The Enlightenment was a period of time in European history in which people were able to gain an understanding of things not known previously. The Enlightenment began in the late 1600s, but the highlight of the Enlightenment took place in the 1700s. During this time, a group of individuals developed. These people were the philosophies, or people who studied and thought. In the Enlightenment many of the important Renaissance ideas, including those involved with humanism, were combined with the ideas related to the Scientific Revolution. This merge helped the philosophies obtain new information that enabled them to produce many important ideas. The United States incorporated many of these ideas into the founding of our country. These ideas were tried in our country and upon their success, were permanently put into effect. This trial of philosophies' ideas in the United States has caused many historians to view the United States as the laboratory for the ideas of the philosophies.
The primary belief of the philosophies was that God created the universe according to laws. He then lets the world run as it does according to these natural laws and rarely interferes. The set of laws assigned to the government was called natural rights. God supposedly intended these laws. This belief is continued in the United States because when the country was founded, the majority of the population were Christians (be it Protestants or Catholics). People get these rights at birth and these rights continue until the people have died. Another factor that the philosophies believed in was liberty.
Liberty is often defined as "the right and power to act, believe, or express oneself in a manner of one's own choosing." People in the United States have been entitled to liberty and the rights therein since the founding of the country. The United States has many laws and ideas that express our rigid belief in this idea, such as the Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, Freedom of the Press, et cetera. The United States has been based on the belief in rights for all citizens and liberty. Many countries share this belief today due to the great influence that the philosophies' ideas had on the Untied States' society. However, although many other societies have now incorporated the belief of rights and liberty, the United States was where these proposed ideas of equality were investigated.
An incredible development occurred during the Enlightenment. Two different men, Rosseau and Locke, from two different countries (France and England) had the same information available and were able to derive the same idea from that information, the social contract and social compact. The social contract was a deal asking the question "What is the relationship between the government and citizens of a country?" In the contract they designed, both the government and the citizens promised to do certain things that would benefit the opposite party. The government provided law and order, as well as protecting the natural rights of their citizens.
The philosophies don't believe in anarchy, the absence of government. Citizens pay taxes, obey laws, and provide protection to their country when it is needed. This contract also includes the right of revolution. This allows the citizens to overthrow or revolt against any government in their country that does not abide by the social contract, as well as allowing them to replace the government type. This rationale was used during the American Revolution to justify setting up a new government. When reading the United States' Declaration of Independence, it is made apparent that our country was the laboratory for the ideas of the philosophes, especially when it came to the right of revolution and the social contract. The United States was the first country to test this theory and successfully earned their independence. The right of revolution was a philosophy idea tested in the United States.
The government system in the United States has survived for more than 300 years and remains successful to this day. The government system in the United States, not surprisingly, was an idea of a philosophy named Montesquei. Montesquei wrote a book titled "Spirit of the Laws." In this book, he wrote what be believed the British parliament system had. However, he was wrong. The proposal was so intriguing, though, that many people read his book and discussed his ideas. His ideas developed into the three-branch government system we have in the United States today. Montesquei's book proposed a government in which there are three branches: Executive, Legislative, and Judicial. The executive branch carries out the laws, the legislative makes the laws, and the judicial enforces the laws. Each branch had its own separate and equal powers, creating a system of Checks and Balances. The Founding Fathers were greatly influenced by this idea. The United States was the first country to incorporate the three-branch system, thus again testing a philosophy idea.
From the philosophies developed a subcategory, called physiocrats (today considered to be economists). The economists did not like mercantilism, where gold and silver was stored in a pile. This type of economy had no circulation and was therefore an unsound method to measure the wealth of a nation. They did, however, believe in laissez-faire (leave it alone). They believed that the natural laws ran the economy, and that the government's influence would ruin the natural laws involved with economy. They believed the government and economy should be separate. Adam Smith was the best economist. He proposed the market economy, basing it on three laws.
These laws are: the law of self-interest, where people will always buy and sell to maximize their self-interest due to greed; the law of competition, where there is more than one buyer and one seller; and the law of supply and demand, which is the heart of the market economy. The law of self-interest involves buying the best quality item at the lowest price and selling at the highest price for the most profit. The law of competition believes that competition caused lower prices and that monopolies are bad. The law of supply and demand describes how prices are set. This economy was not originally the economy of the United States. However, their attempts at other types of economies were unsuccessful. The market economy was tried in the United States and has lasted since it was incorporated. The United States tested the idea proposed by Adam Smith, thus making them a laboratory for this idea as well.
The United States has become one of the richest, most successful countries in the world. One may argue that the philosophies' ideas were not crucial to our history, but in fact, their ideas define our economy, our government, our laws themselves, and the morals of our daily life in this society. Due to the success of the ideas stated above, as well as others, many other countries established these ideas into their societies as well. Vice versa, the ideas that were unsuccessful when tested, were discarded from those instituted into our country. The philosophies successfully created many of the most useful and eminent elements of our society. The United States was where these ideas were tested, as such is done in a laboratory, but our successes as a country are truly to be accredited to the brilliant minds of the 1700s.
