Liberalism: Foundations and Implications

Liberalism as an “ideology” is believed to have been born during the Age of Enlightenment, and many people accept that it was the first systematic ideology. Conservatism emerged as a reaction to liberalism in the conviction that the liberal understanding of individuality and the pursuit of individual interests would inevitably destroy the foundations and communality of social life. Socialism appeared as the third ideology and it did not- at least initially, openly reject, despite denying almost all liberal principles, goals of liberals. It claimed that its basic aim was to improve and fully realize these liberal aims.

Liberalism as an “ideology” is believed to have been born during the Age of Enlightenment, and many people accept that it was the first systematic ideology. Conservatism emerged as a reaction to liberalism in the conviction that the liberal understanding of individuality and the pursuit of individual interests would inevitably destroy the foundations and communality of social life. Socialism appeared as the third ideology and it did not- at least initially, openly reject, despite denying almost all liberal principles, goals of liberals. It claimed that its basic aim was to improve and fully realize these liberal aims.