Monday, February 21, 2011

Video: 10 Core Principles of Classical Liberalism

Dr. Nigel Ashford of Senior Program Officer at the Institute for Humane Studies (IHS) at George Mason University, explains the 10 core principles of the classical liberal & libertarian view of society and the proper role of government (via learnliberty.org):

1) Liberty as the primary political value
2) Individualism
3) Skepticism about power
4) Rule of Law
5) Civil Society
6) Spontaneous Order
7) Free Markets
8) Toleration
9) Peace
10) Limited Government


Update: Read in the following link Ralph Raico's magnificent article on "Austrian economics and Classical Liberalism"

Here is the intro:
Classical liberalism — which we shall call here simply liberalism — is based on the conception of civil society as, by and large, self-regulating when its members are free to act within very wide bounds of their individual rights. Among these the right to private property, including freedom of contract and free disposition of one's own labor, is given a very high priority. Historically, liberalism has manifested a hostility to state action, which, it insists, should be reduced to a minimum (Raico 1992, 1994).

Austrian economics is the name given to the school, or strand, of economic theory that began with Carl Menger (Kirzner 1987; Hayek 1968), and it has often been linked — both by adherents and opponents — to the liberal doctrine. The purpose of this paper is to examine some of the connections that exist, or have been held to exist, between Austrian economics and liberalism.

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