Conservatism Vs Classical Liberalism

The U.S. government is attempting to prevent Big Tobacco companies from suing foreign governments that implement anti-smoking laws such as warning labels, packaging rules, and other restrictions on their products. Some argue that this is a recent example of the federal government over-extending its power into areas in which it should not concern itself with. According to Adam Smith, the role of government should be limited to national security, the promotion of justice, and infrastructure (Ball and Dagger 20). The federal government attempting to prohibit private corporations through legislation from pursuing their business interests would seem to violate this principle of classical liberalism. The classical liberal view posits that government …show more content…
government in this instance (Ball and Dagger 19). An argument could be made that the government pushing its way into business affairs violates an important quality of classical liberalism, namely, that government should concern itself with the protection and preservation of individual rights only. The problem with this stance may lie in whether or not the rights guaranteed to individuals under the classical liberal view can or should be extended to include a corporation. If individual rights do include corporations, then the harm principle, which states that “government and society should not interfere with an individual's activities unless that individual is somehow harming or threatening to harm others”, would apply here as well and would provide the Big Tobacco corporations with another argument against government intervention into its business practices (Ball and Dagger 24). If corporations should not be granted the same rights as individuals then this line of argument does not apply and the government is within its right to attempt to exercise control in the manner that it