Since the end of the seventies, liberalism has known a spectacular intellectual and political revival in the Western world. This revival has chiefly been the work of some "firm of principle"-intellectuals who deared to defend political pluralism, free market economy and an individualistic philosophy of law against the stream of leftist, marxist or Keynesian economics and statist theories. Their works have become milestones in the evolution of Western thinking : Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich von Hayek, Milton Friedman, James Buchanan and so many others. Each of them has, in his own way, contributed to a freeer society. Which are the cornerstones of this classical liberalism? Ethical, religious and economic freedom and responsibility are considered as being inextricably bound. The family is the primordial welfare environment. Government has chiefly a regulating, but not a "steering" function. The public structures must be maximally decentralized with the emphasis on the local authorities.

Our principles are (1) that freedom is linked to responsibility, (2) that the family must be revalorized as cornerstone of a free society, (3) that the economy should be defeodalized, and the free entrepreneurship should be protected, and (4) that the rule of law must be upheld.

Deze tekst van Boudewijn Bouckaert verscheen in The Free State.

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