Power tends to corrupt and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely. Why do liberals believe this and what are its implications.

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Power tends to corrupt and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely. Why do liberals believe this and what are its implications

This familiar saying originated as a comment in a letter written by Lord Acton and had become the basis for Liberal thinking. that power has the potenial to have a corrupting affect on people. This has been constantly illustrated through history. For example Liberals believe institutions such as the monarchy and church have dominated society without allowing them progress through rational and logical means. Much of the impetus for libertarianism in the seventeenth century was a reaction against monarchs and aristocrats who lived off the productive labor of other people. Modern libertarians defend the right of productive people to keep what they earn, against a new class of politicians and bureaucrats who would seize their earnings to transfer them to nonproducers.

Liberals believe that power corrupts since people start to become self-seeking and an elite is formed of people who manipulate the political system to benefit the rich through powerful methods. However Liberals are also aware that a state is needed to keep social order and heramony. Modern liberals would advocate that state should protect our rights. This means that Liberals fundamentally believe in a limited government. Libertarians see the individual as the basic unit of social analysis. Only individuals make choices and are responsible for their actions. Man has been given the talents and skills to be independent and sole master of his own state of affairs. A large government has more open opportunities to control more aspects of life. This restricts humans from achieving maximum utility. Limited government is the basic political implication of libertarianism, and libertarians point to the historical fact that it was the dispersion of power in Europe -- more than other parts of the world -- that led to individual liberty and sustained economic growth.
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The focus of liberalism if the individual. According to Mill individuals have a right to be secure in their life, liberty, and property These rights are not granted by government or by society; they are inherent in the nature of human beings. During this some freedoms will be given up in order to obtain different rights. For example, the government will try to provide maximum utility as the cost of some of citizen's freedoms. This allows for greater equality of opportunity and meritocracy to be exercised.

Liberalism abstains from the absolute state and hence the essential ...

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