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Abstract
To survive into the 21st century, senior executives must develop
within there company proactive and integrated approach to business
risk assessment and control.
A Business risk management framework must integrate risk
management strategies, policies, measures, monitoring process and
control to reject unacceptable risk and reduce the political risks
to an acceptable level. It must also support the allocation of
resources to the best opportunities for returns in relation to risk
assumed. One way to manage political risk is to buy political risk
insurance. Organizations that have international operations use
this type of insurance to mitigate their risk exposure as a result
of political instability. There are indices that provide an idea of
the risk exposure an organization has in certain countries. For
instance, an index of economic freedom ranks countries based on how
political interference impacts business decisions in each
country.
Political Philosophy is the study of these and other matters,
more generally the firstthe relationship between individuals and
society. Sometimes the subject is nicely encapsulated in the
question "how are we to live?" That is: given that few people live
entirely alone, we may ask how best to govern our interactions.
What responsibilities do we have to each other? Can we do as we
please? Is society more important than the individuals that make it
up? Political philosophy doesn't exist in a vacuum, though; the
answers we might give will depend in turn on our ethical ideas, as
well as what kind of world we think we live in and what we may
consider the purpose of our time here, if anyHistorical
Considerations.
There have been so many political theorists and theories over
the years that we cannot hope to cover them all here. Instead we'll
look at a few representative and important notions that vexed
wiseacres of the past.
Introduction
The word "philosophy" comes from the Greek philosophia, which
literally means "love of wisdom". Philosophy is the study of the
fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially
when considered as an academic discipline. Political philosophy is
the study of human social organization and of the nature of
man/woman in society. It is the study of such topics as politics,
liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of a
legal code by authority. There are a wide variety of political
philosophies. Such as: Socialism, Capitalism, Liberalism,
Conservatism, Anarchism, Communism, Monarchism, Democracy and
Fascism.There are a wide variety of political philosophies, of
which we can only consider a few here. Well look at some of the
philosophical aspects only. The standard division runs as
follows
Socialism:- A great many political ideas may come under the
broad banner of socialism, but generally speaking there is an
economic decision that the ownership and planning the use of the
means of production should be held centrally and publicly in some
way, rather than privately. Often this is based on a critique of
capitalism, but the idea is that the former method is more ethical
or beneficial to people living under such arrangements. It is
important to remember that not all socialists have a red hue and
live under the beds of decent, right-thinking people.Liberalism:-
It is a political orientation which favors the social progress by
implementing law and reform rather than revolution. It is the
belief in the importance of equal rights and liberty. This ideology
began in the 18th century, which was a movement to self government
and away from aristocracy. Aristocracy is a government form in
which the best qualified rule.Conservatism:- It is a political and
social philosophy that promotes retaining traditional social
institutions. A person who follows the philosophies of conservatism
is referred to as a traditionalist or conservative.Some
conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing
stability and continuity,
Anarchism:- Generally defined as a political philosophy which
holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, or harmful or,
alternatively, as opposing authority or hierarchical organization
in the conduct of human relations.
Communism:- Communism is a distinct socio-political philosophy
that is willing to use violent means to attain its goal of a
classless society. Monarchism:- Which based on the belief that
political power should be concentrated in one person who rules by
decree. A monarchist is an individual who supports this form of
government, independent from the person, the monarch.Capitalism:-
It is an economic system that is based on private ownership of the
means of production and the creation of goods or services for
profit. Other elements central to capitalism include competitive
markets, wage labor and capital accumulation.Democracy:- Democracy
is a form of government in which all eligible citizens have an
equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Democracy
allows people to participate equallyeither directly or through
elected representativesin the proposal, development, and creation
of laws.
Abraham Lincoln said Democracy is the government of the people,
by the people, for the people.Fascism:- The term Fascism was first
used of the totalitarian right-wing nationalist regime of Mussolini
in Italy (192243); the regimes of the Nazis in Germany and Franco
in Spain were also Fascist. Fascism tends to include a belief in
the supremacy of one national or ethnic group, contempt for
democracy, an insistence on obedience to a powerful leader, and a
strong demagogic approach
Nowadays many of the issues in political philosophy now turn or
are dependent in many ways upon economic analysesthe best way to
provide and allocate resources being an example. Nevertheless,
these may themselves have been influenced by political and
philosophical ideas, so there is interdependence at play between
them. To ignore either is problematic: we need to know the best way
to achieve our aims, but we also have to decide what to aim for in
the first place and what forms of solution we are inclined to
accept. Political risk is a type of risk faced by investors,
corporations, and governments. It is a risk that can be understood
and managed with reasoned foresight and investment. Prof. Stephen
Kobrinclassifies political risk as: Macro risk and Micro risk.Macro
risk refers to adverse actions that will affect all foreign firms,
such as expropriation or insurrection, whereas micro risk refers to
adverse actions that will only affect a certain industrial sector
or business, such as corruption and prejudicial actions against
companies from foreign countries.The concept of political risk in
international business is based on the existence of possible
threats to the firm from political instability and lawlessness in
the area of investment. Once a firm leaves the basically
standardized world of domestic business law, the global environment
is much more fluid; most states can use many levers of power to
extract more resources from the investing firm. Political risk not
only affected a specific business or class of business. But also
affecting an entire country or region, and include such things as
currency devaluation.
Philosophy:-
The word "philosophy" comes from the Greek philosophia, which
literally means "love of wisdom".
Philosophy is the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge,
reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic
discipline.Political Philosophy:-
Political philosophy is the study of human social organization
and of the nature of man/woman in society. It is the study of such
topics as politics, liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and
the enforcement of a legal code by authority.
Political philosophy can also be understood by analyzing it
through the perspectives of metaphysics, epistemology and
axiology.A good definition for Political Philosophy is found only
after determining what is politics, which is a sticky question to
begin with. Politics could be defined as "the question of how to
distribute a scarce amount of resources 'justly. This is,
essentially, the way in which people obtain, keep, and exercise
power. Political philosophy, then, is the study of the theories
behind politics. These theories may be used to gain power or to
justify its existence.
Mostly, however, they have been used to justify or legitimate
the existence of contemporary political structures by appealing to
"rationality," "reason," or, among others, "natural law."
Plato's Republic is a good starting point for political
philosophy, however, it's really a treatise on education. It starts
out by trying to define Justice (one of Kenneth Burke's "God
Terms"). In it, he makes an argument for a sort of acetic
life-style by, through a standard Platonic dialogue, laying out a
minimally functional society. He then, somewhat periodically,
responds to the question of luxury by outlining how to 'justly' lay
out a state that will accommodate luxuries for the entitled (a
state that looks very similar to Sparta). It's a good starting
place, because it lays out his conception of Justice, which,
inevitably, is based on his theory of the forms, which is a similar
basis of conceptions of natural law.
Skipping a few thousand years and many important texts, we get
to Nicolo Machiavelli's The Prince, which was written in 1513 and
published, after his death, in 1532. Machiavelli lived in Florence
under the Medici family's rule. During a brief period of reform,
the Medicis were chased from power, and Machiavelli became a
diplomat. When the Medicis returned, Machiavelli was basically
exiled. One reason he might have written The Prince was to try to
return to public life in Florence. This book is often criticized
for its moral relativism, and, in an inadequate summarization, that
power defines moral action.
Moving along, we can get to the social contract theorists,
namely Jean Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Charles
Montesquieu, and Baruch Spinoza. This, of course, will be a brief
and incomplete treatment of them, but it's a starting place.
Hobbes' theory is mostly found in his book Leviathan. In it, he
defines the state of nature (the prepolitical society) as a place
where life is "nasty, brutish, and short." It's important to
understand that Hobbes was writing after the Thirty Years War (a
religious conflict between, primarily, the English Protestants and
the Spanish Catholics), so he had a very pessimistic view of Human
Nature. He basically thought that man, left to its own devices,
would war against itself, hence the above quotation.
From that, Hobbes had a view that society with a state, at its
worst, was better than having no state at all, so he concluded that
any state action would be justified if for no other reason than
that it is a modus vivendi, a lesser evil. The crux of this, and
all social contract theory, is that the citizen has a sort of
contract with the state in which people give up some autonomy to
make their lives better. For Hobbes, this autonomy was given up to
protect life at its most fundamental level.
Locke, however, has an entirely different notion. His view of
the state of nature (the pre-political society) is much nicer.
Basically people will respect each other and not infringe on
another's person or property. If someone does, then the aggressed
has the natural right to rectify the situation, and anyone else who
witnesses an aggressor has the duty to help the aggresses. Locke
concedes that property disputes will eventually be numerous enough
that this would be time consuming, and in the general interest,
people will form a state in order to have someone else protect
their property and persons--basically to settle disputes--out of
convenience. Much of this is laid out in The Second Treatise on
Government. It's important to note that much of the U.S.
constitution is based on Locke's political philosophy.
Political Philosophies:-
There are a wide variety of political philosophies, of which we
can only consider a few here. Well look at some of the
philosophical aspects only. The standard division runs as
follows:Socialism:-A great many political ideas may come under the
broad banner of socialism, but generally speaking there is an
economic decision that the ownership and planning the use of the
means of production should be held centrally and publicly in some
way, rather than privately. Often this is based on a critique of
capitalism, but the idea is that the former method is more ethical
or beneficial to people living under such arrangements. It is
important to remember that not all socialists have a red hue and
live under the beds of decent, right-thinking people.
There are degrees to which socialism is preferred to some form
of market economy. Given the failure of some attempts to control
economies centrally, some have instead opted to allow a market to
operate while maintaining control of certain areas that may be seen
as fundamental, such as health services, travel networks and so
on.
The principle philosophical difficulty for socialism is how to
distribute resources fairly. If we hope to give to people according
to their needs, what do we mean by a need? How do we distinguish
between true and false claims of need from people? Moreover, if we
don't continue to impose controls on the distribution of these
resources, wouldn't they eventually become unequally
distributed?
In the face of such problems, it is often useful to ask what
we're aiming at with a political philosophy: if the answer for
socialism is a more just or fair world then even if these concepts
prove impossible to attain, we may still choose to at least
try.
Anarchism:-Anarchism has been defined many ways by many
different sources. The word anarchism is taken from the word
anarchy which is drawn from dual sources in the Greek language. It
is made up of the Greek words av (meaning: absence of [and
pronounced "an"] and apxn (meaning: authority or government [and
pronounced "arkhe"]). Today, dictionary definitions still define
anarchism as the absence of government. These modern dictionary
definitions of anarchism are based on the writings and actions of
anarchists of history and present. Anarchists understand, as do
historians of anarchism and good dictionaries and encyclopedias,
that the word anarchism represents a positive theory. Exterior
sources, however, such as the media, will frequently misuse the
word anarchism and, thus, breed misunderstanding.
A leading modern dictionary, Webster's Third International
Dictionary, defines anarchism briefly but accurately as, "a
political theory opposed to all forms of government and
governmental restraint and advocating voluntary cooperation and
free association of individuals and groups in order to satisfy
their needs." Other dictionaries describe anarchism with similar
definitions. The Britannica-Webster dictionary defines the word
anarchism as, "a political theory that holds all government
authority to be unnecessary and undesirable and advocates a society
based on voluntary cooperation of individuals and groups." Shorter
dictionaries, such as the New Webster Handy College Dictionary,
define anarchism as, "the political doctrine that all governments
should be abolished."
These similar dictionary definitions of anarchism reflect the
evolution of the theory of anarchism made possible by anarchist
intellectuals and movements. As a result, dictionary definitions,
although fair, only reflect watered down definitions of the word
anarchism. Professor Noam Chomsky, in fact, has refuted the
definition, as written in the New American Webster Handy College
Dictionary, describing anarchism as a "political doctrine."
According to Chomsky, "...anarchism isn't a doctrine. It's at most
a historical tendency, a tendency of thought and action, which has
many different ways of developing and progressing and which, I
would think, will continue as a permanent strand of human history."
Other modern definitions of anarchism are thoroughly explained, not
as a word, but as a history of movements, people and ideas. The
Encyclopedia of the American Left, in fact, gives a three page
history of anarchism, yet does not once define the word.
Prior to the existence of the word anarchism people used the
term "Libertarian Socialism," which meant the same thing as
anarchism. Libertarian socialism was used largely by Mexican
radicals in the early eighteenth century. William Godwin was the
first proclaimed anarchist in history and the first to write about
anarchism. He was born in 1756 in Weisbech, the capital of North
Cambridge shire. He later married feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and
had a daughter, Mary Shelley - author of Frankenstein. Godwin
published a book called Political Justice in 1793 which first
introduced his ideas about anarchism, Godwin was forgotten about,
however, and after his death Pierre Joseph Proud on became a
leading anarchist figure in the world. His book What is Property?
Incorporated greater meaning to the word anarchism; anarchism
became not only a rejection of established authority but a theory
opposing ownership of land and property as well.
Anarchism fully blossomed as a defined theory when Russian
anarchists Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876) and Peter Kropotkin
(1842-1921 started to write and speak. Bakunin had a major
influence in the world and introduced anarchism to many people.
Kropotkin was one of the many people inspired by Bakunin. Kropotkin
wrote many books on anarchism, including Muitual Aid, Fields
Factories and Workshops, and The Conquest of Bread, and greatly
aided in the evolution of the theory of anarchism. Kropotkin wrote
the first adept encyclopedia definition of anarchism in the
eleventh edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica in 1910. His
definition was fifteen pages long. He started the definition by
introducing the word anarchism as:
the name given to a principle of theory of life and conduct
under which society is conceived without government - harmony in
such a society being obtained, not by submission to law, or by
obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded
between various groups, territorial and professional, freely
constituted for the sake of production and consumption, as also for
the satisfaction of the infinite variety of the needs and
aspirations of a civilized being, In a society developed on these
lines, the voluntary associations which already now begin to cover
all fields of human activity would take a still greater extension
so as to substitute themselves for the state of its functions.
Following Kropotkin, Leo Tolstory furthered the ideas which make
up the meaning of the word anarchism. Tolstoy introduced Christian
anarchism (rejecting church authority but believing in God) and
broadened anarchism's meaning. Tolstoy, in favor of the growth of
anarchism, wrote "The anarchists are right in the assertion that,
without Authority, there could not be worse violence than that of
Authority under existing conditions."
As the 20th century emerged anarchism began to peak and the
definition of anarchism became concrete with the growth of new
anarchist writers and movements. The execution and imprisonment of
eight anarchists in Chicago in 1886 sparked anarchism's growth in
the United States. The "Haymarket Eight" flourished anarchists such
as Voltairine de Cleyre and Lucy Parsons. Parsons was born into
slavery and later became an anarchist and an ardent speaker and
working class rebel; the Chicago police labled Parsons, "...more
dangerous than a thousand rioters." Emma Goldman also became a part
of the anarchist movement due to the Chicago Martyrs. Described as
a "damn bitch of an anarchist," Goldman also broadened the meaning
of anarchism and introduced the greatest and most important ideas
of anarchist feminism in history which prevail, as a result of
Goldman, to this day.
Emma Goldman's life long comrade, Alexander Berkman, played a
major part in helping to define the word anarchism. He wrote a book
called ABC of Anarchism which defined and describes anarchism and
is still read today. Berkman wrote, "Anarchism means you should be
free; that no one should enslave you, boss you, rob you, or impose
upon you. It means you should be free to do the things you want to
do; and that you should not be compelled to do what you do not want
to do."
Anarchism was put into action by giant movements throughout
history which proved its definition was more than theoretical. The
communal efforts of anarchism were seen in the Paris Commune in the
early 19th century; the revolutionary organizing of Mexican working
class rebels was proven possible by anarchists such as Ricardo
Flores Magon and revolutionaries like Emiliano Zapata, and the
Spanish Revolution of 1936-39 proved anarchists' capability of
creating anarchism within small sectors of the world. Certainly
today we can see anarchism in action in places like Mondragon,
Spain, where anarchists are working in collectives and trying to
live free of authority.
Although the word anarchism is understood by many in its classic
sense (that defined by dictionaries and by anarchists of history),
the word is often misused and misunderstood. Anarchism, because of
the threat it imposes upon established authority, has been
historically, and is still, misused by power holders as violence
and chaos. As anarchist historian George Woodcock put it, "Of the
more frivolous is the idea that the anarchist is a man who throws
bombs and wishes to wreak society by violence and terror. That this
charge should be brought against anarchists now, at a time when
they are the few people who are not throwing bombs or assisting
bomb throwers, shows a curious purblindness among its champions."
The claim that anarchism is chaos was refuted long ago by Alexander
Berkman when he wrote:
I must tell you, first of all, what anarchism is not. It is not
bombs, disorder, or chaos. It is not robbery or murder. It is not a
war of each against all. It is not a return to barbarianism or to
the wild state of man. Anarchism is the very opposite of all
that.
These refutations of stereotypes associated with anarchism are
sometimes trampled by the popular misuse of the word anarchism. It
is not uncommon for a Middle Eastern nation in the midst of
U.S.-imposed turmoil to be labeled by the media as "complete
anarchy," a phrase which undermines the true definition of the word
anarchism and all those who toiled, and who do toil, to make the
word anarchism mean what it does today.
Modern anarchists still work hard to help anarchism maintain its
validity and history. Anarchism today is being used to find
solutions to the problems of power; not just state power, but
corporate power and all immediate forms of domination among
individuals and organizations. Anarchists such as L. Susan Brown
have introduced ideas such as existential individualism, while
other anarchists remain loyal to anarcho-syndicalism and class
struggle. Anarchism has also been spread around the world through
music and bands such as Crass, introducing anarchism and
anti-speciesism and urging self-sufficiency among workers and
community members. Other anarchists such as Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin,
an ex-Black Panther, are introducing new means of organizing and
directly challenging racism. Furthermore, anarchism has become
integrated into ecological issues thanks in part to eco-anarchist
ideas and freethinking organizations such as Earth First! Also, we
see anarchists working to keep anarchism, in theory and practice,
alive and well around the world with anarchist newspapers such as
Love and Rage in Mexico and the United States, anarchist book
publishers such as AK Press in the U.S. and the U.K., and political
prisoner support groups such as the Anarchist Black Cross.
As documented, the word anarchism has a long history. Although
the word is simply derived from Greek tongue, the philosophy and
actions of anarchists in history and present give the word
anarchism proper definition. Dictionary definitions, as quoted, are
sometimes fair to anarchism, but far from complete. The misuse of
the word anarchism is unfortunate and has been a problem anarchists
have had to deal with for the last century. Because of the misuse
of anarchism, the simple dictionary definitions of anarchism, and
the different interpretations of anarchism the word can take on
many meanings, but the truly accurate meaning of the word anarchism
can be found in anarchist history, anarchist writings and anarchist
practice.
Communism:-Before we answer the question, What is Communism? it
may be good to first compare it to communism with a small c. The
system of thought called communism is an ideology summarized in the
neat-sounding maxim, From each according to his ability, to each
according to his need. A study of communism could lead one into the
fascinating and divergent attempts throughout history by groups to
walk in the light of the above principle -- attempts both secular
and religious, some benign and some malignant.
Like the big elephant examined by the group of blind men in the
old Indian story, our understanding of communism would vary greatly
depending on which portion of the beast we touch. But if we think
of communism as that bulky beast of the jungle with many strange
parts, Communism with a capital C would be the tusk- perceived as a
sharp and dangerous spear by its fearful examiner.
Modern day Communism is based on the writings of two German
economists, Karl Marx and Fred rich Engels, who answered the
question What is Communism? in their collaboration, The Communist
Manifesto published in 1848. In it they declare that many problems
in society are due to the unequal distribution of wealth. To bring
about happiness and prosperity for all, the distinctions between
the rich and poor of society must be eliminated. And since the rich
will never give up their goods or status voluntarily, a rebellion
of the poor -- the working class -- is necessary.
Thus, Communism is a distinct socio-political philosophy that is
willing to use violent means to attain its goal of a classless
society. If capitalism is defined as a social system based on
individual rights (and individual wealth), then communism is its
direct opposite. Communism believes in equality through force. In
its system, individual rights are ground to powder and used to
build its idol of absolute government control. It is indeed like
the tusk of the elephant. It is sharp. It is dangerous. And it has
gored millions of men in its rage through history.
Communism embraces atheism and dismisses religion as the opiate
of the masses, a system designed by the rich and powerful to keep
the poor in their place.
But Communisms quest for a classless society is bound to fail.
As Frank Zappa, 60s rock star, succinctly said, Communism doesnt
work because people like to own stuff. Furthermore, someone has to
hold the money bag even in a communist-style society. And whoever
holds the bag becomes not only a target for those looking on but
for the subtle interior demons of pride, avarice, and
self-preservation.
If there will always be the poor, then there will always be the
rich. There will always be division, the haves and the have-nots,
and any attempt to establish a classless society this side of
heaven, particularly through the violent and godless ways of
Communism, is destined to frustration and failure.Monarchism:-
Monarchism is a system based on the belief that political power
should be concentrated in one person who rules by decree. A
monarchist is an individual who supports this form of government,
independent from the person, the monarch.
In this system, the Monarch may be the person who sits on the
throne, a pretender, or someone who would otherwise inhabit the
throne but has been deposed.
In 1687-88, the Glorious Revolution and the overthrow of King
James II established the principles of constitutional monarchy,
which would later be worked out by Montesquieu and other thinkers.
However, absolute monarchy, theorized by Hobbes in the Leviathan
(1651), remained a dominant principle. In the 18th century,
Voltaire and others encouraged "enlightened absolutism", which was
embraced by the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II and Catherine II of
Russia.
Absolutism continued to be the dominant political principle of
sovereignty until the 1789 French Revolution and the regicide
against Louis XVI, which established the concept of popular
sovereignty upheld by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Monarchy began to be
contested by the Republican principle. Counterrevolutionaries, such
as Joseph de Maistre or Louis de Bonald, sought the restoration of
the Ancien Rgime, divided in the three estates of the realm, and
the divine right of kings.
Following the ousting of Napoleon I in 1814, the Coalition
restored the Bourbon Dynasty in pushing Louis XVIII to the French
throne. The ensuing period, called the Restoration, was
characterized by a sharp conservative reaction and the
re-establishment of the Roman Catholic Church, supported by the
ultramontanism movement, as a power in French politics. After the
1830 July Revolution and the overthrow of Charles X, the legitimist
branch was defeated and the Orleanss, gathered behind
Louis-Philippe, accepted the principle of constitutional
monarchy.
The Spring of Nations in 1848 then set the signal for a new wave
of revolutions against the European monarchies.
World War I and its aftermath saw the end of three major
European monarchies, the Russian Romanov dynasty, the German
Hohenzollern dynasty and the Austro-Hungarian Habsburg dynasty. In
Russia, the 1917 February revolution resulted in the abdication of
Tsar Nicholas II and the establishment of Bolshevik Russia and a
civil war between the Bolshevik Red Army and the monarchist White
Army from 1917 to 1921.
The rise of the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919 saw an
increase in support for monarchism, however efforts by Hungarian
monarchists failed to bring back a royal head of state, and the
monarchists settled for a regent, Admiral Mikls Horthy, to
represent the monarchy until it could be restored. Horthy was
regent from 1920 to 1944. In Germany a number of monarchists
gathered around the German National People's Party which demanded
the return of the Hohenzollern monarchy and an end to the Weimar
Republic. The party retained a large base of support until the rise
of Nazism in the 1930s.
With the arrival of Communism in Eastern Europe by 1945, the
remaining Eastern European monarchies such as the Kingdom of
Romania, the Kingdom of Hungary, the Kingdom of Bulgaria and the
Kingdom of Yugoslavia were all abolished and replaced by socialist
republics.
The aftermath of World War II also saw the return of monarchist
and republican rivalry in Italy, in which a referendum was held on
whether Italy should remain a monarchy or become a republic. The
republican side won the referendum (by a narrow margin) and the
modern Republic of Italy was created.
Monarchism as a political force internationally has
substantially diminished since the end of the Second World War,
though it had an important role in the 1979 Iranian Revolution and
also played a role in the modern political affairs of Nepal. Nepal
was one of the last states to have had an absolute monarch, which
continued until King Gyanendra of Nepal was peacefully deposed in
May 2008 and Nepal became a federal republic. One of the world's
oldest monarchies was abolished in Ethiopia in 1974 with the fall
of Emperor Haile Selassie.
Capitalism:- Capitalism is an economic system that is based on
private ownership of the means of production and the creation of
goods or services for profit. Other elements central to capitalism
include competitive markets, wage labor and capital accumulation.
There are multiple variants of capitalism, including laissez-faire,
welfare capitalism and state capitalism. Capitalism is considered
to have been applied in a variety of historical cases, varying in
time, geography, politics, and culture. There is general agreement
that capitalism became dominant in the Western world following the
demise of feudalism. Competitive markets may also be found in
market-based alternatives to capitalism such as market socialism
and co-operative economics.Economists, political economists and
historians have taken different perspectives on the analysis of
capitalism. Economists usually emphasize the degree to which
government does not have control over markets (laissez faire), as
well as the importance of property rights. Most political
economists emphasize private property as well, in addition to power
relations, wage labor, class, and the uniqueness of capitalism as a
historical formation The extent to which different markets are
free, as well as the rules defining private property, is a matter
of politics and policy. Many states have what are termed mixed
economies, referring to the varying degree of planned and
market-driven elements in a state's economic system. A number of
political ideologies have emerged in support of various types of
capitalism, the most prominent being economic liberalism.
Liberalism:- Liberalism (from the Latin liberalis) is a
political philosophy or worldview founded on the ideas of liberty
and equality. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on
their understanding of these principles, but generally they support
ideas such as free and fair elections, civil rights, freedom of the
press, freedom of religion, free trade, and a right to life,
liberty, and property.
Liberalism first became a distinct political movement during the
Age of Enlightenment, when it became popular among philosophers and
economists in the Western world. Liberalism rejected the notions,
common at the time, of hereditary privilege, state religion,
absolute monarchy, and the Divine Right of Kings. The early liberal
thinker John Locke is often credited with founding liberalism as a
distinct philosophical tradition. Locke argued that each man has a
natural right to life, liberty and property and according to the
social contract governments must not violate these rights. Liberals
opposed traditional conservatism and sought to replace absolutism
in government with democracy and the rule of law.
The revolutionaries in the American Revolution, the French
Revolution and other liberal revolutions from that time used
liberal philosophy to justify the armed overthrow of what they saw
as tyrannical rule. The nineteenth century saw liberal governments
established in nations across Europe, Latin America, and North
America.
During the beginning of the twentieth century some countries
adopted totalitarian, non-liberal regimes, such as Fascism, Nazism
and Communism. In other countries classical liberalism became less
popular and gave way to social democracy and social liberalism.
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, "In the United States
liberalism is associated with the welfare-state policies of the New
Deal program of the Democratic administration of Pres. Franklin D.
Roosevelt, whereas in Europe it is more commonly associated with a
commitment to limited government and laissez-faire economic
policies.
Words such as liberal, liberty, libertarian, and libertine all
trace their history to the Latin liber, which means "free". One of
the first recorded instances of the word liberal occurs in 1375,
when it was used to describe the liberal arts in the context of an
education desirable for a free-born man. The word's early
connection with the classical education of a medieval university
soon gave way to a proliferation of different denotations and
connotations. Liberal could refer to "free in bestowing" as early
as 1387, "made without stint" in 1433, "freely permitted" in 1530,
and "free from restraint"often as a pejorative remarkin the 16th
and the 17th centuries.
In 16th century England, liberal could have positive or negative
attributes in referring to someone's generosity or indiscretion. In
Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare wrote of "a liberal villains"
who "hath... confect his vile encounters". With the rise of the
Enlightenment, the word acquired decisively more positive
undertones, being defined as "free from narrow prejudice" in 1781
and "free from bigotry" in 1823.In 1815, the first use of the word
liberalism appeared in English. By the middle of the 19th century,
liberal started to be used as a politicized term for parties and
movements all over the world.
Liberalism as a political movement spans the better part of the
last four centuries, though the use of the word liberalism to refer
to a specific political doctrine did not occur until the 19th
century. Perhaps the first modern state founded on liberal
principles, with no hereditary aristocracy, was The United States
of America, whose Declaration of Independence states that "all men
are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain
unalienable rights". A few years later, the French Revolution
overthrew the hereditary aristocracy, with the slogan "liberty,
equality, fraternity", and was the first state in history to grant
universal male suffrage.
Some argue that Liberalism started as a major doctrine and
political endeavor in response to the religious wars gripping
Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries. In any case, the
intellectual progress of the Enlightenment, which questioned old
traditions about societies and governments, eventually coalesced
into powerful revolutionary movements that toppled archaic regimes
all over the world, especially in Europe, Latin America, and North
America. Liberalism fully exploded as a comprehensive movement
against the old order during the French Revolution, which set the
pace for the future development of human history.
The emergence of the Renaissance in the 15th century helped to
weaken unquestioning submission to the institutions of the Middle
Ages by reinvigorating interest in science and in the classical
world.In the 16th century, the Protestant Reformation developed
from sentiments that viewed the Catholic Church as an oppressive
ruling order too involved in the feudal and baronial structure of
European society. The Church launched a Counter Reformation to
contain these bubbling sentiments, but the effort unraveled in the
Thirty Years' War of the 17th century. In England, a civil war led
to the execution of King Charles I in 1649. Parliament ultimately
succeededwith the Glorious Revolution of 1688in establishing a
limited and constitutional monarchy. The main facets of early
liberal ideology in Britain emerged against the backdrop of these
events. The American colonies had been loyal British subjects for
decades, but they declared independence from rule under the
monarchy in 1776 as a result of their dissatisfaction with lack of
representation in the governing parliament overseas, which
manifested itself most directly and dramatically through taxation
policies that colonists considered a violation of their natural
rights. The American Revolution was primarily a civil and political
matter at first, but escalated to military engagements in 1775 that
were largely complete by 1781. The 1776 United States Declaration
of Independence drew upon liberal ideas of unalienable rights to
demonstrate the tyranny of the British monarchy, and justify a
complete denial of its legitimacy and authority, leading to the
creation of a self-determining and sovereign new nation. After the
war, the new nation held a Constitutional Convention in 1787 to
resolve the problems stemming from the first attempt at a
confederated national government under the Articles of
Confederation. The resulting Constitution of the United States
settled on a republic with a federal structure. The United States
Bill of Rights quickly followed in 1789, which guaranteed certain
natural rights fundamental to liberal ideals. The American
Revolution predicated a series of drastic socio-political changes
across nations and continents, collectively referred to as the
"Atlantic Revolutions", of which the most famous is probably the
French Revolution.
Three years into the French Revolution, German writer Johann von
Goethe reportedly told the defeated Prussian soldiers after the
Battle of Valmy that "from this place and from this time forth
commences a new era in world history, and you can all say that you
were present at its birth". Historians widely regard the Revolution
as one of the most important events in human history, and the onset
of the Revolution in 1789 is considered by some to mark the end of
the early modern period.
The march of the women on Versailles in October 1789 was one of
the most famous examples of popular political participation during
the French Revolution. The demonstrators forced the royal court
back to Paris, where it would remain until the proclamation of the
First Republic in 1792.
The French Revolution is often seen as marking the "dawn of the
modern era, and its convulsions are widely associated with "the
triumph of liberalism". For liberals, the Revolution was their
defining moment, and later liberals approved of the French
Revolution almost entirely"not only its results but the act
itself," as two historians noted.The French Revolution began in May
1789 with the convocation of the Estates-General. The first year of
the Revolution witnessed, among other major events, the Storming of
the Bastille in July and the passage of the Declaration of the
Rights of Man and of the Citizen in August.
The next few years were dominated by tensions between various
liberal assemblies and a conservative monarchy intent on thwarting
major reforms. A republic was proclaimed in September 1792.
External conflict and internal squabbling significantly radicalized
the Revolution, culminating in the "Reign of Terror", led by
Robespierre. After the fall of Robespierre and the radical
Jacobins, the Directory assumed control of the French state in 1795
and held power until 1799, when it was replaced by the Consulate
under Napoleon.
Napoleon ruled as First Consul for about five years,
centralizing power and streamlining the bureaucracy along the way.
The Napoleonic Wars, pitting the heirs of a revolutionary state
against the old monarchies of Europe, started in 1805 and lasted
for a decade. Along with their boots and Charleville muskets,
French soldiers brought to the rest of the European continent the
liquidation of the feudal system, the liberalization of property
laws, the end of seigniorial dues, the abolition of guilds, the
legalization of divorce, the disintegration of Jewish ghettos, the
collapse of the Inquisition, the permanent destruction of the Holy
Roman Empire, the elimination of church courts and religious
authority, the establishment of the metric system, and equality
under the law for all men. Napoleon wrote that "the peoples of
Germany, as of France, Italy and Spain, want equality and liberal
ideas, "with some historians suggesting that he may have been the
first person ever to use the word liberal in a political sense. He
also governed through a method that one historian described as
"civilian dictatorship," which "drew its legitimacy from direct
consultation with the people, in the form of a plebiscite".
Napoleon did not always live up the liberal ideals he espoused,
however. His most lasting achievement, the Civil Code, served as
"an object of emulation all over the globe, "but it also
perpetuated further discrimination against women under the banner
of the "natural order".
The march of the women on Versailles in October 1789 was one of
the most famous examples of popular political participation during
the French Revolution. The demonstrators forced the royal court
back to Paris, where it would remain until the proclamation of the
First Republic in 1792.
The French Revolution is often seen as marking the "dawn of the
modern era, "and its convulsions are widely associated with "the
triumph of liberalism". For liberals, the Revolution was their
defining moment, and later liberals approved of the French
Revolution almost entirely"not only its results but the act
itself," as two historians noted.The French Revolution began in May
1789 with the convocation of the Estates-General. The first year of
the Revolution witnessed, among other major events, the Storming of
the Bastille in July and the passage of the Declaration of the
Rights of Man and of the Citizen in August.
The next few years were dominated by tensions between various
liberal assemblies and a conservative monarchy intent on thwarting
major reforms. A republic was proclaimed in September 1792.
External conflict and internal squabbling significantly radicalized
the Revolution, culminating in the "Reign of Terror", led by
Robespierre. After the fall of Robespierre and the radical
Jacobins, the Directory assumed control of the French state in 1795
and held power until 1799, when it was replaced by the Consulate
under Napoleon.
Napoleon ruled as First Consul for about five years,
centralizing power and streamlining the bureaucracy along the way.
The Napoleonic Wars, pitting the heirs of a revolutionary state
against the old monarchies of Europe, started in 1805 and lasted
for a decade. Along with their boots and Charleville muskets,
French soldiers brought to the rest of the European continent the
liquidation of the feudal system, the liberalization of property
laws, the end of seigniorial dues, the abolition of guilds, the
legalization of divorce, the disintegration of Jewish ghettos, the
collapse of the Inquisition, the permanent destruction of the Holy
Roman Empire, the elimination of church courts and religious
authority, the establishment of the metric system, and equality
under the law for all men. Napoleon wrote that "the peoples of
Germany, as of France, Italy and Spain, want equality and liberal
ideas,"with some historians suggesting that he may have been the
first person ever to use the word liberal in a political sense. He
also governed through a method that one historian described as
"civilian dictatorship," which "drew its legitimacy from direct
consultation with the people, in the form of a plebiscite".
Napoleon did not always live up the liberal ideals he espoused,
however. His most lasting achievement, the Civil Code, served as
"an object of emulation all over the globe, "but it also
perpetuated further discrimination against women under the banner
of the "natural order".
General Toussaint Overture, inspired by the French Revolution
led revolutionary forces during the Haitian Revolution that ended
slavery in Haiti and resulted in the creation of the short-lived
Haitian Republic - the first self-governing independent black state
in the Americas.
Liberals in the 19th century wanted to develop a world free from
government intervention, or at least free from too much government
intervention. They championed the ideal of negative liberty, which
constitutes the absence of coercion and the absence of external
constraints. They believed governments were cumbersome burdens and
they wanted governments to stay out of the lives of individuals.
Liberals simultaneously pushed for the expansion of civil rights
and for the expansion of free markets and free trade. The latter
kind of economic thinking had been formalized by Adam Smith in his
influential Wealth of Nations (1776), which revolutionized the
field of economics and argued that the "invisible hand" of the free
market was a self-regulating mechanism that did not depend on
external interference. Sheltered by liberalism, the laissez-faire
economic world of the 19th century emerged with full tenacity,
particularly in the United States and in the United Kingdom.
The relatively laissez-faire liberal economy of the Industrial
Revolution and rise of living standards allowed an increasingly
larger number of parents to avoid sending their children to
work.
Politically, liberals saw the 19th century as a gateway to
achieving the promises of 1789. In Spain, the Liberals, the first
group to use the liberal label in a political context, fought for
the implementation of the 1812 Constitution for decadesoverthrowing
the monarchy in 1820 as part of the Trienio Liberal and defeating
the conservative Car lists in the 1830s. In France, the July
Revolution of 1830, orchestrated by liberal politicians and
journalists, removed the Bourbon monarchy and inspired similar
uprisings elsewhere in Europe.
Depiction of Romanian revolutionaries during the Revolutions of
1848.
Frustration with the pace of political progress, however,
sparked even more gigantic revolutions in 1848. Revolutions spread
throughout the Austrian Empire, the German states, and the Italian
states. Governments fell rapidly. Liberal nationalists demanded
written constitutions, representative assemblies, greater suffrage
rights, and freedom of the press. A second republic was proclaimed
in France. Serfdom was abolished in Prussia, Galicia, Bohemia, and
Hungary. Metternich shocked Europe when he resigned and fled to
Britain in panic and disguise.
Eventually, however, the success of the revolutionaries petered
out. Without French help, the Italians were easily defeated by the
Austrians. Austria also managed to contain the bubbling nationalist
sentiments in Germany and Hungary, helped along by the failure of
the Frankfurt Assembly to unify the German states into a single
nation. Under abler leadership, however, the Italians and the
Germans wound up realizing their dreams for independence. The
Sardinian Prime Minister, Camillo di Cavour, was a shrewd liberal
who understood that the only effective way for the Italians to gain
independence was if the French were on their side. Napoleon III
agreed to Cavour's request for assistance and France defeated
Austria in the Franco-Austrian War of 1859, setting the stage for
Italian independence. German unification transpired under the
leadership of Otto von Bismarck, who decimated the enemies of
Prussia in war after war, finally triumphing against France in 1871
and proclaiming the German Empire in the Hall of Mirrors at
Versailles, ending another saga in the drive for nationalization.
The French proclaimed a third republic after their loss in the war,
and the rest of French history transpired under republican
eyes.
Just a few decades after the French Revolution, liberalism went
global. The liberal and conservative struggles in Spain also
replicated themselves in Latin American countries like Mexico and
Ecuador. From 1857 to 1861, Mexico was gripped in the bloody War of
Reform, a massive internal and ideological confrontation between
the liberals and the conservatives. The liberal triumph there
parallels with the situation in Ecuador. Similar to other nations
throughout the region at the time, Ecuador was steeped in turmoil,
with the people divided between rival liberal and conservative
camps. From these conflicts, Garca Moreno established a
conservative government which was eventually overthrown in the
Liberal Revolution of 1895. The Radical Liberals who toppled the
conservatives were led by Eloy Alfaro, a firebrand who implemented
a variety of sociopolitical reforms, including the separation of
church and state, the legalization of divorce, and the
establishment of public schools.
Although liberals were active throughout the world in the 19th
century, it was in Britain that the future character of liberalism
would take shape. The liberal sentiments unleashed after the
revolutionary era of the previous century ultimately coalesced into
the Liberal Party, formed in 1859 from various Radical and Whig
elements. The Liberals produced one of the most influential British
prime ministersWilliam Ewart Gladstone, who was also known as the
Grand Old Man. Under Gladstone, the Liberals reformed education,
disestablished the Church of Ireland (with the Irish Church Act
1869), and introduced the secret ballot for local and parliamentary
elections. Following Gladstone, and after a period of Conservative
domination, the Liberals returned with full strength in the general
election of 1906, aided by working class voters worried about food
prices. After that historic victory, the Liberal Party shifted from
its classical liberalism and laid the groundwork for the future
British welfare state, establishing various forms of health
insurance, unemployment insurance, and pensions for elderly
workers.This new kind of liberalism would sweep over much of the
world in the 20th century.
The 20th century started perilously for liberalism. World War I
proved a major challenge for liberal democracies, although they
ultimately triumphed, along with Communism, over the monarchies.
The war precipitated the collapse of older forms of government,
including empires and dynastic states. The number of republics in
Europe reached 13 by the end of the war, as compared with only
three at the start of the war in 1914.This phenomenon became
readily apparent in Russia. Before the war, the Russian monarchy
was reeling from losses to Japan and political struggles with the
Cadets, a powerful liberal bloc in the Dumb. Facing huge shortages
in basic necessities along with widespread riots in early 1917,
Czar Nicholas II abdicated in March, ending three centuries of
Romanov rule and allowing liberals to declare a republic. Under the
uncertain leadership of Alexander Kerensky, However, the
Provisional Government mismanaged Russia's continuing involvement
in the war, prompting angry reactions from the Petrograd workers,
who drifted further and further to the left. The Bolsheviks, a
communist group led by Vladimir Lenin, seized the political
opportunity from this confusion and launched a second revolution in
Russia during the same year. The communist victory presented a
major challenge to capitalism as a core component of liberalism. As
some manifestations of communism historically resulted in
totalitarian regimes, mainstream liberalism has shied away from
association with communism. However, the economic problems that
rocked the Western world in the 1930s proved even more devastating,
leading to fundamental reforms in some of the aims of the liberal
state.
The Great Depression fundamentally changed the liberal world.
There was an inkling of a new liberalism during World War I, but
modern liberalism fully hatched in the 1930s as a response to the
Depression, which inspired John Maynard Keynes to revolutionize the
field of economics. Classical liberals, such as economist Ludwig
von Mises, posited that completely free markets were the optimal
economic units capable of effectively allocating resourcesthat over
time, in other words, they would produce full employment and
economic security. Keynes spearheaded a broad assault on classical
economics and its followers, arguing that totally free markets were
not ideal, and that hard economic times required intervention and
investment from the state. Where the market failed to properly
allocate resources, for example, the government was required to
stimulate the economy until private funds could start flowing
againa "prime the pump" kind of strategy designed to boost
industrial production.
The social liberal program launched by President Roosevelt in
the United States, the New Deal, proved very popular with the
American public. In 1933, when Roosevelt came into office, the
unemployment rate stood at roughly 25 percent. The size of the
economy, measured by the gross national product, had fallen to half
the value it had in early 1929.The electoral victories of Roosevelt
and the Democrats precipitated a deluge of public works programs.
Despite this, by 1936 the level of unemployment had only fallen to
around 10 percent (when counting persons on work relief as
employed) or 17 percent (when counting persons on work relief as
unemployed).Deficit spending sparked by World War II eventually
pulled the United States out of the Great Depression. From 1940 to
1941, government spending increased by 59 percent, the gross
domestic product skyrocketed 17 percent, and unemployment fell
below 10 percent for the first time since 1929.By 1945, after vast
government spending, public debt stood at a staggering 120 percent
of GNP, but unemployment had been effectively eliminated. Most
nations that emerged from the Great Depression did so with deficit
spending and strong intervention from the state.
The protests at the Berlin Wall in 1989 that resulted in its
fall, the end of single-party state rule in East Germany, and the
reunification of Germany in the form of a liberal democracy.
Protest against the World Bank in Indonesia. Neoliberal economic
policies pursued by international institutions since the 1970s and
1980s have provoked strong criticism and protest, especially in
developing or underdeveloped countries that have been pressured by
institutions such as the International Monetary Fund to privatize
parts of their economy and remove protectionist measures, in order
to gain IMF assistance.
The economic woes of the period prompted widespread unrest in
the European political world, leading to the rise of fascism as an
ideology and a movement that heavily criticized liberalism. Broadly
speaking, fascist ideology emphasized elite rule and absolute
leadership, a rejection of equality, the imposition of patriarchal
society, a stern commitment to war as an instrument of natural
behavior, and the elimination of supposedly inferior or subhuman
groups from the structure of the nation. The fascist and
nationalist grievances of the 1930s eventually culminated in World
War II, the deadliest conflict in human history. The Allies
prevailed in the war by 1945, and their victory set the stage for
the Cold War between communist states and liberal democracies. The
Cold War featured extensive ideological competition and several
proxy wars. While communist states and liberal democracies competed
against one another, an economic crisis in the 1970s inspired a
temporary move away from Keynesian economics across many Western
governments. This classical liberal renewal, known as
neoliberalism, lasted through the 1980s and the 1990s, bringing
about economic privatization of previously state-owned industries.
However, economic troubles in the early twenty-first century have
prompted resurgence in Keynesian economic thought. Meanwhile,
nearing the end of the 20th century, communist states in Eastern
Europe collapsed precipitously, leaving liberal democracies as the
only major forms of government. At the beginning of World War II,
the number of democracies around the world was about the same as it
had been forty years before. After 1945, liberal democracies spread
very quickly. Even as late as 1974, roughly 75 percent of all
nations were considered dictatorial, but now more than half of all
countries are democracies. However, liberal democracies still
confront several challenges, including the proliferation of
terrorism and the growth of religious fundamentalism. The rise of
China is also challenging Western liberalism with a combination of
authoritarian government and capitalism.
Liberalism has drawn both criticism and support in its history
from various ideological groups. For example, some scholars suggest
that liberalism gave rise to feminism, although others maintain
that liberal democracy is inadequate for the realization of
feminist objectives. Liberal feminism, the dominant tradition in
feminist history, hopes to eradicate all barriers to gender
equalityclaiming that the continued existence of such barriers
eviscerates the individual rights and freedoms ostensibly
guaranteed by a liberal social order. British philosopher Mary
Wollstonecraft is widely regarded as the pioneer of liberal
feminism, with A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
expanding the boundaries of liberalism to include women in the
political structure of liberal society. Less friendly to the goals
of liberalism has been conservatism. Edmund Burke, considered by
some to be the first major proponent of modern conservative
thought, offered a blistering critique of the French Revolution by
assailing the liberal pretensions to the power of rationality and
to the natural equality of all humans. Conservatives have also
attacked what they perceive to be the reckless liberal pursuit of
progress and material gains, arguing that such preoccupations
undermine traditional social values rooted in community and
continuity. However, a few variations of conservatism, like liberal
conservatives, expound some of the same ideas and principles
championed by classical liberalism, including "small government and
thriving capitalism".
Some confusion remains about the relationship between social
liberalism and socialism, despite the fact that many variants of
socialism distinguish themselves markedly from liberalism by
opposing capitalism, hierarchy and private property. Socialism
formed as a group of related ideologies in the 19th century such as
Christian socialism, communism (with the writings of Karl Marx) and
anarchism, and these ideologies as with liberalism and conservatism
fractured into several major movements in the following decades.
Marx rejected the foundational aspects of liberal theory, hoping to
destroy both the state and the liberal distinction between society
and the individual while fusing the two into a collective whole
designed to overthrow the developing capitalist order of the 19th
century.
Social democracy, an ideology advocating progressive reform of
capitalism, emerged in the 20th century and was influenced by
socialism. Yet unlike socialism, it was neither collectivist nor
anti-capitalist. Broadly defined as a project that aims to correct,
through government reformism, what it regards as the intrinsic
defects of capitalism by reducing inequalities, social democracy
was also not against the state. Several commentators have noted
strong similarities between social liberalism and social democracy,
with one political scientist even calling American liberalism
"bootleg social democracy" due to the absence of a significant
social democratic tradition in the United States that liberals have
tried to rectify. Another movement associated with modern
democracy, Christian democracy, hopes to spread Catholic social
ideas and has gained a large following in some European nations.
The early roots of Christian democracy developed as a reaction
against the industrialization and urbanization associated with
laissez-faire liberalism in the 19th century. Despite these complex
relationships, some scholars have argued that liberalism actually
"rejects ideological thinking" altogether, largely because such
thinking could lead to unrealistic expectations for human
society.
Conservatism:- Conservatism (Latin: conservare, "to retain") is
a political and social philosophy that promotes retaining
traditional social institutions. A person who follows the
philosophies of conservatism is referred to as a traditionalist or
conservative.
Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are,
emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism
and seek a return to "the way things were". The first established
use of the term in a political context was by Franois-Ren de
Chateaubriand in 1819, following the French Revolution. The term,
historically associated with right-wing politics, has since been
used to describe a wide range of views.
Edmund Burke, an Anglo-Irish politician who served in the
British House of Commons and opposed the French Revolution, is
credited as one of the founders of conservatives in Great Britain.
According to Hail sham, a former chairman of the British
Conservative Party, "Conservatism is not so much a philosophy as an
attitude, a constant force, performing a timeless function in the
development of a free society, and corresponding to a deep and
permanent requirement of human nature itself."Forms of
Conservatism:-
Liberal conservatism:- It is a variant of conservatism that
combines conservative values and policies with classical liberal
stances. As these latter two terms have had different meanings over
time and across countries, liberal conservatism also has a wide
variety of meanings. Historically, the term often referred to the
combination of economic liberalism, which champions laissez-faire
markets, with the classical conservatism concern for established
tradition, respect for authority and religious values. It
contrasted itself with classical liberalism, which supported
freedom for the individual in both the economic and social
spheres.
Over time, the general conservative ideology in many countries
adopted economic liberal arguments, and the term liberal
conservatism was replaced with conservatism. This is also the case
in countries where liberal economic ideas have been the tradition,
such as the United States, and are thus considered conservative. In
other countries where liberal conservative movements have entered
the political mainstream, such as Italy and Spain, the terms
liberal and conservative may be synonymous. The liberal
conservative tradition in the United States combines the economic
individualism of the classical liberals with a Burkean form of
conservatism (which has also become part of the American
conservative tradition, such as in the writings of Russell
Kirk).
A secondary meaning for the term liberal conservatism that has
developed in Europe is a combination of more modern conservative
(less traditionalist) views with those of social liberalism. This
has developed as an opposition to the more collectivist views of
socialism. Often this involves stressing what are now conservative
views of free-market economics and belief in individual
responsibility, with social liberal views on defense of civil
rights, environmentalism and support for a limited welfare state.
This philosophy is that of Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Refined.
In continental Europe, this is sometimes also translated into
English as social conservatism.
Conservative liberalism
Conservative liberalism is a variant of liberalism that combines
liberal values and policies with conservative stances, or, more
simply, the right wing of the liberal movement. The roots of
conservative liberalism are found at the beginning of the history
of liberalism. Until the two World Wars, in most European countries
the political class was formed by conservative liberals, from
Germany to Italy. Events after World War I brought the more radical
version of classical liberalism to a more conservative (i.e. more
moderate) type of liberalism.
Libertarian conservatism:- Libertarian conservatism describes
certain political ideologies within the United States and Canada
which combine libertarian economic issues with aspects of
conservatism. Its five main branches are Constitutionalism,
paleolibertarianism, neolibertarianism, small government
conservatism and Christian libertarianism. They generally differ
from pale conservatives, in that they are in favor of more personal
and economic freedom.
Agonists such as Samuel Edward Konkin III labeled libertarian
conservatism right-libertarianism.In contrast to pale
conservatives, libertarian conservatives support strict
laissez-faire policies such as free trade, opposition to any
national bank and opposition to business regulations. They are
vehemently opposed to environmental regulations, corporate welfare,
subsidies, and other areas of economic intervention. Many of them
have views in accord to Ludwig von Mises. However, many of them
oppose abortion, as they see it as a positive liberty and consider
abortion to violate the non-aggression principle because abortion
is aggression toward the unborn. Fiscal conservatism:- Fiscal
conservatism is the economic philosophy of prudence in government
spending and debt. Edmund Burke, in his 'Reflections on the
Revolution in France', argued that a government does not have the
right to run up large debts and then throw the burden on the
taxpayer:It is to the property of the citizen, and not to the
demands of the creditor of the state, that the first and original
faith of civil society is pledged. The claim of the citizen is
prior in time, paramount in title, superior in equity. The fortunes
of individuals, whether possessed by acquisition or by descent or
in virtue of a participation in the goods of some community, were
no part of the creditor's security, expressed or implied. The
public, whether represented by a monarch or by a senate, can pledge
nothing but the public estate; and it can have no public estate
except in what it derives from a just and proportioned imposition
upon the citizens at large.
Green conservatism:- It is a term used to refer to conservatives
who have incorporated green concerns into their ideology. One of
the first uses of the term green conservatism was by former United
States Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, in a debate on
environmental issues with John Kerry. Around this time, the green
conservative movement was sometimes referred to as the crunchy con
movement, a term popularized by National Review magazine and the
writings of Rod Dreher. The group Republicans for Environmental
Protection seeks to strengthen the Republican Party's stance on
environmental issues, and supports efforts to conserve natural
resources and protect human and environmental health.National and
traditional conservatism
Main articles: National conservatism and Traditional
conservatism
National conservatism is a political term used primarily in
Europe to describe a variant of conservatism which concentrates
more on national interests than standard conservatism as well as
upholding cultural and ethnic identity, while not being outspokenly
nationalist or supporting a far-right approach.[citation needed] In
Europe, national conservatives are usually eurosceptics.National
conservatism is heavily oriented towards the traditional family and
social stability as well as in favor of limiting immigration. As
such, national conservatives can be distinguished from economic
conservatives, for whom free market economic policies, deregulation
and fiscal conservatism are the main priorities. Some commentators
have identified a growing gap between national and economic
conservatism: "most parties of the Right [today] are run by
economic conservatives who, in varying degrees, have marginalized
social, cultural, and national conservatives." National
conservatism is also related to traditionalist conservatism.
Traditionalist conservatism is a political philosophy
emphasizing the need for the principles of natural law and
transcendent moral order, tradition, hierarchy and organic unity,
agrarianism, classicism and high culture, and the intersecting
spheres of loyalty. Some traditionalists have embraced the labels
"reactionary" and "counterrevolutionary", defying the stigma that
has attached to these terms since the Enlightenment. Having a
hierarchical view of society, many traditionalist conservatives,
including a few Americans, defend the monarchical political
structure as the most natural and beneficial social
arrangement.
Cultural and social conservatism:- Cultural conservatives
support the preservation of the heritage of one nation, or of a
shared culture that is not defined by national boundaries. The
shared culture may be as divergent as Western culture or Chinese
culture. In the United States, the term cultural conservative may
imply a conservative position in the culture war. Cultural
conservatives hold fast to traditional ways of thinking even in the
face of monumental change. They believe strongly in traditional
values and traditional politics, and often have an urgent sense of
nationalism.Social conservatism is distinct from cultural
conservatism, although there are some overlaps. Social
conservatives believe that the government has a role in encouraging
or enforcing what they consider traditional values or behaviors. A
social conservative wants to preserve traditional morality and
social mores, often through civil law or regulation. Social change
is generally regarded as suspect.
A second meaning of the term social conservatism developed in
the Nordic countries and continental Europe. There it refers to
liberal conservatives supporting modern European welfare
states.
Social conservatives (in the first meaning of the word) in many
countries generally favor the pro-life position in the abortion
controversy and oppose human embryonic stem cell research
(particularly if publicly funded); oppose both eugenics and human
enhancement (transhumanism) while supporting bioconservatism;
support a traditional definition of marriage as being one man and
one woman; view the nuclear family model as society's foundational
unit; oppose expansion of civil marriage and child adoption rights
to couples in same-sex relationships; promote public morality and
traditional family values; oppose atheism, especially militant
atheism, secularism and the separation of church and state; support
the prohibition of drugs, prostitution, and euthanasia; and support
the censorship of pornography and what they consider to be
obscenity or indecency. Most conservatives in the U.S. support the
death penalty.
Religious conservatism:-See also: Religious right
(disambiguation), Christian Right, and Fundamentalist Islam
Religious conservatives principally seek to apply the teachings
of particular religions to politics, sometimes by merely
proclaiming the value of those teachings, at other times by having
those teachings influence laws.Progressive
conservatism:-Progressive conservatism incorporates progressive
policies alongside conservative policies. It stresses the
importance of a social safety net to deal with poverty, support of
limited redistribution of wealth along with government regulation
to regulate markets in the interests of both consumers and
producers. Progressive conservatism first arose as a distinct
ideology in the United Kingdom under Prime Minister Benjamin
Disraeli's "One Nation" Toryism.There have been a variety of
progressive conservative governments. In the UK, the Prime
Ministers Disraeli, Stanley Baldwin, Neville Chamberlain, Winston
Churchill, Harold Macmillan and present Prime Minister David
Cameron are progressive conservatives. The Catholic Church's Rerum
Novarum (1891) advocates a progressive conservative doctrine known
as social Catholicism. In the United States, the administration of
President William Howard Taft was progressive conservative and he
described himself as "a believer in progressive conservatism" and
President Dwight D. Eisenhower declared himself an advocate of
"progressive conservatism". In Germany, Chancellor Leo von Captives
promoted a progressive conservative agenda called the "New Course".
In Canada, a variety of conservative governments have been
progressive conservative, with Canada's major conservative movement
being officially named the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada
from 1942 to 2003. In Canada, the Prime Ministers Arthur Meighen,
R.B. Bennett, John Diefenbaker, Joe Clark, Brian Mulroney, and Kim
Campbell led progressive conservative federal
governments.Democracy:- Democracy is a form of government in which
all eligible citizens have an equal say in the decisions that
affect their lives. Democracy allows people to participate
equallyeither directly or through elected representativesin the
proposal, development, and creation of laws.
Abraham Lincoln said Democracy is the government of the people,
by the people, for the people.Types of Democracy:i. Anticipatory
democracy is a theory of civics relying on democratic decision
making that takes into account predictions of future events that
have some credibility with the electorate. The phrase was coined by
Alvin Toffler in his book Future Shock and was expanded on in the
1978 book Anticipatory Democracy, edited by Clement Bezold.
Other well-known advocates of the anticipatory approach include
Newt Gingrich, Heidi Toffler, K. Eric Drexler, and Robin Hanson.
They all advocate approaches where the public, not just experts,
participate in this "anticipation".ii. Bioregionalism democracy is
a political, cultural, and ecological system or set of views based
on naturally defined areas called bioregions, similar to coercions.
Bioregions are defined through physical and environmental features,
including watershed boundaries and soil and terrain
characteristics. Bioregionalism stresses that the determination of
a bioregion is also a cultural phenomenon, and emphasizes local
populations, knowledge, and solutions.Bioregionalism is a concept
that goes beyond national boundariesan example is the concept of
Cascadian, a region that is sometimes considered to consist of most
of Oregon and Washington, the Alaska Panhandle, the far north of
California and the West Coast of Canada, sometimes also including
some or all of Idaho and western Montana. Another example of a
bioregion, which does not cross national boundaries, but does
overlap state lines, is the Ozarks, a bioregion also referred to as
the Ozarks Plateau, which consists of southern Missouri, northwest
Arkansas, the northeast corner of Oklahoma, southeast corner of
Kansas.Relationship to environmentalism of Bioregionalism:
Bioregionalism, while akin to environmentalism in certain
aspects, such as a desire to live in harmony with nature, differs
in certain ways from classical, 20th century environmentalism.
According to Peter Berg, bioregionalism is proactive, and is
based on forming a harmony between human culture and the natural
environment, rather than being protest-based like the original
environmental movement. Also, while classical environmentalists saw
human industry as the enemy of nature and nature as a victim
needing to be saved; bioregionalisms see humanity and its culture
as a part of nature, focusing on building a positive, sustainable
relationship with the environment, rather than a focus on
preserving and segregating the wilderness from the world of
humanity.
iii. Economic democracy is a socioeconomic philosophy that
proposes to shift decision-making power from corporate shareholders
to a larger group of public stakeholders that includes workers,
customers, suppliers, neighbors and the broader public. No single
definition or approach encompasses economic democracy, but most
proponents claim that modern property relations externalize costs,
subordinate the general well-being to private profit, and deny the
polity a democratic voice in economic policy decisions. In addition
to these moral concerns, economic democracy makes practical claims,
such as that it can compensate for capitalism's claimedly inherent
effective demand gap.
Economic democracy is described as an integral component of an
inclusive democracy, in Takes Fotopoulos' Towards An Inclusive
Democracy as a stateless, moneyless and market less economy that
precludes private accumulation of wealth and the
institutionalization of privileges for some sections of society,
without relying on a mythical post-scarcity state of abundance, or
sacrificing freedom of choice.Inclusive democracy list three
preconditions: Demotic self-reliance, demotic ownership of the
means of production, and co federal allocation of resources.Demotic
self-reliance involves radical decentralization and self-reliance,
rather than of self-sufficiency.
Demotic ownership of productive resources leads to the
politicization of the economy, the real synthesis of economy and
polity. This happens because economic decision making is carried
out by the entire community, through assemblies, where people make
the fundamental macroeconomic decisions which affect the whole
community, as citizens, rather than as vocationally oriented groups
e.g. workers, as e.g. in participatory economics. Workers would
also participate (in vocationally oriented groups) in their
respective workplace assemblies, in a process of
modifying/implementing the Democratic Plan and in running their own
workplace.
Co federal allocation of resources is required because much
remains to be decided at the regional/national/supra-national
level. However, delegates (rather than representatives) with
specific mandates from the assemblies are involved in a confederal
demotic planning process which, in combination with vouchers,
effects the allocation of resources in a co federal inclusive
democracy.
iv. Sociocracy democracy is a system of governance, using
consent-based decision making among equivalent individuals and an
organizational structure based on cybernetic principles. The most
recent implementation of sociocracy by Gerard Endenburg, also known
as Circular Organizing, was developed as a new tool for governance
of private enterprise, but has been adopted in many different kinds
of organizations including public, private, and non-profit and
community organizations as well as professional
associations.Advantages of Sociocracy Democracy: Consent as defined
and practiced in sociocratic organizations is claimed to be a more
efficient and effective decision-making method than autocratic
decision-making, because it builds trust and understanding. The
process educates the participants about the needs of the other
members in doing their work effectively as well as their
psychological and social needs as human beings. In addition to
reducing friction, the well-defined, information-based, and highly
disciplined process helps the group stay focused and move swiftly
through examining an issue and actual decision-making. The main
advantages of adopting the sociocratic approach have been
extensively studied, especially in collaboration with Professor
Georges Romme (at Maastricht University respectively Eindhoven
University of Technology); see for example: Romme & Endenburg
(2006).Sociocratic principles are now applied around the world.
These include corporations, small businesses, nursing homes,
colleges, ecovillages and co housing communities, private schools,
and international professional and educational membership
organizations. Examples of this variety are organizations such as
the Boeddhistische Omroep Stitching, the Buddhist Broadcasting
Foundation, (BOS) in the Netherlands; Living Well - an
award-winning long-term health care center in Vermont; The
Eco-Village of Loudoun County in Virginia - a co housing community;
Creative Urethanes - a manufacturer of skateboard wheels and
urethane parts in Winchester, Virginia. Sociocratic principles have
also been applied in higher education, for example, the School of
Media, Culture, and Design of Woodbury University, Burbank,
California; Institute Francais, University of Regina, Saskatchewan,
Canada, and others.
Fascism:-The term Fascism was first used of the totalitarian
right-wing nationalist regime of Mussolini in Italy (192243); the
regimes of the Nazis in Germany and Franco in Spain were also
Fascist. Fascism tends to include a belief in the supremacy of one
national or ethnic group, contempt for democracy, an insistence on
obedience to a powerful leader, and a strong demagogic approach.The
four Basic Principle of Fascism:
It would take me a while to define Fascism in my own words so
this article explains it for you in a very simple way.
Absolute power of the State: The Fascist state is a glorious,
living entity that is more important than any individual. All
individuals are part of the State, but the State is greater than
the sum of its parts. All individuals must set aside their own
needs and supplicate themselves to the needs of the State. There is
no law or other power that can limit the authority of the
State.
Survival of the fittest: A Fascist state is only as glorious and
powerful as its ability to wage wars and win them. Peace is viewed
as weakness, aggression as strength. Strength is the ultimate good
and ensures the survival of the State.
Strict social order: Social classes are strictly maintained in
order to avoid "mob rule" or any hint of chaos. Chaos is a threat
to the State. The State's absolute power and greatness depends on
the maintenance of a class system in which every individual has a
specific place, and that place cannot be altered.
Authoritarian leadership: To maintain the power and greatness of
the State requires a single, charismatic leader with absolute
authority. This all-powerful, heroic leader maintains the unity and
unquestioning submission required by the Fascist state. The
authoritarian leader is often viewed as a symbol of the State.
Some people use "fascist" to describe any authoritarian person
or government. But as you can see, authoritarianism is only part of
the philosophy. Communism under Stalin was an authoritarian
political philosophy, too; but Fascism is directly opposed to
Communism (along with democracy, liberalism, humanism and
rationalism). Aside from the above principles, a Fascist state also
typically promotes a private economy that submits to government
regulation; immediate (and often violent) submission of any
opposing views; the ethnic dominance of its own people and the
lower status of outsiders.
While politicians and Conservative pundits seem more than
willing to make a connection between a socio-political philosophy
like fascism and a religion-based philosophy like Islamic
fundamentalism, scholars are much less quick to cross that bridge.
"Religious fascism," sometimes called "clerical fascism," has been
a subject of debate since the latter term was coined to describe
what some viewed as the relationship between the Catholic Church
and the Mussolini regime. Some people saw the Church as a supporter
of Fascism in Italy. Since religion can be so closely tied to
ethnicity, many scholars have found philosophical similarities
between political fascism and religious fundamentalism. On the
other hand, the word is not exactly morally neutral in its
contemporary usage. "Fascist" has become a common slur -- a blanket
term used to mean "really bad guy." Making a connection between a
particular religion and fascism can be a dangerous undertaking
considering fascism's current connotation and the inherent
difficulty in defining any singular fascist philosophy.
Risk:-
It is the potential that a chosen action or activity (including
the choice of inaction) will lead to a loss (an undesirable
outcome). The notion implies that a choice having an influence on
the outcome exists (or existed). Potential losses themselves may
also be called "risks". Almost any human endeavor carries some
risk, but some are much more risky than others.Political Risk:-
Political risk is a type of risk faced by investors,
corporations, and governments. It is a risk that can be understood
and managed with reasoned foresight and investment.
Broadly, political risk refers to the complications businesses
and governments may face as a result of what are commonly referred
to as political decisionsor any political change that alters the
expected outcome and value of a given economic action by changing
the probability of achieving business objectives.. Political risk
faced by firms can be defined as the risk of a strategic,
financial, or personnel loss for a firm because of such non market
factors as macroeconomic and social policies (fiscal, monetary,
trade, investment, industrial, income, labor, and developmental),
or events related to political instability (terrorism, riots,
coups, civil war, and insurrection). Portfolio investors may face
similar financial losses. Moreover, governments may face
complications in their ability to execute diplomatic, military or
other initiatives as a result of political risk.
A low level of political risk in a given country does not
necessarily correspond to a high degree of political freedom.
Indeed, some of the more stable states are also the most
authoritarian. Long-term assessments of political risk must account
for the danger that a politically oppressive environment is only
stable as long as top-down control is maintained and citizens
prevented from a free exchange of ideas and goods with the outside
world.
Understanding risk as part probability and part impact provides
insight into political risk. For a business, the implication for
political risk is that there is a measure of likelihood that
political events may complicate its pursuit of earnings through
direct impacts (such as taxes or fees) or indirect impacts (such as
opportunity cost forgone). As a result, political risk is similar
to an expected value such that the likelihood of a political event
occurring may reduce the desirability of that investment by
reducing its anticipated returns.
There are both macro- and micro-level political risks.
Macro-level political risks have similar impacts across all foreign
actors in a given location. While these are included in country
risk analysis, it would be incorrect to equate macro-level
political risk analysis with country risk as country risk only
looks at national-level risks and also includes financial and
economic risks. Micro-level risks focus on sector, firm, or project
specific risk.
Types of political Risk:-
Pro