: conservative-liberal and republican), the centre-right Orléanists (conservative-liberal and monarchist), the far-right Legitimists (anti-liberal monarchist), and the supporters of a republican military dictatorship, the Bonapartists.
Following the Napoleonic Wars and until 1848, it was technically illegal to advocate republicanism
openly. Some republicans reconciled themselves to pursuing liberalism
through the socially-conservative monarchy—the 'opportunists'. Those who
remained intransigent in believing that the French Revolution needed to
be completed through a republican regime based on parliamentary
democracy and universal suffrage therefore tended to call themselves
"Radicals" – a term meaning 'Purists'.
Under the Second Republic (1848–1852), the Radicals, on a
platform of seeking a "social and democratic republic", sat together in
parliament in a group named The Mountain. When Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte launched his military coup,
Radicals across France rose up in insurrection to defend the democratic
republic. This experience would mark French Radicalism for the next
century, prompting permanent vigilance against all those who – from Marshall Mac-Mahon to General De Gaulle – were suspected of seeking to overthrow the constitutional, parliamentary regime.
After the return to parliamentary democracy in 1871, the Radicals emerged as a significant political force: led by Georges Clemenceau, they claimed that the socially-conservative liberal republicanism of Léon Gambetta and Jules Ferry
had drifted away from the ideals of the French Revolution, and that the
Radicals were the true heirs to 1791. In 1881, they put forward their
programme of broad social reforms: from then on, the tactic of the main
Radical Party was to have 'no enemies to the left' of the Republic,
allying with any group that sought social reform while accepting the
legality of the parliamentary republic.
Georges Eugène Benjamin Clemenceau
The Radicals were not yet a political party as they sat together in
parliament out of kinship, but they possessed minimal organisation
outside of parliament. The first half of the Third Republic saw several
events that caused them to fear a far-right takeover of parliament that
might end democracy, as Louis-Napoléon had: Marshall Mac-Mahon's self-coup in 1876, the General Boulanger crisis in the 1880s, the Dreyfus Affair in the 1890s. The Radicals were swept to power first in a coalition government (1899) then in governments of their own from 1902. They finally managed to implement their long-standing programme of reforms, such as the separation of Church and State, or the introduction of secret ballotting.
In order to ensure that their legacy would remain unreversed, they
unified the local Radical committees into an elector party: the Radical-Socialist Party, the first major modern political party in French history.
Intellectuals played a powerful role. A major spokesman of radicalism was Émile Chartier
(1868–1951), who wrote under the pseudonym "Alain." He was a leading
theorist of radicalism, and his influence extended through the Third and
Fourth Republics. He stressed individualism, seeking to defend the
citizen against the state. He warned against all forms of power –
military, clerical, and economic. To oppose them he exalted the small
farmer, the small shopkeeper, the small town, and the little man. He
idealized country life and saw Paris as a dangerous font of power.
The Radical–Socialist Party was the main governmental party of the Third Republic
between 1901 and 1919, and dominated government again between 1924 and
1926, 1932–1933 and 1937–1940; the centre-right governments dominated by
the conservative-liberal centre-right often gave a portfolio to a
Radical, who would join cabinet in a personal capacity as the most
left-leaning minister.
The party itself was discredited after 1940, due to fact that
many (though not all) of its parliamentarians had voted to establish the
Vichy regime. Under the dictatorship several prominent Radicals, such as the young left-leaning former education minister Jean Zay, and the influential editorialist Maurice Sarraut (brother to the more famous Radical party leader Albert), were assassinated by the regime's paramilitary police, while others, notably Jean Moulin, participated in the resistance movement to restore the Republic.
In the 1950s, Pierre Mendès-France attempted to rebuild the Radical Party as an alternative to both the Christian-democratic MRP, while also leading the opposition to Gaullism which he feared to be another attempt at a right-wing coup. During this period the Radicals frequently governed as part of a coalition of centrist parties, spanning from the Socialists to the Christian-democrats.
Ultimately the installation of the Fifth Republic
in 1958, and the subsequent emergence of a two-party system based on
the Socialist and Gaullist movements, destroyed the niche for an
autonomous Radical party. The Radical Party split into various
tendencies. Its leading personality, Mendès-France himself, left in 1961
in protest at the party's acceptance of De Gaulle's military coup and
joined the small social-democratic Unified Socialist Party.
A decade later, a second faction advocated maintaining an alliance with
the Socialist-dominated coalition of the left; it broke away in 1972 to
form the Radical Party of the Left,
which maintains close ties to the Socialist Party. The remainder of the
original Radical Party became a de facto liberal-conservative party of
the centre-right: renamed as the 'Valoisien' Radical Party, it advocated alliances with the rest of the liberal centre-right, participating first in the pro-Giscard d'EstaingUnion for French Democracy (1972), then with the conservativeUnion for a Popular Movement (2002).
Irish republicanism was influenced by American and French radicalism.
Typical of these classical Radicals are 19th century such as the United
Irishmen in the 1790s, Young Irelanders in the 1840s, Fenian Brotherhood in the 1880s, as well as Sinn Féin, and Fianna Fáil in the 1920s.
Japan
Japan's radical-liberalism during the Empire of Japan was dissident because it resisted the government's political oppression of republicanism. Rikken Minseitō, who supported the Empire of Japan's system at the time, were classified as "conservative". Therefore, the radical liberal movement during the Japanese Empire was not separated from socialism and anarchism unlike the West at that time. Kōtoku Shūsui was a representative Japanese radical liberal.
After World War II, Japan's left-wing liberalism emerged as a "peace movement" and was largely led by the Japan Socialist Party.
One of the trends of the American radical movement was the Jacksonian democracy, which advocated political egalitarianism among white men.
Radicalism was represented by the Radical Republicans,
especially the Stalwarts, more commonly known as Radical Republican. A
collection of abolitionist and democratic reformers, some of whom were
fervent supporters of trade unionism and in opposition to wage labor
such as Benjamin Wade.
Later political expressions of classical Radicalism centered around the Populist Party,
composed of rural western and southern farmers who were proponents of
policies such as railroad nationalization, free silver, expansion of
voting rights and labor reform.
The Freethinker parties, located mainly in the Netherlands, Scandinavia and German-speaking countries, included:
In Switzerland:
The Radical movement (or "Free-thinking" movement in the
German-speaking cantons), not yet a political party, emerged during the
period of Regeneration, starting 1830 (coincident with the French July Revolution). It became the dominant political force under the 1848 Constitution, holding all seven posts in the Federal Council until 1891.
The Radical-Democratic Party
(PRD; in French-speaking Switzerland), also known as the Free-minded
Democratic Party (FDP; in German-speaking Switzerland) existed from 1894
to 2009. It started as a centre-left party but gradually moved to the
centre-right in the course of time. It was still by far the strongest
party until the 1940s, holding at least four of seven posts in the
Federal Council. Under the 1959 "magic formula" it held two of seven
posts in the Federal Council.
The Radical-Liberal Party (PLR), or FDP. The Liberals (in the German-speaking regions), was formed in 2009 by the merger of PRD/FDP with the smaller, more right-leaning Liberal Party of Switzerland.
The current Liberal Party began as a radical party in 1870, hence its name in Danish (Venstre, meaning 'Left'). When it became more conservative, the Radical wing split in 1905 to form a new party, known as Radikale Venstre ('Radical Left').
In Norway:
The current Liberal Party began as a radical party in 1884, hence its name in Norwegian (Venstre, meaning 'Left').
In Mediterranean Europe, Radical parties were often labelled 'Democratic' or 'Republican' parties:
In France, during the nineteenth and the first half of the
twentieth century, radicalism was intertwined with republicanism to the
point that radical parties were often simply labelled 'republicans'. The
election of Alexandre Ledru-Rollin
in 1841 is generally considered the start of the radical-republican
movement as a political force in France. Over the next century a pattern
emerged of Radicals forming a party on the left of the parliamentary
spectrum (but to the right of socialists), only for the party to drift
to the centre, which would cause the party's left to splinter off and
re-establish a new main Radical party while the weakened parent party
was eventually absorbed by the liberal centre. This meant that there
were generally two rival Radical parties at any one time, one leaning
relatively towards socialism, and the other relatively towards
liberalism.
La Montagne
(The Mountain) (1848–1851) was the first parliamentary group to provide
a home for France's miscellaneous radical republicans. Its official
name, the Socialist Democrat group, signalled its two tendencies: the
more socialist-leaning tendency of Louis Blanc, and the more middle-class democratic-reformist tendency of Alexandre Ledru-Rollin. At that time it represented a very small political current situated on the far-left of the parliamentary spectrum.
The Republican Union (1871–1884), led by Léon Gambetta,
was the Mountain's spiritual successor during the transition to
democracy; its members included former parliamentarians of the Montagne
such as Louis Blanc, and prominent Radical intellectuals like Victor Hugo.
A minor force at first, by 1876 it had grown in parliamentary strength
but begun to drift towards centrist cooperation with liberal Catholics;
this prompted the party's more fervent radicals to splinter off in
several waves and form new Radical parties (Georges Clemenceau in 1876; René Goblet's Radical Left in 1881; Isambart's Progressive Union in 1894).
The Progressive Union (1894–1902) was originally a splinter
of the Republican Union by left-leaning radicals during the Dreyfus
Affair. In 1902 the formation of the major new Radical-Socialist Party
to its immediate left forced it to pick a political family, and it chose
to ally then merge with other centrist parties to form the
politically-liberal Republican Democratic Alliance.
Radical Left
(1881–1940), a parliamentary group initially formed by hardline
anticlerical radicals dissatisfied with the Republican Union's centrism.
It was a major political force in centre-left and centrist governments
between 1898 and 1918, and regularly provided ministers in centrist and
right-wing governments between 1918 and 1940; the importance of this
current was underlined by its leader, the veteran Radical Georges Clemenceau, being called to lead the war government
during the First World War. The foundation of the PRRRS to its left in
1901 pushed it one space towards the centre and it increasingly drifted
into alliance with the liberal republican centre-right.
By 1918 it was de facto a party of the centre-right, and from 1936 was
essentially absorbed by the liberal right, its old political niche taken
over by the PRRRS.
The Radical-Socialist Party (officially the Radical, Republican and Radical-Socialist Party or PRRRS),
the most famous of France's many radical parties. It was the dominant
political force in France from 1901 to 1919, and a major force from 1920
to 1940. Due to its central political role it could alternate in and
out of alliance with both socialists and with conservative-liberals;
this prompted several splinters by the party's most left- and right-wing
members:
Centrist and centre-right Radical splinters: The Social and Unionist Radical Party (1928–37) was a small splinter of anti-socialist radicals from the PRRRS, led by Henry Franklin-Bouillon, who preferred to ally with the centrist Radical Left and other liberal right wing parties. The French Radical Party (1937–1938) was a similar small anti-communist splinter, led by André Grisoni. These two small groups merged in 1938 as the short-lived IndependentRadical Party, which was itself restored after the Second World War and was a founding organisation of the Alliance of Left Republicans.
Independent Radical Party (1937–1940), a merger of the Unionist Radical Party and the French Radical Party.
Social-democratic Radical splinters: The Republican-Socialist Party (1911–1935) and the French Socialist Party
(1923–1935) were two small parties formed of left-wing Radicals
philosophically close to social-democracy or rightwing social-democrats
philosophically close to Radicalism, but unable or unwilling to join
either the official socialist party
or the PRRRS. Although electorally small, they were a significant
political force as they regularly provided ministers and heads of
government in left-wing and centrist coalitions. They merged with other
social-democratic parties and independents in 1935 as the Socialist Republican Union.
The Camille Pelletain Radical Party, a small splinter of
anti-fascists from the PRRRS that briefly existed between 1934–1936. The
party opposed the willingness by the PRRRS's party leaders during
1934-35 to prefer cooperation with the right and far-right rather than
with other left-wing parties. Its name was a reference to a leading
historical figure of left-wing Radicalism, Camile Pelletain,
as a way to lay claim to an authentic Radical tradition felt to have
been abandoned by the official party. Once the PRRRS returned to allying
with the rest of the left in 1936, the Pelletanist Radicals returned to
the old party.
After the Second World War, the pre-war Radical-Socialist Party,
Radical Left party and their smaller counterparts were left discredited
and weakened as communism, social-democracy, Christian-democracy and Gaullism
exploded in popularity. The remaining Radicals mostly banded together
with the remnants of other pre-war liberal parties to form a
centre-right umbrella party named the Rally of the Republican Left: this was no longer distinctly Radical in ideology, but espoused laissez-faire parliamentary liberal-democracy. In 2017 the Radical-Socialist Party merged with the Radical Party of the Left to form the Radical Movement.
In Spain, Radicalism took the form of various 'democratic', 'progressive', 'republican' and 'radical' parties.
The Progressive Party (1835–1869), formed by former participants in the radical Revolution of 1820;
The Democratic Party
(1849–1869), split from the Progressive Party, a progressive party of
Jacobin inspiration, mainly active in the 1850s. It split into two
successor parties:
A second splinter of the Radical-Republican Party formed the Republican Democratic Party and Republican Union (1934–1959)
Reformist Party (1912–1924) and its successor Republican Action (1925–1934) which was to the left of Radical Republican Party; merged into the Republican Left; its leader Manuel Azaña was two-time prime minister of the Second Republic (1931–1933 and 1936)
Action Party, formed by Risorgimento leaders around Giuseppe Mazzini,
striving for a unitary, secular Italian republic with universal
suffrage, popular sovereignty and freedom of speech (1848/53–1867)
Radicalism had played a pivotal role in the birth and development of
parliamentarism and the construction of the modern Serbian state leading
to the Yugoslavian unification. The People's Radical Party formed in 1881 was the strongest political party and was in power in the Kingdom of Serbia
more than all others together. The 1888 Constitution of the Kingdom of
Serbia that defined it as an independent nation and formalised
parliamentary democracy was among the most advanced in the entire world
due to Radical contribution and it is known as The Radical Constitution. In 1902, a crack had occurred in which the Independent Radical Party
left and "the Olde" remained in the party, leading the original
People's Radical Party to stray far from progressivism and into
right-wing nationalism and conservatism. In the Kingdom of Yugoslavia,
the Independent Radicals united with the rest of the Serbian opposition
and the liberal and civic groups in the rest of the new country, forming
the Yugoslav Democratic Party,
while several Republican dissidents formed a Republican Party. The NRS
had promoted Serb nationalism and put itself as the defender of Serb
national interests. Democrats and Radicals were the dominant political
parties, especially since the exclusion of the Communists. Later
far-right parties such as the Yugoslav Radical Union and the Serbian Radical Party adopted the title "radical" as allusion to NRS.
In Montenegro, a People's Party
was formed in 1907 as the country's first political party and remained
the largest in the period of country's parliamentary history until the
Yugoslavian unification. Later, a True People's Party
was formed, which never got widespread popular support and whose bigger
part had joined the original NS, but the difference was not ideological
and instead was opposition and support of the Crown and sometimes in
foreign relations to Serbia (the clubbists were the crown's dissidents
and supporters of the people as well as Serbia as a regional power and
brotherly ally—the rightists were generally anti-democratic and
autocratic monarchist and also distrustful to the Serbian government's
acts on the national plan).
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