Was Classical Liberalism a "Strife of Interests Masquerading as a Contest of Principles"?
As Barnes noted, there were a number of "middle-class writers" who took more or less this line, but "by far the most influential" of them "was the 17th-century English philosopher, John Locke. Many of his theories were taken up and popularized in America by Thomas Jefferson...
This brings us to the question Barnes's account of political developments in 17th-century England poses for us. For it seems clear that the theory Barnes depicts as having been developed to "justify" the economic and political program of the middle class is none other than what we call today by the name…
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