Liberalism in Vienna

By Dana Harrison and Lizzie Himmel

The appeal of autonomy picked up momentum as word of Paris’ 1848 revolution spread through countries throughout Europe. Politically, the notion of liberalism goes back to the seventeenth century and John Locke, as an organized argument against monarchical rule. Liberals were in favor of representational political institutions. The classical liberals borrowed the concept of the market place from capitalism, and turned it into a marketplace for ideas. They weren’t afraid of freedom of expression because they believed that the market would value the good ideas highly and reject the ideas that weren’t worth considering. Liberalism in Vienna had failed by 1900. Groups that challenged liberalism were becoming more powerful. For the Viennese, the end of liberalism was symbolized by the election of the anti-Semitic Catholic Karl Lueger as mayor to the city in 1897. As Carl Schorske writes, “they had been crushed by modern mass movements, Christian, anti-Semitic, socialist, and nationalist.” [Schorske, Carl E. Fin-de-Siècle Vienna, Politics and Culture. New York: Random House, 1981. Pages 5-6]