Major
Themes in Industrialised Societies: Classical Perspectives
We shall examine two major classical schools of thought: liberalism and
Marxism.
Introduction
The collapse of communism and the change of
political regimes across Central and
Yet there are contrasting views about how to
interpret these changes. On the one hand, liberalism claim
this as a triumph of liberalism, and its values of personal liberty and the
market. On the other hand, Marxists interpret the revolutions as a victory for
capitalism, but a victory which makes Marxism more relevant today, not less.
Liberalism
- Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill are the key thinkers.
a) Liberalism places the individual at the moral and political centre:
social institutions must be subordinated to the free and self-defining
individual, carried out through economic reforms such as de-regulation,
privatisation and laissez-faire.
Its fundamental value and goal is personal liberty (defined as the
individual’s freedom from social interference), and its concern is to secure
the social conditions necessary to allow individuals to define and pursue their
own interests:
- the negative sense of freedom:
- freedom from interference
- a right to privacy
- a freedom whose only
limit is that individuals are not free to do that which will compromise other
individuals’ freedom.
Various social means might promote this freedom, above all democracy
and capitalist markets:
- markets are regulated to ensure greater
individual liberty
By making personal liberty the central and over-riding social value,
liberalism argues that personal interests (desires, choices and beliefs) can be
the only sources of social legitimacy. Adam Smith writes:
But man has almost constant occasion for the help of his
brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only.
He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self-love in his
favour, and shew them that it is for their own
advantage to do for him what he requires of them. Whoever offers to another a
bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I want, and you
shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer; and it is
in this manner that we obtain from one another the far greater part of those
good offices which we stand in need of. It is not from the benevolence of the
butcher the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their
regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity, but
to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their
advantages. (from Wealth
of Nations)
Liberalism reduces social actions to the wills of individuals. In
economic though, liberalism reduces the economy to the market behaviour of a
multitude of individuals pursuing their self-interests. The pursuit of
self-interest by individuals is deemed a sufficient condition for social order,
guided by the ‘invisible hand’ of the market.
In summary, i) liberalism places individual
choice at the centre of social theory; ii) social institutions must derive from
or respond to the way in which individuals formulate their private,
self-defined interests as social demands; and iii) choices are part and parcel
of individuals’ pursuit of their own agenda.
b) The notion of ‘consumer sovereignty’ highlights the concern to
develop and protect private liberty and choice.
The market is seem as an impersonal mechanism
which allows social order to emerge from the anarchy of diverse individual
desires. Through the invisible hand, social order as well as
welfare for all are the unintended outcomes of intentional individual
acts:
private vices à public virtues
As Adam Smith writes:
As every individual, therefore, endeavours
as much as he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestic
industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the
greatest value; every individual necessarily labours
to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally,
indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he
is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign
industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in
such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his
own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand
to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the
worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest
he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really
intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected
to trade for the public good. It is an affectation, indeed, not very common
among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from
it. (from Wealth
of Nations)
The attempt by social authority to will a particular outcome is
self-defeating: no authority can know or control individual needs and wants, as
demonstrated by the collapse of the
c) Liberalism refrains from making judgements about the substantive
needs and desires of individuals, this is in keeping
with its fundamental concern of personal liberty and self-determination. Liberalism will not say how an individual ought to live, only to
act n its self-defined interests.
In the economy, liberalism favours ‘economic amoralism’ as privately
formed preferences of individuals cannot and should not be judged. The
individual as consumer is sovereign,
every thing has its price, what matters is the ability to buy ar a particular price.
- prices for heroin, nuclear weapons and
prostitutes are not different morally from process from bread, hospitals and
books.
Liberalism makes individuals the sole authorities over their desires
and their ability to pay the sole mechanism determining whether those desires should
be satisfied.
To say that market forces should decide everything is to say that
desires cannot be judged morally. Economic amoralism gives liberalism an
anti-elitist and populist character. However, the theoretical commitment to
liberty and non-interference has never stopped liberal regimes from making
substantial and moralistic interventions; it just make
them self- contradictory:
e.g., sex and violence on television,
anti-abortion legislation, restrictions on smoking.
Marxism
- Karl Marx and C. Wright Mills are the key thinkers.
a) Human beings must produce food and material objects in order to
survive. Production involves a technical component (forces of production) and
social relationships of production, and these form the 'economic base', the infrastructure
of society. The other aspects of society know as the 'superstructure'
(including political, legal and value systems) are determined by economic
factors.
b) All historical societies contain basic contradictions involving the
exploitation of one social group by another:
e.g., slave societies - masters own their slaves;
feudalism - lords demand tribute from
their serfs; and
capitalism - employers exploit their
workers.
This conflict of interest must be resolved ultimately when the social
system contains no more contradictions.
c) Many contradictions centre on the means of production, those parts
of production that can be legally owned:
e.g., in slave societies, labour is one the means of production;
in feudal society, land is a major means; and
in capitalist society, factory and raw materials is
owned, land is rented and labour hired.
Wealth (or total value) is produced only through labour power (i.e.,
workers). The capitalists appropriate much of this wealth in the form of
profits. Wages are paid below the real value of production. The surplus value
is taken by the capitalists, the owners of the means of production as their
'reward'. This is unfair exploitation of labour since the workers are deprived
of wealth that they have produced.
The nature of the exploitation and the appropriation of wealth lie in
the social nature of production and the private and individual nature of
ownership. Hence, the conflict of interest between capital and labour cannot be
resolved within the capitalist framework. Only under communism can this
contradiction be resolved when the ownership of the means of production becomes
collective and under the control of the workers.
d) Despite the internal contradictions, capitalism continues to
survive. How is this possible?
The ruling class monopolises political power and the value system that
support, protect and further its interests:
e.g., media control, religious beliefs and
education.
Beliefs and values help to legitimate relations of production, justify
the ruling class's power and privilege, and conceal the true basis of
exploitation and oppression (i.e., dominance of the ruling class):
e.g., under feudalism, honour and loyalty were dominant concepts as
well as 'natural' order of things; and
under capitalism, exploitation is disguised by
ideas of equality and freedom.
Each epoch has its ruling class ideology. Ideology distorts reality and
blinds members to the contradictions and conflicts of interest. They tend to
accept their situation as normal and natural, right and proper. Yet, this is a
'false consciousness' that helps to maintain the system. However, this is only
partially successful as the structural contradictions would prove too powerful
and express themselves openly.