The circumstances of British liberalism's origins are inextricably linked to both the expansion of modern European imperialism and to the critique of patriarchal divine right monarchy in the cauldron of England's constitutional struggles prior to the Glorious Revolution of 1688–1690. In terms of both empire and the persistence of patriarchy, the egalitarian principles of liberalism were set in stark relief against a background of political, economic and social conditions of radical inequality. The debate in contemporary times is naturally whether British classical liberalism, liberal political economy in particular, was in essence antagonistic towards or complicit with imperialism and patriarchy.

The subject of liberal imperialism is not just of antiquarian interest. In the fairly recent context of reflections upon the challenges and opportunities of the post-Cold War pax Americana and post-911 War on Terror even figures as deeply ensconced among the elites of academia as Michael Ignatieff and Niall Ferguson lauded the virtues of liberal imperialism extending democracy and free markets to benighted, illiberal regions of the globe. In terms of early modern historiography, the debate has typically involved those who condemn liberalism as essentially ideological justification of European imperialism, global capitalism and racialist discourse, and others who endorse a more mixed view of liberalism's heritage, including both a noble tradition of anti-imperialism in the eighteenth century associated with Adam Smith, David Hume and Jeremy Bentham, and the later triumphalist colonialism of James Mill, John Stuart Mill and George Wakefield in the nineteenth century marked by the apologia of enlightened despotism and muscular assertions of western cultural superiority. On the question of classical liberalism's relation to patriarchy, the contemporary debate is no less robust as some feminist scholars view early modern liberal thought as integral to justifying de facto social and economic inequality for women, while others turn to classical liberals such as John Locke and John Stuart Mill to identify the early liberal roots of feminism.

This chapter will examine the themes of empire and women's emancipation through the interpretive lens of classical liberal political economy characterised by the two distinct discursive traditions we have identified with natural rights and the harmony of interests.