John Locke (1632-1704)
- Focused on the need for natural rights – life liberty and property
- End of absolutist rule replaced by constitutional monarchy was a good thing
Classical Liberalism
- Commitment to an extreme form of individualism – humans are self-reliant people
- Humans owe nothing to society or to any other individual
- Atomist view of society is applied by which a society I made up of self sufficient individuals
- No state or government intervention – but necessary to maintain order and stability – evil because it encroaches on individualism
- Minimal government intervention is require
- Economic liberalism – markets are self-regulating bringing greater benefits for all
Modern Liberalism (John Stuart Mill)
- Big government (social and economic intervention) are seen as necessary to avoid people being abused by those in charge
- Freedom = the ability to flourish and achieve self-realization not the freedom to be left alone as this ma lead to being harmed
- State intervention will therefore safeguard humans against the social evils
- Evils = want, disease, ignorance, idleness and squalor
- Laissez-faire capitalism was scrapped because of J.M. Keynes – prosperity in the markets can only be obtained through regulations and key economics being put into the hands of the state
- Aim is only to intervene when humans cannot help themselves and to bring those who cannot to a point where they can once again be self-sufficient
- Redistribution – progressive taxation for the rich and more welfare provisions for the poor.
Conservatism
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Came about in late 18th/early 19th century in a reaction to the fast economic and political changes
- They wanted to return to he absolutist structures that predated the French Revolution
- Continental Europe conservatism = autocratic and reactionary politics – no reform (Joseph de Maisre)
- UK and USA = ‘change I order to conserve’ – allowed social reform under the banner of ‘one-nation’
- New Right conservatism draws on classical conservative policies
Element of Conservatism
- The desire to conserve – tradition, respect for established customs and institutions that have survived through time
- Accumulation f wisdom from the past – tradition has been ‘tested by time’
- Promotes security and stability – people have a sense of social and historical belonging
- Human rationality is limited – we cannot possibly understand the world as it is too difficult to understand
- Principles and systems of thought (such as ideology) are not trusted – experience is
- Pragmatism = actions should be shaped by practical circumstances and practical goals
- Their beliefs are an ‘approach to life’ or ‘attitude of mind’
- Human beings are limited, dependant, security seeking, drawn to familiar things, and have a need to live in stable communities
- Individuals are selfish, morally corrupt, greedy and have a thirst for power
- Crime and disorder lye with the individual not the state
- Maintenance of order therefore requires a strong state with strict laws and tough penalties.
- Society is a living whole – not a product of human ingenuity
- Society is structured with necessary essentials such as families, local communities and the nation as a whole.
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Shared values and a common culture can also be seen as important for social cohesion.
- Social positioning is natural and inevitable
- Reflect differing roles, such as parent and child
- Hierarchy and inequality to not cause conflict because everyone understands their moral obligation to society
- Privileged have to duty to care for the less fortunate
- Authority is exercised ‘from above’ – providing leadership, guidance and support for those who lack knowledge or experience
- Natural aristocracy – qualities are inbred they cannot be learnt through effort or self-advancement – however this view has now altered to mean that experience is more important
- Authority gives people social cohesion and sets out what is required of them
- Freedom must coexist with responsibility
- Property ownership is vital to providing people with security and independence from government
- Property and material possession is also an exteriorization of the people’s personalities
- Right to have property comes with duties
Paternalistic conservatism
- Reform from above was preferable than revolution from below – by being privileged you must perform a duty to help those who were less privileged in order to provide social cohesion.
- One-nation principle tries to maintain social cohesion and stability
- Harold Macmillan – laissez-faire capitalism but state socialism and central planning. – resulting in free markets with some government intervention to avoid selfishness
- Freedom allowed as long as it doesn’t interfere with other’s freedom
The New Right
- Revolution against state intervention and the spread of liberal or progressive social values
- Came about after 1970’s were there was social breakdown, and a decline of authority
- Strong but minimal state
Neoliberalism
- Market and the individual
- ‘roll back the frontiers of the state’
- unregulated economy means greater prosperity and efficiency
- ‘private enterprise good, public bad’
- faith is placed in self-help and individual responsibility – no such thing as a state
Neoconservatism
- restore authority and to return to traditional values; family, religion and the nation
- authority guarantees social stability
- opposite of neo-conservatism is leaving one to make one’s own decisions
- emergence of multicultural and multi-religious societies is dangerous
- Scepticism about multiculturalism and supranational bodies such as the EU.
Socialism
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Came about as a political creed in early 19th century – a reaction to the growing industrial capitalism
- Interested people who worked rurally as they were worried about the spread of factories
- Goal to abolish a capitalist economy and replace it with a qualitatively different socialist society (Karl Marx)
- Reformist socialist tradition – integration of working class into capitalist society through an improvement in working conditions and wages and the growth of trade unions and socialist parties
- This is peaceful,gradual and legal transition to socialism, brought about by the parliamentary route
- Socialism is split into two categories – revisionist and humanist tradition
- Revolutionary – following Lenin and Bolsheviks – communists
- Reformists – social democracy – a different way to reach socialism
Elements of Socialism
- Human beings as social creatures linked by the existence of common humanity
- Importance in community – individual personality is made up from social interaction and membership of social groups and collective bodies
- Emphasise nurture over nature
- Humans are bound together by a sense of comradeship or fraternity
- Encourages cooperation rather than competition
- Favour collectivism over individualism
- Cooperation enables people to build in their views into the community where as competition breeds resentment, conflict and hostility
- Primacy of equality over other values
- Social equality – equality of outcome over opportunity
- Gives humans a sense of individualism
- Material benefits should be distributed on a basis of need rather than on a basis or merit or work
- Belief that if basic needs of a human are fulfilled then a human with feel a purpose for existence
- Analyse society on basis of wealth and therefore class is a significant
- Socialism has been associated with the interests of the oppressed and exploited working class
- A want for the eradication of economic and social inequalities or their substantial reduction
- Either a means of generating broader equality or the end of socialism altogether
- Private property is an evil
Marxism