Describe the concept of liberalism which …

Liberalism meant different things to different people.

Political liberalism:

• It stood for equality before the law.
• Revolutionary France marked the first political experiment in liberal democracy in which right to vote and get elected was granted exclusively to property-owning men.
• Men without property, and all women were excluded from political rights.
• Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, women and non-propertied men organised opposition movements demanding equal political rights.

Economic liberalism:

• It stood for freedom of markets and the abolition of state-imposed restrictions on the movement of goods and capital.
• Customs Union or ‘zollverein’ was formed in Prussia, joined by most oLthe German states.
• The Union abolished tariff barriers and reduced the number of currencies from thirty to two.