Doctrinaire Liberalism and the Revolutions of 1830
Doctrinaire Liberalism
After the French Revolution and throughout the nineteenth century, liberalism, the heir to the ideas of the Enlightenment, the French Physiocrats, and Adam Smith, evolved into more moderate positions. The revolutionary experience, the economic crisis, and growing popular discontent scared liberals. The latter had to agree with the traditionally powerful social groups to stabilize the new political regimes. Thus arose doctrinaire liberalism, an ideology that sought a middle ground between order and freedom.
Principles of Doctrinaire Liberalism
- The company was formed by a group of equal individuals competing with each other to meet their needs. These individuals had a series of “natural” rights that the State could not or should not legislate: life, individual freedom, private property, security, and freedom of enterprise.
- In the economic sphere, they were supporters of laissez-faire, the old Physiocrat slogan. They supported the social groups that had all the personal enrichment, such as the bourgeoisie, and were suspicious of the nobility, the Church, and workers.
- They advocated a government representing the interests of individual owners, either voted for or made up of them.
Representatives of doctrinaire liberalism include authors like Benjamin Constant and Alexis de Tocqueville in France, and John Stuart Mill in Great Britain. These figures favored governments formed by elites, powerful minorities due to their wealth or culture. They believed in constitutional monarchy, a system to moderate the proposals of Parliament. They relied on a bicameral parliament, so a moderate Senate could filter legislation from a lower chamber. Doctrinaire liberal theorists supported census-based voting, where only property owners could vote and be elected.
The Revolutions of 1830
This revolutionary wave had more impact than before and affected all of Europe, except Russia. These revolutions also altered the international landscape inherited in 1815. To the west of the Rhine, several moderate liberal monarchies were created. To the east, the situation remained virtually unchanged: three absolutist multinational empires (Russian, Turkish, and Austrian) acted as vigilantes against liberal and national movements.
Main Changes Resulting from the Revolutions
- The great social and economic discontent of the masses had an enormous influence.
- Action resulted not from some liberal groups of conspirators, but from mass popular movements.
- This gave rise to a democratic and republican movement more radical than the moderate liberals. Inspired by the Jacobins and Rousseau, it resulted from the division of the liberal movement. The new French monarchy, despite its liberalism, had a restricted suffrage, was associated with the gentry, and fought against all popular protest.
In places where the revolutions of 1830 failed, supporters of liberal nationalism (Italian, German, and Polish) were forced into exile and organized in countries like France and Britain.