Conservatism, Liberalism, and Radicalism (Socialism)

Question 1

Culture, ideology, and politics

Answer 1

• much contested word / working definitions
• culture is a set of shared values and practices
• ideology is a set of shared ideas and arguments used to justify or a critique a particular social order
• politics is the set of material, ritual and discursive institutions and systems that allow for the imposition of a particular set of values and practices on a population that may or may not initially share them

Question 2

19th century conservatism

Answer 2

• nostalgia for a passing order: fixed social hierarchies, confessional Christianity, agrarian economy
• god and country, paternalism and patriarchy, sanctity of property
• community harmony

Question 3

19th century liberalism

Answer 3

• rational, measured reform
• individual rights, equality before the law, contract theory of government, progress, sanctity of property
• liberty from tyranny

Question 4

19th century radicalism

Answer 4

• like liberalism an attempt to free humanity from the yoke of superstition and tyranny
• equal rights and Justice
• republican, secular, modernist, free Press
• for regulation and management of economic and social relations
• jacobinism and working class movements à la Thompson
• Chartism: the peoples charter of 1838, petitions, demonstrations, universal (male) suffrage, secret ballots, pay for MPs

Question 5

19th century socialism

Answer 5

Utopian socialism, 1820s / 1830s:
- economic and social equality
- visionary, small independent communities

Question 6

Scientific socialism

Answer 6

Scientific socialism, 1830s / 1840s:
- not utopian socialism
- class struggle, direct action, egalitarian, international