The Free and Prosperous Commonwealth

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Excerpt from The Free and Prosperous Commonwealth: An Exposition of the Ideas of Classical LiberalismThe philosophers, sociologists, and economists of the eight eenth and the early part Of the nineteenth century formulated a political program that served as a guide to social policy first in England and the United States, then on the European continent, and finally in the other parts Of the inhabited world as well. Nowhere was this program ever completely carried out. Even in England, which has been called the homeland Of liberalism and the model liberal country, the proponents of liberal policies never succeeded in winning all their demands. In the rest Of the world only parts Of the liberal program were adopted, while others, no less important, were either rejected from the very first or dis carded after a short time. Only with some exaggeration can one say that the world once lived through a liberal era. Liberalism was never permitted to come to full fruition.Nevertheless, brief and all too limited as the supremacy Of liberal ideas was, it sufficed to change the face of the earth. A magnificent economic development took place. The release Of man's productive powers multiplied the means Of subsistence many times over. On the eve Of the World War (which was itself the result Of a long and bitter struggle against the liberal spirit and which ushered in a period Of still more bitter attacks on liberal principles), the world was incomparably more densely populated than it had ever been, and each inhabitant could live incomparably better than had been possible in earlier centuries.The prosperity that liberalism had created reduced considerably infant mortality, which had been the pitiless scourge Of earlier ages, and, as a result of the improvement in living conditions, lengthened the average span of life.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.