Key Stuff - All Ideologies

Ecologism

Key Beliefs

Key Ideas

• Environmental Ethics
• Post-Materialism
• Anti-Consumerism

Key Thinkers

• E.F. Schumacher - Deep?
  • People should live close to the land to increase quality of life
  • Buddhist econimics where maximum quality of life is achived with minimum consumption
  • New economics should dispose with the traditonal economic system that is based on high growth, consumerians and production.
• Aldo Leopold - Deep
  • Ecocentric world view is needed to create ‘a new kind of people’
  • The whole environment has the right to life - The Land Ethic
  • Tradtional economic midels are unable to preserve biodiversity
  • New state and society needed to move to a new human-land realtionship
• Murray Bookchin - Social - Ecoanarchism
  • Ecotopia would allow human nature to change to be more in tune with nature
  • Envrionemntal destruction is cuased by the state as it encourages traditonal economics and is dominated by anthropocentirc ideas → self-interest and competition
• Rachel Carson - Shallow
  • Profit and production destory the planet
  • Enlightened anthropocentirsm is needed to ensure the balance of nature and humanity
• Carolyn Merchant - Social - Ecofeminsim
  • Critiscised the mechanistic world view of post-Englightenment science
  • Mechanistic world view treats nature as a dead, inert resource that is to be exploited
  • The domination of women and nature must be overthrown and repalced by a society where there is a sustainable parternship between all of humanity and nature

Other Important Thinkers

• William Morris (ecosocialist) - envisaged a society of small scale communities who were living close to nature.
• Rudolph Bahro (ecosocialist) - capitalism has an anti-ecological bias for a number of reasons:
  • The conservative belief in provate property encourages the belief that humans are dominant over nature
  • The market economy commodifies nature and turns it into something that was a market value
  • Capitalism breeds consumerism and materialism which fules relentless growth at the expense of the natural environment

Conservatism

Key Beliefs

Key Ideas

• Human Imperfection
• Organic State
• Pragmastism
• Tradition
• Paternalism (Traditional and One Nation)
• Libertarianism (New Right)

Key Thinkers

• Thomas Hobbes - Traditional
  • Society needs a Leviathan to preserve law and order
  • Ordered society where rational people will sacrifcie rights and freedoms to gain secuirty in the form of political authority → government established through the consent of the people in order to preserve order
  • Humans are security seeking and needy as they complete violently to obtain basic neccesities, humans seek material gains and staus
  • Human capacity to reason is fragile, attempts to interpret the world are distorted by self interest
• Edmund Burke - Traditional
  • Change to conserve → gradual changes are needed to stave of revolutionary hcnage which can leave society worse off due to the irganic nature of society
  • Tradition is important becuase it represents practices passed down through generations
  • Changes should be based on tradition and empiriscim rather than abstarct principles → revolutionary chnage threatens to destory the “roots” of organic society
  • Tradition encourages social cohesion becuase it offeres a sense people being rooted in their society
  • Change in order to conserve
• Michael Oakeshott - One Nation
  • Humans are imperfect and lack the mental capacity to understand the modern world becuase → “boundless and bottomless”
  • Conservatism is about being pragmatic → using practical experience should be used to guide public descison making
  • Pragmatism will ensure social stability and the ability respond flexibly to changing circumstances -
• Ayn Rand - New Right
  • Completely unregulated, laissez-faire, economy to be compatible with rationality
  • Objecticism → pursuit of rational self interest is morally right
• Robert Nozick - New Right
  • Individuals have the right to their own lives, liberty and reward for their labour
  • The individual’s right to their labour, talents and body is threateened by taxation to fund welfare
  • Welfare is immoral as it treats indviduals as a resource
  • Minimal state is all that can be justified

Liberalism

Key Beliefs

Modern and Classical Similarities and Differences

Key Ideas

• Individualism and Liberty → liberals stress the ‘primacy of the individual’ as the individual is free to decide their own destiny without being bound by social groups. This differences leads liberals to belive strongly in tolerance.
  • Human Nature → all humans are unique and have equal worth so should be treated as having their own intrinsic value.
  • State → developmental indvidulism is used to justfy limited state intervention to help the disadvantaged.
  • Devlopmental Individualism → downplays the impirtance of self-reliance in favour of the creation of a society where people can experince personal growth.
  • Egoistical Individualism → people are self-seeking and self-reliant.
• State → tend to see the state as a neccesary evil, efforts made to limit its power and scope.
  • State is needed to prevent exploitation of the vulnerable and social disorder, however, the power of the state is suspect as self-seeking people may use their position for personal gain at the expense of others.
  • Limited government, constitutionalism and a series of checks and balances (James Maddison) are needed to control the power of the state.
  • J.S. Mill opposed state interventionism on the gorunds that it made the state more powerful.
• Rationalism → humans are guided by reason rather than emotion or instinct, foundation of the enlightenment which questioned tradtional authority and religion.
  • Humans need to be free to make their own descions, in doing this they also benefit from taking responsibility for their actions.
  • Fosters a progressive society as individual development promotes wider social development as reaosned discussion and debate can be used to resolved conflicts.
• Freedom → ability of the individual to make descisions in thier own interest, this has to be exercised within the scope of the law.
  • Human Nature → early liberals argued that the need for personal freedom was greater than claims made by authroitarian governments to make descions for the people.
  • The State → freedom is not absolute and must be exercises within the scope of the laws of the state, in line with the social contract.
  • Positive Freedom (T.H. Green, Modern) → individuals pursue the common good as well as their own interests (rational), limited state intervention should facilitate people developing talents so that they can reach self-fulfilment.
  • Negative Freedom (J.S. Mill, Classical) → individuals should inly be subject to constraints when their actions impact others.
• Equality and Social Justice
  • Equality of Opportunity → everybody should have the same ability to rise or fall in a society, different outcomes are acceptable as humans have different abilites and potentials.
  • Foundational Equality → all are born equal so posses certain inalienable human rights which cannot be removed by the state or other groups.
  • Social Inequality → some inequality is acceptable, in a meriocracy people are rewarded when they strive to fulfil their potential but some talents have different rewards.
  • Formal Equality → people have the same legal and political rights, based on equality before the law.
  • State Intervention → equality of outcome is neither achieveable or desirable but some state intervention may be needed to help people realsie their potential.
• Democracy
  • Tyranny of the Majority (de Tocquevile) vs Protective Democracy (John Locke)
  • Political Wisdom is Unevenly Distributed vs Developmental Democracy (J.S. Mill)
  • Unrestrained Demoacray Leads to Tyranny (J.S. Mill) vs Democracy is a form of Protection for the Indiividual (Bentham and James Mill)
• Utilitarianism (Jeremy Bentham) → people make descions based on rational selef-interest in the pursuit of the most pleasure and the least pain. Government should only intervene if the descions of an individual undermine the ability of others to make their own choices.
  • In practice, this means ‘the greatest pleasure to the greatest number’ but also that minority interests can be disreagrded.

Key Thinkers

• John Locke - Classical
  • Social Contract Theory → agreement where people give up some freedom in exchnage for protection and rights guaranteed by the state
  • Government should be limited by a constitution and should be based on consent from below → rejected the ‘divine right’ to rule
  • Social contract theory is based on the belief that people are rational
  • Locke did not extend his belief in tolerance to athiests and was not a true democrat
  • Executive, legislature and judiciary would mean that the state cant become overbearing
• Mary Wollstonecraft - Classical
  • Women are independent and capable of making rational descisions
  • Formal euqlaity → women should enjoy free civil liberties and the right to a career
  • Human nature is optimistic
  • 18th century attiutes towards women were not rational → depriving women of the right to vote undermined ‘government by consent’
• John Stewart Mill - Classical/Modern
  • Harm Principle → people should be free to do anything other than inflict harm on others → agrees with the classical concept of negative freedom
  • People should be tolerable of the values and customs of others
  • Human actions are either ‘self-regaring’ or ‘other regarding’ → state should not intervene in self-regarding actions but should curb actions that could imede on the freedom of others
  • Widely held opinions are not always correct → believed in a tolerant and free society
• John Rawls - Modern
  • Theory of Justice → society must be just and guarantee each citizen a life worth living
  • Veil of Ignorance → people agree on the type of society they want with a lack knowlege about their own position within society
  • Just society needs formal equality and greater economic and social equality
  • An enabling state is needed to redisitibute wealth, increas public spending and adopt progressive taxation
  • Equality of opportunity is desirbale but inequality of outcome is the reuslt of individual differences
  • The rational and empatheic nature of human means they will seek a society that better cares for the disadvantaged and is more equal → partially becuase of the veil of ignorance
• Betty Friedan - Modern
  • Men and women are of equal worth so opressive laws and social views must be rejected
  • Women should have equal opportunity
  • Discrimination should be criminalised (quite a strong state) to prevent harm to others
  • Legal equality refelcts the liberal belief in tolerance
  • More opportunity and a shift in social attitudes towards women
  • Femenine Mystique → myth that women seek security and fulfilment in doemstic roles

Socialism

Key Beliefs

Key Ideas

• Cooperation
• Collectivism
• Equality
• Class Politics
• Common Ownership

Key Thinkers

• Marx and Engles - Revolutionary
  • Revolutionary class consciousness and spontaneous revolution
  • Humans are social beings and that can only be expressed under communism
  • State was not needed in a communist society → transition state
• Rosa Luxembourg - Revolutionary
  • Prolaterian struggle for reform and democracy → creates the class consciouness needed to ovethrow the state
• Beatrice Webb - Social Democracy
  • Gradualist parliamentray strategy for achieving socialism
  • Expansion of the state is needed to deliver socialsm, not the ovethtrow of the state
• Anthony Crosland - Social Democracy
  • Capitalism in contradictory and cannot deliver social chagne
  • State managed capitalism can deliver social change including full employment, the mixed economy and universal social benfits (welfare)
• Anthony Giddens - Third Way
  • Rejection of state
  • Acceptance of free market capitalism with constraints
  • Equality of opportunity over complete equality
  • State is essential for social invetsment in infrastructure and education, not economic and social engineering
  • Capitalism is liberating for the individual