Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Daniel B Klein & Erik Matson
“The debate about when ‘liberal’ first acquired a political meaning has been resolved. The answer is the 1770s, when the adjective ‘liberal’ became the name of the policy orientation against government restriction, government monopoly, and protectionism, and in favor of individual liberty, premised by a stable, functional system of governmental authority. This policy orientation was christened ‘liberal’ by Scotsmen Adam Smith, William Robertson, and others. In 1776, Smith’s The Wealth of Nations advanced the liberty principle as a policy maxim. That book built a case for a presumption of liberty. It was enormously influential. In the decades that followed, the adjective ‘liberal’ was exported from Britain to the continent and gave rise to the nouns ‘liberal’ and ‘liberalism.’ All of this has been established thanks to new analysis made possible by the digitisation of historic texts.” (01/13/25)
https://fee.org/articles/how-the-word-liberal-first-became-a-political-adjective/