ABSTRACT
Liberalism is the tradition that we most closely identify with the search for this ideal. Its hallmark is the defense of individual liberty against various forms of tyranny that are justified and prosecuted in the name of some other, allegedly higher ideal: higher, its proponents will argue, because it is of greater importance in the grand scheme of things than the life of an individual, or because it is of greater importance than liberty to an individual’s life. Liberalism opposes all such claims, and it has been the primary bulwark against the authoritarian, totalitarian, and supremacist programs to which they give rise. At the same time, though liberalism is first among movements and theories of modern political thought in its concern with individual liberty, the concern is not exclusive to it. Anarchism too, in some of its forms, springs from this concern. And it is also a principal theme in Marx’s early writings, the essay “On the Jewish Question,” the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, and The German Ideology.
