Classical liberalism (also known as traditional liberalism, laissez-faire liberalism and market liberalism or, outside Britain, Canada, and the United States, sometimes simply liberalism) is a doctrine stressing individual freedom, free markets, and limited government. This includes the importance of human rationality, individual property rights, natural rights, the protection of civil liberties, individual freedom from restraint, equality under the law, constitutional limitation of government, free markets, and a gold standard to place fiscal constraints on government as exemplified in the writings of John Locke, Adam Smith, Ludwig von Mises, David Hume, David Ricardo, Voltaire, Montesquieu and others. As such, it is the fusion of economic liberalism with political liberalism of the late 18th and 19th centuries. The "normative core" of classical liberalism is the idea that laissez-faire economics will bring about a spontaneous order or invisible hand that benefits the society, though it does not necessarily oppose the state's provision of some basic public goods with what constitutes public goods being seen as very limited. The qualification classical was applied retroactively to distinguish it from more recent, 20th-century conceptions of liberalism and its related movements, such as social liberalism. Classical liberals are suspicious of all but the most minimal government and object to the welfare state.
Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, and Milton Friedman, are credited with influencing a revival of classical liberalism in the twentieth century after it fell out of favor beginning in the late nineteenth century and much of the twentieth century. In relation to economic issues, this revival is sometimes referred to, mainly by its opponents, as "neoliberalism". The German "ordoliberalism" has a whole different meaning, since the likes of Alexander Rüstow and Wilhelm Röpke have advocated a more interventionist state, as opposed to laissez-faire liberals. Classical liberalism has some commonalities with modern libertarianism, with the terms being used almost interchangeably by minarchist libertarians.
