Course Reflection Paper----social science
Power and Ideology
Chapter 3
Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
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LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, students will be able to:
Explain the ways in which ideology can control people’s behavior, and describe what functions ideologies serve in general.
Identify the three types of government identified by social scientists, as well as the three kinds of economic systems, and explain how these categories are related.
Explain the ideologies of classical liberalism, modern liberalism, conservatism, communism, socialism, and fascism, and describe how they compare and contrast with each other.
Explain where you think individual political and economic liberty fits in relation to the welfare of the society as a whole.
Identify the ideology that best represents your ideal, or consider whether elements of different ideologies best represent your ideal.
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The Power of Ideas
FUNCTIONS OF IDEOLOGY
- Ideology: an integrated system of ideas or beliefs that rationalizes and justifies the exercise of power, influencing how power is exercised.
- Functions:
- Affect perception
Rationalize and justify a way of life
Provide normative standards to determine “rightness” and “wrongness”
Provide motivation for social and political action
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THE RISK OF OVERSIMPLIFICATION
- Risk of oversimplification is great.
- Most ideologies are themselves simplifications.
- Ideologies are constantly changing, especially when old utopian hopes are disappointed.
- New ideologies compete with older ones.
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The Intersection Between Political and Economic Ideologies
TYPES OF GOVERNMENT
- Monarchy: a type of government in which a member of a royal family, usually a king or a queen, has absolute authority over a territory and its government
Divine right of kings: Bossuet’s idea that monarchies, as representatives of God’s will, entitled them to rule absolutely, ignoring the will and well-being of their subjects
Constitutional monarchies (Great Britain and Spain)
Traditional monarchies (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia)
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TYPES OF GOVERNMENT (cont’d)
- Oligarchy: a type of government in which an elite few hold power
Some are dictatorships, in which a small group supports a dictator (China and North Korea)
- In a democracy, the supreme power of government lies with citizens
Republics or representative democracies use citizen-elected leaders to represent their views
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TYPES OF ECONOMIES
- Four types of economic systems based on how societies choose to address the issue of scarcity—the fact that things of value, including income, natural and man-made resources, capital, and time, are limited
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TYPES OF ECONOMIES (cont’d)
- Traditional economic system: an economy in which patterns of behavior established over the long term guide how individuals and groups allocate scarce resources.
Little economic growth
- Command economic system (planned economy): scarcity is addressed exclusively by the government, which decides how resources are distributed, what products are produced, the price of these products on the marketplace, and the price of labor.
Socialism is one form of command economy.
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TYPES OF ECONOMIES (cont’d)
- Market economy: an economic system in which individuals decide what goods to purchase, what skills to acquire, the price they will charge for their labor (wages), and what goods they will purchase with their income.
Government plays no role.
- Mixed economy: an economic system in which individuals and the government both decide issues of scarcity through the allocation and distribution of resources.
Most advanced economic systems are mixed.
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Classical Liberalism: The Least Government Is the Best Government
CLASSIC LIBERALISM: THE LEAST GOVERNMENT IS THE BEST GOVERNMENT
- Classical liberalism asserted the worth and dignity of the individual.
Rejected the divine right of kings
Outgrowth of the Enlightenment (Age of Reason), and in particular natural law—the premise that the laws that govern human behavior come from the nature of humans themselves and can be universally applied.
Alternative vision as to how individuals and governments should function.
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THE POLITICAL IDEOLOGY OF CLASSICAL LIBERALISM
- An individual possesses inalienable rights, that cannot be taken away by a government.
- Human beings form a social contract to protect their rights.
- Limited government – government cannot violate the rights that it was established to protect.
- Equality of opportunity –each person should have an equal chance to develop individual capacities to his or her natural limits.
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CLASSICAL LIBERALISM AND THE ECONOMIC IDEOLOGY OF CAPITALISM
- Capitalism – asserts the individual’s right to own private property and to buy, sell, rent, and trade in a free market.
- The economic version of liberty
- Laissez-faire – a ‘hands off’ approach to government intervention in economic affairs.
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Modern Liberalism: Government Power to “Do Good” Using a Mixed Economy
MODERN LIBERALISM IN PRACTICE: THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT IN A MIXED ECONOMY
Continues to recognize the individual’s right to own private property, but imposes many social and economic obligations.
Proposes to reform capitalism, rather than replace it with socialism.
Sees the power of government as a positive force to help eliminate adverse social and economic conditions.
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THE MODERN LIBERAL MIXED ECONOMY
- Modern liberalism contends that individual dignity and equality of opportunity depend in some measure on reduction of absolute inequality in society; supports government intervention into the economic system in order to foster equality.
Support political equality in all forms
Higher government mandated minimum wages
Redistributive tax policies
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Modern Conservatism: Individualism, Traditional Values, and Returning to a Market Economy
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MODERN CONSERVATISM: INDIVIDUALISM AND TRADITIONAL VALUES
- Protection of law and tradition reduce vulnerability to terror and violence.
- Government should play a more limited role in people’s everyday lives.
- Families, faith-based groups, and private charities should care for the neediest citizens.
- Prefer decentralized action by state governments to nationwide federal policy.
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MODERN CONSERVATISM’S EMPHASIS ON LAW AND TRADITION
- Conservatism is not as optimistic about human nature as liberalism; believes human nature includes elements of irrationality, intolerance, extremism, ignorance, prejudice, hatred, and violence
Relies on law and tradition to uphold society.
Evolutionary view of social progress
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TRADITION, FAMILY, AND CHURCH AS GUIDES IN A MODERN CONSERVATIVE SOCIETY
- Conservatives hold that people are rational beings, but that they are also victims of passion, needing guidance of law, tradition and morality
- Family, church and community help repress individual’s selfish impulses
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MODERN CONSERVATIVE GOVERNMENT: SMALLER IS BETTER
- Conservatives believe that government should play a more limited role in people’s everyday lives:
Smaller role in regulating business
Market forces should determine economic policy
Rely on private forces to protect neediest
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TO THE RIGHT OF MODERN CONSERVATISM: LIBERTARIANISM
- Libertarianism: ideology that advocates that government should take a “hands-off” approach in most matters.
- Strongly support the rights of property owners and laissez-faire capitalist economy.
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How Americans Describe Themselves
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HOW AMERICANS DESCRIBE THEMSELVES
- Self-described conservatives outnumber liberals
- Many Americans prefer “moderate” and many others decline to label themselves
- No clear answer to what is really meant by “liberal,” “moderate” or “conservative”
- “To what extent should government be involved in people’s everyday lives?”
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One Form of a Command Economy:
The Advent of Communism
KARL MARX
- Communism: an ideology critical of capitalism that asserts that the class structure created by the capitalist mode of production perpetuates various facets of society
- Communist Manifesto (Karl Marx, 1848) was a political pamphlet calling for world revolution.
- Class struggle—the basic conflict between economic classes; capitalists versus the proletariat.
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THE FOUNDATION OF COMMUNISM:
ECONOMIC DETERMINISM
- The mode of production creates the class structure, the political system, religion, education, family life, law, even art and literature.
- The economic structure of capitalism creates a class structure of a wealthy bourgeoisie who control the government and exercise power over the proletariat.
- The class structure is perpetuated through various facets of society, such as the education system.
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CLASS STRUGGLE, REVOLUTION AND CREATION OF A SOCIETY WITHOUT CLASSESS
- Will emerge as a result of common ownership of everything.
- Once established, the government will have no purpose and will gradually “wither away.”
- The rule of distribution in the early stages will be “from each according to his ability, to each according to his work.”
- After establishment of a full classless society the rule will be “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”
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WHY COMMUNISM COLLAPSED
- Exists today mostly in North Korea and Cuba
- Reasons for collapse:
Deteriorating living standards
Lack of individual incentives
Popular distrust and cynicism
Absence of political and economic freedoms
Incompatible with democracy
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Socialism versus Communism: What’s the Difference?
COMMITMENT TO DEMOCRACY
- Socialists share with communists a condemnation of the capitalist system and its inherent evils and exploitation
- Rejected idea of a socialist “dictatorship”; contend that goal of socialism is a free society.
True democracy cannot be achieved until wealth is evenly distributed and the means of production are commonly owned
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GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP
- Socialists believe that wealth must be redistributed so that all persons can share in the benefits created by society
Transfer of ownership to government in a peaceful, democratic fashion
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COMMAND ECONOMY and NATIONALISM
- Socialism relies on central planning by government bureaucrats to produce and distribute goods and services.
- Bureaucrats rely on their own judgment (vs. market demand) to determine how many of each good should be made and set worker wages.
- Nationalism involves gradual government seizure of industries from private owners.
- May begin by nationalizing the railroads, steel industry, automobile industry, utilities, etc.
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The Politics of Fascism:
The Supremacy of Race or Nation
THE ORGANIC STATE
- Fascism perceives the state as the organic life of a whole people.
- Volk – Hitler’s idea of race and nation being united.
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FASCIST GOAL
- Goal is development of a superior race.
- Values the superior individual who rises out of the mass and the superior nation that rises above the rest.
- Strength is the ultimate virtue and weakness is a fault.
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MERGER OF NATIONALISM AND SOCIALISM
- Before WWII, fascism in Italy and Germany put itself forward as a socialist regime adopted to national purposes.
- If the nation is an organic whole, the economy ought to be cooperative rather than competitive.
- Service, devotion, and discipline are above the rights of liberty or equality.
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TOTALITARIAN POWER STRUCTURE
- Totalitarian – incorporating all sections of society into the state.
- Fascism strives for totality of power in which all sectors are incorporated into the state and serve the purpose of the state.
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ANTI-SEMITISM AND GENOCIDE
- Hatred and prejudice directed toward Jews goes back many centuries.
- Racial theories of fascism brought anti-Semitism to an unprecedented scale of horror.
- Under Hitler, the Nazis encouraged discrimination, exclusion, forced ghettoization and violent attacks, and eventually implemented his “final solution” – genocide.
An estimated 9-11 million perished in the Holocaust
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