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What most defines classical liberals is the priority they give to individual freedom. Human beings also have other values, of course – honesty, loyalty, security, family and more. But when it comes to our social, political and economic life, classical liberals believe that we should aim to maximise the freedom that individuals enjoy.

Classical liberals maintain that people should be allowed to live their lives as they choose, with only the minimum necessary restraint from other individuals or authorities. They accept that freedom can never be absolute, since one person’s freedom may conflict with another’s: we may all have freedom of movement, but we still cannot all move onto the same spot at the same time. And freedom does not mean you are free to rob, threaten, coerce, attack or murder others, which would violate their freedom.

So what are the limits to individual freedom? Classical liberalism has no single answer. It is not a dogmatic set of rules. Classical liberals do not completely agree on where the limits to personal (and government) action should lie. But they do broadly agree that any answer should seek to maximise individual freedom, and that anyone who wants to curb it must have a very good reason.

Ten principles of classical liberalism

To understand better what classical liberalism is, we can list ten principles that classical liberals all agree on.

1. The presumption of freedom

Classical liberals have a presumption in favour of individual freedom or liberty (the words are interchangeable in English). They want to maximise freedom in our political, social and economic life. However, they have different grounds for this conclusion.

To many, freedom is good in itself. They argue from psychology that, given a choice, people invariably prefer being free to being coerced. Others, natural rights advocates, say that freedom is something given to us by God or Nature. Some argue that freedom is based on a social contract that people in a ‘state of nature’ would have to agree if they were to avoid chaos and conflict.

Many suggest that freedom is an essential requirement for progress. Some make a humanist point, that freedom is an essential part of what it means to be human: someone who is controlled by others is not a whole person, but a mere cipher. Lastly, utilitarian classical liberals value freedom as the best way to maximise the welfare of society as a whole.

2. The primacy of the individual

Classical liberals see the individual as more important than the collective. They would not sacrifice an individual’s freedom for some collective benefit – at least, not without some very good justification. They have several different reasons for this.

One view – called methodological individualism – is that a collective has no existence beyond the individuals that comprise it. Certainly, society is more than a collection of individuals, just as a house is more than a collection of bricks. But society has no independent mind of its own; it is individuals who think and value and choose and drive events. There is no collective ‘public interest’ beyond the interests of the individuals who comprise that community.

And, secondly, those individuals disagree. What is in the interest of one person may be against the interest of others. The reality of sacrificing individual freedom to ‘the collective’ is that we would be sacrificing it to some particular set of interests, not to everyone’s interests.

Another reason is simple experience. History explodes with examples of the horrors visited on populations when their freedom is sacrificed to some leader’s misconceived notion of the collective good. Even in recent times, one need only reflect on the atrocities of Hitler, the starvation and purges under Stalin, or the mass murders ordered by Pol Pot.

Fourthly, society is hugely complicated and in constant flux. No single authority could possibly know what is best for everyone in this complex, dynamic world. Individuals are far better placed to make decisions for themselves, and should be left free to do so.

3. Minimising coercion

Classical liberals want to minimise coercion. They want a world in which people get along by peaceful agreement, not one in which anyone uses force or threats to exploit or impose their will on others.

Accordingly, classical liberals give the monopoly on the use of force to the government and judicial authorities. But they want to keep even that to its necessary minimum; they know how easily power can be abused.

Classical liberals maintain that any use of force to curb people’s actions must be justified. The onus is on anyone who wants to restrict freedom to show why that is both necessary and sufficiently beneficial to warrant it.

And more generally, classical liberals hold that individuals should be able to live their lives as they choose, without having to ask anyone’s permission before they do something. There may be a good reason to curb their actions; but it is up to those who want to do so to make the case.

4. Toleration

Classical liberals believe that the main – or perhaps the only – good reason to interfere with people’s freedom is to prevent them doing or threatening actual harm to others. They do not believe that we should restrict people’s actions just because we disapprove of them or find them offensive.

For example, classical liberals defend free speech, even if some people use this freedom to say things that others – or even everyone else – may think obnoxious. Likewise, individuals should be free to assemble in groups such as clubs, unions or political parties, even if other people find their aims and activities repugnant. They should be free to trade goods and services, even ones (such as drugs and prostitution) of which others might disapprove. And they should have the freedom to live, to hold whatever opinions they please, and practise whatever religion they want.

Classical liberals see such toleration as not just good in itself. They see toleration and mutual respect as essential foundations for peaceful cooperation and the creation of a beneficial, well-functioning society. Human differences are a fact of our social life, and always have been. Liberals do not believe that those differences can be eliminated, and are deeply sceptical of Utopian attempts to do so. Given that, toleration will always be a necessary part of functioning social life.

5. Limited and representative government

Classical liberals concede that some force may be needed to prevent people injuring others, and agree that only the authorities should have this power. Yet they know that power is not wielded by some dispassionate ‘state’ but by actual human beings who have the same failings as the rest of us. They know that power tends to corrupt, and that politicians often cite the ‘public interest’ for policies that are actually in their own interests.

In addition, social contract theorists such as the English philosopher John Locke (1632–1704) argue that government power comes from individuals, not the other way round. People give up some of their freedoms to the government in order to maximise their freedom in general. So government has no legitimate powers beyond the powers that individuals have themselves; and the whole purpose of government is to expand freedom, not to restrict it. As the American revolutionary thinker Thomas Paine (1737–1809) argued, citizens would be within their rights to overthrow any government that broke this trust.

But revolution is a last resort. Classical liberals believe that representative and constitutional democracy is the best means yet discovered for keeping our legislators accountable to the people. Elections are not so much about choosing good leaders, but removing bad ones. The better informed and more vigilant the electorate, the better they work. Even so, democracy has its limits: it may be a good way to make some decisions, but these are few; usually we are better to let individuals make their own choices.

6. The rule of law

Another principle that restrains power and creates greater security for the public is the rule of law. This is the idea that we should be governed by known laws, not the arbitrary decisions of government officials – what the American statesman John Adams (1785–1836) called ‘a government of laws, and not of men’.

Classical liberals insist that the law should apply equally to everyone, regardless of gender, race, religion, language, family or any other irrelevant characteristics. It should apply to government officers just as much as to ordinary people; nobody should be ‘above the law’.

To maintain the rule of law requires a system of justice, with independent courts that cannot be manipulated by individuals or governments. There need to be basic judicial principles such as habeas corpus, trial by jury and due process to prevent those in power using the law in their own interests.

The rule of law has another happy consequence – it makes life far more predictable, because it enables us to anticipate how people (including officials) will – and will not – behave. So we can make long-term plans without fear of having them shattered by the caprice of others.

7. Spontaneous order

You may think that a large and complex society needs a large and powerful government to run it; but classical liberals dispute this. They believe that government is not the basis of social order. The complex social institutions that we see around us are largely unplanned. They are the result of human action, but not of human design.

For example, no central authority or conscious planning was needed to produce language, or our customs and culture, or markets for goods and services. Such institutions simply grow and evolve out of the countless interactions between free people. If, over the centuries, they prove useful and beneficial, they persist; if not, they change or are abandoned.

The Austrian social theorist F. A. Hayek (1899–1992) called the result spontaneous order. Spontaneous orders can be hugely complex. They evolve through individuals following rules of conduct – like the rules of grammar – that they might not even realise they are following, and could scarcely describe. It is the height of folly, in politicians and officials, to presume that any single mind could comprehend such complex orders, never mind improve on them.

8. Property, trade and markets

Classical liberals believe that wealth is not created by governments, but by the mutual cooperation of individuals in the spontaneous order of the marketplace. Prosperity comes through free individuals inventing, creating, saving, investing and, ultimately, exchanging goods and services voluntarily, for mutual gain – the spontaneous order of the free-market economy.

This wealth-creating social order grows out of a simple rule: respect for private property and contract, which allows specialisation and trade.

Freedom and property are intimately related. The market economy, and the wealth it generates, depends on the free movement of people, goods, services, capital and ideas. And the existence of private wealth makes it easier for people to resist the exploitation of a predatory government.

Classical liberals do not allow property to be acquired by force. In fact, most property is created – crops are raised, houses are built, innovations are developed. Property clearly benefits the owner. But, in fact, it benefits everyone because it promotes wider prosperity.

9. Civil society

Classical liberals believe that voluntary associations are better at providing individuals’ needs than are governments. While they emphasise the priority of individuals, they recognise that people are not isolated, atomistic, self-centred beings. On the contrary, they are social animals and live in families and groups and communities that partly shape their values – clubs, associations, unions, religions, schools, online communities, campaigns, self-help groups, charities and all the other institutions that we call civil society.

These institutions are an important part of how people relate to each other. Our outlook, values and actions are shaped within them. And they provide the basis of mutual understanding on which cooperation can be built. Indeed, cooperation would be impossible without the freedom to associate like this.

Civil society also provides a buffer between individuals and governments. If we really were all isolated individuals, our freedoms would be easily suppressed by a despotic government. But the complex intersecting circles of civil society not only demonstrate that alternatives to government action are possible – private charities, for example, instead of state welfare – but also give us the common interest and strength with which to resist.

10. Common human values

Classical liberals, then, wish to harness our common humanity for mutual benefit. They uphold the basic principles of life, liberty and property under the law. Those, they believe, are the foundations of a thriving, spontaneous social order based on mutual respect, toleration, non-­aggression, cooperation and voluntary exchange between free people.

Politically, they favour free speech, free association, the rule of law and – since rulers are no more saintly than the rest of us – limits on government that prevent those in authority doing too much harm.

They know that a good society cannot rest solely on human benevolence. It rests more on the peaceful cooperation of different, self-interested individuals. So they favour freedom and equality under the law, with a strong, trustworthy justice system that prevents us harming others, but does not try to direct our lives.

Economically, classical liberals favour freedom in production and exchange, and the free movement of people, goods and capital. They defend private property and wish to keep taxation to what is necessary to provide the public with defence and any other ‘public goods’ that are underprovided by the market.

This is far from the common caricature of classical liberalism as a tiny, laissez-faire, night-watchman state. Justice alone, for example, is a hugely complex institution that needs great and continuing effort to maintain. Classical liberals know that the protection of life, liberty and property are no small tasks.

1 A note on American liberalismWhen Americans speak of ‘liberalism’, they are talking about something very different from classical liberalism. Classical liberalism, also known as ‘old liberalism’ or ‘liberalism in the European sense’ focuses on the freedom of individuals; the minimisation of coercion; property and free exchange; and a limited, accountable government that protects and expands freedom.American or ‘new liberalism’ or ‘modern liberalism’ shares a strong belief in personal freedom, but considers that freedom is more than merely the absence of coercion – it can be fostered by paternalist and interventionist government.American liberals say that the state has a duty to protect people from themselves and from the unjust inequalities of power that it believes are often created by property ownership. They call for a generous welfare system to compensate the poor and support for workers against their (more powerful) employers. They are sceptical that economic freedom produces public benefits (such as high employment) and believe that the state should intervene in order to expand opportunities, provide public goods and make markets serve the public interest.Classical liberals are very suspicious of such policies. They fear that government power easily grows far beyond its usefulness; and point out that even the best-intentioned policies often have dismal and unintended consequences.