Combinationalism

Waldish philosopher Knut Arvidsen is widely credited with coining the term "combinationalism".

Combinationalism is a political and economic ideology that rose to prominence in the Northern world during the early 20th century. Combinationalism is based around the dual mandate principal, which claims that the purpose of the state is to maximize both individual liberty and social justice. Combinationalists argue that the dual mandate obligates policymakers to seek out the most efficient and unintrusive means of solving socioeconomic issues, and to avoid market intervention altogether when other institutions such as churches, families, and community organizations are better able to provide solutions. Adherents of the movement are diverse in their views, but generally support limited government, property rights, subsidiarity, public stewardship, familialism, optimal taxation, market monetarism, and welfare reform.

The term “combinationalism” was coined by Waldish philosopher Knut Arvidsen in his 1887 essay Free Markets and Social Justice, which is widely considered to be the foundational document of the ideology. After the Recession of 1924, combinationalist movements entered the political mainstream in several countries in TBA as a center-right response to the social question. TBA became the first nation with an openly combinationalist government in 1930, when TBA and his TBA Party rose to power in the aftermath of the TBA. Combinationalism spread to Calesia after the Great War, when it was embraced by Gregorian democratic parties to encourage an equitable reconstruction of the war-torn continent. Waldish Lawspeaker Karl Fjellheim was an early proponent of Calesian combinationalism, enacting a series of economic and social reforms during the 1940s that became known internationally as the Waldish model.

Political scientists generally categorize combinationalism as a centrist or center-right ideology, occupying a middle ground between interventionist ordoliberalism and laissez-faire classical liberalism. However, combinationalism remains difficult to define due to the significant ideological diversity between different movements. As a result, combinationalism has often been referred to as a “big-tent” ideology unified only by adherence to the dual mandate principal.