Liberal philosophy to this day has evolved into three distinct, often contradicting, ideologies, namely, liberalism, libertarianism, and conservatism. Originally, liberalism, now referred to as classical liberalism, traces back to the notion of personal sphere which should not be viloated by any socio-political intervention, which in turn was based on the concept of god-given or natural right. Differences among these competing ideologies are manifested by the degree of intervention or by the political disposition of ruling government, most vividly in the level of economic freedom and in the economic performance of a nation. Empirical analysis in this paper clearly indicates that economic performance is strongly influenced by such factors like the level of economic freedom, the historical experiences or the tradion espoused by original liberalism, while, on the other hand, negatively affected by the ideological disposition to restrict them.