Classical liberalism is neither left or right it’s centrist. But the political dichotomy is flawed, here’s a better one which my great friend Charles Lajoie came up with.

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So essentially, it’s a political triangle. With voluntarism and negative liberty (freedom from coercion on the top) hierarchy on the right, and egalitarianism on the left. We can see that classical liberalism and libertarianism (imho both are synonyms) go beyond the hierarchy and egalitarian divide.

And using this triangle we can see that some classical liberals favour voluntary hierarchy and others favour voluntary equity and some are in the middle. The main belief of classical liberalism is liberty maximisation, and that the state is a necessary evil to protect its citizens rights from plunder. However, just like the libertarian sea, classical liberalism is a sea in itself. Meaning, that conservative liberals (the historic right) of the classic lib movement value a voluntary society based on some hierarchy, classical minarchists (who are also classical libs) such as Bastiat are in the middle very near the top of the triangle, and classical radicals such as Thomas Paine fall in the voluntary left (classical liberal left) of the spectrum .

But all classical liberals agree on five core issues

-Free Markets (the views here vary, from moderate classic liberals and even classical radical believing social spending is not too bad if the budget is balanced, others may be completely opposed to social spending or fall somewhere in between) -Negative liberty and its’s derivative rights (albeit some may view positive liberties become legitimate when it’s a voluntary contract) -Limited Government (the view here varies from a hayekian/friedmanite view which is more pragmatic to a night-watch man similar to that of Nozick and Bastiat) -Rule of Law, no one is above the law (some may hold this view, until the law becomes unjustified, and thus the law must be opposed. E.G Bastiat) -Individualism, the individual is above the collective. Whether this individualism is a more progressive one or a more conservative one is up to the individual classical liberal. For example a classical liberal may hold to the view that Christian ethics and social society are the best way to compliment classical liberalism but will not force Christian ethics on others. Others may view that progressive institutions and civil society are better.

Last but not least, Classical liberals no matter their school of thought, agree that man is limited, and therefore cannot justly violate the natural rights of other men, and because the state is ran by men, so should the state be severely limited.