Liberalism Vs Conservatism

Speaking of the liberalism in more details, it is based on the firm belief in basic human liberties. Among the developers of liberalism, it is important to identify John Locke, Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham, Alexis de Tocqueville, Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill (Vincent, 2014, p. 27). While it was initially an ideology that did not approve of governmental intervention in the economic activities, in the modern world it allows a definite extent of controlling and regulating as well as contributing to the establishment of social justice. Nevertheless, the most active role of the liberals is visible when referring to the human rights and civil liberties, their defense and advocating positive actions to make the idea of social justice more real. With
While the liberals value diversity and thus devote much attention to separate individuals, the conservatives consider people to be unable to function on their own and to need the power that would lead them (Baradat, 1979, p. 13). At the same time, liberal values include individualism, freedom, and equality.
While the liberal directory is using the idea of equality as one of its central values, socialism also speaks of the equality and justice. However, this ideology directs the attempts of its supporters in another way. Their idea of equality is to a large extent based on the economic equality, which was a contribution of Karl Marx, one of the most prominent ideological
With respect to the social order, the conservatives are the supporters of the traditional values and they are usually rejecting the change and innovation (Freeden, Sargent & Stears, 2013, p. 588). Thus, the representatives of this ideological direction, such as Edmund Burke, criticize liberalism stating that it destroys traditions and disregarding the ideal offered by the Enlightenment claiming that the humans are perfect in their nature (Eccleshall, 1994, p. 64). This is another point of contrast regarding the three theories of organizing the political life. While liberalism provides freedom to the individuals and claims that they are all good, conservatives believe that the humans are imperfect so that they need traditions to follow, strong authority, and unchangeable values. As it was claimed by the conservatives, people can only behave in a civilized way if they are deterred from violence and anti-social impulses (Heywood, 2012, p. 72). The attacks on the values and beliefs possible due to the individualistic nature of liberalism thus lead to the change of order undermining one of the valuable conservative postulates of