It really kinda didn’t exist before capitalism though. Liberalism and capitalism co-evolved to respectively provide the moral justification and the material means for the bourgeois revolution against feudalism. Liberalism is inherently a capitalist ideology. Though I would agree that some of the principles that liberalism claims are indeed timeless and appropriate to include in any society.
Liberalism existed before capitalism, and can also exist in non-capitalist states.
It really kinda didn’t exist before capitalism though. Liberalism and capitalism co-evolved to respectively provide the moral justification and the material means for the bourgeois revolution against feudalism. Liberalism is inherently a capitalist ideology. Though I would agree that some of the principles that liberalism claims are indeed timeless and appropriate to include in any society.