Liberalism

Depiction of Maximilien Robespierre, a liberal thinker and politician during the French revolution.

Liberalism is a capitalist political and economic ideology which seeks to ensure bourgeois property relations and political rights within the framework of the nominally democratic system, known as bourgeois or liberal democracy. Liberalism emerged during the revolutions of the 18^th and 19^th centuries which ended the feudal absolute monarchies. Liberalism, now in the present largely in the form of neo-liberalism, is one of the major ruling ideologies within capitalist states.

Liberalism is contrasted with other right-wing ideologies such as fascism in that it seeks to provide the illusion of democratic freedoms and universal equality for the workers, whereas fascism seeks the abolition of bourgeois democracy while still maintaining the capitalist system.

See also

• Bourgeois democracy
• Classical political economy
• Libertarianism