Full Version: My Political Ideology
Members are invited to post reflections on their own political ideology and debate with others here to aid my 6th form students study their A Level unit on Ideology.
Libertarian Socialist
I first started to develop my political philosophy when I left school. Within four years I was a libertarian socialist. In fact, my political philosophy has hardly changed over the last 40 years.
I began work in a factory when I was 15. Two men, Bill, a machine-minder in his 40s and Bob, a compositor, who was only about ten years older than me, had a profound influence on my political development. During the lunch-break, while we were eating our sandwiches, the men in the factory used to discuss politics. This was something that had never happened at school. Nor did it happen at home as my widowed mother was totally uninterested in the subject (I later discovered that my father was on the left but he had never revealed this to me when he was alive).
I was therefore politically illiterate and unable to contribute to these lunch-break discussions. However, I did listen and it soon became clear that the arguments put forward by Bill and Bob were far more logical than those being expressed by those who held right-wing views. Some of the discussions that took place were similar to those that appeared in Robert Tressell’s book, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jtressell.htm
Bob and Bill were both socialists. Their explanation of political events of the time (the early 1960s) gave me information that enabled me to interpret the events of my own life. I now had some idea of why my family was very poor. I knew something was wrong after I saw my mother crying after the visit of the National Assistance man. Now I knew why some people were poor while others were rich.
Listening to these discussions in the factory heralded the beginning of my political education. I wanted to contribute to these debates so on the advice of Bob I joined the local library. At first I was mainly interested in reading biographies and autobiographies of politicians and trade union leaders. I also read the Ragged Trousered Philanthropist. This had a profound impact on me. It is no coincidence that my first venture into publishing was called Tressell Publications.
When I was 19 I joined the Labour Party and attended meetings of the Young Socialists (the youth section of the party). It was here that I encountered people who were far to the left of Bob and Bill. Several were devoted followers of Leon Trotsky. They were of the opinion that we would have had world revolution if Trotsky had replaced Lenin in 1924.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSlenin.htm
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUStrotsky.htm
The idea appeared appealing at first but extensive reading about the events in Russia resulted in me becoming an arch opponent of the Trotskyites. I found Rosa Luxemburg’s views on the subject very convincing.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSluxemburg.htm
It was at this time I became a libertarian socialist. Reading about the Russian Revolution convinced me of the dangers of a small group of middle-class revolutionaries gaining power. Stalin was the product of the system, not the cause of it. Unlike most of my Young Socialist friends, I was never a revolutionary. Socialism would only be possible when the majority of the electorate wanted it. With capitalism controlling all the means of communication, this would probably take a long time. However, the alternative, some sort of revolution led by a political conscious vanguard elite, was unacceptable to me. In my opinion, the dictatorships existing in the Soviet Union and China in the early 1960s were far worse than the capitalist democracies of Western Europe.
At this time I was also becoming disillusioned with my experience in the Romford Labour Party. There were some amazing people in the party who I respected deeply. However, the local party were dominated by careerists who were willing to compromise whatever ideals they had in order to obtain power. They called themselves socialists but they were the same kind of people who joined the Conservative Party in the 1980s and the New Labour Party in the late 1990s.
By the late 1960s I was convinced that the way forward was via pressure groups rather than hierarchical political parties. I had been influenced by the success of the civil rights movement in the United States. Martin Luther King showed what could be achieved by passive resistance. If you are living in a capitalist democracy, I believe pacifism is the way forward.
As a Libertarian Socialist I have several core beliefs. The main one is that I want a society based on equality. This includes equality of wealth and power. This would mainly be achieved via the tax system and the passing of legislation to control the power of those with great wealth.
I believe in democracy but consider this is not possible unless it is framed in a system of equality. This means that people should not be allowed to use their wealth to manipulate the thoughts and ideas of the masses. Nor should people be allowed to use their wealth to gain benefits at the expense of those without these resources. For example, in the fields of education and health care.
I am also in favour of sexual and racial equality. I am totally opposed to anyone being discriminated against because of their colour, gender or sexual preferences.
Like Aristotle I believe that conflict arises out of inequality. Only an equal society can be a truly harmonious society. I also favour cooperation over competition. For this to be achieved, there needs to be radical changes to the current education system.
I am also opposed to inequality between nations. Therefore I support international action to help the underdeveloped world.
I am aware that I am a utopian and that my vision of society has never existed in the world. However, I think Sweden and Norway have come closest to what I would like to see for all people.
I was a member of the Labour Party for over 30 years. However, I left when it ceased to be a socialist party. In fact, I would argue that Tony Blair's New Labour is an anti-socialist party.
I first started to develop my political philosophy when I left school. Within four years I was a libertarian socialist. In fact, my political philosophy has hardly changed over the last 40 years.
I began work in a factory when I was 15. Two men, Bill, a machine-minder in his 40s and Bob, a compositor, who was only about ten years older than me, had a profound influence on my political development. During the lunch-break, while we were eating our sandwiches, the men in the factory used to discuss politics. This was something that had never happened at school. Nor did it happen at home as my widowed mother was totally uninterested in the subject (I later discovered that my father was on the left but he had never revealed this to me when he was alive).
I was therefore politically illiterate and unable to contribute to these lunch-break discussions. However, I did listen and it soon became clear that the arguments put forward by Bill and Bob were far more logical than those being expressed by those who held right-wing views. Some of the discussions that took place were similar to those that appeared in Robert Tressell’s book, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jtressell.htm
Bob and Bill were both socialists. Their explanation of political events of the time (the early 1960s) gave me information that enabled me to interpret the events of my own life. I now had some idea of why my family was very poor. I knew something was wrong after I saw my mother crying after the visit of the National Assistance man. Now I knew why some people were poor while others were rich.
Listening to these discussions in the factory heralded the beginning of my political education. I wanted to contribute to these debates so on the advice of Bob I joined the local library. At first I was mainly interested in reading biographies and autobiographies of politicians and trade union leaders. I also read the Ragged Trousered Philanthropist. This had a profound impact on me. It is no coincidence that my first venture into publishing was called Tressell Publications.
When I was 19 I joined the Labour Party and attended meetings of the Young Socialists (the youth section of the party). It was here that I encountered people who were far to the left of Bob and Bill. Several were devoted followers of Leon Trotsky. They were of the opinion that we would have had world revolution if Trotsky had replaced Lenin in 1924.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSlenin.htm
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUStrotsky.htm
The idea appeared appealing at first but extensive reading about the events in Russia resulted in me becoming an arch opponent of the Trotskyites. I found Rosa Luxemburg’s views on the subject very convincing.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSluxemburg.htm
It was at this time I became a libertarian socialist. Reading about the Russian Revolution convinced me of the dangers of a small group of middle-class revolutionaries gaining power. Stalin was the product of the system, not the cause of it. Unlike most of my Young Socialist friends, I was never a revolutionary. Socialism would only be possible when the majority of the electorate wanted it. With capitalism controlling all the means of communication, this would probably take a long time. However, the alternative, some sort of revolution led by a political conscious vanguard elite, was unacceptable to me. In my opinion, the dictatorships existing in the Soviet Union and China in the early 1960s were far worse than the capitalist democracies of Western Europe.
At this time I was also becoming disillusioned with my experience in the Romford Labour Party. There were some amazing people in the party who I respected deeply. However, the local party were dominated by careerists who were willing to compromise whatever ideals they had in order to obtain power. They called themselves socialists but they were the same kind of people who joined the Conservative Party in the 1980s and the New Labour Party in the late 1990s.
By the late 1960s I was convinced that the way forward was via pressure groups rather than hierarchical political parties. I had been influenced by the success of the civil rights movement in the United States. Martin Luther King showed what could be achieved by passive resistance. If you are living in a capitalist democracy, I believe pacifism is the way forward.
As a Libertarian Socialist I have several core beliefs. The main one is that I want a society based on equality. This includes equality of wealth and power. This would mainly be achieved via the tax system and the passing of legislation to control the power of those with great wealth.
I believe in democracy but consider this is not possible unless it is framed in a system of equality. This means that people should not be allowed to use their wealth to manipulate the thoughts and ideas of the masses. Nor should people be allowed to use their wealth to gain benefits at the expense of those without these resources. For example, in the fields of education and health care.
I am also in favour of sexual and racial equality. I am totally opposed to anyone being discriminated against because of their colour, gender or sexual preferences.
Like Aristotle I believe that conflict arises out of inequality. Only an equal society can be a truly harmonious society. I also favour cooperation over competition. For this to be achieved, there needs to be radical changes to the current education system.
I am also opposed to inequality between nations. Therefore I support international action to help the underdeveloped world.
I am aware that I am a utopian and that my vision of society has never existed in the world. However, I think Sweden and Norway have come closest to what I would like to see for all people.
I was a member of the Labour Party for over 30 years. However, I left when it ceased to be a socialist party. In fact, I would argue that Tony Blair's New Labour is an anti-socialist party.
Libertarian Socialist
I suppose I must be a libertarian socialist too. I tend to look at political issues one at a time, rather than trying to measure them up against a template of ideology … but I still seem to come to similar conclusions, so perhaps there is a template hiding there anyway!
I'm a member of SAP, which is the Swedish Social-Democratic and Labour Party. It's very difficult to make inter-country comparisons because each party has a different history, but I suppose you could say that the Social Democrats here are more or less the equivalent of the Labour Party in Britain. One difference, though, is that the SAP has led Swedish governments for 64 out of the last 73 years and has really made Sweden what it is today.
I recognise the dynamic nature of capitalism in creating wealth … but I also recognise that the most rational thing for any successful capitalist company to do is to strangle competition and create for themselves a monopoly (or a near-monopoly). One reason why Swedish food prices are so high is that, for many years, there were only two real suppliers of food in Sweden, and their pricing policies resembled those of petrol companies. It's strange, isn't it, that all those private petrol companies are so close to each other in efficiency that they have to put up their prices by exactly the same amount within an hour of each other …
The only sane policy I can think of in these circumstances is for people to band together to regulate the market. And I'm sure that Sweden's example since 1932 shows that this works. Between 1880 and 1920 Sweden lost a quarter of its population to emigration. Mass starvation was widespread and living conditions were generally very poor indeed. You could hardly imagine this if you looked at the country today … but it's not just a question of Sweden being rich now, it's also a result of a conscious political decision over many decades to spread the wealth around evenly. The Swedish government (led by that SAP) invested in industry, housing, training and welfare, resulting in a situation where there are lots of industries which happen to be Swedish. Sony Ericsson is a case in point. The original company was rescued from the Kruger crash by the incoming Social-Democratic government in 1932, given lots of backing by the Swedish state (who gave them a virtual monopoly over the domestic telephone system, so that they could grow into a viable export-led company), and then was let loose on the world.
One thing you notice, however, is that having both an economy and a welfare state that's the envy of the world is not an end in itself, but rather the levelling of the playing field ready for the big political fights. Sweden uses a system of proportional representation (a party list system with a 4% threshold parties need to get over to gain representation in parliament). The division of votes between the political blocs has nearly always been 51%-49% in favour of the winners (often the SAP). Sometimes it's as much as 52%-48%! The political debate is just as acrimonious here as in other countries, and the next election (in 2006) will be an interesting one, since the bourgeois parties (Conservatives, Liberals, Centre Party and Christian Democrats) are going to the electorate with a neo-liberal programme (slash the welfare state, cut taxes) which Mrs Thatcher would have felt comfortable with (IMHO). The bourgeois parties had a comfortable lead in the polls until they revealed their programme, but now their support is crumbling.
As a libertarian socialist, I'm not at all happy with lots of things the SAP do and have done … but they're a democratic party capable of change, so it's partly up to me to work to change those policies I don't like. I just don't buy the idea that the people who've led Sweden to where it is today were just interested in lining their own pockets (it's very difficult to be a corrupt politician in Sweden, since the Freedom of Information legislation here is very strong and dates back to 1760!). However, I do buy the idea that the bourgeois parties don't really understand how an entire society works - they tend to know what's good for their own backers … but not for society as a whole.
As you can see … not much of a coherent political philosophy, but I know what I like.
I suppose I must be a libertarian socialist too. I tend to look at political issues one at a time, rather than trying to measure them up against a template of ideology … but I still seem to come to similar conclusions, so perhaps there is a template hiding there anyway!
I'm a member of SAP, which is the Swedish Social-Democratic and Labour Party. It's very difficult to make inter-country comparisons because each party has a different history, but I suppose you could say that the Social Democrats here are more or less the equivalent of the Labour Party in Britain. One difference, though, is that the SAP has led Swedish governments for 64 out of the last 73 years and has really made Sweden what it is today.
I recognise the dynamic nature of capitalism in creating wealth … but I also recognise that the most rational thing for any successful capitalist company to do is to strangle competition and create for themselves a monopoly (or a near-monopoly). One reason why Swedish food prices are so high is that, for many years, there were only two real suppliers of food in Sweden, and their pricing policies resembled those of petrol companies. It's strange, isn't it, that all those private petrol companies are so close to each other in efficiency that they have to put up their prices by exactly the same amount within an hour of each other …
The only sane policy I can think of in these circumstances is for people to band together to regulate the market. And I'm sure that Sweden's example since 1932 shows that this works. Between 1880 and 1920 Sweden lost a quarter of its population to emigration. Mass starvation was widespread and living conditions were generally very poor indeed. You could hardly imagine this if you looked at the country today … but it's not just a question of Sweden being rich now, it's also a result of a conscious political decision over many decades to spread the wealth around evenly. The Swedish government (led by that SAP) invested in industry, housing, training and welfare, resulting in a situation where there are lots of industries which happen to be Swedish. Sony Ericsson is a case in point. The original company was rescued from the Kruger crash by the incoming Social-Democratic government in 1932, given lots of backing by the Swedish state (who gave them a virtual monopoly over the domestic telephone system, so that they could grow into a viable export-led company), and then was let loose on the world.
One thing you notice, however, is that having both an economy and a welfare state that's the envy of the world is not an end in itself, but rather the levelling of the playing field ready for the big political fights. Sweden uses a system of proportional representation (a party list system with a 4% threshold parties need to get over to gain representation in parliament). The division of votes between the political blocs has nearly always been 51%-49% in favour of the winners (often the SAP). Sometimes it's as much as 52%-48%! The political debate is just as acrimonious here as in other countries, and the next election (in 2006) will be an interesting one, since the bourgeois parties (Conservatives, Liberals, Centre Party and Christian Democrats) are going to the electorate with a neo-liberal programme (slash the welfare state, cut taxes) which Mrs Thatcher would have felt comfortable with (IMHO). The bourgeois parties had a comfortable lead in the polls until they revealed their programme, but now their support is crumbling.
As a libertarian socialist, I'm not at all happy with lots of things the SAP do and have done … but they're a democratic party capable of change, so it's partly up to me to work to change those policies I don't like. I just don't buy the idea that the people who've led Sweden to where it is today were just interested in lining their own pockets (it's very difficult to be a corrupt politician in Sweden, since the Freedom of Information legislation here is very strong and dates back to 1760!). However, I do buy the idea that the bourgeois parties don't really understand how an entire society works - they tend to know what's good for their own backers … but not for society as a whole.
As you can see … not much of a coherent political philosophy, but I know what I like.
And here's a bit more from me …
I was writing the first post this morning before the kids woke up … and, of course, I missed out something really important - how I got to this position in the first place. Thanks, John, for pointing it out.
I had a conventional middle-class upbringing in Britain: I spent my teenage years in the London Borough of Harrow, went to a grammar school, got good A levels and went on to university (Warwick). My grandad, however, was once Labour Party Agent (the name for the local organiser) for the Sheffield Attercliffe constituency (in one of the most deprived areas of Sheffield), and my dad has been involved in Labour Party politics since he learned to talk.
When we moved down to London from Sheffield, I remember wondering where all the factories were. "What do all these people live off?" was the question I kept asking. And I was, of course, struck by the vast difference between the leafy suburbs of North London and the polluted factory environments that anyone from the North was familiar with.
As I grew up, I was struck again and again by the lack of realism in many of the ideas put forward by the Conservative right. As many people said during the Thatcher era, her idea was that you make poor people work by taking money away from them, but you make rich people work by showering them with dosh.
I remember an article in the Sunday Telegraph magazine about a year into the Thatcher era which was about 'Thatcher's new millionaires'. Every single one of them had made their money basically by screwing the state (opening hostels for the evicted, and charging the state enormous sums of money so that their poor 'clients' could live in squalor, for example). Not one had opened a new genuinely private sector business. In other words, they were sharing the spoils - but making everyone in the society poorer than they would otherwise have been, in the long run.
As a Northerner I was very aware of the consequences of this kind of stupidity and corruption on people as a whole. Just look at the difference between house prices in Britain and Sweden (say a factor of ten times higher in Britain to buy property that would be condemned as uninhabitable in Sweden). Think of all that wealth that's gone into exchanging bricks and mortar for other bricks and mortar … but hasn't gone into investing in British industry.
What the experience of the Nordic countries shows is that the way to make an entire society richer starts with making sure that everyone in that society is working together. Whenever you have great inequality of income, you tempt the people who've lucked out (by having the right kind of parents, usually) to imagine that they've been really clever, when in reality they've just been lucky.
The dilemma for any egalitarian, however, is how to make sure that innovation still happens - isn't there a danger that the entire society will be dragged down to the lowest level, instead of being raised up to the highest.
One lesson I've learned in Sweden is that people will only take risks (such as starting a new business) if they feel that it's safe to do so … and another is that innovation is a very delicate flower, which needs the kind of nurturing that the private sector has proved itself almost incapable of supplying.
My oldest daughter's godfather has just retired from his business of making church organs. He and his wife escaped from East Germany the week before the Berlin Wall was built, and ended up in Sweden without a penny in their pockets. Johannes frequently goes on about high taxes and bureaucracy in Sweden and wonders whether he'd have done better to go to Canada or the USA instead. I tell him that he's got to be joking. There are only so many craftsman-built church organs that one person can build in a lifetime, and which capitalist entrepreneur would invest in such a business way up near the Arctic Circle? The way Johannes did it was by getting lots of help from the Swedish state at key points in the development of his business … which he's conveniently forgotten about now! The state's wanted its cut, of course, in terms of taxes, but i) Johannes and his family lead an extremely comfortable life here (cars, boats, properties, holidays, etc); and ii) that cut is invested back in creating the next generation of Johannes-es!
In other words, if you want an economy to be successful, you have to have an element of capitalism in it … but if you want to keep it being successful, you're mad if you leave it to the capitalists!
Sorry if this is turning anecdotal again … but that's the sort of person I am. If I'd thought that right-wing conservatives really did care about making a good life for *everyone* - and had a plan for doing that that looked like it might work - then I might have changed my ideology. My point is, though, that they haven't, and I'm not prepared to give up the immense benefits of living amongst my equals for the kind of fatally-divided society that's represented by the USA.
I was writing the first post this morning before the kids woke up … and, of course, I missed out something really important - how I got to this position in the first place. Thanks, John, for pointing it out.
I had a conventional middle-class upbringing in Britain: I spent my teenage years in the London Borough of Harrow, went to a grammar school, got good A levels and went on to university (Warwick). My grandad, however, was once Labour Party Agent (the name for the local organiser) for the Sheffield Attercliffe constituency (in one of the most deprived areas of Sheffield), and my dad has been involved in Labour Party politics since he learned to talk.
When we moved down to London from Sheffield, I remember wondering where all the factories were. "What do all these people live off?" was the question I kept asking. And I was, of course, struck by the vast difference between the leafy suburbs of North London and the polluted factory environments that anyone from the North was familiar with.
As I grew up, I was struck again and again by the lack of realism in many of the ideas put forward by the Conservative right. As many people said during the Thatcher era, her idea was that you make poor people work by taking money away from them, but you make rich people work by showering them with dosh.
I remember an article in the Sunday Telegraph magazine about a year into the Thatcher era which was about 'Thatcher's new millionaires'. Every single one of them had made their money basically by screwing the state (opening hostels for the evicted, and charging the state enormous sums of money so that their poor 'clients' could live in squalor, for example). Not one had opened a new genuinely private sector business. In other words, they were sharing the spoils - but making everyone in the society poorer than they would otherwise have been, in the long run.
As a Northerner I was very aware of the consequences of this kind of stupidity and corruption on people as a whole. Just look at the difference between house prices in Britain and Sweden (say a factor of ten times higher in Britain to buy property that would be condemned as uninhabitable in Sweden). Think of all that wealth that's gone into exchanging bricks and mortar for other bricks and mortar … but hasn't gone into investing in British industry.
What the experience of the Nordic countries shows is that the way to make an entire society richer starts with making sure that everyone in that society is working together. Whenever you have great inequality of income, you tempt the people who've lucked out (by having the right kind of parents, usually) to imagine that they've been really clever, when in reality they've just been lucky.
The dilemma for any egalitarian, however, is how to make sure that innovation still happens - isn't there a danger that the entire society will be dragged down to the lowest level, instead of being raised up to the highest.
One lesson I've learned in Sweden is that people will only take risks (such as starting a new business) if they feel that it's safe to do so … and another is that innovation is a very delicate flower, which needs the kind of nurturing that the private sector has proved itself almost incapable of supplying.
My oldest daughter's godfather has just retired from his business of making church organs. He and his wife escaped from East Germany the week before the Berlin Wall was built, and ended up in Sweden without a penny in their pockets. Johannes frequently goes on about high taxes and bureaucracy in Sweden and wonders whether he'd have done better to go to Canada or the USA instead. I tell him that he's got to be joking. There are only so many craftsman-built church organs that one person can build in a lifetime, and which capitalist entrepreneur would invest in such a business way up near the Arctic Circle? The way Johannes did it was by getting lots of help from the Swedish state at key points in the development of his business … which he's conveniently forgotten about now! The state's wanted its cut, of course, in terms of taxes, but i) Johannes and his family lead an extremely comfortable life here (cars, boats, properties, holidays, etc); and ii) that cut is invested back in creating the next generation of Johannes-es!
In other words, if you want an economy to be successful, you have to have an element of capitalism in it … but if you want to keep it being successful, you're mad if you leave it to the capitalists!
Sorry if this is turning anecdotal again … but that's the sort of person I am. If I'd thought that right-wing conservatives really did care about making a good life for *everyone* - and had a plan for doing that that looked like it might work - then I might have changed my ideology. My point is, though, that they haven't, and I'm not prepared to give up the immense benefits of living amongst my equals for the kind of fatally-divided society that's represented by the USA.
Liberal
The problem is that I'm not sure I have an ideology as such. This isn't laziness. during my misspent youth almost 40 years ago, I particpateed in the "great ideological debate" that had been launched within the Young Liberals to determine exactly what our ideology was. Everyone else seemed to have one, so we had to have one, too!
In my contribution to the debate, I argued against the whole notion of an "ideology". I felt that there were negative aspects to the concept as follows:
1. An ideology attempts to set concrete frameworks to thinking which seemed to me to be at variance with the essence of "liberalism" as I saw it.
2. Ideologies attempt to apply a rigid conceptual framework to the uncertainties of history, an attempt which has not been very successful. The sheer variety of history makes the construction of such a conceptual framework a very difficult, and, as I saw it, largely pointless exercise.
3. Ideology (like theology) leads to splits. I don't know what domestic socialism is like today, but back in the early 70s when I was writing, there seemed to be hundreds of little socialist splinter groups, and the groups had splintered over what seemed to me to be essentially shallow ideological differences. At the time, Young Liberals (God, we were so naive!) thought we could achieve a "radical re-alignment of the Left", so I, along with a couple friends, spent many, many evenings attending meetings of, among others, the Socialist Workers' Party, the Independent Socialist Party, the Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist), the Socialist Party of Great Britain, etc, etc, etc... The meetings were usually attended by about six people who carried on long, sterile debates about arcane aspects of Marxist ideology...
4. I felt that liberalism wasn't so much a planned-out, schematic "ideology" as much as a "gut reaction". A liberal didn't need an ideological framework to "know" that Apartheid was unjust and had to be resisted. He/she didn't need to think through their reaction to the invasion of Czechoslovakia to see how it fitted into a broader ideological framework -- they "knew" is was wrong...
5. I felt that such a lack of ideology allowed the Liberal Party to be a bit like the Catholic Church. It could contain within it a broad spectrum of views united only by the "gut reaction" to issues I mentioned. In this sense, I feel I have much in common with the "libertarian socialism" described by John, but also with the "one-nation conservatism" of someone like RAB Butler.
What general political stance does this "gut reaction" suppose?
1. Liberals generally support the rights of the individual over the rights of the group.
2. Liberals would tend to agree that "that government is best which governs least."
3. Liberals would tend to champion freedom of speech, even for those whose views we find personally odious. We would also defend the other traditional "individual rights" over and above "social rights" should these be in conflict.
4. On the other hand, considerations of natural justice and "fair play" have always led liberals to support progressive taxation and a cradle to grave welfare state.
Sorry, I'm going have to stop here -- they pay me to teach and my next class just turned up!
The problem is that I'm not sure I have an ideology as such. This isn't laziness. during my misspent youth almost 40 years ago, I particpateed in the "great ideological debate" that had been launched within the Young Liberals to determine exactly what our ideology was. Everyone else seemed to have one, so we had to have one, too!
In my contribution to the debate, I argued against the whole notion of an "ideology". I felt that there were negative aspects to the concept as follows:
1. An ideology attempts to set concrete frameworks to thinking which seemed to me to be at variance with the essence of "liberalism" as I saw it.
2. Ideologies attempt to apply a rigid conceptual framework to the uncertainties of history, an attempt which has not been very successful. The sheer variety of history makes the construction of such a conceptual framework a very difficult, and, as I saw it, largely pointless exercise.
3. Ideology (like theology) leads to splits. I don't know what domestic socialism is like today, but back in the early 70s when I was writing, there seemed to be hundreds of little socialist splinter groups, and the groups had splintered over what seemed to me to be essentially shallow ideological differences. At the time, Young Liberals (God, we were so naive!) thought we could achieve a "radical re-alignment of the Left", so I, along with a couple friends, spent many, many evenings attending meetings of, among others, the Socialist Workers' Party, the Independent Socialist Party, the Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist), the Socialist Party of Great Britain, etc, etc, etc... The meetings were usually attended by about six people who carried on long, sterile debates about arcane aspects of Marxist ideology...
4. I felt that liberalism wasn't so much a planned-out, schematic "ideology" as much as a "gut reaction". A liberal didn't need an ideological framework to "know" that Apartheid was unjust and had to be resisted. He/she didn't need to think through their reaction to the invasion of Czechoslovakia to see how it fitted into a broader ideological framework -- they "knew" is was wrong...
5. I felt that such a lack of ideology allowed the Liberal Party to be a bit like the Catholic Church. It could contain within it a broad spectrum of views united only by the "gut reaction" to issues I mentioned. In this sense, I feel I have much in common with the "libertarian socialism" described by John, but also with the "one-nation conservatism" of someone like RAB Butler.
What general political stance does this "gut reaction" suppose?
1. Liberals generally support the rights of the individual over the rights of the group.
2. Liberals would tend to agree that "that government is best which governs least."
3. Liberals would tend to champion freedom of speech, even for those whose views we find personally odious. We would also defend the other traditional "individual rights" over and above "social rights" should these be in conflict.
4. On the other hand, considerations of natural justice and "fair play" have always led liberals to support progressive taxation and a cradle to grave welfare state.
Sorry, I'm going have to stop here -- they pay me to teach and my next class just turned up!
Socialist Feminist/Egalitarian
I would say that socialism and feminism have been the ideologies that have influenced me the most and they come from members of my family and my partner. I was brought up in a Labour supporting household in North London, and at the age of 15 I joined the Finchley Young Socialists and was involved in various election campaigns against the Conservative MP for Finchley, a certain Margaret Thatcher. My maternal family come from a strong German left wing tradition. My Grandfather was a socialist in Nazi Germany and had to escape after being imprisoned for his anti-fascist activities. I understand that one of his older brothers had also been involved in the Kiel Uprising that formed part of the German revolution after WW1. My uncle was an activist in the Communist Party of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which I believe was Trotskyist, however he most closely allied himself with Maoism, spending a year 'underground' in China when he was studying PPE (politics, Philosophy and economics) at Oxford in the 1970s. He took me to a number of meetings run by Marxism today when I was in my late teens. My support for feminism comes from my mother who was moderately active in the women's movement in the 1970s and 1980s and in the peace movement - she marched at Aldermaston and at Greenham Common. My partner is a strong feminist and completed her Masters degree in Women's Studies at the same time that I did my teacher training.
Essentially I am an egalitarian and I do believe that there are factors such as race, gender and class that stand in the way of achieving this and that they need to be challenged. I also believe that the state has a duty / role to provide support for those in need and am a firm believer in progressive taxation. I am also a natural optimist and that is the 'gut' reason why I am on the left - I believe that collectively we can make a better world.
I would say that socialism and feminism have been the ideologies that have influenced me the most and they come from members of my family and my partner. I was brought up in a Labour supporting household in North London, and at the age of 15 I joined the Finchley Young Socialists and was involved in various election campaigns against the Conservative MP for Finchley, a certain Margaret Thatcher. My maternal family come from a strong German left wing tradition. My Grandfather was a socialist in Nazi Germany and had to escape after being imprisoned for his anti-fascist activities. I understand that one of his older brothers had also been involved in the Kiel Uprising that formed part of the German revolution after WW1. My uncle was an activist in the Communist Party of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which I believe was Trotskyist, however he most closely allied himself with Maoism, spending a year 'underground' in China when he was studying PPE (politics, Philosophy and economics) at Oxford in the 1970s. He took me to a number of meetings run by Marxism today when I was in my late teens. My support for feminism comes from my mother who was moderately active in the women's movement in the 1970s and 1980s and in the peace movement - she marched at Aldermaston and at Greenham Common. My partner is a strong feminist and completed her Masters degree in Women's Studies at the same time that I did my teacher training.
Essentially I am an egalitarian and I do believe that there are factors such as race, gender and class that stand in the way of achieving this and that they need to be challenged. I also believe that the state has a duty / role to provide support for those in need and am a firm believer in progressive taxation. I am also a natural optimist and that is the 'gut' reason why I am on the left - I believe that collectively we can make a better world.
I honestly don’t know where I stand at the moment. I’m pretty disillusioned with ALL political ideologies. My father’s family were all committed Socialists. My father, his brothers and his father were coalminers in South Wales and well left of centre. My grandfather worked closely with Arthur Horner, who later became the leader of the NUM – look him up on the Web and you’ll get the picture. My grandfather and grandmother on my mother's side had been “in service” when my mother was a child, working respectively as a groom and a housemaid in a large country house owned by a lord in rural Kent. My father ended up in Kent after leaving Wales in the 1920 and this is where he met my mother. My mother's view of politics combined a leaning towards the left with a great deal of respect for the “ruling class” who, apparently, treated my grandparents and my mother very well. Both my mother and father were psychiatric nurses at the time when I was born, so I suppose you could describe my background as lower middle class.
I passed the 11-plus examination and went to a highly selective boys’ grammar school, where for the first time in my life I met people of my own age who came from very well-off families, talked “posh” and made my feel a bit embarrassed about my “Estuary” accent. I leaned towards Socialism in my teens, leaning well to the left in my late teens, but by the time I entered university I was supporting the Liberal Party, which I joined in my early 20s – and I even stood as a Liberal candidate several times in local elections. By my 30s I had become disillusioned with the Liberals, left the Liberal Party and began voting Labour again. I became totally disillusioned with centralised Socialism after a month-long visit to East Germany in 1976. By this time you could say that I was a Social Democrat, I guess. I still vote Labour, even though I don’t really like New Labour – but what’s the alternative? I am now pretty mixed up. I lean left on issues such as Education, Housing and Health, but I lean a bit right on issues such as Terrorism and Law and Order. As a partner in a small business, I get very annoyed with people who equate running a business with being rich. I draw the equivalent of half a novice teacher’s salary from my business – a lot less than I earned as a university professor. I firmly believe in a mixed economy. Capitalism isn’t all bad. I don’t object to paying higher taxes in exchange for better public services. Having been ill several times in the last few years, I really do appreciate the National Health Service – which is not nearly as bad as many people claim, and I would willingly pay higher taxes to improve it.
I have worked in around 20 different countries and visited around 10 more. I wouldn’t want to live in any of them, except two: Canada and Ireland, where I have relations – who often don’t bother to lock their doors when they go out, because the chance of being burgled is almost negligible. I recall being anxious before my first visit to the USA some 20 years ago, expecting to meet all kinds of right-wing lunatics and gun-toting criminals. I was pleasantly surprised and have continued to be so on each of the dozen visits I have made to the USA. People are generally very nice – although they don’t seem to know a lot about what is going on in the rest of the world. I felt very much at home in New England: sparkling white weatherboarded houses clustered round a village green and tea and cakes at 5 o’clock. A couple of towns that I visited in Vermont reminded me of the England of my youth. But what disturbs me about the USA is the huge gap between the “haves” and “have nots”. Narrowing this gap is the one issue that I would put before all others – in all countries in the world.
Footnote: I recall my first visits to Northern Ireland in the 1960s, when the marches for more democracy began to take place: “one man one vote”. I looked at the poor housing conditions of the people who lived in the Falls Road and the Shankill Road and the very different conditions in which people lived in the smart areas of Belfast and its suburbs. I recall saying to my wife, who comes from Belfast: “You don’t seem to have a middle class here. You just have two classes, the “haves” and the “have nots”. That’s the root of your problem.” It may be significant that since Ireland as a whole, North and South, has become richer and some of the huge differences between the “haves” and the “have nots” have been eroded, it has also become much more peaceful.
I wrote that I lean to the left regarding Housing, Education and Health. Of these three issues I believe Education is the key. Although my father's family lived in a working class coalmining community they were all literate and articulate in two languages: English and Welsh. My grandfather's bookshelves included key works of English literature, biographies, political works (including "Capital" by Karl Marx) and religious works - many of which I inherited. My grandfather was very active in the Worker's Educational Association.
When I visit my local pub (in Berkshire) and listen to inarticulate young men aged 18-25 communicating in a series of monosyllabic grunts liberally interspersed with the "f" word, I wonder what has gone wrong with Education? How is it that families like that of my father managed to achieve such a high standard? Was it because Welsh working class communities valued Education and saw it as the "escape route" from the hard life in the mines, or was it something else? Certainly, teachers in these communities were highly valued as pillars of respect.
I am happy to answer questions. I am a language teacher, however, and not a political scientist or historian. I vote Labour these days, albeit half-heartedly. As I have grown older (I am now 63) I have lost faith in political ideologies and now hold a mixture of beliefs. I recall being dismayed when Margaret Thatcher got into power in the late 70s. I thought this would spell hard times, financially speaking, for myself and my family, so I drew out all our savings and took us all on a month-long holiday, thinking it might be the last one that we would be able to afford. I now realise that a change of goverment in this country hardly has any impact on the finances of individuals like myself who sit comfortably in the "middle zone". During the Thatcher years I continued to enjoy rises in income and continued to enjoy good holidays abroad with my wife and my two daughters (who are now grown up and starting their own families). Tony Blair's arrival on the scene has made no difference to my life style. I hated the poll tax that was introduced under Thatcher, which I felt was sheer madness, as well as damaging to low and middle income groups. I also hated the introduction of the National Curriculum, which the current bunch we have in power has continued to support, along with the league tables, SATs etc. I cannot forgive Tony Blair's government for killing off the subjects that I used to teach, German and French. Making these key subjects optional beyond Key Stage 3 is a disaster. We are turning into a tongue-tied nation of arrogant monoglots.
I passed the 11-plus examination and went to a highly selective boys’ grammar school, where for the first time in my life I met people of my own age who came from very well-off families, talked “posh” and made my feel a bit embarrassed about my “Estuary” accent. I leaned towards Socialism in my teens, leaning well to the left in my late teens, but by the time I entered university I was supporting the Liberal Party, which I joined in my early 20s – and I even stood as a Liberal candidate several times in local elections. By my 30s I had become disillusioned with the Liberals, left the Liberal Party and began voting Labour again. I became totally disillusioned with centralised Socialism after a month-long visit to East Germany in 1976. By this time you could say that I was a Social Democrat, I guess. I still vote Labour, even though I don’t really like New Labour – but what’s the alternative? I am now pretty mixed up. I lean left on issues such as Education, Housing and Health, but I lean a bit right on issues such as Terrorism and Law and Order. As a partner in a small business, I get very annoyed with people who equate running a business with being rich. I draw the equivalent of half a novice teacher’s salary from my business – a lot less than I earned as a university professor. I firmly believe in a mixed economy. Capitalism isn’t all bad. I don’t object to paying higher taxes in exchange for better public services. Having been ill several times in the last few years, I really do appreciate the National Health Service – which is not nearly as bad as many people claim, and I would willingly pay higher taxes to improve it.
I have worked in around 20 different countries and visited around 10 more. I wouldn’t want to live in any of them, except two: Canada and Ireland, where I have relations – who often don’t bother to lock their doors when they go out, because the chance of being burgled is almost negligible. I recall being anxious before my first visit to the USA some 20 years ago, expecting to meet all kinds of right-wing lunatics and gun-toting criminals. I was pleasantly surprised and have continued to be so on each of the dozen visits I have made to the USA. People are generally very nice – although they don’t seem to know a lot about what is going on in the rest of the world. I felt very much at home in New England: sparkling white weatherboarded houses clustered round a village green and tea and cakes at 5 o’clock. A couple of towns that I visited in Vermont reminded me of the England of my youth. But what disturbs me about the USA is the huge gap between the “haves” and “have nots”. Narrowing this gap is the one issue that I would put before all others – in all countries in the world.
Footnote: I recall my first visits to Northern Ireland in the 1960s, when the marches for more democracy began to take place: “one man one vote”. I looked at the poor housing conditions of the people who lived in the Falls Road and the Shankill Road and the very different conditions in which people lived in the smart areas of Belfast and its suburbs. I recall saying to my wife, who comes from Belfast: “You don’t seem to have a middle class here. You just have two classes, the “haves” and the “have nots”. That’s the root of your problem.” It may be significant that since Ireland as a whole, North and South, has become richer and some of the huge differences between the “haves” and the “have nots” have been eroded, it has also become much more peaceful.
I wrote that I lean to the left regarding Housing, Education and Health. Of these three issues I believe Education is the key. Although my father's family lived in a working class coalmining community they were all literate and articulate in two languages: English and Welsh. My grandfather's bookshelves included key works of English literature, biographies, political works (including "Capital" by Karl Marx) and religious works - many of which I inherited. My grandfather was very active in the Worker's Educational Association.
When I visit my local pub (in Berkshire) and listen to inarticulate young men aged 18-25 communicating in a series of monosyllabic grunts liberally interspersed with the "f" word, I wonder what has gone wrong with Education? How is it that families like that of my father managed to achieve such a high standard? Was it because Welsh working class communities valued Education and saw it as the "escape route" from the hard life in the mines, or was it something else? Certainly, teachers in these communities were highly valued as pillars of respect.
I am happy to answer questions. I am a language teacher, however, and not a political scientist or historian. I vote Labour these days, albeit half-heartedly. As I have grown older (I am now 63) I have lost faith in political ideologies and now hold a mixture of beliefs. I recall being dismayed when Margaret Thatcher got into power in the late 70s. I thought this would spell hard times, financially speaking, for myself and my family, so I drew out all our savings and took us all on a month-long holiday, thinking it might be the last one that we would be able to afford. I now realise that a change of goverment in this country hardly has any impact on the finances of individuals like myself who sit comfortably in the "middle zone". During the Thatcher years I continued to enjoy rises in income and continued to enjoy good holidays abroad with my wife and my two daughters (who are now grown up and starting their own families). Tony Blair's arrival on the scene has made no difference to my life style. I hated the poll tax that was introduced under Thatcher, which I felt was sheer madness, as well as damaging to low and middle income groups. I also hated the introduction of the National Curriculum, which the current bunch we have in power has continued to support, along with the league tables, SATs etc. I cannot forgive Tony Blair's government for killing off the subjects that I used to teach, German and French. Making these key subjects optional beyond Key Stage 3 is a disaster. We are turning into a tongue-tied nation of arrogant monoglots.
Social Democrat/Green Party
I think my interest in politics started at the age of 17, when I decided to study History at Leiden University (NL). Studying at University was something no one had done before in my family. My mother only had primary education, my father had to leave secondary school in 1933 when the Great Depression struck the family. He struggled from job to job until he became a shop assistant in 1939. 1953 he was sacked by his firm (Albert Heijn= like Tesco's) because he had dispute about losses incurred by shoplifting: Albert Heijn deducted the losses from my father's wages. He was held personally responsible for the losses.
My father won the law-suit but lost his job. He turned into a trade-unionist ever since, although the Roman Catholic trade unions were more like social clubs.
I was much influenced by the way my parents talked about this affair. Knowing what my parents had been through, I knew they had little money to spend on my studies. But they gave all kinds of moral support. At that time governmental grants came available for 'working class' youths to study at University. (1972)
I guess I've been lucky: íf I'd been born 7 years earlier, I would never had the chance.
The seventies were very exciting in the Netherlands: politics were 'on the streets'. Discussions on old and new democracy, a revolution of the younger (post war) generation: and I was in the middle of it! We really had the feeling that we could change the world, making it a better place for all. At the University students and their views were taken seriously, students were given responsibilities in governing bodies in the faculties.
In my professional life I've always put that sence of fighting injustice first, maintaining a rather independent attitude towards 'bosses'. Perhaps somewhat naïv, as I've found out.
With Dan Lyndon I agree that the government has a role to care for its citizens, and fight obstructions of background (we do not use the word class the same way as in GB) and gender.
Living in a 'cycling country' I've become more and more aware about the precious earth we all live on. Feeling attracted to some of the environmental ideas of the green parties, I take a pragmatic -not ideological- approach in my daily life. I cycle a lot, will organise a cycling tour with members of this forum in March! With extreme house insolation measures, fuel efficient heating, in our mountain cottage we use solar power. Our little contribution towards a better environment.
I think my interest in politics started at the age of 17, when I decided to study History at Leiden University (NL). Studying at University was something no one had done before in my family. My mother only had primary education, my father had to leave secondary school in 1933 when the Great Depression struck the family. He struggled from job to job until he became a shop assistant in 1939. 1953 he was sacked by his firm (Albert Heijn= like Tesco's) because he had dispute about losses incurred by shoplifting: Albert Heijn deducted the losses from my father's wages. He was held personally responsible for the losses.
My father won the law-suit but lost his job. He turned into a trade-unionist ever since, although the Roman Catholic trade unions were more like social clubs.
I was much influenced by the way my parents talked about this affair. Knowing what my parents had been through, I knew they had little money to spend on my studies. But they gave all kinds of moral support. At that time governmental grants came available for 'working class' youths to study at University. (1972)
I guess I've been lucky: íf I'd been born 7 years earlier, I would never had the chance.
The seventies were very exciting in the Netherlands: politics were 'on the streets'. Discussions on old and new democracy, a revolution of the younger (post war) generation: and I was in the middle of it! We really had the feeling that we could change the world, making it a better place for all. At the University students and their views were taken seriously, students were given responsibilities in governing bodies in the faculties.
In my professional life I've always put that sence of fighting injustice first, maintaining a rather independent attitude towards 'bosses'. Perhaps somewhat naïv, as I've found out.
With Dan Lyndon I agree that the government has a role to care for its citizens, and fight obstructions of background (we do not use the word class the same way as in GB) and gender.
Living in a 'cycling country' I've become more and more aware about the precious earth we all live on. Feeling attracted to some of the environmental ideas of the green parties, I take a pragmatic -not ideological- approach in my daily life. I cycle a lot, will organise a cycling tour with members of this forum in March! With extreme house insolation measures, fuel efficient heating, in our mountain cottage we use solar power. Our little contribution towards a better environment.
Oh dear yet another leftie but beyond that vague label I wouldn't know exactly how to express my political idealogy.
Like many who have already replied, my family background may account for this since I come from a Labour voting household plus I lived in Harold Wilson's constituency. Like John I was interested enough in politics in my late teens to read biographies and autobiographies of prominent politicians. I acted as polling officer at a couple of elections which gave me a bit of insight into the political process and at one point in my career I was even union rep (mainly because it was a small organisation, everybody else had done it too many times and they couldn't believe their luck when someone new was recruited). But, like one of the previous replies, I did get disillusioned with the pre-occupation with detail and the letter of the rulebook.
The Thatcher and Major years were wilderness years as far as I was concerned and again, to echo something said before, I did get more involved with various pressure groups at that time than I had ever done before.
In 1993 I moved to Denmark, another Nordic socialist utopia. I do believe in progressive taxation but do think that the 61% my husband pays and the 45% or so I pay is too much in relation to what we earn especially when we live in an era of welfare cuts. One has the feeling that one pays more and more for less and less.
But having said that I had a salutary experience a couple of months back when I was in an international group and we had to do a little role play about how far we could get in life in our country. The questions centred around issues such as getting insurance if one is HIV positive, being able to get into the local tennis club if one is working class, having access to reasonably priced childcare, going to university and so on. I ended up at the front of the queue because in Denmark almost nothing is impossible for me. This does not come from my wealth or income but from the welfare fabric and spirit of egalitarianism which makes up the fabric of Danish society.
There is no doubt that had I stayed in the UK I wouldn't have had half the opportunities that I have had here in Denmark to pursue an interesting part time career whilst having my children cheaply and well looked after and for people to understand when I need to leave early to collect the children from school or take a day off to look after them when they are ill.
My children go to school with children from all sorts of backgrounds but there is no way you can predict who lives in the big house. The school caretaker lives in one of the big houses and the graveyard digger lives in another one.
But what is bothering me now is that the last UK general election is probably the last one I will vote in for a long time. British expats are registered to vote for 15 years after they leave. I have no right to vote in the Danish elections unless I become Danish. We came to Denmark for job reasons. We may leave just as easily for job reasons. It makes no sense to become Danish for a dozen years and then become Italian or Spanish or whatever as we change jobs. Your nationality is not something that you change lightly. I used the occasion of the last UK general election to try and lobby MPs and MEPs about this but there is very little sympathy or understanding for our situation. The truth is that most expats couldn't care less about voting so very few are registered. And yet in a Europe of free movement of labour it seems unfair that one loses one's right to vote if one exercises that right.
My biggest plea is for participation and engagement in the political process at some level whether it be at the level of the political party, local government, trade union or single issue pressure group. I understand that party politics says increasingly little to a disillusioned electorate but I would like to see some innovative thinking about political decision-making. Perhaps not quite in the style of 'The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer' but something rather more sophisticated and engaging.
Like many who have already replied, my family background may account for this since I come from a Labour voting household plus I lived in Harold Wilson's constituency. Like John I was interested enough in politics in my late teens to read biographies and autobiographies of prominent politicians. I acted as polling officer at a couple of elections which gave me a bit of insight into the political process and at one point in my career I was even union rep (mainly because it was a small organisation, everybody else had done it too many times and they couldn't believe their luck when someone new was recruited). But, like one of the previous replies, I did get disillusioned with the pre-occupation with detail and the letter of the rulebook.
The Thatcher and Major years were wilderness years as far as I was concerned and again, to echo something said before, I did get more involved with various pressure groups at that time than I had ever done before.
In 1993 I moved to Denmark, another Nordic socialist utopia. I do believe in progressive taxation but do think that the 61% my husband pays and the 45% or so I pay is too much in relation to what we earn especially when we live in an era of welfare cuts. One has the feeling that one pays more and more for less and less.
But having said that I had a salutary experience a couple of months back when I was in an international group and we had to do a little role play about how far we could get in life in our country. The questions centred around issues such as getting insurance if one is HIV positive, being able to get into the local tennis club if one is working class, having access to reasonably priced childcare, going to university and so on. I ended up at the front of the queue because in Denmark almost nothing is impossible for me. This does not come from my wealth or income but from the welfare fabric and spirit of egalitarianism which makes up the fabric of Danish society.
There is no doubt that had I stayed in the UK I wouldn't have had half the opportunities that I have had here in Denmark to pursue an interesting part time career whilst having my children cheaply and well looked after and for people to understand when I need to leave early to collect the children from school or take a day off to look after them when they are ill.
My children go to school with children from all sorts of backgrounds but there is no way you can predict who lives in the big house. The school caretaker lives in one of the big houses and the graveyard digger lives in another one.
But what is bothering me now is that the last UK general election is probably the last one I will vote in for a long time. British expats are registered to vote for 15 years after they leave. I have no right to vote in the Danish elections unless I become Danish. We came to Denmark for job reasons. We may leave just as easily for job reasons. It makes no sense to become Danish for a dozen years and then become Italian or Spanish or whatever as we change jobs. Your nationality is not something that you change lightly. I used the occasion of the last UK general election to try and lobby MPs and MEPs about this but there is very little sympathy or understanding for our situation. The truth is that most expats couldn't care less about voting so very few are registered. And yet in a Europe of free movement of labour it seems unfair that one loses one's right to vote if one exercises that right.
My biggest plea is for participation and engagement in the political process at some level whether it be at the level of the political party, local government, trade union or single issue pressure group. I understand that party politics says increasingly little to a disillusioned electorate but I would like to see some innovative thinking about political decision-making. Perhaps not quite in the style of 'The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer' but something rather more sophisticated and engaging.
Socialist
I am a member of the Socialist Party http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/ I joined the Labour Party because I believed in its objective which was "to sexure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their labour and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible on the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange." Despite the archaic wording that is as good a summary of my poltical views as you will find.
I left the Labour Party when that objective was ditched. At the time members were told it was "just a form of words" but now NewLabour are the champtions of privatisation.
I do not believe that the unelected bosses of the corporations are the best people to wield power on behalf of society. The politicians mouth slogans about "democracy" but stop short in pious trepidation at the doors of the boardrooms.
I read "The Iron Heel" by Jack London. The book is now almost 100 years old and yet much of what it says about the corporations has stood the test of time. He set scenes of brutality against the poor in the United States itself. If you read accounts of the massacre in Fallujah, which the US military began with the bombing of the hospitals, to the applause of Fox News, it is clear that Jack London was not exaggerating.
My main political message would be to read about political ideas and compare what you find with your experiences in real life.
Jack London in "The Iron Heel" suggested this approach. He got Avis Everhard to follow up the case of a worker "Jackson" badly treated by his employer. Which political analysis actually dealt with his problem and which just protected his employer from the consequences of wrongdoing?
Corporations exercise power without responsiblity. I suggest for example you look up "Halliburton" but read both sides www.halliburton.com/ as well as www.halliburtonwatch.org/ I think that keeping track of what they are doing now and seeking alternative sources of information from the corporate media will probably lead you to similar conclusions to those of the acclaimed thinkers of socialism: Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky.
The very fact that British academics will tell you that the ideas of Marx and Engels (usually called Marxism) are irrelevant and then expend gallons of ink in "disproving" Marxism will tell you all you need to know. Why such an effort? Why is so much money spent opposing an idea which is so "irrelevant"? Marxism is a generalisation of the experience of the working class under capitalism. Don't start with some critic's summary of Marx, read what he wrote himself first.
They will tell you Lenin was the devil incarnate and then explain in great detail how *they* would have led a successful revolution...perhaps. A lot of the criticisms of Lenin and Trotsky are not contextualised - they ignore the civil war which was raging while they fought for the very survival of the first workers' state.
They will tell you that Trotsky's ideas have no validity but then oppose any call for social justice with a "what about Russia then?" To answer that question you would have to have a working knowledge of Trotsky's ideas.
I would not ask anyone to idolise Marx, Engels, Lenin or Trotsky. I would just ask that you *read what they wrote* before accepting without question the biased opinions of the university professors paid to discredit them.
And most important of all *test* these idea by involving youself in the political battles taking place in society. The validity of Marxist ideas does not rest in dusty old books, it rests out there with the mothers who want to know why their sons have died in Iraq, with the Gate Gourmet workers sacked by a ruthless employer, or with the trade unionists resisting privatisation at your local hospital.
I am a member of the Socialist Party http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/ I joined the Labour Party because I believed in its objective which was "to sexure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their labour and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible on the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange." Despite the archaic wording that is as good a summary of my poltical views as you will find.
I left the Labour Party when that objective was ditched. At the time members were told it was "just a form of words" but now NewLabour are the champtions of privatisation.
I do not believe that the unelected bosses of the corporations are the best people to wield power on behalf of society. The politicians mouth slogans about "democracy" but stop short in pious trepidation at the doors of the boardrooms.
I read "The Iron Heel" by Jack London. The book is now almost 100 years old and yet much of what it says about the corporations has stood the test of time. He set scenes of brutality against the poor in the United States itself. If you read accounts of the massacre in Fallujah, which the US military began with the bombing of the hospitals, to the applause of Fox News, it is clear that Jack London was not exaggerating.
My main political message would be to read about political ideas and compare what you find with your experiences in real life.
Jack London in "The Iron Heel" suggested this approach. He got Avis Everhard to follow up the case of a worker "Jackson" badly treated by his employer. Which political analysis actually dealt with his problem and which just protected his employer from the consequences of wrongdoing?
Corporations exercise power without responsiblity. I suggest for example you look up "Halliburton" but read both sides www.halliburton.com/ as well as www.halliburtonwatch.org/ I think that keeping track of what they are doing now and seeking alternative sources of information from the corporate media will probably lead you to similar conclusions to those of the acclaimed thinkers of socialism: Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky.
The very fact that British academics will tell you that the ideas of Marx and Engels (usually called Marxism) are irrelevant and then expend gallons of ink in "disproving" Marxism will tell you all you need to know. Why such an effort? Why is so much money spent opposing an idea which is so "irrelevant"? Marxism is a generalisation of the experience of the working class under capitalism. Don't start with some critic's summary of Marx, read what he wrote himself first.
They will tell you Lenin was the devil incarnate and then explain in great detail how *they* would have led a successful revolution...perhaps. A lot of the criticisms of Lenin and Trotsky are not contextualised - they ignore the civil war which was raging while they fought for the very survival of the first workers' state.
They will tell you that Trotsky's ideas have no validity but then oppose any call for social justice with a "what about Russia then?" To answer that question you would have to have a working knowledge of Trotsky's ideas.
I would not ask anyone to idolise Marx, Engels, Lenin or Trotsky. I would just ask that you *read what they wrote* before accepting without question the biased opinions of the university professors paid to discredit them.
And most important of all *test* these idea by involving youself in the political battles taking place in society. The validity of Marxist ideas does not rest in dusty old books, it rests out there with the mothers who want to know why their sons have died in Iraq, with the Gate Gourmet workers sacked by a ruthless employer, or with the trade unionists resisting privatisation at your local hospital.
Gosh, am I ever anything? I'm the first university graduate in my family, and education was not held as a priority in the household. My parents are first generation Americans of European ancestry. My views have been formed partly by education but mostly from my own meandering experiences and thoughts. When trying to imagine an equitable governmental structure, no matter how cleverly crafted, there is always a gaping hole left for ambitious people to exploit. This coupled with living amongst a highly apathetic citizenry has caused my some dismay to all governmental structures.
The first American lie is the lie of Democracy. Others have discussed this at length so I won’t elaborate too much, but the point is important. I will only say even the Pledge of Allegiance speaks of our Republicanism and nothing of a Democracy. Tolstoy said it very simply, "Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us."
The truth is that no government bequeaths upon its citizens a single "right". Governments are formed to curtail natural rights. We've been taught to think the exact opposite. In our public schools, which are operated in a highly autocratic manner, children are 'taught' democratic ideals, yet are not permitted to discuss politics. In fact should politics, or even religion, be brought up in conversation into adulthood there will without fail be someone there to say, "You're not supposed to discuss religion or politics." Um, huh? So we're told that we live under one system, are taught in the confines of an opposing system and then are admonished and taught to admonish those who would discuss any system.
The three levels of the American legal system are tailored to the protection of entrenched interests and hostile towards individuals. The police are simply there to keep the rabble in line. When one man 'earns' several hundreds of millions of dollars a year and lives amongst many tens of thousands who earn less than $50,000, one of the serfs is liable to get ideas. That's where the police come in. Ms. Martha Stewart stole around $50,000 in about 1 minute of phone conversation. There is no way you would have seen her arrest on Cops. If a poor person steals $50.00 they may be beaten while being brought into custody. A perusal of any District Attorney or similar public official's records will prove out that 99.9% of all efforts and prosecutions are brought against so-called 'blue collar crime' while almost no attention is paid towards 'white collar crime'. The designations are sure indicators that justice is not blind when the color is green. There are even two prison systems. Poor people are regulated to virtual rape farms while the more affluent convict will live in a place nicer than most people’s homes. They take what amounts to a publicly paid vacation enjoying tennis, water sports and backgammon. I doubt that the recently convicted CEO of Tyco has any worry of a shower room rape.
Buckminster Fuller in Operating Manual to Spaceship Earth talks about our current paradigm of private property, religious superstition and the violent culture that results from them. The recent hurricane has made clear the American dependence upon gasoline. Not just a need, but an absolute necessity due to the structure of the current economy. There was a time, not all that long ago, that this was not the case. 100 years ago the diminishment of gasoline production, while inconvenient, was not nearly as critical. My point being, whatever our current circumstances, there was a time when they did not exist among man.
I'm not Anti-American or Anti-Capitalism or any other such nonsense. Paul Newman said it best, I'm Anti-Stupid. We are in a dire need for a new frame of thought. If I've learned anything, there is no real difference between Nazism, Zionism, Communism, Capitalism, Socialism, Democracy, Socialism, Marxism, Ism-Ism, and all the others. The inevitable result is that a few people are put into authority and pass judgment upon other people. This is often carried out with no accountability. Whenever this situation is allowed to exist, no system however cleverly crafted, can be proof against the corruption that will follow. "We hold these truths to be self-evident."
I believe each one of us has the capacity to be a gas chamber guard and a saint; it's just the role we play in life. Much the way that Mr. Clinton or Mr. Bush may be very pleasant men to know on a personal level. They express sentiments of faith, equity and charity. But when they are in their job as President, they are monsters.
I believe our future, and this is REALLY far off, is in the dissolution of such inequitable systems such as land ownership, usury and religiosity.
The first American lie is the lie of Democracy. Others have discussed this at length so I won’t elaborate too much, but the point is important. I will only say even the Pledge of Allegiance speaks of our Republicanism and nothing of a Democracy. Tolstoy said it very simply, "Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us."
The truth is that no government bequeaths upon its citizens a single "right". Governments are formed to curtail natural rights. We've been taught to think the exact opposite. In our public schools, which are operated in a highly autocratic manner, children are 'taught' democratic ideals, yet are not permitted to discuss politics. In fact should politics, or even religion, be brought up in conversation into adulthood there will without fail be someone there to say, "You're not supposed to discuss religion or politics." Um, huh? So we're told that we live under one system, are taught in the confines of an opposing system and then are admonished and taught to admonish those who would discuss any system.
The three levels of the American legal system are tailored to the protection of entrenched interests and hostile towards individuals. The police are simply there to keep the rabble in line. When one man 'earns' several hundreds of millions of dollars a year and lives amongst many tens of thousands who earn less than $50,000, one of the serfs is liable to get ideas. That's where the police come in. Ms. Martha Stewart stole around $50,000 in about 1 minute of phone conversation. There is no way you would have seen her arrest on Cops. If a poor person steals $50.00 they may be beaten while being brought into custody. A perusal of any District Attorney or similar public official's records will prove out that 99.9% of all efforts and prosecutions are brought against so-called 'blue collar crime' while almost no attention is paid towards 'white collar crime'. The designations are sure indicators that justice is not blind when the color is green. There are even two prison systems. Poor people are regulated to virtual rape farms while the more affluent convict will live in a place nicer than most people’s homes. They take what amounts to a publicly paid vacation enjoying tennis, water sports and backgammon. I doubt that the recently convicted CEO of Tyco has any worry of a shower room rape.
Buckminster Fuller in Operating Manual to Spaceship Earth talks about our current paradigm of private property, religious superstition and the violent culture that results from them. The recent hurricane has made clear the American dependence upon gasoline. Not just a need, but an absolute necessity due to the structure of the current economy. There was a time, not all that long ago, that this was not the case. 100 years ago the diminishment of gasoline production, while inconvenient, was not nearly as critical. My point being, whatever our current circumstances, there was a time when they did not exist among man.
I'm not Anti-American or Anti-Capitalism or any other such nonsense. Paul Newman said it best, I'm Anti-Stupid. We are in a dire need for a new frame of thought. If I've learned anything, there is no real difference between Nazism, Zionism, Communism, Capitalism, Socialism, Democracy, Socialism, Marxism, Ism-Ism, and all the others. The inevitable result is that a few people are put into authority and pass judgment upon other people. This is often carried out with no accountability. Whenever this situation is allowed to exist, no system however cleverly crafted, can be proof against the corruption that will follow. "We hold these truths to be self-evident."
I believe each one of us has the capacity to be a gas chamber guard and a saint; it's just the role we play in life. Much the way that Mr. Clinton or Mr. Bush may be very pleasant men to know on a personal level. They express sentiments of faith, equity and charity. But when they are in their job as President, they are monsters.
I believe our future, and this is REALLY far off, is in the dissolution of such inequitable systems such as land ownership, usury and religiosity.
"Political ideology" is a very difficult thing (at least in germany). Only the leftists seems to have one, the conservatives sometimes were branded as "neo-liberals", but this is a pure academic discussion (oh sorry... this IS an academic discussion, isnt it?).
From my point of view "ideology" is needed to build a better world. Pls forgive me if these words seem to be sentimental. But without an "ideology" (for instance: that men are equal) these things will never happen, I´m afraid.
Being a student of history and political sciences in the early 80s I was influenced from several leftist student movements. After my studies I decided to leave university (did I?) and entered the business world. So I am not a teacher but a manager in the educational and VET business.
Political Ideology doesn´t play a role at all in my daily life in my company; additionally I don´t have any time at all for political practices (so I´m still member of the social democratic party in germany. I entered them more because of sentimental reasons [working class history] than of practical political reasons); political ideology is only a part of my leisure time, so to say. And in this area it is a bit confusing, that I see my political ideology shifting from left to right. This seems to be very ordinary (and that´s what I am, I think) but it´s nevertheless curious to see it happen. I am reading the very conservative daily newspaper FAZ since years (just because it is one of the very few very well made newspapers in terms of journalism) and I try to convince my kids that it is important to follow the school careers (just because there are millions of people unemployed).
... huhh... has to stop now ... some work to be done
From my point of view "ideology" is needed to build a better world. Pls forgive me if these words seem to be sentimental. But without an "ideology" (for instance: that men are equal) these things will never happen, I´m afraid.
Being a student of history and political sciences in the early 80s I was influenced from several leftist student movements. After my studies I decided to leave university (did I?) and entered the business world. So I am not a teacher but a manager in the educational and VET business.
Political Ideology doesn´t play a role at all in my daily life in my company; additionally I don´t have any time at all for political practices (so I´m still member of the social democratic party in germany. I entered them more because of sentimental reasons [working class history] than of practical political reasons); political ideology is only a part of my leisure time, so to say. And in this area it is a bit confusing, that I see my political ideology shifting from left to right. This seems to be very ordinary (and that´s what I am, I think) but it´s nevertheless curious to see it happen. I am reading the very conservative daily newspaper FAZ since years (just because it is one of the very few very well made newspapers in terms of journalism) and I try to convince my kids that it is important to follow the school careers (just because there are millions of people unemployed).
... huhh... has to stop now ... some work to be done
In my family, the pursuit of education was paramount. My maternal grandfather had been prevented by his own father from continuing his grammar school education and was determined that his own children would go as far as they could academically. After university studies, my uncle became a deputy director of education for Glasgow while my aunt worked all her life as a secondary school teacher. My mother opted instead of higher education for the civil service, passing the entrance exams with distinction. She brought a reverence (not a word chosen lightly) for education to our upbringing, my brother’s and mine. She also inherited her father’s politics, which favoured voting Conservative locally - the party had a better reputation then for balancing the books in local government - but Labour nationally, because they wanted strong public services.
My own political views - not “ideology” or “philosophy” which is too grand a term because it implies some consistent and coherent system of belief and commitment- germinated during my sixth form and university years. I suspect most people’s politics are shaped by the way they thought in their late teens and early twenties. I did English Literature twice at A-level, the first time reading Jane Austen and Henry James, both authors I then loathed because their characters seemed to be effete navel-gazers who never worked a day in their lives and never wanted for anything. The second time round, I got to read D. H. Lawrence’s “Sons and Lovers”, which I adored because I could relate to the characters in the novel.
At my 1960s direct-grant boys’ grammar school, I was also beginning to notice that life wasn’t fair. The school gave the impression at sixth form level that the boys they were interested in were those likely to get Oxbridge scholarships. I wasn’t interested in going to either Oxford or Cambridge - I’d been to a sixth form language conference where the French lecturer from Manchester University was light-years ahead of the ancient and fossilised Oxbridge don when it came to charisma and teaching skills!
I moved on to the University of Leeds in 1966, an era of political and social upheaval both in the UK and in Europe. There were demos about the raising of foreign student fees and sit-ins about what was kept in student files. Professor Thody, the head of the French department made a point of calling a meeting of his students to explain that our files contained little more than a record of marks and exam results, not details of our political convictions or activities. My summer semester 1968 at the University of Tübingen in southern Germany was memorable largely because of the frequent direct action of the students and the news of what was happening at that time in France - barricades in the streets defended by Daniel Cohn-Bendit and his followers against the riot police. My English Language Assistantship during the 1998-9 academic year at an Auvergne secondary school began late and I remember the Communist teachers in the school jumping for joy when they heard about De Gaulle’s resignation from the presidency. When I returned to Leeds, Jack Straw was Union President. So events and personalities of the time certainly conspired to drive my already leftwing views further leftwards. It was an exciting time politically.
When I did an M.Ed by research during the 1970s, I chose to do my thesis on East German language teaching. This was partly because I was a German teacher with little knowledge of the GDR, but it was also because I was interested in East Germany’s experiment with the organisation of education. For instance, learning a trade became compulsory for everybody. There was a kind of social justice in forcing a child intent on, say, becoming a lawyer, to train as a plumber as well. It would have been an instant cure for the arrogance I had seen at my 1960s grammar school among some of the sons of lawyers intent on following in Daddy’s footsteps! I got to visit the GDR, like Graham did, travelling around the country on my own, and my disillusionment with the workers’ paradise began to set in!
During the later 70s, and the 80s, 90s and the current decade I’ve retained comfortable left of centre views which have kept me firmly as a teacher in the maintained sector. I’ve never been tempted to teach in an independent school, even though people assure me that nowadays anybody displaying arrogance in such places is instantly slapped down and that wealth no longer buys privileges there. I guess my politics are, and always will be, intertwined with my educational values. Like most teachers, I strongly believe in a society where the best get to the top solely by their own efforts and through equality of educational opportunity, not by accident of birth or through strings being pulled by relatives and friends. The secondary school Special Needs department where I work is called the “Equal Opportunities” department. I like to think the name came from, or was influenced by, one of John F. Kennedy’s axioms, “All of us do not have equal talent, but all of us should have an equal opportunity to develop our talents” because it encapsulates what I believe politically and educationally.
David Wilson
http://www.specialeducationalneeds.com/
My own political views - not “ideology” or “philosophy” which is too grand a term because it implies some consistent and coherent system of belief and commitment- germinated during my sixth form and university years. I suspect most people’s politics are shaped by the way they thought in their late teens and early twenties. I did English Literature twice at A-level, the first time reading Jane Austen and Henry James, both authors I then loathed because their characters seemed to be effete navel-gazers who never worked a day in their lives and never wanted for anything. The second time round, I got to read D. H. Lawrence’s “Sons and Lovers”, which I adored because I could relate to the characters in the novel.
At my 1960s direct-grant boys’ grammar school, I was also beginning to notice that life wasn’t fair. The school gave the impression at sixth form level that the boys they were interested in were those likely to get Oxbridge scholarships. I wasn’t interested in going to either Oxford or Cambridge - I’d been to a sixth form language conference where the French lecturer from Manchester University was light-years ahead of the ancient and fossilised Oxbridge don when it came to charisma and teaching skills!
I moved on to the University of Leeds in 1966, an era of political and social upheaval both in the UK and in Europe. There were demos about the raising of foreign student fees and sit-ins about what was kept in student files. Professor Thody, the head of the French department made a point of calling a meeting of his students to explain that our files contained little more than a record of marks and exam results, not details of our political convictions or activities. My summer semester 1968 at the University of Tübingen in southern Germany was memorable largely because of the frequent direct action of the students and the news of what was happening at that time in France - barricades in the streets defended by Daniel Cohn-Bendit and his followers against the riot police. My English Language Assistantship during the 1998-9 academic year at an Auvergne secondary school began late and I remember the Communist teachers in the school jumping for joy when they heard about De Gaulle’s resignation from the presidency. When I returned to Leeds, Jack Straw was Union President. So events and personalities of the time certainly conspired to drive my already leftwing views further leftwards. It was an exciting time politically.
When I did an M.Ed by research during the 1970s, I chose to do my thesis on East German language teaching. This was partly because I was a German teacher with little knowledge of the GDR, but it was also because I was interested in East Germany’s experiment with the organisation of education. For instance, learning a trade became compulsory for everybody. There was a kind of social justice in forcing a child intent on, say, becoming a lawyer, to train as a plumber as well. It would have been an instant cure for the arrogance I had seen at my 1960s grammar school among some of the sons of lawyers intent on following in Daddy’s footsteps! I got to visit the GDR, like Graham did, travelling around the country on my own, and my disillusionment with the workers’ paradise began to set in!
During the later 70s, and the 80s, 90s and the current decade I’ve retained comfortable left of centre views which have kept me firmly as a teacher in the maintained sector. I’ve never been tempted to teach in an independent school, even though people assure me that nowadays anybody displaying arrogance in such places is instantly slapped down and that wealth no longer buys privileges there. I guess my politics are, and always will be, intertwined with my educational values. Like most teachers, I strongly believe in a society where the best get to the top solely by their own efforts and through equality of educational opportunity, not by accident of birth or through strings being pulled by relatives and friends. The secondary school Special Needs department where I work is called the “Equal Opportunities” department. I like to think the name came from, or was influenced by, one of John F. Kennedy’s axioms, “All of us do not have equal talent, but all of us should have an equal opportunity to develop our talents” because it encapsulates what I believe politically and educationally.
David Wilson
http://www.specialeducationalneeds.com/
QUOTE (Andy Walker @ Sep 27 2005, 11:32 AM)
Members are invited to post reflections on their own political ideology and debate with others here to aid my 6th form students study their A Level unit on Ideology.
Hmmm...to echo another poster : Gosh.
I'm not sure I am clear on what a Libertarian Socialite is, so I can't claim to be one. I do know that there was a time when there was no Capitalites, I think it was Cromwell who led a revolution to establish Capitalism. This was also a time when early experiments with Communal life were happening in England. Peasants flocked to the Capitalites banner as it promised some freedoms. as usual when such tyrannical means are used the progressive elements are later eliminated. I think in this case a diversion into Ireland accomplished this. A 20th century example is the Iranian revolution. Here Trotskyist elements were in the vanguard. Following the successful overthrow of the old US backed Shah came a military adventure involving Iraq, then supported by the US. Again the progressive elements flocked to the defense of the revolution, which meant that the students and others who had a progressive political understanding went to the front line. Here they were effectively wiped out. The end result was, as in the USSR, a successful counter revolution, in this case the rule of the Mullahs was assured and any Marxist opposition wiped out, in the case of the Soviets the rise of Stalinism. This Stalinist regime has now after a few generations returned to the fold. In the case of the efforts of Capitalites in Britain, Monarchy as a ruling force was reestablished.
If I need to put my attitudes into a box, I suppose an anarcho syndicalist neutral christian with pentacostal tendencies having trotskyist sympathies with a world view encompassing the buddhist concepts of illusory perception with regards to ultimate truth. I don't know if that has been defined elsewhere as a typical box within which to reside. Perhaps dadaists would have something to say on that, however I tend to regard such things as a form of priviledged cerebral onanism to be avoided.
I think government often runs the risk of dispossessing individuals of their responsibilities to other humans. We too readily hand over thinking to government agencies (or any readily available 'authority') and become passive spectators, albeit with opinions, but as long as it's 'them' that are copping it, somehow maybe things are still OK.
To learn that a collective NO! the buck doesn't stop with the Prez. it stops with me, carried to its logical conclusion is probably one of the most powerful weapons against 'nastiness'.
I tend to have a pretty simplistic out look avoiding some of the finer details. For example I don't think we should have nuclear bombs simply because what they do is not nice. Similarly, police hitting people is not a good thing. People don't like being hit. Also, it's not good for the people who are doing the hitting. When you hit someone you have to develop some degree of unpleasant hateful feelings within your self. That's not a good thing to do to oneself.
If I want to eat sweet mango fruit it probably helps to plant sweet mango seeds. If I plant thistles all the time it seems to me logical that a scarcity of sweet mangoes may have something to do with not planting sweet mango seeds.
People who cooperatively choose not to participate in thistle farming and who argue for and actively go about planting sweet mango (ie. walk the talk) may in the long run prevail. I don't know.
(Oh... did I forget to mention..I'm a skeptic.)
Thanks to everyone who has posted thus far. My students will be debating this thread this coming week and may wish to ask questions which they will post on the forum.
http://www.educationforum.co.uk/sociology_2/ideologydiss.htm
In the meantime what would be great if more members would post (we are especially lacking any conservatives thus far
)
http://www.educationforum.co.uk/sociology_2/ideologydiss.htm
In the meantime what would be great if more members would post (we are especially lacking any conservatives thus far
)
Syndicalist
I was brought up in a home where my foster father was an intellectual conservative, but (as I have found out through the years) not strictly for the political beliefs but more for the preservation of an accustomed lifestyle.
Even though he came from a line of stonecutters from the western part of Sweden his father had "made it" as a butcher - he did the "classtravel" within one generation. My grandfather was then able to give his children an education. My father became a Medical Doctor so the home I grew up in was a typical upper middle-class home.
I have a four year older sister that showed great political interest early (she's born 1951). Through discussions with her and her friends I came to some early political conclusions - all inspired from the radical left. In the end of the 1960's (as a young teenager) I participated in my earlist political debates as a representative of the Communist Party Youth of Sweden (too young to join the party though which was quite good). I wasn't very comfortable with this affiliation (with a party who supported a totilatarian system) and therefore I started to look towards the organized "free left" - SAC (the Syndicalists). It was in this environment I came to continue my active poltical "carrier". I'm still counting myself as a syndicalist - not as active as I once was but definitely not desillusioned. Over the years I have been involved in many smaller political projects - from early activities which included demonstrations, house occupations, etc... to the formal burning of my pension papers, debates against the "establishment" and still demonstrations as a not so young person anymore.
My early inspirations came from the courses I took in the interpretation of different ideologies, especially Marxism. I read works by Marx, Lenin, Bernstein, Mao as well as Bakhunin, Kropotkin, Goldman, Berkman, Oppenheimer, etc... Since this is a post of political ideology I thought I would mention some of the main ideas behind my interpretation of syndicalism.
Main aim – to take over the means of production: Since capitalism uses all means necessary to increase productivity and profits we see a ruthless exploitation of both people and the environment. Therefore it’s necessary to make the means of production a property of all.
Federations instead of parliaments based on political parties: For me the bourgeois concept of a parliamentary system built on political parties is very limited and unfair. It should be replaced by the principles of federalism. This means that all those who are affected by a decision have the right to participate in the decision-making process.
True representation instead of political elite: Larger groups of people must reach decisions via representatives. The representation should rotate within the entire group structure. Representatives should be given limited authority and their powers should be revoked, thus ensuring that no elite arises and promotes its own interests.
Internationalism: Syndicalism is international by nature and strives for solidarity and co-operation among wage earners the world over – not only inside “fortress Europe”. That’s why I was against Sweden joining the European Union!
Organizing and educating all wage-earners: It’s very important to make all wage-earners aware of the principles of exploitation and oppression from a power elite. Workers of all kind must therefore be brought up with a union of solidarity, awareness and good organization.
Direct action: Direct action is one of the great means for changing society and living conditions. I believe that this is the basis for creating political literacy.
My political beliefs has had an impact on my personal lifestyle. I became a vegetarian over 30 years ago (my wife is also a vegetarian and our 5 children has been raised vegetarian), we try to avoid using a car (as much as possible we use public transportation and we don't own a car), we try to support local ecological farmers and smaller "solidarity stores" and if possible avoid anything produced by multi-national companies. I'm also a strong believer in gender equality but I realize that we still have a long way to go.
I'm now 50+ and several of my friends over the years are still waiting for me to grow up...
I was brought up in a home where my foster father was an intellectual conservative, but (as I have found out through the years) not strictly for the political beliefs but more for the preservation of an accustomed lifestyle.
Even though he came from a line of stonecutters from the western part of Sweden his father had "made it" as a butcher - he did the "classtravel" within one generation. My grandfather was then able to give his children an education. My father became a Medical Doctor so the home I grew up in was a typical upper middle-class home.
I have a four year older sister that showed great political interest early (she's born 1951). Through discussions with her and her friends I came to some early political conclusions - all inspired from the radical left. In the end of the 1960's (as a young teenager) I participated in my earlist political debates as a representative of the Communist Party Youth of Sweden (too young to join the party though which was quite good). I wasn't very comfortable with this affiliation (with a party who supported a totilatarian system) and therefore I started to look towards the organized "free left" - SAC (the Syndicalists). It was in this environment I came to continue my active poltical "carrier". I'm still counting myself as a syndicalist - not as active as I once was but definitely not desillusioned. Over the years I have been involved in many smaller political projects - from early activities which included demonstrations, house occupations, etc... to the formal burning of my pension papers, debates against the "establishment" and still demonstrations as a not so young person anymore.
My early inspirations came from the courses I took in the interpretation of different ideologies, especially Marxism. I read works by Marx, Lenin, Bernstein, Mao as well as Bakhunin, Kropotkin, Goldman, Berkman, Oppenheimer, etc... Since this is a post of political ideology I thought I would mention some of the main ideas behind my interpretation of syndicalism.
Main aim – to take over the means of production: Since capitalism uses all means necessary to increase productivity and profits we see a ruthless exploitation of both people and the environment. Therefore it’s necessary to make the means of production a property of all.
Federations instead of parliaments based on political parties: For me the bourgeois concept of a parliamentary system built on political parties is very limited and unfair. It should be replaced by the principles of federalism. This means that all those who are affected by a decision have the right to participate in the decision-making process.
True representation instead of political elite: Larger groups of people must reach decisions via representatives. The representation should rotate within the entire group structure. Representatives should be given limited authority and their powers should be revoked, thus ensuring that no elite arises and promotes its own interests.
Internationalism: Syndicalism is international by nature and strives for solidarity and co-operation among wage earners the world over – not only inside “fortress Europe”. That’s why I was against Sweden joining the European Union!
Organizing and educating all wage-earners: It’s very important to make all wage-earners aware of the principles of exploitation and oppression from a power elite. Workers of all kind must therefore be brought up with a union of solidarity, awareness and good organization.
Direct action: Direct action is one of the great means for changing society and living conditions. I believe that this is the basis for creating political literacy.
My political beliefs has had an impact on my personal lifestyle. I became a vegetarian over 30 years ago (my wife is also a vegetarian and our 5 children has been raised vegetarian), we try to avoid using a car (as much as possible we use public transportation and we don't own a car), we try to support local ecological farmers and smaller "solidarity stores" and if possible avoid anything produced by multi-national companies. I'm also a strong believer in gender equality but I realize that we still have a long way to go.
I'm now 50+ and several of my friends over the years are still waiting for me to grow up...
Hypocritical Green/Social Democrat
I joined the Ecology Party and Greenpeace in the late 1970s putting up fly posters. I've voted Labour, Liberal and Ecology / Green party whenever possible. Often thought about getting more involved at party level, but time, family ......
The state of transport is a real disappointment as political reality sinks in - "we'll produce a transport stategy" they said! I travelled to London yesterday by car at short notice - the cheapest rail ticket £89 one way Wigan-Euston.
I'm a hypocrit on two counts:
1. Greece for a holiday, but we do not fly every year.
2. PC is permanently on - SETI@Home
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There is now more emphasis on global health and transport is key to this. We have surburban airports claiming international status? And India are not surprisingly opening their skies with crazy priced tickets. Now is the time to think personally about the UN, future World Government (Governance!). Political views need to be global, not just national.
I found time for some reading recently, The Age of Consent, George Monbiot; No Logo, Klein; A Bed for the Night, David Rieff (UN!); Roaring Nineties, Stiglitz. As ever need to read more!
A key task is to educate individual's on basic health (PSHE) people must take some (there's the politics of the matter) responsibility for their health status. Demographic trends are shaping more than population pyramids. I see a key to this to having a universal conceptual framework for self-reflection and group engagement, our problems demand new ways of sharing ideas, potentially supported by informatics.
A paper on this:
http://www.comminit.com/healthecomm/uploads/jones.pdf
The site below provides a framework - you may find the political links page relevant to your discussion and studies.
One ambition? To take the model to the World Social Forum.
Please consider health and social care for your future careers!
Best wishes
Peter Jones (an optimist!)
Preston
Lancashire
---------------------------------------
http://www.p-jones.demon.co.uk/
Hodges' Health Career - Care Domains - Model
h2cm: help 2C more - help 2 listen - help 2 care
I joined the Ecology Party and Greenpeace in the late 1970s putting up fly posters. I've voted Labour, Liberal and Ecology / Green party whenever possible. Often thought about getting more involved at party level, but time, family ......
The state of transport is a real disappointment as political reality sinks in - "we'll produce a transport stategy" they said! I travelled to London yesterday by car at short notice - the cheapest rail ticket £89 one way Wigan-Euston.
I'm a hypocrit on two counts:
1. Greece for a holiday, but we do not fly every year.
2. PC is permanently on - SETI@Home
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There is now more emphasis on global health and transport is key to this. We have surburban airports claiming international status? And India are not surprisingly opening their skies with crazy priced tickets. Now is the time to think personally about the UN, future World Government (Governance!). Political views need to be global, not just national.
I found time for some reading recently, The Age of Consent, George Monbiot; No Logo, Klein; A Bed for the Night, David Rieff (UN!); Roaring Nineties, Stiglitz. As ever need to read more!
A key task is to educate individual's on basic health (PSHE) people must take some (there's the politics of the matter) responsibility for their health status. Demographic trends are shaping more than population pyramids. I see a key to this to having a universal conceptual framework for self-reflection and group engagement, our problems demand new ways of sharing ideas, potentially supported by informatics.
A paper on this:
http://www.comminit.com/healthecomm/uploads/jones.pdf
The site below provides a framework - you may find the political links page relevant to your discussion and studies.
One ambition? To take the model to the World Social Forum.
Please consider health and social care for your future careers!
Best wishes
Peter Jones (an optimist!)
Preston
Lancashire
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http://www.p-jones.demon.co.uk/
Hodges' Health Career - Care Domains - Model
h2cm: help 2C more - help 2 listen - help 2 care
Andy writes:
Yes, where are all the Thatcherites, pro-fox-hunting lobbyists, members of the National Rifle Association of America, et al? I suppose I am a bit of a Capitalist insofar as I own and run own my (very small) home-based business, and I might be inclined to shoot anyone who tried to take my means of production away from me (if I had a rifle), but in other respects I am quite a nice bloke. I own a greyhound but I don’t use him to hunt – although he occasionally escapes from our house and attempts to do terrible things to our neighbours’ cats. We are just about to enjoy a nice long walk in the woods…
Seriously, though, this Forum is not really representative of people’s views. Consider the two following personalities – people I actually know. What is THEIR ideology?
1. Bricklayer: Trade union member. Has usually voted Labour but hates Tony Blair. Works part-time as an employee of a local firm but does a lot of work “on the side” (no VAT, no income tax). Generally believes that the government wastes money gathered in taxes, but has taken advantage of the National Health Service on several occasions over the last two years when he has fallen ill. Lives in a council house and pays a very low rent. Owns a trained labrador that he takes on shoots at local country estates to retrieve game – earning more money “on the side”. Hates asylum seekers.
2. Salesman: Has always voted Conservative. Hates asylum seekers and continually bangs on about “scroungers” in spite of the fact that he has been on benefit and “job seeking” for as long as I can remember, Doesn’t like people who talk “posh” and live in big houses.
And there are dozens more that don’t seem to fit into any particular category. Most people don’t subscribe to ideologies – and neither do I, if I were honest. Most people have a pretty mixed set of often contradictory beliefs.
QUOTE
In the meantime what would be great if more members would post (we are especially lacking any conservatives thus far )
)Yes, where are all the Thatcherites, pro-fox-hunting lobbyists, members of the National Rifle Association of America, et al? I suppose I am a bit of a Capitalist insofar as I own and run own my (very small) home-based business, and I might be inclined to shoot anyone who tried to take my means of production away from me (if I had a rifle), but in other respects I am quite a nice bloke. I own a greyhound but I don’t use him to hunt – although he occasionally escapes from our house and attempts to do terrible things to our neighbours’ cats. We are just about to enjoy a nice long walk in the woods…
Seriously, though, this Forum is not really representative of people’s views. Consider the two following personalities – people I actually know. What is THEIR ideology?
1. Bricklayer: Trade union member. Has usually voted Labour but hates Tony Blair. Works part-time as an employee of a local firm but does a lot of work “on the side” (no VAT, no income tax). Generally believes that the government wastes money gathered in taxes, but has taken advantage of the National Health Service on several occasions over the last two years when he has fallen ill. Lives in a council house and pays a very low rent. Owns a trained labrador that he takes on shoots at local country estates to retrieve game – earning more money “on the side”. Hates asylum seekers.
2. Salesman: Has always voted Conservative. Hates asylum seekers and continually bangs on about “scroungers” in spite of the fact that he has been on benefit and “job seeking” for as long as I can remember, Doesn’t like people who talk “posh” and live in big houses.
And there are dozens more that don’t seem to fit into any particular category. Most people don’t subscribe to ideologies – and neither do I, if I were honest. Most people have a pretty mixed set of often contradictory beliefs.
Revolutionary Marxist/Socialist (aka dinosaur)
It's pretty clear from the above posts that everyone has an ideology (although many on the right argue that they don't, that their beliefs are just natural ways of the world). Probably encompasses two areas: how you view the world and how you'd like it to be. Implicit in this is a means to change if 'how you'd like it to be' doesn't equal 'how it is'.
For all the claims that class has been eradicated, I still feel class exists and is a fundamental division in society. Similarly with Marx, I agree that there are two basic classes - those who produce the wealth (directly and indirectly) and those who simply use the wealth created by others. The first category would include those who 'oil' or 'feed' the machine' of capitalism (eg play a part in making workers fit for their purpose). You don't have to be blue collar to be working class - ask most teachers if they feel outside the working class, and challenge those who claim to be 'other' to show how much control they have over their working lives!
Marxism has, essentially, an economic basis: the Labour Theory of Value. In a nutshell, this can be explained as nothing having value unless it is the product of human effort. So the chair I'm sitting on and the table my pc sits on would not have any value if they were still parts of trees and iron ore in the ground. It is the process of transforming them into useable objects that gives them a value. In capitalism, this process is carried out by the worker and the value appropriated by the capitalist. The worker, because s/he does not get the full value of the product s/he has created (ie the wages are less than the amount received for the product) is exploited. There are many social consequences, the most significant for Marx being alienation.
How I'd like it to be? That those who make the wealth get to enjoy it!
How did I come to have these views? Observation. I saw how much my parents worked (and their brothers and sisters) and wondered why many others appeared to do no work, at least not in the same way. It must have been very onerous, I always thought, for the Queen to have to go to all those parties, and live in those massive houses, and get paid all those millions. How she must have envied my parents, who worked from age 14 to their 60s, with a few years out each (mum to look after young kids, dad to adventure on the high seas - oh, he was in the navy during WW2).
The more history I studied (and I've studied quite a lot) the more I came to realise there are or have been an awful lot of nasty people in the world who have harmed in various ways their fellow human beings. Almost without exception, the biggest harmers have come from the exploiters, and those harmed have been among the exploited.
Again having studied history makes me aware of when to be scared, and when to be really scared about modern events. The violent ejection of an 80+ year old from a political meeting for shouting 'nonsense' at someone who was speaking nonsense, comes in the 'really scared' category. Compare with Olympia in 1936, Munich beer hall 1923, countless meetings around the German election of 1933.
There's a saying generally to the effect that all it takes for evil to flourish is for good people to do nothing. To that end I have been a life-long member of a trade union, always active.
Seldom have the 'exploiters' given anything to the 'exploited' out of the goodness of their hearts. The basic fundamental 'freedoms' we enjoy - from voting to holidays and whatever control we have over our lives - have been fought for and wrested from the exploiters. There is little indication that any future 'concessions' will be gained in different ways. This would probably include something as necessary as US CO2 emissions being reduced.
It's pretty clear from the above posts that everyone has an ideology (although many on the right argue that they don't, that their beliefs are just natural ways of the world). Probably encompasses two areas: how you view the world and how you'd like it to be. Implicit in this is a means to change if 'how you'd like it to be' doesn't equal 'how it is'.
For all the claims that class has been eradicated, I still feel class exists and is a fundamental division in society. Similarly with Marx, I agree that there are two basic classes - those who produce the wealth (directly and indirectly) and those who simply use the wealth created by others. The first category would include those who 'oil' or 'feed' the machine' of capitalism (eg play a part in making workers fit for their purpose). You don't have to be blue collar to be working class - ask most teachers if they feel outside the working class, and challenge those who claim to be 'other' to show how much control they have over their working lives!
Marxism has, essentially, an economic basis: the Labour Theory of Value. In a nutshell, this can be explained as nothing having value unless it is the product of human effort. So the chair I'm sitting on and the table my pc sits on would not have any value if they were still parts of trees and iron ore in the ground. It is the process of transforming them into useable objects that gives them a value. In capitalism, this process is carried out by the worker and the value appropriated by the capitalist. The worker, because s/he does not get the full value of the product s/he has created (ie the wages are less than the amount received for the product) is exploited. There are many social consequences, the most significant for Marx being alienation.
How I'd like it to be? That those who make the wealth get to enjoy it!
How did I come to have these views? Observation. I saw how much my parents worked (and their brothers and sisters) and wondered why many others appeared to do no work, at least not in the same way. It must have been very onerous, I always thought, for the Queen to have to go to all those parties, and live in those massive houses, and get paid all those millions. How she must have envied my parents, who worked from age 14 to their 60s, with a few years out each (mum to look after young kids, dad to adventure on the high seas - oh, he was in the navy during WW2).
The more history I studied (and I've studied quite a lot) the more I came to realise there are or have been an awful lot of nasty people in the world who have harmed in various ways their fellow human beings. Almost without exception, the biggest harmers have come from the exploiters, and those harmed have been among the exploited.
Again having studied history makes me aware of when to be scared, and when to be really scared about modern events. The violent ejection of an 80+ year old from a political meeting for shouting 'nonsense' at someone who was speaking nonsense, comes in the 'really scared' category. Compare with Olympia in 1936, Munich beer hall 1923, countless meetings around the German election of 1933.
There's a saying generally to the effect that all it takes for evil to flourish is for good people to do nothing. To that end I have been a life-long member of a trade union, always active.
Seldom have the 'exploiters' given anything to the 'exploited' out of the goodness of their hearts. The basic fundamental 'freedoms' we enjoy - from voting to holidays and whatever control we have over our lives - have been fought for and wrested from the exploiters. There is little indication that any future 'concessions' will be gained in different ways. This would probably include something as necessary as US CO2 emissions being reduced.
Left-wing/Libertarian Socialist/Feminist (something vaguely like that)
My father was a member of the communist party here in Australia during the 50s and 60s when I was growing up and for years we received Soviet Woman in the post instead of the Women's Weekly. He was a railway shop steward and militant unionist most of his life and I have certainly followed in his footsteps in that regard. My grandfather was a Yorkshire coal miner during the Thatcher era and my cousin, his grandson, was one of the mounted policemen who rode against them in the streets, something he has never forgotten. My only sibling was born severely mentally disabled and was in a state institution all her 11 years of life.
With this sort of background it would be difficult to be anything else. However, I have not espoused my father's passionate belief in communism. (He still has them at 90 years old) I could understand the reasons he believed, having lived through the depression in England, but I could see the negatives in it and saw that he chose to ignore those aspects. He actually believed that the end justifies the means in relation to Trotsky etc and I couldn't accept that.
I do, however, believe strongly in a welfare system, hopefully well-run, but there has to be one. My parents could not have afforded to look after my sister without a free health system, I would not have gone to University without free tertiary education under Gough Whitlam here in Oz. I have a mildly brain damaged grand-son here who will probably never work - the state must look after such people.
We must pay sufficient taxes, all of us, to ensure we have jobs, a good health, education and pension system, after that let people who want to make profits, do it within reason. I seem to remember that when I was in Sweden they once had a system where profits over a certain level had to be put back into govt loan funds or something like that.
I believe that if we live in a society where the govt sets the example that people don't matter, that everyone is capable of looking after themselves, that ony ME counts, that profits and big business are the gods, then we will end up with a society which believes the same - maybe we're there already!
I also strongly believe that unless a country can solve the unemployment problem, society will suffer.
I have been a strong unionist all my working life and am now the elected full-time president of our state (Tasmania) teachers' union. Although challenging and difficult at times, I love doing something which hopefully at least makes some things better for workers. And I have to tell you that my old Dad is very proud of me.
My father was a member of the communist party here in Australia during the 50s and 60s when I was growing up and for years we received Soviet Woman in the post instead of the Women's Weekly. He was a railway shop steward and militant unionist most of his life and I have certainly followed in his footsteps in that regard. My grandfather was a Yorkshire coal miner during the Thatcher era and my cousin, his grandson, was one of the mounted policemen who rode against them in the streets, something he has never forgotten. My only sibling was born severely mentally disabled and was in a state institution all her 11 years of life.
With this sort of background it would be difficult to be anything else. However, I have not espoused my father's passionate belief in communism. (He still has them at 90 years old) I could understand the reasons he believed, having lived through the depression in England, but I could see the negatives in it and saw that he chose to ignore those aspects. He actually believed that the end justifies the means in relation to Trotsky etc and I couldn't accept that.
I do, however, believe strongly in a welfare system, hopefully well-run, but there has to be one. My parents could not have afforded to look after my sister without a free health system, I would not have gone to University without free tertiary education under Gough Whitlam here in Oz. I have a mildly brain damaged grand-son here who will probably never work - the state must look after such people.
We must pay sufficient taxes, all of us, to ensure we have jobs, a good health, education and pension system, after that let people who want to make profits, do it within reason. I seem to remember that when I was in Sweden they once had a system where profits over a certain level had to be put back into govt loan funds or something like that.
I believe that if we live in a society where the govt sets the example that people don't matter, that everyone is capable of looking after themselves, that ony ME counts, that profits and big business are the gods, then we will end up with a society which believes the same - maybe we're there already!
I also strongly believe that unless a country can solve the unemployment problem, society will suffer.
I have been a strong unionist all my working life and am now the elected full-time president of our state (Tasmania) teachers' union. Although challenging and difficult at times, I love doing something which hopefully at least makes some things better for workers. And I have to tell you that my old Dad is very proud of me.
QUOTE (Jean Walker @ Oct 2 2005, 02:17 AM)
I seem to remember that when I was in Sweden they once had a system where profits over a certain level had to be put back into govt loan funds or something like that.
They're called 'employee investment funds' in English and were an idea people had in the pre-Thatcher era. The Swedish government actually implemented them (after pressure from the Swedish trade union movement) in the mid-1980s.
They were hated by the right, and the bourgeois government of Carl Bildt abolished them in its last month in office. The vast amount of money in them at the time was put into trusts, which the bourgeois government packed with its own supporters. Bildt also tried to create a structure which would make it impossible for any incoming government to get rid of the trustees he created (something seen as incredibly anti-democratic here). Ultimately he failed, as he did with nearly all of the policies his government tried to push through.
The trust funds, however, have invested a lot of money in technological developments in general, and in IT in particular since 1994 … which probably accounts for the incredibly fast development in these areas, compared with other countries. People tend not to know that much about Swedish involvement in the development of IT (it's embarrassing for 'red-blooded entrepreneurs' to accept that the Swedish nanny state has been so dynamic). Skype, for example, was started by a Swede and a Dane. Without money from the employee investment funds, I think that it's a racing certainty that there wouldn't have been any money for this development … which in turn would have left Sweden a poorer country than it is today … which is, in my ideology, one of the reasons for not being a Conservative, because if you leave it all up to the 'hidden hand of the market', the vast majority of people end up poorer.
Skeptical Democrat
One of the reasons I joined the Education Forum was its excellent researchers of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. No other event in the 20th-century symbolizes the demise of American democracy than this murder. Even more than about unethical military or intelligence operations, this event also teaches us how modern media perpetuates a lie, despite compelling evidence, and controls its consumers by entertaining them, selling them products, and masterfully suggesting to them what should be their political ideology at the beginning of the 21st-century.
Those of us with an inkling for truth, not to mention a hope that some day democracy might be restored, are constantly on the watch for the lie, especially when it concerns political ideology. We recognize how the skillful pundits and shills of television spin. We are also vigilant, for example, when something called "the Libertarian Party" sparks the imagination of young thinkers as a sort of modern-day anarchy ("in the tradition of the 19th-century Social Revolution," says Milton Friedman), when in actuality it is an invention of the powerful American oil barons, including the Rockefeller family, among others, and their think tank for schemes to subvert democracy in their favor, the University of Chicago.
The wealthy rule over their acquisitions and want to do so without the fear of a Justice Department enforcing human rights. Today's popular "anti-government" sentiments are actually well-designed but deceptive anti-democracy sentiments, helping those who ruthlessly hold power to subvert the efforts of the less powerful trying to exercise their rights. If we want to preserve human rights and real freedoms, we should use our common sense, reflecting on situations where a group of people try to make a decision together, and not let bullies prevail.
One of the reasons I joined the Education Forum was its excellent researchers of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. No other event in the 20th-century symbolizes the demise of American democracy than this murder. Even more than about unethical military or intelligence operations, this event also teaches us how modern media perpetuates a lie, despite compelling evidence, and controls its consumers by entertaining them, selling them products, and masterfully suggesting to them what should be their political ideology at the beginning of the 21st-century.
Those of us with an inkling for truth, not to mention a hope that some day democracy might be restored, are constantly on the watch for the lie, especially when it concerns political ideology. We recognize how the skillful pundits and shills of television spin. We are also vigilant, for example, when something called "the Libertarian Party" sparks the imagination of young thinkers as a sort of modern-day anarchy ("in the tradition of the 19th-century Social Revolution," says Milton Friedman), when in actuality it is an invention of the powerful American oil barons, including the Rockefeller family, among others, and their think tank for schemes to subvert democracy in their favor, the University of Chicago.
The wealthy rule over their acquisitions and want to do so without the fear of a Justice Department enforcing human rights. Today's popular "anti-government" sentiments are actually well-designed but deceptive anti-democracy sentiments, helping those who ruthlessly hold power to subvert the efforts of the less powerful trying to exercise their rights. If we want to preserve human rights and real freedoms, we should use our common sense, reflecting on situations where a group of people try to make a decision together, and not let bullies prevail.
I think my nearest description would be:
Anarcho-Stalinist
I have no inclination nor interest in joining any hierarchical political party or organisation. I distrust all politicians and most positions of management and authority. I believe that people achieve the best results when they work co-operatively and with a common goal, that of the common good.
Capitalism is a complete disaster, as is liberalism and its fake democratic processes. This is why I will not take part in their elections, nor read their newspapers for 'news' or comment, nor trust anything that their television and radio stations broadcast.
I am completely opposed to the European Union, and the United Kingdom as structures and states.
I believe in a tough law and order policy and the punishment of offenders. Liberal policies and ideas punish the innocent majority who have to live amongst recidivists and repeat offenders while the liberal elite live in well-off areas.
I believe in hugely self-sufficient defence, as in the Swiss or Swedish model, and reject any ideas about NATO/OTAN or the 'Coalition'.
I am against large-scale immigration as it damages the home countries of the immigrants, with the brain drain. It also foments mistrust and resentment in the host countries because liberal capitalism uses mass immigration to keep wages down.
I believe that the USSR up to 1953 was as near to an ideal model for governance as possible, save for Albania under the People's Will as represented by Enver Hoxha.
Hope that helps.
Anarcho-Stalinist
I have no inclination nor interest in joining any hierarchical political party or organisation. I distrust all politicians and most positions of management and authority. I believe that people achieve the best results when they work co-operatively and with a common goal, that of the common good.
Capitalism is a complete disaster, as is liberalism and its fake democratic processes. This is why I will not take part in their elections, nor read their newspapers for 'news' or comment, nor trust anything that their television and radio stations broadcast.
I am completely opposed to the European Union, and the United Kingdom as structures and states.
I believe in a tough law and order policy and the punishment of offenders. Liberal policies and ideas punish the innocent majority who have to live amongst recidivists and repeat offenders while the liberal elite live in well-off areas.
I believe in hugely self-sufficient defence, as in the Swiss or Swedish model, and reject any ideas about NATO/OTAN or the 'Coalition'.
I am against large-scale immigration as it damages the home countries of the immigrants, with the brain drain. It also foments mistrust and resentment in the host countries because liberal capitalism uses mass immigration to keep wages down.
I believe that the USSR up to 1953 was as near to an ideal model for governance as possible, save for Albania under the People's Will as represented by Enver Hoxha.
Hope that helps.
Neoconservative
(only joking)
A Libertarian Armchair Anarchist?
I do find it very difficult to pigeon-hole myself into any category I am afraid. The above is more a label that some might attach to me.
I suppose that labelling myself will restrict me from approaching new ideas with an open mind.
I have a dislike of all forms of authority which is amusing given the fact that I am a teacher. I also have an optimistic view of human nature and believe that given the right circumstances, human beings can get along without a form of authority. This is one of the reasons why the Liberal idea of ‘the state of nature’ is not something I agree with. Consequently, I find myself attracted to many of the ideas within anarchism. I do have a hard job defending anarchism (especially to those who have a pessimistic view of human nature.) I don’t want to get into debating the ideas of anarchism here – the most common response to its ideas being ‘it wouldn’t work;’ however, I believe that many of my attitudes towards the world we live in are influenced heavily by anarchist thought. One of the values of anarchism as an ‘ideology’ though is to alter people’s views of the world without converting them to actual anarchists.
So I cannot describe myself as a liberal (although I am liberal) because of their acceptance that government – any form of government (even dictatorship) is necessary if the alternative is no government.
My belief in the capacity of the individual means that I also back away from the paternalism associated with socialism.
However, the desperate misery caused by capitalism has to be balanced by greater social welfare. Socialism wouldn’t exist without capitalism. However, socialism in practice often means greater government intervention; something which deeply disturbs me. (Effective socialism in practice struggles to achieve its ideals when it has to compete in a capitalist world. Capitalism is the perhaps the ultimate corrupting influence.)
I am also a pacifist and a feminist and I enjoy eating meat.
With regard to wanting some right-wing views - if you want I could ‘role-play’ a post as a supporter of the countryside alliance – they are largely misunderstood and suffer from an image problem……
(only joking)
A Libertarian Armchair Anarchist?
I do find it very difficult to pigeon-hole myself into any category I am afraid. The above is more a label that some might attach to me.
I suppose that labelling myself will restrict me from approaching new ideas with an open mind.
I have a dislike of all forms of authority which is amusing given the fact that I am a teacher. I also have an optimistic view of human nature and believe that given the right circumstances, human beings can get along without a form of authority. This is one of the reasons why the Liberal idea of ‘the state of nature’ is not something I agree with. Consequently, I find myself attracted to many of the ideas within anarchism. I do have a hard job defending anarchism (especially to those who have a pessimistic view of human nature.) I don’t want to get into debating the ideas of anarchism here – the most common response to its ideas being ‘it wouldn’t work;’ however, I believe that many of my attitudes towards the world we live in are influenced heavily by anarchist thought. One of the values of anarchism as an ‘ideology’ though is to alter people’s views of the world without converting them to actual anarchists.
So I cannot describe myself as a liberal (although I am liberal) because of their acceptance that government – any form of government (even dictatorship) is necessary if the alternative is no government.
My belief in the capacity of the individual means that I also back away from the paternalism associated with socialism.
However, the desperate misery caused by capitalism has to be balanced by greater social welfare. Socialism wouldn’t exist without capitalism. However, socialism in practice often means greater government intervention; something which deeply disturbs me. (Effective socialism in practice struggles to achieve its ideals when it has to compete in a capitalist world. Capitalism is the perhaps the ultimate corrupting influence.)
I am also a pacifist and a feminist and I enjoy eating meat.
With regard to wanting some right-wing views - if you want I could ‘role-play’ a post as a supporter of the countryside alliance – they are largely misunderstood and suffer from an image problem……
QUOTE (Andy Walker @ Oct 1 2005, 08:11 AM)
Thanks to everyone who has posted thus far. My students will be debating this thread this coming week and may wish to ask questions which they will post on the forum.
http://www.educationforum.co.uk/sociology_2/ideologydiss.htm
In the meantime what would be great if more members would post (we are especially lacking any conservatives thus far)
http://www.educationforum.co.uk/sociology_2/ideologydiss.htm
In the meantime what would be great if more members would post (we are especially lacking any conservatives thus far
)I may well be a Conservative in the sense that I dislike social engineering carried out in the name of some abstarct noun like Liberty or Equality. Sooner or later any regime brought in to create a more equal society
by means of standardising our social and econimic relationships will lead to a power elite of the committed rather than the talented. This in turn will ignite a counter movement.
Politics as Aristotle knew well is a branch of Ethics. It should be concerned with the moral duty of people towards each other rather than about attempts to redefine their status or minimise their vaiety. That moral duty can only encouraged by a sharing of basic values which transcend class and wealth. Governement can encourage that moral sense but cannot impose it nor can it create it by political change. Human beings are not made good by revolutions violent otherwise and are capable in each generation of the same amount of good and evil.
On the wholeI favour principled pragmatism rather than visionary zeal. Its the latter that has a habit of spilling blood!
Socialists replace duties and obligations with impersonal taxes and benefits while Liberals fail to understand that one has to have a shared moral framework if a society is to function well.
I will be glad to answer any questions - and debate my ideas but I will be gone the next 6 days (Wednesday 5/10 to Monday 10/10)... 
Terry Haydn: Socialist/Social Democrat
I grew up in a Labour household; my dad worked for the Labour Party all his life and was on the local council. He was a big Nye Bevan fan and one of my regrets is that I never got to hear Bevan speak.(I used to teach 'A' level government and politics and it is worth remembering that back in the 70s and early 80s, nine out of ten people voted the same way as their parents and voting behaviour was much less volatile).
It always seemed to me as I grew older, got interested in politics, read the papers as I was delivering them, that the Conservative Party represented the rich and privileged and that Labour stood for social justice and the more equitable distribution of wealth. It makes me smile when speakers at the Conservative Party Conference and in the right wing tabloids describe themselves as epitomising tolerance, 'fair play' and inclusive, 'one nation' Britain. Their policies, as in Bush's neo-Con corpocracy almost invariably favour those who have more or who are best placed to get more wealth and high quality primary social goods such as healthcare and education.
I am now 'middle class', but still believe that if you are lucky to have a good well paid job and are well off, the least you can do is pay more tax to help those who have been less fortunate, had fewer chances in one way or another. As J.K. Galbraith has pointed out, the idea that the poor aren't working because they are too well off on the dole, and the rich aren't working to optimum efficiency because they don't get sufficient incentives to work hard because of high taxation seems an implausible. The 'trickle down' theory of wealth doesn't work because the fat cats keep most of their money for themselves.
From what I read in the media, the Scandinavian countries seem to have the best systems of government, very good state education and healthcare, a concern for disadvantaged groups and a fairly tolerant, liberal and civilised society. If only they could move Scandinavia south about a thousand miles, I would want to live there.
I've added Social Democrat because I think that most of the awful things done in recnet years have been the fault of extremist groups, of both right and left. More moderate parties might be a bit 'wishy-washy', but they generally do less harm.
I grew up in a Labour household; my dad worked for the Labour Party all his life and was on the local council. He was a big Nye Bevan fan and one of my regrets is that I never got to hear Bevan speak.(I used to teach 'A' level government and politics and it is worth remembering that back in the 70s and early 80s, nine out of ten people voted the same way as their parents and voting behaviour was much less volatile).
It always seemed to me as I grew older, got interested in politics, read the papers as I was delivering them, that the Conservative Party represented the rich and privileged and that Labour stood for social justice and the more equitable distribution of wealth. It makes me smile when speakers at the Conservative Party Conference and in the right wing tabloids describe themselves as epitomising tolerance, 'fair play' and inclusive, 'one nation' Britain. Their policies, as in Bush's neo-Con corpocracy almost invariably favour those who have more or who are best placed to get more wealth and high quality primary social goods such as healthcare and education.
I am now 'middle class', but still believe that if you are lucky to have a good well paid job and are well off, the least you can do is pay more tax to help those who have been less fortunate, had fewer chances in one way or another. As J.K. Galbraith has pointed out, the idea that the poor aren't working because they are too well off on the dole, and the rich aren't working to optimum efficiency because they don't get sufficient incentives to work hard because of high taxation seems an implausible. The 'trickle down' theory of wealth doesn't work because the fat cats keep most of their money for themselves.
From what I read in the media, the Scandinavian countries seem to have the best systems of government, very good state education and healthcare, a concern for disadvantaged groups and a fairly tolerant, liberal and civilised society. If only they could move Scandinavia south about a thousand miles, I would want to live there.
I've added Social Democrat because I think that most of the awful things done in recnet years have been the fault of extremist groups, of both right and left. More moderate parties might be a bit 'wishy-washy', but they generally do less harm.
The list of prospective contributors is interestings: Why on earth does ANYONE have to DECLARE a political preference? More than a century ago, common people made sacrifices in order to retain their preferences, their thoughts and their fears from the powers ' that be'. The current trend of nailing ones' affiliations to the public post is based on ....what? It reflects an assumption of the pseudo-security of one side of an almost polarized society where the common people follow allegiances which are traditional and accepted without any deep thought....very similar to football/rugby support!
Why does anyone wish to circumvent the PRIVACY of the ballot box? Maybe those whe declare their colours are playing a game i.e. 'look...I'm one of you..'. The exceptionally well paid politicians do appreciate your back-up!!!
Do those who CLAIM to be active/committed in a political sense really sit back and SERIOUSLY look at all the angles or are they seeking some sort of reassurance, a sense of belonging, a companionship.....?
I can appreciate the value of 'teaching' politics'....I worry when I see that the contributors do not reflect the wider spectrum.
Me?...I have never ever missed a voting oportunity.,even to spoil a vote.,and I have never belonged to any political group.....I vote with my conscience and stuff the media and the slick 'suits' and perhaps that is the message that young, emerging adults should hear.
Why does anyone wish to circumvent the PRIVACY of the ballot box? Maybe those whe declare their colours are playing a game i.e. 'look...I'm one of you..'. The exceptionally well paid politicians do appreciate your back-up!!!
Do those who CLAIM to be active/committed in a political sense really sit back and SERIOUSLY look at all the angles or are they seeking some sort of reassurance, a sense of belonging, a companionship.....?
I can appreciate the value of 'teaching' politics'....I worry when I see that the contributors do not reflect the wider spectrum.
Me?...I have never ever missed a voting oportunity.,even to spoil a vote.,and I have never belonged to any political group.....I vote with my conscience and stuff the media and the slick 'suits' and perhaps that is the message that young, emerging adults should hear.
Conservative Republication
I am a Conservative Republican in the United States. I don't believe in socialism. I think the free enterprise economic system, as written by Adam Smith, is the best possible type of economic system in the world. There is no longer a pure free enterprise system, as some governemental interference has been put in place to protect consumers.
The Constitution of the United States should be the only document that runs the country. All basis of government must be held to account as to whether the laws passed are Constitutional or not. The establishment of the three distinct branches of government should remain seperate and powerful in their own right. The presidency, the executive office of the land, is checked and balanced by congress. The legislative part of the country is checked and balanced by the court system and the executive office. The federal court system is held in check through the threat of impeachment and removal from office by the congress.
The most important part of the Constitution are the first ten amendments, our Bill of Rights. These ten amendments spell out the rights of the people. It is vital that they remain intact to secure the people from the incursion of government upon their daily lives.
It is also very imperative that the Federal Government remain as a support element to the states,and the states as a support element to the counties and cities. States rights need to be strong and soverign as they are the most responsible to their citizens. It is obvious that some roles have to be undertaken by the Federal government, such as national defense. but education is purely a state and local responsibility.
In some states there are city wide school districts, in some county wide districts and even a few state wide districts. In Texas there are independent school districts that function under state guidelines. The teachers of Texas do not work for the state or the Federal government , but rather for their independent school district. This gives a lot of latitude for individual choices for teachers and districts.
I don't like unions. They were originally good in the protection of their members, but in the past 40 years have become a major factor in inflation in the United States and have forced the prices of products up. That has driven a lot of American companies to either move to sections of the country that have Right to Work laws that discourage union membership or forced the companies to move to foreign countries, like Mexico and Central America. As free enterprise is the economy of the land, the individual companies can re-locate where they will or can without governmental approval. In many cases local governments attempt to lure these companies to their locale by tax abatements and free land to locate there. Of course this improves the local economy by furnishing more jobs to the area.
The Supreme Court of the United States, originally set up under the Constitution as a law review agency, has become a law making body through legal review. The court needs to be returned to it's original role as that of judicial review and not as a law making body that is not elected. The members are appointed by the President of the United States and subject to approval by the Senate. These judges have an appointment for life. There are only nine of them, and that gives them tremendous power.
To present a political conservative viewpoint on this posting would require much more writing, and as I have already spent the day at school, I am ready to end. I will be glad to answer any questions and answer any critics I might have.
I am a Conservative Republican in the United States. I don't believe in socialism. I think the free enterprise economic system, as written by Adam Smith, is the best possible type of economic system in the world. There is no longer a pure free enterprise system, as some governemental interference has been put in place to protect consumers.
The Constitution of the United States should be the only document that runs the country. All basis of government must be held to account as to whether the laws passed are Constitutional or not. The establishment of the three distinct branches of government should remain seperate and powerful in their own right. The presidency, the executive office of the land, is checked and balanced by congress. The legislative part of the country is checked and balanced by the court system and the executive office. The federal court system is held in check through the threat of impeachment and removal from office by the congress.
The most important part of the Constitution are the first ten amendments, our Bill of Rights. These ten amendments spell out the rights of the people. It is vital that they remain intact to secure the people from the incursion of government upon their daily lives.
It is also very imperative that the Federal Government remain as a support element to the states,and the states as a support element to the counties and cities. States rights need to be strong and soverign as they are the most responsible to their citizens. It is obvious that some roles have to be undertaken by the Federal government, such as national defense. but education is purely a state and local responsibility.
In some states there are city wide school districts, in some county wide districts and even a few state wide districts. In Texas there are independent school districts that function under state guidelines. The teachers of Texas do not work for the state or the Federal government , but rather for their independent school district. This gives a lot of latitude for individual choices for teachers and districts.
I don't like unions. They were originally good in the protection of their members, but in the past 40 years have become a major factor in inflation in the United States and have forced the prices of products up. That has driven a lot of American companies to either move to sections of the country that have Right to Work laws that discourage union membership or forced the companies to move to foreign countries, like Mexico and Central America. As free enterprise is the economy of the land, the individual companies can re-locate where they will or can without governmental approval. In many cases local governments attempt to lure these companies to their locale by tax abatements and free land to locate there. Of course this improves the local economy by furnishing more jobs to the area.
The Supreme Court of the United States, originally set up under the Constitution as a law review agency, has become a law making body through legal review. The court needs to be returned to it's original role as that of judicial review and not as a law making body that is not elected. The members are appointed by the President of the United States and subject to approval by the Senate. These judges have an appointment for life. There are only nine of them, and that gives them tremendous power.
To present a political conservative viewpoint on this posting would require much more writing, and as I have already spent the day at school, I am ready to end. I will be glad to answer any questions and answer any critics I might have.
Way on the "Right"
It appears that I'm the only one here, so far, on the other side and I'm so far on the other side that I may be able to balance the entire rest of you put together.
My political ideas come from a strong belief in the existence of the God of the Bible and the principles I see in the Bible concerning these things. If you start with the idea that there is a maker and you are made, and the maker has given you an instruction book, then the formation of a political idealogy is not a process of defining but one of discovering. I understand that God is not just the author but the definer of everything, including correct understanding of politics and every other idealogical sphere in our existence. Everything is obviously not stated explicitly in the Bible but there are many principles there that are gleaned and applicable, and sufficient to the need.
Government, it's charter, and it's proper functioning are all defined and must be discovered, not made up by each as they see fit (which is autonomy). For instance, if "You shall not steal" and "You shall not covet thy neighbors goods" then obviously "thy neighbor" can own property. When the government taxes me and gives it to you then the government is stealing. Therefore, I abhor all forms of wealth redistribution. Voluntary charity is an entirely different matter.
Nowhere does government's charter include public education, welfare, social security, defining right and wrong, or a myriad of other elements that governments around the world are involved in. Government is not supposed to be the world's nanny or take the place of God in people's lives. I see government's role as being very limited. One of the basic principles I see is that people are sinful and therefore should not be given much power over other people or abuses will follow. This is ably demonstrated daily by governments everywhere. The proper use of government power is not being adhered to, so tyranny results.
On the other hand, if you have a government that is minimal, then self-government comes to the fore. Our government in the US was envisioned to be minimal. A couple quotes from Founders illustrate the point:
James Madison said, "We have staked the future of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government; upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God." John Adams said, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
People do not govern themselves according to these standards and inevitable problems result; and the statement by John Adams is proven correct. Government is called upon to fix the problems that are completely outside its sphere. This doesn't work, of course, but the alternative is not acceptable to people and so things continue as they are. Insanity is "doing the same things over and over again, and expecting different results". This country is in the remarkable position historically of being able to govern themselves individually and make a government that goes along with that notion. The opportunity is being lost.
I have touched on only a couple issues here as space and time do not permit going into others. You get the idea. In summary, I belive in self government according to God's Word and a very minimal external/national government.
Cordially,
Scott
It appears that I'm the only one here, so far, on the other side and I'm so far on the other side that I may be able to balance the entire rest of you put together.
My political ideas come from a strong belief in the existence of the God of the Bible and the principles I see in the Bible concerning these things. If you start with the idea that there is a maker and you are made, and the maker has given you an instruction book, then the formation of a political idealogy is not a process of defining but one of discovering. I understand that God is not just the author but the definer of everything, including correct understanding of politics and every other idealogical sphere in our existence. Everything is obviously not stated explicitly in the Bible but there are many principles there that are gleaned and applicable, and sufficient to the need.
Government, it's charter, and it's proper functioning are all defined and must be discovered, not made up by each as they see fit (which is autonomy). For instance, if "You shall not steal" and "You shall not covet thy neighbors goods" then obviously "thy neighbor" can own property. When the government taxes me and gives it to you then the government is stealing. Therefore, I abhor all forms of wealth redistribution. Voluntary charity is an entirely different matter.
Nowhere does government's charter include public education, welfare, social security, defining right and wrong, or a myriad of other elements that governments around the world are involved in. Government is not supposed to be the world's nanny or take the place of God in people's lives. I see government's role as being very limited. One of the basic principles I see is that people are sinful and therefore should not be given much power over other people or abuses will follow. This is ably demonstrated daily by governments everywhere. The proper use of government power is not being adhered to, so tyranny results.
On the other hand, if you have a government that is minimal, then self-government comes to the fore. Our government in the US was envisioned to be minimal. A couple quotes from Founders illustrate the point:
James Madison said, "We have staked the future of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government; upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God." John Adams said, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
People do not govern themselves according to these standards and inevitable problems result; and the statement by John Adams is proven correct. Government is called upon to fix the problems that are completely outside its sphere. This doesn't work, of course, but the alternative is not acceptable to people and so things continue as they are. Insanity is "doing the same things over and over again, and expecting different results". This country is in the remarkable position historically of being able to govern themselves individually and make a government that goes along with that notion. The opportunity is being lost.
I have touched on only a couple issues here as space and time do not permit going into others. You get the idea. In summary, I belive in self government according to God's Word and a very minimal external/national government.
Cordially,
Scott
I'm not sure I really understood what was required when I originally posted on this. I thought the class was going to be thinking about ideology, but the majority of contributions don't seem to have had much to do with this. They've mostly been somewhat disorganized collections of anecdotes relating to the origins of the posters' political beliefs.
I think the point about an ideology is that it claims to be a systematic explanation of society in that it is universally applicable. Very few of the contributions so far appear to have been propounding such a system.
The lack of a "conservative" contribution is understandable. Ideology really does tend to be something of a left-wing phenomenon. Conservatism is essentially reactionary in that is "reacts to" and rejects changes which it sees as negative. Thus conservatives do not, in general, have a clear "vision" of how they want society to be -- they may even, like Thatcher, deny the existence of society -- but rather a set of things they are against, like "big government", "over-powerful labor union bully-boys", "world government", etc, etc.
Exceptions to this are the religious conservatives like Scott and Ayatollah Khomeini who do, indeed, have a "vision" of society as it should be, which, they believe, has been ordained by God. It is difficult to argue with the true religious conservative since their ideology does not even claim to be rational. I remember one occasion after the Islamic Revolution in Iran when the "representative" of the Revolutionary Committee we were obliged to employ at the school called together the SMT and demanded to know why we had not obeyed the Committee edict ordaining the strict separation of the sexes in schools. By this time, we had separate classes for boys and girls, separate breaks and lunch times, separate stairways, etc, etc, so we were a bit surprised and told him so. He then told us that it had come to his attention that the classes of 3-4 year-olds were still co-educational. We told him that 3-4 year-olds didn't need to be separated since their minds weren't polluted with nasty sexual thoughts. He told us triumphantly that the Committee had "conclusive evidence" that homosexuality in western society was caused by co-education. We segregated the 3-year-olds. You just can't argue with people like that...
I suppose that there is some confusion because "conservatism" is such a broad term. I'm sure Andrew will have talked to his class about the origins of the term in Peel's Tamworth Manifesto and "the correction of proved abuses". It's difficult to see how this could be related to the sort of messianic conservatism propounded by the religious right. Disraeli, the intellectual father of "one nation" conservatism muddied the waters even further by bringing an element of Romanticism into the mixture...
On a very tangental point, I think it's very difficult to teach this sort of thing effectively these days. Students do not, in general, have the background knowledge to even understand some of the language involved. This isn't their fault. It's a function of NC political correctness which has weeded out "irrelevant" bits of history. I'm amazed by the number of highly educated 20-30 year-olds I talk to these days who've never heard of Rousseau, Plato or JS Mill and whose knowledge of Lenin and Mao is largely anecdotal.... I suppose that's what one has to expect from an educational system where students sometimes study post-1918 Germany in years 10, 11, 12 and 13, but never study the French Revolution!
I think the point about an ideology is that it claims to be a systematic explanation of society in that it is universally applicable. Very few of the contributions so far appear to have been propounding such a system.
The lack of a "conservative" contribution is understandable. Ideology really does tend to be something of a left-wing phenomenon. Conservatism is essentially reactionary in that is "reacts to" and rejects changes which it sees as negative. Thus conservatives do not, in general, have a clear "vision" of how they want society to be -- they may even, like Thatcher, deny the existence of society -- but rather a set of things they are against, like "big government", "over-powerful labor union bully-boys", "world government", etc, etc.
Exceptions to this are the religious conservatives like Scott and Ayatollah Khomeini who do, indeed, have a "vision" of society as it should be, which, they believe, has been ordained by God. It is difficult to argue with the true religious conservative since their ideology does not even claim to be rational. I remember one occasion after the Islamic Revolution in Iran when the "representative" of the Revolutionary Committee we were obliged to employ at the school called together the SMT and demanded to know why we had not obeyed the Committee edict ordaining the strict separation of the sexes in schools. By this time, we had separate classes for boys and girls, separate breaks and lunch times, separate stairways, etc, etc, so we were a bit surprised and told him so. He then told us that it had come to his attention that the classes of 3-4 year-olds were still co-educational. We told him that 3-4 year-olds didn't need to be separated since their minds weren't polluted with nasty sexual thoughts. He told us triumphantly that the Committee had "conclusive evidence" that homosexuality in western society was caused by co-education. We segregated the 3-year-olds. You just can't argue with people like that...
I suppose that there is some confusion because "conservatism" is such a broad term. I'm sure Andrew will have talked to his class about the origins of the term in Peel's Tamworth Manifesto and "the correction of proved abuses". It's difficult to see how this could be related to the sort of messianic conservatism propounded by the religious right. Disraeli, the intellectual father of "one nation" conservatism muddied the waters even further by bringing an element of Romanticism into the mixture...
On a very tangental point, I think it's very difficult to teach this sort of thing effectively these days. Students do not, in general, have the background knowledge to even understand some of the language involved. This isn't their fault. It's a function of NC political correctness which has weeded out "irrelevant" bits of history. I'm amazed by the number of highly educated 20-30 year-olds I talk to these days who've never heard of Rousseau, Plato or JS Mill and whose knowledge of Lenin and Mao is largely anecdotal.... I suppose that's what one has to expect from an educational system where students sometimes study post-1918 Germany in years 10, 11, 12 and 13, but never study the French Revolution!
Mike writes:
My contributions have been anecdotal. I'm not a political scientist and I don't believe in ideologies. My political views - like those of most people - are coloured by my background and the kind of life that I wish to enjoy. They are also coloured by what I see I see as essential for the development of our nation, namely a population that is properly housed, well educated and in good health. This is why my priorities are Housing, Education and Health and which I believe should be properly funded through taxation - which I am willing to pay. I believe in regulated capitalism, not centralised socialism, so I guess I can be classified as a Social Democrat if you have to pin a label on me.
QUOTE
I'm not sure I really understood what was required when I originally posted on this. I thought the class was going to be thinking about ideology, but the majority of contributions don't seem to have had much to do with this. They've mostly been somewhat disorganized collections of anecdotes relating to the origins of the posters' political beliefs.
My contributions have been anecdotal. I'm not a political scientist and I don't believe in ideologies. My political views - like those of most people - are coloured by my background and the kind of life that I wish to enjoy. They are also coloured by what I see I see as essential for the development of our nation, namely a population that is properly housed, well educated and in good health. This is why my priorities are Housing, Education and Health and which I believe should be properly funded through taxation - which I am willing to pay. I believe in regulated capitalism, not centralised socialism, so I guess I can be classified as a Social Democrat if you have to pin a label on me.
Dear Friends of Society
My political Ideology is the following: I am an Universal Synarchist.
Politics in the Light of Initiatic Science:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/forums/thread...=45034&tstart=0
The Concept of a Pan-World:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/forums/thread...44939&tstart=45
Can America survive?
http://www.foundation.bw/canam4x.htm
New World Order/Synarchy - The Secret History
http://www.opendemocracy.net/forums/thread...44847&tstart=90
True Economics:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/forums/thread...44831&tstart=90
Economethics:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/forums/thread...44815&tstart=90
Sustainable Planetary Management
http://www.opendemocracy.net/forums/thread...4813&tstart=105
Principles and Forms:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/forums/thread...=45112&tstart=0
Best wishes from Switzerland
lwwb
Roger Schreiber
My political Ideology is the following: I am an Universal Synarchist.
Politics in the Light of Initiatic Science:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/forums/thread...=45034&tstart=0
The Concept of a Pan-World:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/forums/thread...44939&tstart=45
Can America survive?
http://www.foundation.bw/canam4x.htm
New World Order/Synarchy - The Secret History
http://www.opendemocracy.net/forums/thread...44847&tstart=90
True Economics:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/forums/thread...44831&tstart=90
Economethics:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/forums/thread...44815&tstart=90
Sustainable Planetary Management
http://www.opendemocracy.net/forums/thread...4813&tstart=105
Principles and Forms:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/forums/thread...=45112&tstart=0
Best wishes from Switzerland
lwwb
Roger Schreiber
QUOTE (John Palin @ Oct 4 2005, 07:34 PM)
I may well be a Conservative in the sense that I dislike social engineering carried out in the name of some abstarct noun like Liberty or Equality. Sooner or later any regime brought in to create a more equal society
by means of standardising our social and econimic relationships will lead to a power elite of the committed rather than the talented. This in turn will ignite a counter movement.
[...]Socialists replace duties and obligations with impersonal taxes and benefits while Liberals fail to understand that one has to have a shared moral framework if a society is to function well.
by means of standardising our social and econimic relationships will lead to a power elite of the committed rather than the talented. This in turn will ignite a counter movement.
[...]Socialists replace duties and obligations with impersonal taxes and benefits while Liberals fail to understand that one has to have a shared moral framework if a society is to function well.
Well, if I didn't know what I am, John's post wake me up...
As a french teacher I can't agree less on what he wrote. I think that the state can do a lot (and not little). When the state is absent, only the well educated and the richest can go out of this hell. It is up to the citizens to improve the way of life by going to the polls and strikes (we had one yesterday on wages and employement). Who are the talented? Those who had an opportunity one day...free market can't do that. Education and equity (not equality) can do better.
Impersonal taxes are necessary to have public services. I'm not always happy with that but, in my opinion, you don't have other issue. We hae a great chance in France (till today): we know what welfare state is...for how many time?
In addition to that, let me say that socialism sis not exist anymore...unfortunetly...the socialist party in France is not socialist anymore while the communists are discredited. Very difficult to have an ideology in these conditions. We have to be pragmatic and use ideologies to improve our way of life.
Hope it maches with the debate...
Radical Socialist Democrat/Green
I started being a social democrat and later a communist when I was a teenager. My family was very conservative and religious. I think I can say following Oscar Wilde that I was brought up under middle class morality: good husband, good worker, obedient and with no deep political thought. My father, who was a Franco's follower, used to say the very same words Franco said: "son, do as me, don't get involved in politics". My eldest brother and some school classmates opened my eyes and I started to collaborate in a communist organisation against the regime.
When democracy came to Spain I really thought it was the time for a real leftist government. I soon became dissapointed. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, any communist option vanished. I still think there is no liberty without equality, and equality without liberty, but nothing can be done without the people. Decitions have to be taken by the people and democracy is not voting every four years. I wish we could really decide on what it is really important, even on the national budget. Radical democracy is the solution against using power for personal interests. Politicians are managers of what people decide it should be done, not decition-makers: people decide (by voting) politicians act. I also think we have to preserve this beautiful planet to next generations. We have no right to ruin it.
I started being a social democrat and later a communist when I was a teenager. My family was very conservative and religious. I think I can say following Oscar Wilde that I was brought up under middle class morality: good husband, good worker, obedient and with no deep political thought. My father, who was a Franco's follower, used to say the very same words Franco said: "son, do as me, don't get involved in politics". My eldest brother and some school classmates opened my eyes and I started to collaborate in a communist organisation against the regime.
When democracy came to Spain I really thought it was the time for a real leftist government. I soon became dissapointed. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, any communist option vanished. I still think there is no liberty without equality, and equality without liberty, but nothing can be done without the people. Decitions have to be taken by the people and democracy is not voting every four years. I wish we could really decide on what it is really important, even on the national budget. Radical democracy is the solution against using power for personal interests. Politicians are managers of what people decide it should be done, not decition-makers: people decide (by voting) politicians act. I also think we have to preserve this beautiful planet to next generations. We have no right to ruin it.
Given the direction this topic has taken, I think I should elaborate slightly on some of the points I made.
I deliberately threw in a bunch of definitions, not because they don't apply to me, but to highlight three factors:
a.There are many different philosophies to align with, agreeing with a part of one does not exclude others.
b.The most significant Law that nature operates under is the law of change. EVERYTHING in the material world is ALWAYS changing. Science attempts to measure reality and describe it. This will ALWAYS be an approximation, though usually a good one that is useful and precise enough in many applications. If you go on to study quantum physics for example you will see this. If you study history you will see this. If you study yourself, you will see this.
In my opinion, many of the ills that society and the individuals in it suffer from is as a result of endlessly trying to stop this change and take charge of it. A gross example may be for example architecture. (when I say gross I mean broad or 'large picture' or as opposed to fine or detailed). Some thousands of years from now nothing that's built today will exist in a recognisable form. A few generations from today no-one except a very small minority will be remembered by anyone. A few years from now any attempt at stopping gray hair from appearing will fail. etc etc
Here I think some of the writings of Germain Greer are interesting, particularly her thoughts on aging and how much better one experiences it by an attitude of embracing rather than rejecting.
and
c. perhaps the most important thing of all is education. Why, how, what does that word mean, what is that philosophy...
While I speak of responsibility and accountability I mean that to be married with education. Informed responsibility with an awareness of the true nature of self. 'know thyself'. Buddha formulated a number of exercises that everybody can use to gain insight. An informed, educated person who chooses to take responsibility for their actions and the subsequent reactions (cause and effect) I think will gravitate to some form of anarcho - syndicalism. This does not mean non-participation in such things as elections or unions or church, quite the contrary.
There is the story of the glass that is to the pessimist half empty and to the optimist it's half full. - to the realist it's neither-it's both. There is no need to have an emotional attachment to it at all.
A neutral society will tend to deal with reality in a balanced way avoiding selling principles short for political expediency. An educated aware realistic population with a strong DEFENSE posture in a realistic evaluation of other groupings is the way to go.
The idea that ideology is a leftist phenomenon is absurd. The dominant thinking controlling the world today are deliberate produce from think tanks such as the spawns of the John Birch Society.(at the moment their deliberate meddling with the environmental movement, and consequently the green parties, are in need of careful scrutiny) This and other think tanks produce an endless stream of propaganda for lazy politicians to use to justify their policies. Economic Rationalism for example has spread its tentacles very widely. The demands that organisations such as the World Bank place on developing nations are well thought out with specific aims. Left ideology is often a response to these things. It's a cycle of cause and effect. The point I think is to discern which of these cycles are healthy for humanity as a whole and which are only healthy for a few, and consequently, in the fullness of time, unhealthy for all.
I deliberately threw in a bunch of definitions, not because they don't apply to me, but to highlight three factors:
a.There are many different philosophies to align with, agreeing with a part of one does not exclude others.
b.The most significant Law that nature operates under is the law of change. EVERYTHING in the material world is ALWAYS changing. Science attempts to measure reality and describe it. This will ALWAYS be an approximation, though usually a good one that is useful and precise enough in many applications. If you go on to study quantum physics for example you will see this. If you study history you will see this. If you study yourself, you will see this.
In my opinion, many of the ills that society and the individuals in it suffer from is as a result of endlessly trying to stop this change and take charge of it. A gross example may be for example architecture. (when I say gross I mean broad or 'large picture' or as opposed to fine or detailed). Some thousands of years from now nothing that's built today will exist in a recognisable form. A few generations from today no-one except a very small minority will be remembered by anyone. A few years from now any attempt at stopping gray hair from appearing will fail. etc etc
Here I think some of the writings of Germain Greer are interesting, particularly her thoughts on aging and how much better one experiences it by an attitude of embracing rather than rejecting.
and
c. perhaps the most important thing of all is education. Why, how, what does that word mean, what is that philosophy...
While I speak of responsibility and accountability I mean that to be married with education. Informed responsibility with an awareness of the true nature of self. 'know thyself'. Buddha formulated a number of exercises that everybody can use to gain insight. An informed, educated person who chooses to take responsibility for their actions and the subsequent reactions (cause and effect) I think will gravitate to some form of anarcho - syndicalism. This does not mean non-participation in such things as elections or unions or church, quite the contrary.
There is the story of the glass that is to the pessimist half empty and to the optimist it's half full. - to the realist it's neither-it's both. There is no need to have an emotional attachment to it at all.
A neutral society will tend to deal with reality in a balanced way avoiding selling principles short for political expediency. An educated aware realistic population with a strong DEFENSE posture in a realistic evaluation of other groupings is the way to go.
The idea that ideology is a leftist phenomenon is absurd. The dominant thinking controlling the world today are deliberate produce from think tanks such as the spawns of the John Birch Society.(at the moment their deliberate meddling with the environmental movement, and consequently the green parties, are in need of careful scrutiny) This and other think tanks produce an endless stream of propaganda for lazy politicians to use to justify their policies. Economic Rationalism for example has spread its tentacles very widely. The demands that organisations such as the World Bank place on developing nations are well thought out with specific aims. Left ideology is often a response to these things. It's a cycle of cause and effect. The point I think is to discern which of these cycles are healthy for humanity as a whole and which are only healthy for a few, and consequently, in the fullness of time, unhealthy for all.
QUOTE (mike tribe @ Oct 5 2005, 06:04 AM)
Exceptions to this are the religious conservatives like Scott and Ayatollah Khomeini who do, indeed, have a "vision" of society as it should be, which, they believe, has been ordained by God. It is difficult to argue with the true religious conservative since their ideology does not even claim to be rational.
Mike,
Those like myself may indeed claim rationality as well, for their ideologies. This immediately scales up to the debate on the rationality of the existence of God and epistemology and this is not the forum for such a debate. All of it hinges on that, of course. I consider anyone who does not start their reasoning from "God exists" to be irrational. I do not believe it is possible to build a correct systematic ideology regarding anything unless you start with "God (the God of the Bible) exists". There is no foundation on which to put it epistemologically. As I said in my earlier post, these are things we discover, not define, including the correct definition of "rational". I think its nice that you made a distinction between me and the reactionaries but then you lumped me in with the irrationals and cited an example of real irrationality as propounded by an Islamic, regarding the origin of homosexuality. I had to chuckle. I'm not even close to the same idealogy as the Islamic people.
QUOTE (mike tribe @ Oct 5 2005, 06:04 AM)
I suppose that there is some confusion because "conservatism" is such a broad term. I'm sure Andrew will have talked to his class about the origins of the term in Peel's Tamworth Manifesto and "the correction of proved abuses". It's difficult to see how this could be related to the sort of messianic conservatism propounded by the religious right. Disraeli, the intellectual father of "one nation" conservatism muddied the waters even further by bringing an element of Romanticism into the mixture...
From my perspective the political "spectrum" looks much different than most people see it. The conservatives and the liberals are two inches apart on a 30 foot long spectrum - both moving in the same direction, near the other end, away from me. Dabney's comments regarding the secular/conservative distinction are of interest (http://jkalb.org/node/1231#comment-4322) clear back at the time of the Civil War. Then entire Dabney quote can be found here and should be read: http://peapac.org/guide_04/04_sb_theologian.asp.
Everyone has a Messianic view of things. They just have different Messiah's in view. Most people today seem to me to view the state as the Messiah, i.e. the one who will fix everything. Of course, "Messiah" is not in the State's charter and they will fail in this role. Veneration of the State in this capacity will turn it into a tyrant.
QUOTE (mike tribe @ Oct 5 2005, 06:04 AM)
On a very tangental point, I think it's very difficult to teach this sort of thing effectively these days. Students do not, in general, have the background knowledge to even understand some of the language involved. This isn't their fault. It's a function of NC political correctness which has weeded out "irrelevant" bits of history. I'm amazed by the number of highly educated 20-30 year-olds I talk to these days who've never heard of Rousseau, Plato or JS Mill and whose knowledge of Lenin and Mao is largely anecdotal.... I suppose that's what one has to expect from an educational system where students sometimes study post-1918 Germany in years 10, 11, 12 and 13, but never study the French Revolution!
I'd have to agree. Students of political ideologies need to make careful distinctions. I realize this is not always possible, because the distinctions require a lot of understanding of the differing views under consideration. Students generally don't have time or interest to gain this understanding.
Cordially,
Scott
It is always interesting to debate politics with someone from the religious right, especially someone who's clearly given the matter some thought, but I'm not completely convinced this would be much help to Andy's students. Perhaps on a different thread?
QUOTE (John Dolva @ Oct 5 2005, 04:28 PM)
The idea that ideology is a leftist phenomenon is absurd.
I think what we have here is a difference of opinion on what constitute an "ideology". It seems to me is that what conservatives generally display is more a collection of policies -- usually based on resistance to change and the maintenance of a status quo which tends to benefit the class(es) to which they belong rather than the sort of over-arching conceptual framework I think of as being an "ideology".
A good example of what I'm thinking about is the essential conservatism of peasants in France since the Revolution and in north western Spain to this day. They don't operate "think tanks", and they don't really have much to "conserve", but they have/had an instinctive reaction towards the rejection of "new" ideas. Now you could say that they had been "manipulated" by more sophisticated political thinkers (especially within the CAtholic Church) who do have a more developed "world view" but I don't think this is the whole answer... A lot of conservatism, I think, is based not on a careful analysis of society and its ills, but upon "knee jerk" reactions against the threat represented by change, especially rapid change.
QUOTE (mike tribe @ Oct 5 2005, 08:24 PM)
It is always interesting to debate politics with someone from the religious right, especially someone who's clearly given the matter some thought, but I'm not completely convinced this would be much help to Andy's students. Perhaps on a different thread?
Mike,
A full debate would probably not be so helpful to Andy's students, although it sounds like you and I'd both enjoy it. I wish I had time to participate in it. I figured this would happen when I originally posted but somebody from my side "needed to put their oar in". The challenge is in knowing how far to put the oar in.
Cordially,
Scott
Well, I guess I'll be a loner out here on this forum for now. I am only 17, and therefore don't know a whole lot about non-capitalist government types, but I am definately conservative. I have been raised in Tennessee, but I still shouldn't be steriotyped as an ultra-concervative redneck (there isn't even a gun in our house). I conseder myself a conservative independant. Normally, I am for state's rights. Most of my teachers are libral, which has definately influenced me enough that I am not as consevative as the rest of my family. I, for the most part, would like to learn more than teach as far as this forum goes, but I will give a little rant on religion in politics.
I am Southern Babtist. I pray to God, and I certainly beleive in Hell. For anyone else who shares my beliefs, they would understand that the most important thing in life is what happens when it is over. As a matter of fact, just about everyone understands that no matter what religion you are, the most meaningfull events take place after death. For me, I beleive that we all will be judged and those who's names are in the Lamb's Book of Life will be accepted into Heaven. For those who are not, they will spend eternity separated from God. There is nothing more important to me than sharing the Word of God with people, because I love and respect them and do not want to see them suffer. With the way modern politics are headed, I will not be able to do that any more. It is very painful for me to stand around and whatch while lost people go on living their lives without knowing what will happen when their lives come to an end. I am never offended when someone of a different religion witnesses to me, so I certainly don't understand the fuss about Christians witnessing to people. We aren't asking for money or trying to recruit people to send on mission trips to China, we simply care enough about others that we want to tell them about Jesus. That is not a crime. That is religion. Asking a Christian not to witness is like asking a Jew not to wear a yamichah (<-- spelling?), or asking a band not to play music in public.
Liberals will talk about "separation of Church and State." It doesn't exist. The first Amendment states that Congress will not create a national religion. If I am Prodestant, I can be Prodestant. If I was Catholic, I could be Catholic. If I was French, then I could move to Canada of Louisiana (preferably Canada). If I believed in Ancient Egyptian mythology, then I could walk around wearing an Anubis head or a Ma'at mask with an osterich plume in the back of my crown. And I could do it all withought ridicule from the government. Ridicule from the public, however, would not be garunteed, especially if I dressed up as Satan wearing a kippa with the Star of David on it and started singing Irish drinking songs to the tune of obscure Bobby McFerrin songs while burning the Canadian flag. I'd probably get shot; but my point is, I wouldn't get shot by a cop . And to clerify my views on Canada, I would never burn a Canadian flag unless someone with a gun told me to. Canadians are cool, no pun intended.
I guess all I really had to say was that we have a gift in America: freedom of religion. Many people want it to become freedom from religion. America is not an atheistic country and was never intended to be. I also beleive that God has not yet abandoned America, yet that may in fact be simple wishfull thinking. Our current presidens will certainly help redirect our country morally. I hope my veiws have been helpfull in some way or another, I know I have certainly learned a lot from reading all these posts. God bless.
I am Southern Babtist. I pray to God, and I certainly beleive in Hell. For anyone else who shares my beliefs, they would understand that the most important thing in life is what happens when it is over. As a matter of fact, just about everyone understands that no matter what religion you are, the most meaningfull events take place after death. For me, I beleive that we all will be judged and those who's names are in the Lamb's Book of Life will be accepted into Heaven. For those who are not, they will spend eternity separated from God. There is nothing more important to me than sharing the Word of God with people, because I love and respect them and do not want to see them suffer. With the way modern politics are headed, I will not be able to do that any more. It is very painful for me to stand around and whatch while lost people go on living their lives without knowing what will happen when their lives come to an end. I am never offended when someone of a different religion witnesses to me, so I certainly don't understand the fuss about Christians witnessing to people. We aren't asking for money or trying to recruit people to send on mission trips to China, we simply care enough about others that we want to tell them about Jesus. That is not a crime. That is religion. Asking a Christian not to witness is like asking a Jew not to wear a yamichah (<-- spelling?), or asking a band not to play music in public.
Liberals will talk about "separation of Church and State." It doesn't exist. The first Amendment states that Congress will not create a national religion. If I am Prodestant, I can be Prodestant. If I was Catholic, I could be Catholic. If I was French, then I could move to Canada of Louisiana (preferably Canada). If I believed in Ancient Egyptian mythology, then I could walk around wearing an Anubis head or a Ma'at mask with an osterich plume in the back of my crown. And I could do it all withought ridicule from the government. Ridicule from the public, however, would not be garunteed, especially if I dressed up as Satan wearing a kippa with the Star of David on it and started singing Irish drinking songs to the tune of obscure Bobby McFerrin songs while burning the Canadian flag. I'd probably get shot; but my point is, I wouldn't get shot by a cop . And to clerify my views on Canada, I would never burn a Canadian flag unless someone with a gun told me to. Canadians are cool, no pun intended.
I guess all I really had to say was that we have a gift in America: freedom of religion. Many people want it to become freedom from religion. America is not an atheistic country and was never intended to be. I also beleive that God has not yet abandoned America, yet that may in fact be simple wishfull thinking. Our current presidens will certainly help redirect our country morally. I hope my veiws have been helpfull in some way or another, I know I have certainly learned a lot from reading all these posts. God bless.
Andy what is the definition of political ideology you are giving to your students?
My thoughts are that it is gazing into the crystal ball to see what human society can become. One thing we know for sure is that it has changed quite drastically in the past. Our ancestors left the trees to become scavengers on the ground with most eventually settling into farming. At one time we had a feudal society and now we have a capitalist industrial society. We apply the word evolution to Darwin’s theory on animal and plant life, but we can just as easily apply it to society and just like the biologists who look into the past by using the historical records, such as fossils and DNA, we can do the same with society.
A conservative political ideology would basically be saying that there will be no change from society’s present state. This ideology would have been wrong in hindsight if it was expounded back in feudal days and I suspect it would be wrong now. It’s the equivalent of having to argue the creationist theories against evolution.
We need to be careful with the ideologies of left as too often they were strategies rather than ideologies. A strategy to change the path society is taking makes sense but I suspect many of the writings by Lenin, Trotsky and Mao were an attempt to fit what they were doing at the time into the ideology. (I think that Stalin had no real ideology but was just a throwback to Russian nationalism.)
What do I see in the crystal ball? The perfection of democracy. It has been and is a very imperfect thing. It’s not that long ago that women in most countries couldn’t vote and certainly slaves in the US weren’t included in the original constitution.
I suspect that America is good place to look for possible future trends in society just as it’s a good place to see trends in most other fields. As Europeans, many of us consider there is a political naivety there, but it might be that not carrying some of the old baggage helps them move quicker.
The rate of change or evolution seems to be speeding up. Capitalism and conservative politicians who represent it today have little resemblance to those a hundred years ago. The “One Nation” Tories of the post war years in the UK and George Bush the younger running a presidential campaign as a “Caring Conservative” and trying to attract the Hispanic vote by speaking Spanish just would not have happened at the turn of the last century.
Capitalism itself has changed. Fewer large companies are run by their major shareholder/founder. It seems that this type of control can hardly last one generation. Instead we see a manager class running them. The major shareholders are mostly insurance and investment companies which are again run by professional managers.
These large companies finance the politicians for obvious reasons but themselves come under more and more government control. The governments need to get re-elected so they can’t afford to upset the voters by allowing the large companies to ride roughshod over the general population. The more educated the population the less they will allow their rights to be decreased.
Where will this government/corporate/voter combination end up? Back in the sixties one of the Trotskyite factions was talking about “state capitalism” is relation to the Soviet Union. Maybe it could be applied more correctly to the West today. I find a help in looking into that crystal ball is to hear what the US far right is scared of. Here I’m talking about those militias in camps in the mountains, armed the teeth, ready to repel the UN led invasion of America;-)
Big government can’t be all bad if it is a government of the people. Capitalist politicians will still get the majority vote as long as the voters living standards continue to improve. State control limiting the large companies will get tighter until you end up with something even Marx might have been able to identify as socialist. Regional and international organizations of the nation states, such as the UN, EU and NATO will become more powerful. Our journey is going in that direction and although there may be setbacks along the way, only self destruction of the human race can stop it reaching the next step society will take.
So should we just sit back and say that evolution will take care of everything? Well that’s where our political ideology/strategy comes in. We can either help speed it on its way or we can try and slow it down. For the conservatives, will there be another Reagan/Thatcher combination to try and turn back the clock? Certainly Bush/Blair isn’t that combination. For the left, should the attempt to speed the change be reformist or revolutionary? Although history can be used to show that sudden changes can take place such as the in biological evolution, the death of the dinosaurs, I have become somewhat suspicious of Marxist historians trying to find revolutionary changes in our past. (England was changing whether Cromwell lopped of Charles Stuart’s head or not;-)
As a young man I belonged to the UK’s most dogmatic and disciplined Trotskyite party. Then I would have called myself a Marxist-Leninist. From the age of 22 I spent most of the following 32 years in third world countries and maybe I’ve lost touch. I’m not sure if I really have a political ideology today. Maybe ideologies are for the young, philosophers and teachers.
My thoughts are that it is gazing into the crystal ball to see what human society can become. One thing we know for sure is that it has changed quite drastically in the past. Our ancestors left the trees to become scavengers on the ground with most eventually settling into farming. At one time we had a feudal society and now we have a capitalist industrial society. We apply the word evolution to Darwin’s theory on animal and plant life, but we can just as easily apply it to society and just like the biologists who look into the past by using the historical records, such as fossils and DNA, we can do the same with society.
A conservative political ideology would basically be saying that there will be no change from society’s present state. This ideology would have been wrong in hindsight if it was expounded back in feudal days and I suspect it would be wrong now. It’s the equivalent of having to argue the creationist theories against evolution.
We need to be careful with the ideologies of left as too often they were strategies rather than ideologies. A strategy to change the path society is taking makes sense but I suspect many of the writings by Lenin, Trotsky and Mao were an attempt to fit what they were doing at the time into the ideology. (I think that Stalin had no real ideology but was just a throwback to Russian nationalism.)
What do I see in the crystal ball? The perfection of democracy. It has been and is a very imperfect thing. It’s not that long ago that women in most countries couldn’t vote and certainly slaves in the US weren’t included in the original constitution.
I suspect that America is good place to look for possible future trends in society just as it’s a good place to see trends in most other fields. As Europeans, many of us consider there is a political naivety there, but it might be that not carrying some of the old baggage helps them move quicker.
The rate of change or evolution seems to be speeding up. Capitalism and conservative politicians who represent it today have little resemblance to those a hundred years ago. The “One Nation” Tories of the post war years in the UK and George Bush the younger running a presidential campaign as a “Caring Conservative” and trying to attract the Hispanic vote by speaking Spanish just would not have happened at the turn of the last century.
Capitalism itself has changed. Fewer large companies are run by their major shareholder/founder. It seems that this type of control can hardly last one generation. Instead we see a manager class running them. The major shareholders are mostly insurance and investment companies which are again run by professional managers.
These large companies finance the politicians for obvious reasons but themselves come under more and more government control. The governments need to get re-elected so they can’t afford to upset the voters by allowing the large companies to ride roughshod over the general population. The more educated the population the less they will allow their rights to be decreased.
Where will this government/corporate/voter combination end up? Back in the sixties one of the Trotskyite factions was talking about “state capitalism” is relation to the Soviet Union. Maybe it could be applied more correctly to the West today. I find a help in looking into that crystal ball is to hear what the US far right is scared of. Here I’m talking about those militias in camps in the mountains, armed the teeth, ready to repel the UN led invasion of America;-)
Big government can’t be all bad if it is a government of the people. Capitalist politicians will still get the majority vote as long as the voters living standards continue to improve. State control limiting the large companies will get tighter until you end up with something even Marx might have been able to identify as socialist. Regional and international organizations of the nation states, such as the UN, EU and NATO will become more powerful. Our journey is going in that direction and although there may be setbacks along the way, only self destruction of the human race can stop it reaching the next step society will take.
So should we just sit back and say that evolution will take care of everything? Well that’s where our political ideology/strategy comes in. We can either help speed it on its way or we can try and slow it down. For the conservatives, will there be another Reagan/Thatcher combination to try and turn back the clock? Certainly Bush/Blair isn’t that combination. For the left, should the attempt to speed the change be reformist or revolutionary? Although history can be used to show that sudden changes can take place such as the in biological evolution, the death of the dinosaurs, I have become somewhat suspicious of Marxist historians trying to find revolutionary changes in our past. (England was changing whether Cromwell lopped of Charles Stuart’s head or not;-)
As a young man I belonged to the UK’s most dogmatic and disciplined Trotskyite party. Then I would have called myself a Marxist-Leninist. From the age of 22 I spent most of the following 32 years in third world countries and maybe I’ve lost touch. I’m not sure if I really have a political ideology today. Maybe ideologies are for the young, philosophers and teachers.
QUOTE (Andy Walker @ Sep 27 2005, 11:32 AM)
Members are invited to post reflections on their own political ideology and debate with others here to aid my 6th form students study their A Level unit on Ideology.
It looks like I'm the closest thing to a political conservative in the discussion, so far; and it isn't all that conservative. For what its worth [and it isn't worth much] I've been a registered Republican for 35 years. I've lived my entire life in the Willamette Valley in Oregon, and most of that has been in Portland, the largest city in Oregon. For those not familiar with the US and/or Oregon, we are often referred to as the State of Portland by those who aren't in Portland. The majority of Oregonians [geographically] are farmers; the majority of Oregonians [population] live in metro Portland and the Willamette Valley. We don't farm.
I don't have a political label.
I grew up in the Viet Nam era; I missed going to Viet Nam by about 4 hours. Had Mom needed to go to the bathroom four hours earlier, my draft number would have been something like 7; as it was, I got 234. I watched Johnson and Nixon and probably voted for Ford. I've continued to admire Ronald Reagan for his example of leadership; and have been disappointed to find out that his actions as President were far from admirable. I try to ignore the fact that Bush senior was his Vice President. I lived among hippies at college, but didn't do drugs; by definition this means I wasn't really a part of the 60's and 70's. My parents were politically conservative; and devoted to the American Legion. That probably included a Republican agenda by definition. I am a first generation American on my mother's side of the family; third generation on my father's side. Most of my ancestors came from Norway and Sweden; they probably came here seeking 'a better life'. I'm aware that the odds of my particular existence [that one sperm cell] are so small that I am either a meaningless accident or a miracle. I choose the latter.
God entered my life while in college in a way that sounds ridiculous to those who've never experienced the presence of God in their life. Consequently I don't often explain it; nonetheless, all of my life since that time has been experienced through a 'God-filter'. Since I believe that my soul will exist for eternity, the events of my life are all temporary occurrences with a limited significance. Thus, how I treat my wife, my children and my neighbors are of greater concern to me than the idiot running the country. Had John not invited my opinion, and had I a deadline to meet, I wouldn't be writing. I don't believe it's my job to change other people's minds about matters of faith.
One of the advantages I have as an American, is the knowledge that my country is being officially being run by a few hundreds of individuals, many of whom are idiots. Having worked for City government for 14 years, I realize that in fact, the country is actually run by people who have jobs and lives and who, if given the opportunity, will act in ways that are inclined toward benevolence. A significant portion will act in a manner that is insulting to 'lower' animals. As an American I realize that I will pay taxes all of my adult life; and that the taxes will never be diminished. I also realize that the taxes will be spent on causes with which I disagree. I have an open invitation to leave the country whenever I want. As an Oregonian who already pays taxes on personal property, I will continue to vote against sales taxes; because I know that the property taxes won't go away if a sales tax is initiated. My wife and I generally vote against new taxes for schools; because throwing money at the administration of schools does not improve the quality of education. We volunteer in the schools when we can. In Oregon we have a government based on referendum; we have elections every 6-12 months for a wide variety of concerns. Not being a conservative farmer, most of the local elections don't go the way I'd like them to. Being a metropolitan Oregonian, most of the national elections don't go the way I'd like them to go. I believe politicians have a responsibility to serve the electorate; being a person of faith governed by those who seek power, I don't expect it will often happen.
I have an 'adopted' daughter [the daughter whose entrance into the world was supervised by me, 'adopted' a sister a few years ago] who has lived in a wheelchair all of her life. Since her life is greatly affected by public health policy, the 'rules' for her life are inclined to change every 4 years. For the most part, I could have avoided every election that has occurred in the last 35 years, and it would have little impact on my life. I comprehend that political issues are of far greater significance in other countries; but I can't say that I understand that fact. When I look at the world through my adopted daughter's eyes, I see a different country. However, when people look at her, they mostly see the wheelchair, and that doesn't affect their politics. It mostly makes them uncomfortable.
On one of the other threads I quote from the Book of Micah- the chief end of mankind is to love justice, show mercy and walk humbly with [my] God. This means that I don't evict my renter from our rental property, even though I legally could, because they haven't been able to pay their full rent. The husband seems to believe that living off of his wife's income is acceptable; to evict him, I also evict her, and their children. I could attempt to reeducate him, but he's in his late 40's or early 50's, and I have little hope that I can influence him. My belief in the teachings of Jesus means that my wife and I spent most of last year caring for my 4 year old mother, after she suffered a stroke while visiting us. My beliefs mean that I quit my job with the City seven years ago, because I had medical people I trusted tell me it was necessary. I trusted them because I believe that God is intimately involved in my life. The starting of a new career has cost me a huge amount of money- the cost of a fully-paid for house that I've mortgaged-- but in many ways it's been a good choice. As long as I don't count material benefits in my measurements. My beliefs mean that I donate ten percent of my earnings to church and charity; and we don't buy a lot of toys. I fully believe that I will work for most of my life, at something; I don't expect to ever live 'the good life,' whatever that may mean. Things don't make for a 'good life'-- they mostly mean more things to worry about.
The political questions I face are whether I should join the protestors downtown who oppose the war in Iraq; or whether I write my congressional representatives. I've discovered that there are so few people in a position of power who share my beliefs that it really doesn't matter whether or not they belong to a particular party. I've been blessed to be living where I am; yet I know that if I were to live under an oppressive regime, my fate would not be in the hands of those in power, but in the hands of a Higher Power. I also realize that this is easier to say from Oregon than it is from many other places in the world.
I believe that I should be able to keep as much of the money I earn as I can; I also believe that it is my responsibility to help pay the salaries of public employees, and the 'benefits' for those, like my adopted daughter, who live because of the 'kindness of strangers'. I believe those who given many opportunities have a great responsibility to share those opportunities with those less fortunate. I don't believe that will happen in my lifetime.
I believe my greatest responsibility is to be as compassionate and caring as I can to all those I allow into my life. I believe I will allow into my life fewer people than God would want me to. I believe that God doesn't keep a scorecard. The fact that God doesn't keep a scorecard doesn't mean that I have any less of a responsibility to act in the best manner I can toward those I encounter. The fact that there isn't a scorecard means that I don't have act out of fear.
Jesus was murdered after only three years of actively bringing His message to His world. He claimed to be God in human form, offering a different way to look at life. He was either a lunatic or telling the truth; there really aren't any other alternatives. We don't know what went on in the ~30 years before He 'went public'. He felt that what He did was enough. In that people are still trying to emulate Him, I guess it worked. As near as I can tell, I'm not going to get out of this life alive, at least not in the conventional sense. I can worry about who gets elected; or I can worry about my neighbor. It appears that giving a cup of water to someone who's thirsty is a bigger deal than how much I get out of this life, or who I vote for.
I have a son who has just moved to Antarctica. For the next 6 months he will have no political affiliation, since there are none in Antarctica. The 'rules' are determined by his employer; his behavior toward the 800-1000 people he lives among will determine how well he enjoys his time there. Maybe we should all try living as though it really mattered how our neighbor thinks about us. Maybe we should live as though it really mattered how our neighbor thinks of us, in spite of the fact that our neighbor is mostly going to think about themselves.
I believe that connecting to a specific ideology has lost its value, if you want to use them to construct a fair society (i.e utopias). If one look at how the world has evolved during the last century, different countries using a variety of ideologies, one can see that none of them have ever been right everywhere all the time.
I think you should set up some core values that you really believe in – equality between the sexes, individual rights, economic growth and fair distribution etc - and then look at how your society live up to your values, and try to conclude which ideological standpoint serves best to reach your core values at that moment.
That is why I can never give myself up to a specific ideology – different kinds of problems needs different kinds of ideologies. If you look at Sweden in the beginning of the 20th century I believe that (democratic) socialism was the best ideology at that moment. You needed a strong and supporting state that believed in democracy to get rid of an obsolete society. The same I think goes for some African countries in the 60’s.
However, in Sweden in the late 80’s a strong and dominant state was the least thing that was needed. Sweden was at this time burdened by a very stale economy and it needed downsizing. So here a more liberal ideology was needed.
Right now, in Sweden in 2005, I think that probably social democracy or social liberalism is the best: we have some social problems which I think needs a fairly supporting state. But that might not be the case in ten years.
So my conclusion must be that all the ideologies have their advantages and disadvantages, and their specific time and place in society.
I think you should set up some core values that you really believe in – equality between the sexes, individual rights, economic growth and fair distribution etc - and then look at how your society live up to your values, and try to conclude which ideological standpoint serves best to reach your core values at that moment.
That is why I can never give myself up to a specific ideology – different kinds of problems needs different kinds of ideologies. If you look at Sweden in the beginning of the 20th century I believe that (democratic) socialism was the best ideology at that moment. You needed a strong and supporting state that believed in democracy to get rid of an obsolete society. The same I think goes for some African countries in the 60’s.
However, in Sweden in the late 80’s a strong and dominant state was the least thing that was needed. Sweden was at this time burdened by a very stale economy and it needed downsizing. So here a more liberal ideology was needed.
Right now, in Sweden in 2005, I think that probably social democracy or social liberalism is the best: we have some social problems which I think needs a fairly supporting state. But that might not be the case in ten years.
So my conclusion must be that all the ideologies have their advantages and disadvantages, and their specific time and place in society.
My political as well as personal philosophy would be along the lines of a reluctant "realist".
By definition, this makes me an idealist, who has accepted the fact that when dealing with any sociological issue, that the "human" factor can not be fully compensated for, and the form of government control must be one that by whatever means necessary, is for the betterment of all of it's citizenship.
Vietnam fully demonstrated the animalistic and brutal behavior that man is fully capable of, and therefore demonstrated the control which any form of Government must have over it's populace to prevent such behavior.
This type behavior was even more evident when the Soviet Union ceased to control the populace of it's satellite countries.
Having observed a variety of world cultures; religions; and governments;, I have come to recognize that there is no single "best" form of government.
A society which has not developed to the extent beyond killing and raping members of their own citizenship merely due to religious differences, often must have an extremely "strong arm" form of government for control.
A government which is surrounded by foreign countries whose populations and governments are not friendly towards the specific country, must have a form of government which must eliminate potential attack from the foreign powers.
A society which is starving due to lack of persons who desire to be farmers, requires a government which, if necessary, dictates that one will be a farmer.
However, any form of government which does not foster and support the continued "initiative" for betterment of the individual, is not a government which has the welfare of it's citizens as it's core belief.
It is merely a means of control.
The first principal of any form of goverment is of course control of the populace. Thereafter, government, in whatever form, must work towards continual and progressive betterment for the individual.
The more complicated the ethnic; religious; and socialogical mixture of the citzenship of the country, the more complicated must be the government means in attempting to look after the welfare of ALL of this citzenship.
Virtually anyone could govern a society which consisted of only Zen Buddhists, or right-wing mennonites who forsake virtually all forms of human advancement.
By definition, this makes me an idealist, who has accepted the fact that when dealing with any sociological issue, that the "human" factor can not be fully compensated for, and the form of government control must be one that by whatever means necessary, is for the betterment of all of it's citizenship.
Vietnam fully demonstrated the animalistic and brutal behavior that man is fully capable of, and therefore demonstrated the control which any form of Government must have over it's populace to prevent such behavior.
This type behavior was even more evident when the Soviet Union ceased to control the populace of it's satellite countries.
Having observed a variety of world cultures; religions; and governments;, I have come to recognize that there is no single "best" form of government.
A society which has not developed to the extent beyond killing and raping members of their own citizenship merely due to religious differences, often must have an extremely "strong arm" form of government for control.
A government which is surrounded by foreign countries whose populations and governments are not friendly towards the specific country, must have a form of government which must eliminate potential attack from the foreign powers.
A society which is starving due to lack of persons who desire to be farmers, requires a government which, if necessary, dictates that one will be a farmer.
However, any form of government which does not foster and support the continued "initiative" for betterment of the individual, is not a government which has the welfare of it's citizens as it's core belief.
It is merely a means of control.
The first principal of any form of goverment is of course control of the populace. Thereafter, government, in whatever form, must work towards continual and progressive betterment for the individual.
The more complicated the ethnic; religious; and socialogical mixture of the citzenship of the country, the more complicated must be the government means in attempting to look after the welfare of ALL of this citzenship.
Virtually anyone could govern a society which consisted of only Zen Buddhists, or right-wing mennonites who forsake virtually all forms of human advancement.
I too am a libertarian socialist, but we don't use the word "libertarian" in the U.S. because it has been hijacked by the Libertarian Party. In the U.S. it has connotations of anti-statism, to be sure, but more importantly it implies property rights over human rights. Those who call themselves "libertarian" in the U.S. generally subscribe to the theories of Ayn Rand, and believe that profit-making private mega-corporations should be freed from the fetters of government regulation.
I have problems with much of the Left in the U.S., due to the identity politics and political correctness that has taken over since the early 1970s. I studied the early Marx in grad school for several years, and am sympathetic with the philosophical views of Marx and Engels on human nature and alienation. As for the "dictatorship of the proletariat" and such, all this proves is that corruption and statism and bureaucratic inertia are a part of human nature, and the best that philosophical and humanistic principles can offer is some sort of general guidance and inspiration. These ideas can never guarantee that the end result won't need to be overthrown also. This is somewhat close to Trotsky's "permanent revolution," I think, but I never studied Trotsky so I cannot really say.
If someone in the U.S. asks me about my politics, I usually say that I'm a "populist." I have no problems with working on specific issues of assassination, or CIA covert activities, even with those who don't see themselves as on the Left. Even the Libertarian Party, which is so firmly on the side of the rich and powerful, is skeptical of U.S. military adventures abroad and CIA covert operations. I can work with these people on specific issues.
There are people who call themselves "Leftist" in the U.S. who condemn me for not choosing my associates more carefully. My anti-Vietnam War and anti-draft activism established me as someone who was working on the right issues at the right time. I feel that I am still working on the right issues at the right time, even when these days I sometimes spend more time watching what Google is up to, as opposed to expanding NameBase. So I guess "populist" is the best description of my practical efforts, while "philosophical Marxist" is the best description of my source of inspiration.
I have problems with much of the Left in the U.S., due to the identity politics and political correctness that has taken over since the early 1970s. I studied the early Marx in grad school for several years, and am sympathetic with the philosophical views of Marx and Engels on human nature and alienation. As for the "dictatorship of the proletariat" and such, all this proves is that corruption and statism and bureaucratic inertia are a part of human nature, and the best that philosophical and humanistic principles can offer is some sort of general guidance and inspiration. These ideas can never guarantee that the end result won't need to be overthrown also. This is somewhat close to Trotsky's "permanent revolution," I think, but I never studied Trotsky so I cannot really say.
If someone in the U.S. asks me about my politics, I usually say that I'm a "populist." I have no problems with working on specific issues of assassination, or CIA covert activities, even with those who don't see themselves as on the Left. Even the Libertarian Party, which is so firmly on the side of the rich and powerful, is skeptical of U.S. military adventures abroad and CIA covert operations. I can work with these people on specific issues.
There are people who call themselves "Leftist" in the U.S. who condemn me for not choosing my associates more carefully. My anti-Vietnam War and anti-draft activism established me as someone who was working on the right issues at the right time. I feel that I am still working on the right issues at the right time, even when these days I sometimes spend more time watching what Google is up to, as opposed to expanding NameBase. So I guess "populist" is the best description of my practical efforts, while "philosophical Marxist" is the best description of my source of inspiration.
Political ideology? Erm...
I strongly believe in a minimal state: that the government should not interfere unnecessarily in the everyday lives of people. For this reason I oppose such 'innovations' as ID cards. I suppose this makes me fairly right-wing to do with the grand scheme of things.
Although we obviously need some form of taxation to provide public services, it is up to the individual, I believe, to decide issues such as the giving of money to charitable causes. I suppose this makes me fairly socialist to do with local and small-scale things.
Doug
I strongly believe in a minimal state: that the government should not interfere unnecessarily in the everyday lives of people. For this reason I oppose such 'innovations' as ID cards. I suppose this makes me fairly right-wing to do with the grand scheme of things.
Although we obviously need some form of taxation to provide public services, it is up to the individual, I believe, to decide issues such as the giving of money to charitable causes. I suppose this makes me fairly socialist to do with local and small-scale things.
Doug
I wish I had a clear concept of the ideology I have. Politically I should say I'm closer to what has been classically called "left" , especially considering the social perspective and consequences of all the activities I'm involved in. I accept the monarchy (though it won't be me who complains if things change, should that be an accepted change) and find democracy the best of possible regimes. In any case I find monarchy convenient being things as they are in Spain. I believe we lack a general common ground. I am skeptical of political parties, but have been tempted to change my perspectives by being an active party member. Any how I find staying outside of the political rat race a much safer world than being a part of it, both for me and for my family, my true ideology.
I refuse to consider this a political ideology, but in these times of change this is as much as I can offer.
I refuse to consider this a political ideology, but in these times of change this is as much as I can offer.
My political ideology. I think I am a classic FDR New Deal Liberal. I live in Tennessee but my formative years were in California.
I take my philosophy of human nature from my understanding of John Locke's philosophies.
I take my belief in government partly from Jefferson who believed that the people were able to govern themselves and therefore any person that could bring the voice of his or her constituents to a vote could be a representative.
I believe that the basic American system is sound (if at times soundly asleep) that Democratic Capitalism is a very effective system.
However we are no longer the nation of yeoman farmers that Jefferson envisioned would create a society of independent citizens and sustain a republic with virtue.
We live in a society that has industrialized and demonstrates many of the dangerous effects that were described by Karl Marx. True capitalism makes the very few very wealthy and the very many very poor.
To avoid a revolution, for which there is no need, elements of socialism need to be put in place in society to correct the excesses of capitalism. The main reason I believe this is that I believe a strong middle class that is available to all members of a society is an essential component of a democracy. In this I see Marx's construct that the middle class revolution creates the nation state and the democratic parliamentary form of government.
This industrial capitalism is extremely effective at creating wealth that benefits all of society. The evidence that redistribution of that income is not only better for democracy but for the protection of capitalism is the Great Depression. As wealth distribution goes awry the few accumulate too much capital and the many don't have enough to spend to sustain the economy. And we sadly are a consumption driven economy.
I believe in active government regulation, a progressive form of taxation, and a healthy estate tax. In practice in the United States, the taxation is flat or regressive, so I would advocate a system that considered all forms of income and took a flat percentage of all income earned over a base poverty floor. This would free the American worker from aggressive and expensive payroll taxes that get taken out from the first penny of earning and cap at, well I forget, $80,000 or so?
I believe that ethics are a foundation for a healthy government and society and that we are suffering from a crisis of ethics. This spreads across journalism (a very important defense for society that has morphed into infotainment, business, and government)
Yet we have a system that gives power to the people and the people deserve the government that they get. Government should be as transparent as possible. We need an active and constant auditing function of our government that is as independent as our judiciary to keep track of the way the money is spent by our national government in order to provide the best government that the least dollars can buy.
The government should promote education to advance it own interests. I have come to the conclusion that for economic and social reason health care should be fully or partially nationalized.
We should have representatives that represent us at the national level in small enough numbers to be better known by their constituents and allow for a greater diversity of political views in government.
I was born into an upper middle class family. The son of a northern republican IBM salesman and a southern Democrat belle turned feminist liberal democrat after the 1960s. I live in a middle class suburb as I have most of my life. I am a teacher and I believe it is my duty to leave my politics out of the classroom wherever possible.
I take my philosophy of human nature from my understanding of John Locke's philosophies.
I take my belief in government partly from Jefferson who believed that the people were able to govern themselves and therefore any person that could bring the voice of his or her constituents to a vote could be a representative.
I believe that the basic American system is sound (if at times soundly asleep) that Democratic Capitalism is a very effective system.
However we are no longer the nation of yeoman farmers that Jefferson envisioned would create a society of independent citizens and sustain a republic with virtue.
We live in a society that has industrialized and demonstrates many of the dangerous effects that were described by Karl Marx. True capitalism makes the very few very wealthy and the very many very poor.
To avoid a revolution, for which there is no need, elements of socialism need to be put in place in society to correct the excesses of capitalism. The main reason I believe this is that I believe a strong middle class that is available to all members of a society is an essential component of a democracy. In this I see Marx's construct that the middle class revolution creates the nation state and the democratic parliamentary form of government.
This industrial capitalism is extremely effective at creating wealth that benefits all of society. The evidence that redistribution of that income is not only better for democracy but for the protection of capitalism is the Great Depression. As wealth distribution goes awry the few accumulate too much capital and the many don't have enough to spend to sustain the economy. And we sadly are a consumption driven economy.
I believe in active government regulation, a progressive form of taxation, and a healthy estate tax. In practice in the United States, the taxation is flat or regressive, so I would advocate a system that considered all forms of income and took a flat percentage of all income earned over a base poverty floor. This would free the American worker from aggressive and expensive payroll taxes that get taken out from the first penny of earning and cap at, well I forget, $80,000 or so?
I believe that ethics are a foundation for a healthy government and society and that we are suffering from a crisis of ethics. This spreads across journalism (a very important defense for society that has morphed into infotainment, business, and government)
Yet we have a system that gives power to the people and the people deserve the government that they get. Government should be as transparent as possible. We need an active and constant auditing function of our government that is as independent as our judiciary to keep track of the way the money is spent by our national government in order to provide the best government that the least dollars can buy.
The government should promote education to advance it own interests. I have come to the conclusion that for economic and social reason health care should be fully or partially nationalized.
We should have representatives that represent us at the national level in small enough numbers to be better known by their constituents and allow for a greater diversity of political views in government.
I was born into an upper middle class family. The son of a northern republican IBM salesman and a southern Democrat belle turned feminist liberal democrat after the 1960s. I live in a middle class suburb as I have most of my life. I am a teacher and I believe it is my duty to leave my politics out of the classroom wherever possible.
I suppose if I had to pin my views down I'd call myself an independent. My father was a conservative Republican but I learned fast enough that there was more to life than good, hard-working people and lazy good-for-nothings. There were many shades of gray between the black and white. While I'm disgusted by the current regime in Washington, I feel that at this point the U.S. is under an obligation to not leave Iraq until it's clear the country is stable. We should never forget what happened in Cambodia. Overall, I might sum up my views by saying that, in general, conservatives think too little and liberals care too much.
I'll write more when I have more time.
I'll write more when I have more time.
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