To what extent have modern liberals departed from the ideas of classical liberalism? (45 marks)

The two branches of modern liberalism and classical liberalism naturally clash within the ideology of liberalism itself. There are fundamental ideas that form criteria for debate across the two coexisting views, although they do possess various similarities with one another. Classical liberals often highlight the supreme importance of the individual, reflected in their desire to minimise the role of the state, whereas modern liberals take a more collective approach, and the see the expansion of the state as necessary based on the socio-economic circumstances of society. In this sense, modern liberalism can be viewed as a development on classical liberal thinking; it is only in the new ideas that modern liberalism brought about upon which they are fundamentally different.
Modern liberalism can be viewed as taking a strong departure from classical liberalism based on their ideas of freedom. Firstly, classical liberals have believed in the idea of negative freedom, meaning non-interference or freedom from external interference of any sort; individuals should be left alone to make their own decisions. The government or state, external to the individual, should act as a ‘night watchman’, as summarized by the classical liberal John Locke, meaning its primary role should merely be to oversee society to keep law and order in place and the state in check. An extension of this classical view is the idea of a minimal state, in that its governing role of policy implementation should be restrained as much as possible, so as to not interfere with individual freedom. As former US President Thomas Jefferson once said, ‘That government is best which governs least’. Modern liberals deviating from classical liberal thought became evident when T.H. Green challenged the classical