The Road To Freedom

Since Lockerbie, the ideological source of classical liberalism, classical liberalism has gone through 300 years of history. After its baptism of time and erosion,carrying countless the challenges and responses of other thoughts. But it still has great vitality and stands proudly in the forest of human knowledge. Its ideological covers philosophy, political science, economics, law and other fields, in particular in the field of economics and law. It has the profound impact on the human mind. This paper studies mainly on classical liberal thoughts of the rule of law,through exploring the history of the rule of law of classical liberalism, I try to reveal the true meaning of the rule of law classical liberalism,by summing up the great contributions made by classical liberalism of the rule of law on the formation of western society ruled by law and then reaches the following conclusion: Regardless of the changes of history situation, the idea of freedom and the rule of law pursued by classical liberalism is the bottom line of thoughts and forever. If we go beyond the bottom line, the freedom of human beings will no longer exist.Classical liberals cling to the concept of negative liberty, that is, personal freedom means that there is no external mandatory,any interference in the personal life is thought to violate the personal liberty. It opposes the concept of positive liberty, thinks that the final result of development of the positive liberty is a lack of freedom of individual citizens. In the end, the country embarked on the road of authoritarianism and totalitarianism.In order to realize personal negative freedom, classical liberalism tries to advocate the freedom under the rule of law, That is, through the realization of the rule of law so as to protect the freedom of individuals to achieve. In the views of classical liberals, in order to achieve the rule of law, first of all, should be concerned about what is meant by the rule of law, It answered the most crucial issues in the constructing of the rule of law what the law of rule of law should be, and insisted that the law of rule of law should be law of freedom. It is not common sense rules enacted by the legislature in accordance with the legal proceedings. It should be rules of justice. If we use Hayek's language to interpret, which is legitimate rules of conduct. The rules should have three attributes, namely, equality, universal and uncertainties. Its function is of the demarcation and protection for private property rights. Proper rules of conduct of the legal rules are unique for the concept of the rule of law classical liberalism. It is precisely this view with its concept of the rule of law to distinguish with.In the classical liberal view, the integrity protection of the individual property rights is prerequisite to achieve the freedom of individuals, The representatives of classical liberalism such as Lockerbie, Benjamin Constant, Bastiat, Hayek all had a full demonstration. Classical liberals firmly believe that in a number of rights of the individual, property rights is the most important. The law of rule of law is mainly to protect the property rights of citizens. It is through protecting the property rights of citizens for proper rules of conduct to contribute to the realization of individual freedom. Therefore,the rule of law of classical liberalism evolutes ultimately into the governance of private law. Private law plays the most important role in concept of the rule of law in classical liberalism.Through private law being as proper rules of conduct to achieve the protection of individual property rights is an aspect of the concept of the rule of law of classical liberalism. Classical liberals think that in any stage of history, the greatest threat to personal freedom is the source of the danger of abuse of the powers of government. Therefore, the classical liberals maintain a high degree of vigilance to government power. In order to prevent the violating civil liberties because of abuse of government power, from Lockerbie, they have been designing exquisite a constitutional system. In theory on the one hand, to Lockerbie, Montesquieu, Hayek,being as the doctrine of separation of powers, On the other hand, to Mill, Tocqueville, for the fear of the majority democracy, to design representative government.With the evolution of history, the thoughts of rule of law of classical liberalism also revealed its lagging side in certain areas, Revealing the conflict between the ideal and the reality of social. For specific performance, the conflict between the concept of freedom and equality of the demands; Conflict between concept of rule of law of private law and ruling of public law in social reality; Conflict between the concept of limited government and requesting the government should play a great role in social reality. Nevertheless, we must firmly bear in mind is that all principles of the rule of law founded by classical liberalism have the prior to contemporary ideas and thoughts. If we leave the bottom line of negative liberty established by the classical liberalism, maintain justice issues, security issues, environmental issues, population issues standing merely on the point of values which Neo-liberalism, social democracy commitment, we will be no exception to damage individual freedom. This is the significance of the rule of law of classical liberalism for the constructing of rule of law in western or eastern countries today.Despite the traditional and context, classical liberalism belongs to the West, this can not be a reason for exclusion. Facing all sorts of questions exposing in the modernization constructing of contemporary China, theories of rule of law of classical liberalism may exactly become effective prescription to solve these Chinese questions. In the concrete practice of the rule of law in China, we should do that, open-minded, emancipating the mind, and strive to absorb reasonable factors of thoughts of rule of law of classical liberalism for our use, and perhaps this is the right way to construct rule of law for China.