Liberalism Vs Conservatism Essay

The democratic party and the republican party are the two major political parties in the United States. The democratic party’s chosen political ideology is (modern) liberalism while the republican’s chosen one is conservatism. But, what is a political ideology and what are the differences between liberalism and conservatism? A political ideology is a set of ideas, principles and beliefs, taken on by a group or an individual, that explains how society should function, what our role, as humans, is in society and what the role of the government is.
Liberalism is interested mainly in the individual’s freedom and right to lead his or her own life. The word liberalism comes from the Latin root “liber” meaning “free” which further proves the ideology’s focus on individual freedom. Liberalism …show more content…
T. H. Green argued most for modern liberalism. Modern liberalism argued for government intervention in economic and social aspects of society as it advocated expansive - or positive - liberty. Expansive liberty is the freedom to comfortably explore, maximize and achieve one’s own potential and thus become a contributing member of society. Consequently, modern liberals, such as Green, supported government action to help those who lacked the resources needed to develop their own potential. Modern liberals were not accepting of economic inequality as it oppressed humans’ ability to contribute in society and advocated for government intervention in that aspect. They argued in favor of laws, set by governments, to forbid any individual from oppressing another, but, that went against classical liberals’ ideas as the government setting laws to dictate humans - no matter the reasons for these laws - did not agree with their definition of an all inclusive liberty and minimum government intervention. So, Locke’s liberals, or classical liberals, in order to not be associated with modern liberals started calling themselves