What are similiar ideologies to classical liberalism?

 My answer on Quora.

The vision of classical or authentic liberalism (as my friend the very astute, Charles Tips prefers to call it) today is most closely associated with Modern Free Market Libertarianism. Both favor economic entrepreneurship, private ownership of property, an emphasis on the sovereignty of the individual, free speech, freedom of belief, limited government intrusion, meritocracy, the necessary rule of law and skepticism of the elite authority. Positions on social issues and foreign policy will vary.

The Anarcho-capitalist version of Libertarianism (Rothbard and co.) does incorporate many of the talking points of Classic Liberalism but its ideological commitment to an extreme form of limited government (not to mention its strong emphasis on the Non-Aggression Principle) detract somewhat from a fuller overlap.

The US Constitution is an authentic liberal document as most of the Founding Fathers were greatly influenced by the British liberal movement. In the 20th century I would argue that the economist Friederich Hayek was the leading proponent of Classical Liberalism.

"F. A. Hayek and the Rebirth of Classical Liberalism" - Econlib

In the recent revival of public and scholarly interest in the values of limited government and the market order, no one has been more centrally significant than Friedrich A. Hayek. His works have figured as a constant point of reference in the discussions both of the libertarian and conservative theories of the market economy; they …

https://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/LtrLbrty/gryHRC.html

However in the US like all umbrella descriptors classical liberalism casts a larger net with most of its ideals being incorporated into the framework of Modern Conservatism via the Fusionism model.

Liberty and Virtue: Frank Meyer’s Fusionism (June 2021)

Welcome to our June 2021 edition of Liberty Matters.  This month Stephanie Slade, managing editor at Reason magazine , has written our lead essay on Frank Meyer . Liberty Fund publishes Meyer’s most widely cited book In Defense of Freedom and related essays which also includes a number of Meyer’s more well known essays.  Meyer was one of the founders, along with William F. Buckley, of National Review .  Meyer later was credited with being the founder of the political philosophy of fusionism.  Fusionism was his effort to combine libertarian and conservative principles to maintain markets and more traditional values in society.  Meyer believed that while virtue was critical to the maintenance of a free society, virtue could not be coerced by the state.  This focus on the individual rather than the collective as the source of virtuous action, along with a commitment to free markets and limited government, helped animate conservative political thought under President Reagan and forge an alliance between libertarians and conservatives during the latter part of the Cold War.  Today conservatives are heading in a very different ideological direction, but Slade argues in her provocative essay it is worth returning to Meyer’s thought during this dynamic period in American politics. The Debate Lead Essay Stephanie Slade, " Freedom and Virtue: Masters of Their Own Domains " [Posted June 7, 2021] Responses Jonathan Adler, " Is Fusionism a Zombie Ideology? " [Posted June 10, 2021] Henry Olsen, " Fusionism: Freedom's Handmaid " [Posted June 14, 2021] William Dennis, " Friendly AND Ferocious Fusionism " [Posted June 18, 2021] Stephanie Slade, " Righteous Meddling and Human Excellence " [Posted June 22, 2021] Jonathan Adler, " Conservatives' Burden " [Posted June 25, 2021] Henry Olsen, " Conservatism: A Better Guarantor of Liberty " [Posted June 29, 2021] William Dennis, " Virtuecrats versus Liberty for All " [Posted July 2, 2021] Stephanie Slade, Freedom and Virtue : Masters of Their Own Domains It’s an old productivity maxim that a person who has multiple priorities in fact has no priorities. If priority denotes that item or consideration which exceeds all others in importance, then there can, as the movie trope goes, be only one. This would seem to pose at least a potential problem for “ fusionism ”—the idea, most closely associated with the late National Review literary editor Frank S. Meyer, that the essence of American-style conservatism is a dual mandate to preserve both liberty and virtue. To trade away one for the sake of the other, Meyer thought, would amount to a hollowing out of the American founding and, indeed, a rejection of the ideals of Western civilization itself. But as our friendly neighborhood management consultant might point out, a person can’t have two No. 1 priorities. Undoubtedly, the demands of virtue and the presumption of liberty will at times conflict. In cases when one or the other must take precedence, which should it be? There ar

https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/liberty-matters-frank-meyer-fusionism-stephanie-slade

Fusionism essentially brings together the free market thinking of Classic Liberalism with various elements of Social Conservatism. It has served as the bedrock for the GOP since the Reagan era.

On a philosophical level one can make the case that Fusionism merges the Liberalism of the Scottish Enlightenment (Hume, Smith etc), with the Lockian beliefs that arose during the Age of Reason and the Burkean emphasis on transcendence. It seeks to preserve the working core of the essence of the nation state that has empirical utility with the critical need to guarantee freedom of individual agency.

As expected this merger has some choke points that tends to underpin the internal conflict within the GOP (most evident during primary election season). This is further complicated by the fact that the GOP has a Progressive wing that played an integral role in the party since its founding. Big government initiatives - not strictly the domain of the Democratic Party - initiated by the GOP largely originate with this influential party sector.

In the United States by political necessity most Classical Liberals would probably still align with the GOP or the Libertarian party. Neither of which though is a strictly classical liberal party but the electoral alternatives are even further removed from Classical Liberalism. The Contemporary Democratic Party today is largely a bulwark for various Progressive and Identitarian movements that tend to de-emphasize the role of the individual in favor of directed state and collectivist action. This stands in sharp contrast to the ideals of Classic Liberalism.

Classic Liberalism in Europe falls today under the broad spectrum of Modern European Conservatism and is just called Liberalism. This would have been the case in North America if the term liberal had not been appropriated by Progressives prior to WWII. The ‘classical’ moniker is used to emphasize the distinction. Australia also uses the word Liberal in its original sense.