What I Learnt in Contemporary Political Ideology

A quick guide to all the political -isms,

Or basically What I Learnt in Contemporary Political Ideology

 I haven’t proofread this myself, but if you see any GRAMMATICAL or even CONCEPTUAL errors, or even if you have questions, just leave a comment for me, I’ll get back right to it. Two thousand words won’t do justice to Ideology, but its there for the the ordinary person. First edit: 30 July 2006

Left Wing vs. Right Wing

The first concept to understand is the distinction between “Left Wing” and “Right Wing” ideologies. Contrary to popular belief and according to my lecturer Dr. Ethan Putterman, the spectrum indicates the BELIEF IN POPULAR SELF-GOVERNMENT. “Left Wing” ideologies believe that people are able to organise and govern themselves, with varying, but still minimal, degrees of government/state intervention. “Right Wing” ideologies on the other hand, have no faith in self-organization and self-governance of the people, and believe that a strong state which can effectively police and control the people is the only way for peace and progress in society. A commmon misconception is that communism is a right wing ideology. In fact, true MARXIST COMMUNISM IS LEFT WING and nothing but the most extreme left wing ideology. Its diametric opposite is fascism, which is a pure right wing ideology. Every other ideology falls in between these two at varying degrees of left-ness and right-ness. Look at DEMOCRACY.

Liberalism

Classical liberalism basically means, liberty to do as you like as long as your actions do not impinge upon the lives of others. (That’s where the concept of private vs. public stems from.) Personally I must admit that I am a bit of a liberal because I’d like to do things and try out new things in the world and I wouldn’t like people interfering in what I do. Thus, a government which leans towards the liberal side would be more inclined to MINIMALLY interfere with people’s lives and will only do so when absolutely necessary. This implies a certain faith in people governing themselves (left wing), for instance, forming a night watch patrol if there is a rise in crime. A counter-example would be the The Patriot Act of the USA, which allows US government agencies the right to meddle and monitor the lives of ordinary people has found opposition because its interferes with people’s liberty. I would also like to think that liberalism would imply legalization instead of a complete ban. I’d rather have the government control the distribution of drugs so that people that want to get drugs can do it without paying off criminals and crime syndicates.

Conservatism

Conservatism means to conserve what we already have. People who are conservatives believe that there’s something right in the way we do things now because that they are a result of accumulated historical trial and error. So usually they are skeptical about “progressive” methods of government and radical reordering of the economy. Conservatives also tend to be patriarchal, with the elder statesmen being able to tell subordinate members of society (ie everyone else) how society should be, not neccessarily because its logical, but mostly by the virtue of his authority and “wisdom”. That’s not to say that conservatives cannot accept new ideas and new ways, its just that they’re highly skeptical about them. Conservatism also can rest on certain religious tenets as politicians strive to “conserve” the society formed around a religion from “corrupting” elements. Think G.W. Bush and his abortion policies and how he links them to his Christian values. Bush is a Neo-conservative, by the way. That term is a particular American ideology I’ll discuss later. One last thing: its easy for conservatives to be conservative because it preserves the current order and therefore allowing those who are in power to stay in power.

Communism

Communism is the most misunderstood ideology of all! Its all no thanks to all the self-branded communist governments that have existed and interpreted Marxist theory in different ways and resulted in different practices. Its also no thanks to ultra-nationalists in different parts of the world who hitched on to Marxist Communism as a vehicle for independence from their colonial masters (The communists did fight against the Japanese in Malaya you know) and thus carried out a lot of guerrila insurgencies. Anyway, this is going to take a bit to explain communism and try to do it justice.

The ultimate goal of communism is to create a stateless, classless society. Marx in the 19th century and the industrial revolution saw the plight of the European working class (the proletariat) being completely exploited and at the mercy of rich landowners, factory owners, big businesses and the ruling aristocracy (the bourgeoisie). Marx theorized that everything that he knew to be the pillars of society (social order, the economic order, state, religion, etc) was really a method for the rich and powerful to stay rich and powerful. So he decided that a revolution was needed to revise social order so that true equality could be restored — a classless society. Since religion was a tool of bourgeois control, it too must be purged from society. Hence, most communist states are atheistic. Since the state and nationalism was a tool as well, it also must be purged, hence a stateless society. For a society to operate without the state, religion or class to dominate, it is a complete faith in people of equal standing to govern themselves — hence communism is on the extreme LEFT of the LEFT WING – RIGHT WING spectrum.

However, Marx died before he could finish his theories on communism, and like any other theories as well, such ideas may be revised by other thinkers such as Lenin and Mao. The communist countries of the 20th century we know, Russia, China and others, probably would hardly resemble what Marx would think a communist country would look like. Thus, there are no REAL communist countries in the world. In fact the term “communist state” should be oxymoronic, since communism stands for a STATELESS society. But what I’d probably say is that they were socialist states that were inclined to think that a socialist state was transitory phase, that communism was inevitable throughout the world and that they enacted government policies that were a product of Leninist and Maoist thought.

However, the collapse of the USSR as the “headquarters” of global communism in 1991 and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 made communism unpopular amongst thinkers and politicians worldwide. Personally, I think its main failure was not political but economic. The socialist state which centralised production intially had incredible growth rates during the Great Depression but inevitably could not accurately estimate supply and demand. That led to massive overproduction, and worse, shortages. Arguably, some hold that communism was too idealistic a viewpoint of the basic nature of man, and massively underestimated the force of personal ambition (or greed) in advancing the economy. The centralised communist state also left it vulnerable to dictatorship: Stalin and Mao committed many atrocities (Gulag internment camps for the former, deliberate execution of landowners for the latter) because of their positions of power they held because of the communist state.

Socialism

To make a better distinction from communism, we ought to say “Non-Marxist socialism” instead when refering to this brand of ideology. Like its name, the focus of socialism is social good and social justice. There are several forms of non-marxist socialism depending on the author, but here’s an outline of what it should be about. It usually does not reject the market system, which communism does. The market system is neccessary to determine supply and demand for essential goods. However, it does recognise that unbridled capitalism is unfair and unjust as such a system causes the richer to get richer and the poor to get poorer. Non-Marxist socialism realises that there will always be a rich class and a poor class – but it is determined to close the gap as much as possible. In its most ordinary form it proposes things like progressive taxes (the rich are more highly taxed), social security (and dole/welfare cheques), free education, free health care, citizen health insurance, et cetera. Most developing and developed states have already legislated such policies, a reason why Non-Marxist Socialism isn’t as powerful an ideology as Communism. In its most extreme form, some thinkers want to revise the entire economic system by not allowing wealth and capital to be owned. It can be utilised by a cooperative to build factories and investments, and it will not profit only a small group of people but all the working members of the cooperative equally. Both the PAP in Singapore and DAP in Malaysia have social democratic backgrounds. Since it actively requires government intervention in society to promote general welfare, its more right wing than liberalism and conservatism.

Fascism

Only popular during the early 20th century, fascism is basically extreme ultra-nationalism. It comes from the latin word “fasci”, which is the plural form of “fascio”, meaning bundle, a “representation for strength in unity”. Remember the children’s tale where a single stalk of wheat is easily broken while a bundle remains firm? This is when a few million people take that story seriously. For a country to be strong, the country must remain united in thought, spirit and heart, usually behind a charismatic leader. This usually also means a single national party and a single national ideology — you can’t afford dissenting thoughts in order to be united. Racism can also be a strong element in fascist society because it is easy to justify within a fascist mindset of unity and strength, as well as conveniently giving people somebody to villify as the enemy. Because everybody must subscribe to the national ideology, and the national way of living, usually society is incredibly regimented. Thus, Fascism is extremely right wing.

Totalitarianism

Totalitarianism is not so much an ideology, but an element in society put into place by the government to try to control the mindset and thinking of people in order to totally dominate the mental life of the people who live in a state. Fascist States and Dictatorships easily slip into totalitarianism because the government does not allow opposing viewpoints or opposing viewpoints are unacceptable by the person/people in power. Usually, governments implement totalitarianism by controlling the public media and screening private communication. Censorship of art and any other forms of communication to stifle political dissent may also be present. A body of “Secret Police” may be put into power to investigate and hunt for “traitors of the state” among the population and heavy surveillence of people’s lives is expected. There are hardly any traditional totalitarian states in the world today, and if there are any, they must have banned the internet.

Its arguable that totalitarian states may have survived the Cold War, as they may have transformed to become more subtle in their propaganda techniques than to be overtly totalitarian. I’m not sure if you can call it a totalitarian state at any rate if dissenting voices can be heard, even if marginally. But every ruling government knows the power and influence of totalitarianism. To control the public’s thinking is a tempting sin, because its means staying in power and getting away with more things away from the public eye.

Democracy

Essentially meaning “Rule of the People”. I personally think that democracy as practiced is different from democracy in spirit. The spirit of democracy, I feel, is allowing the majority and the people in general to decide for themselves in a decision-making process despite whether anybody thinks its the right or wrong reason. This spirit is usually manifested in the simple majority vote (50% to pass) with each man holding equal political power compared to another, usually a single vote. This concept is known as political equality. However, different people argue for different FORMS of democracy. The most basic form of democracy, known as CLASSICAL DEMOCRACY, is one where every citizen has political say and vote on any decision to be made. In actual government today, there are too many decisions that are being debated in parliament every day (tax rate, federal budget, amendment of laws, new laws, etc.) for the common man to take active interest. So, we have a concept called, REPRESENTATIONAL DEMOCRACY. One man will represent a group of voters in parliament to speak and vote on issues on their behalf. Traditionally the group of voters are geographically bound according to voting constituency, and these voters choose their representative in GENERAL ELECTIONS.

One may argue that PARTY POLITICS dilutes the DEMOCRATIC PROCESS because representatives run under a party banner and will HAVE to vote in parliament primarily according to the party stance instead of in interest of his/her constituency. Thus, there is little choice that voters can make when voting for one person over another. On the other hand, voters know that voting for such a party means that he wants the basket of general policies that a party represents to be effected in his country. For instance, recently Prime Minister Koizumi of Japan called for a general election to test public support of his proposal for Postal Reforms. Similarly in other “democractic countries”, if the majority of the people are convinced that a socialist government will do better than say, a throughoutly liberal government, they are allowed the chance to change during elections. Therefore, the ordinary man in a representational democracy has only LIMITED CHOICE in influencing the broadest governing policies.

American Politics: Democrats, Republicans and Neoconservatism

To put it simply, the democrats in America are the progressives and Republicans are those who are not. However, its not so simple to put a statement such as “democrats = liberals” and “republicans = conservatives”. For the former statement, democrats tend to be liberal when it comes to social issues, such as gay marriage, abortion, etc., but would like to see more government intervention in economic issues such as combating poverty and closing the income gap. On the other hand, the republicans tend to be conservative when it comes to social issues, BUT liberal in economic issues because CLASSICAL ECONOMICS says that the state should not interfere with capitalism and the economy (not a very popular view today). Also, some republicans are the rich and influential families in America and would continue to support the republican view because it perpetuates their wealth, which somewhat confirms Marx’s theories a bit. Neoconservatism grew in the 1970s because conservatism fell out of popularity in the 1940s. American conservatives thought that economy should not be controlled by the government and America should have an isolationist foreign policy. However, the great depression in the 1920s and World War II in the 1940s proved both these modes of thought wrong. So neoconservatism today stands for what President George W. Bush stands for: active intervention in world politics across the globe with military power projection as a dominant bargaining tool in order to maintain American dominance (i.e. keep America rich, i.e. keep their families rich).

Thanks to Mark Chan, Grace, Theresa and Lester for giving constructive comments.

July 23, 2006.