The Liberal League; Japanese

Japanese language

is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

 Jiyu Rengo (自由連合); was a free market

Free market

A free market is a competitive market where prices are determined by supply and demand. However, the term is also commonly used for markets in which economic intervention and regulation by the state is limited to tax collection, and enforcement of private ownership and contracts...

 liberal party in Japan. It was a minor party which held one seat in the House of Representatives in the Diet at its peak. The League, whose name can also be translated as "Freedom League" or "Libertarian Union" (even though its official English translation is Liberal League), had a liberal

Liberalism

Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...

 and free market

Free market

A free market is a competitive market where prices are determined by supply and demand. However, the term is also commonly used for markets in which economic intervention and regulation by the state is limited to tax collection, and enforcement of private ownership and contracts...

 libertarian

Libertarianism

Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...

 political agenda.

The party was formed in 2001 and won a few seats in its first election; however, in the 2003 parliamentary elections, it won only one. It won no seats in the July 2004 Upper House Elections.

On domestic policy, the party supported privatization and smaller government, but also called for increasing the rights of women. It supported the government on most issues, and, despite being critical of Japan's close relationship with the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, was supportive of the war in Iraq. It gained its base mostly from farmers. It supported the government (made up of the Liberal Democratic Party (Japan)

Liberal Democratic Party (Japan)

The , frequently abbreviated to LDP or , is a centre-right political party in Japan. It is one of the most consistently successful political parties in the democratic world. The LDP ruled almost continuously for nearly 54 years from its founding in 1955 until its defeat in the 2009 election...

 and the New Clean Government Party on most issues unofficially.

On domestic policy, the party was a liberal

Liberalism

Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...

 party.

In the 2005 lower house elections, the Liberal League's only sitting member of parliament declined to run for reelection.

See also

• Liberalism
  Liberalism
  Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
  
  
• Contributions to liberal theory
  Contributions to liberal theory
  Individual contributors to classical liberalism and political liberalism are associated with philosophers of the Enlightenment. Liberalism as a specifically named ideology begins in the late 18th century as a movement towards self-government and away from aristocracy...
  
  
• Liberalism worldwide
  Liberalism worldwide
  This article gives information on liberalism in diverse countries around the world. It is an overview of parties that adhere more or less to the ideas of political liberalism and is therefore a list of liberal parties around the world....
  
  
• List of liberal parties
• Liberal democracy
  Liberal democracy
  Liberal democracy, also known as constitutional democracy, is a common form of representative democracy. According to the principles of liberal democracy, elections should be free and fair, and the political process should be competitive...
  
  
• List of political parties in Japan
• Politics of Japan
  Politics of Japan
  The politics of Japan is conducted in a framework of a parliamentary representative democratic monarchy, where Prime Minister of Japan is the head of government. Japanese politics uses a multi-party system. Executive power exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in the Diet, with...
  
  

External links

• Liberal League official site (includes an English section)