Extracts from a Popper-Rafe Classical Liberal Manifesto

Chanced upon this by Rafe Champion today. Sharing.

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What is this thing called classical liberalism?

Karl Popper produced a handy summary of the leading liberal principles in a speech to the Mont Pelerin Society.

(1) The state is a necessary evil and its powers should be kept to the minimum that is necessary.

(2) A democracy is a state where the government can be changed without bloodshed.

(3) Democracy cannot confer benefits on people. "Democracy provides no more than a framework within which the citizens may act in a more or less organised and coherent way".

(4) Democracy does not mean that the majority is right.

(5) Institutions need to be tempered and supported by traditions.

(6) There is no Liberal Utopia. There are always problems, conflicts of interests, choices to be made between the lesser of evils.

(7) Liberalism is evolutionary rather than revolutionary. It is about modifying or changing institutions and traditions rather than wholesale replacement of the existing order. The exception to this is when a tyranny is in place, that is a government that can only be changed by violence and bloodshed.

8) The importance of the moral framework.

"Among the traditions that we must count as the most important is what we may call the 'moral framework' (corresponding to the institutional 'legal framework') of a society. This incorporates the society's traditional sense of justice or fairness, or the degree of moral sensitivity that it has reached… Nothing is more dangerous than the destruction of this traditional framework. (Its destruction was consciously aimed at by Nazism)."

The moral framework includes honesty, compassion, enterprise, community service, personal responsibility, tolerance and civility. These principles can be found at the heart of all the great religions although they do not need theological justification. This is a vital addition to the usual list of liberal principles: the suite of freedoms, including free trade and free speech, limited government, the rule of law and secure property rights.