limited government
Power with boundaries
Limited government is a political principle holding that governmental power should be restricted, typically through constitutional constraints, separation of powers, or enumerated rights.
The concept opposes absolute authority and assumes certain domains—private property, individual conscience, free expression—lie beyond legitimate government reach.
The Bill of Rights reflects the founders' commitment to limited government.
- classical liberalismDoctrine of minimal governance
- free marketCommerce without state intervention
- laissez fairePolicy of nonintervention
- rule of lawSupremacy of established laws
- libertyAbsence of unjust constraint
civil liberties · anti-federalism · federal overreach · enumerated powers · law · deregulation · Magna Carta · Federalist Papers · founding fathers · natural rights · constitution · tax cuts · Tenth Amendment · states' rights · separation of powers · individual rights · checks and balances · subsidiarity
- Jefferson EraThomas Jefferson, Democratic-Republicans, Louisiana Purchase, Monticello, Lewis and Clark
- free marketersAdam Smith, Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand, free traders, laissez-faire
- US Politicsconservatism, ballot, liberalism, bill, constitutionalism
- political philosophypolitical philosophy, political theory, political thought, social contract, natural rights
- ConstitutionBill of Rights, preamble, articles, U.S. Constitution, Article I
- constitutional governmentseparation of powers, checks and balances, executive branch, legislative branch, judicial branch
limited governmenttotalitarianism
State controls everything absolutely
absolutism · authoritarianism · despotism · tyranny · autocracy
limited governmentstatism
Doctrine of governmental dominance
Stalinism · collectivism · communism · fascism · Marxism-Leninism
limited governmentcommand economy
State-controlled economic system
central planning · state socialism · collectivism · communism · state capitalism