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Short essay on liberalism
Essay on liberalism
Short essay on liberalism
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Introduction
In our society, there are a lot of systems for us to choose to follow, such as liberalism, realism and historical materialism. However, every of them has their dark sides and attractive parts. In my essay, it is divided into mainly three parts. Firstly, each part I will briefly introduce the basic concepts to you and the following I will analyze the drawbacks of them. At last, I will discuss with you the attractive parts of these three perspectives.
Liberalism
Liberalism as a political and moral philosophy, which is focused on two major principles. They are individualism and liberty. Firstly, liberalism set the individuals at the core of society. They believe that the greatest value of social order is built around the individual. Secondly, the main purpose of society is to allow individuals to achieve their goals and reach full potential if they want to. Therefore, in this modern century, majority of people prefer their states to execute in liberal way, especially in economic aspect.
There are various pros and cons in the concepts of liberalism. For the disadvantage, the liberals may not tackle the social problems. For example, while the global economy turns down, little government involvement may raise the unemployment rate. Beside, majority of people can enjoy the voting right, however, not every participant understands the issue that he/she voted for. It is not fair for the rational decision maker. Furthermore, liberals are less concerned about distribution issues and less likely to shorten the wealth gap between strong states and weak states.
In addition, both historical structuralists and realists judge that liberalism seems apathetic in the power distribution issues. The powerful states get...
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... natural gas and fossil fuels can be distributed to every state. Why there are still have people suffering in starving in Africa? It is all about the uneven distribution of resources in the world. If we execute historical materialism, supporting redistributing the resources, every state can get particular proportion amount of their resources. The world definitely will be much better and fair.
Conclusion
After analyzing these three perspectives, I found that a new model might be appeared if we mix these three ingredients and modify it a little bit. Since they have their own advantages and disadvantages, we pick up some useful materials such as the concepts of free market and rational thinking of decision makers, then there will be a new approach to international relations. I hope that after a decade we will make a brand new international relation theory happen.
Liberalism is an ideology which advocates equality of opportunity for all within the framework of a system of laws. It includes a belief in government as an institution whose primary function is to define and enforce the laws. Furthermore, a Constitution, must be developed not solely by one ruler but by representatives of the elite groups. Therefore, liberalism invariably involves a belief in the need for legislative bodies which represent the influential groups. The Constitution then defines ...
Classical liberalism is an ideology that embraces the principles of individualism such as rule of law, individual rights and freedoms, private property, economic freedom, self-interest, competition. Classical liberalism stresses the importance of human rationality. Just as it values political freedom, classical liberalism also holds freedom to be the basic standard in economics, and believes the most beneficial economic system to be the free market. Whereas, the term socialism, when generally used refers to any ideology that believes that resources should be controlled by the public for the benefit of everyone in society and not by private interests for the benefit of private owners and investors. From the description of both classical liberalism and socialism provided above it is clear that the two are conflicting ideologies where one supports individualism the other supports collectivism that believes in the wellbeing of all citizens in a community.
Political ideas change and adapt their perceptions of the social and political world through the years to cope with all changing aspects of life. Liberalism is no different. It is these changes that allow the idea to maintain its identity. Sometimes it is hard for some political ideas to adapt and change for instance the divine monarchists. Liberalism goes back at least 300years; this means that it has had to change a great deal, the ideas behind the ideology have remained the same though. Liberalism started attacking the monarchy in Britain but soon moved on to social change. This relates back to the heart of liberalism, the concept of the individual. This can be difficult because ‘man is born free, but everywhere in chains’ (- Jean-Jaques Rousseau). Liberalism was a political idea adopted by many countries during the 19th and 20th century and has been the source of many economic and social policies. Liberalism believes that each person should be free to act as they wish, it also believes that each individual deserves respect no matter of race, religion, sexual preference, or social status. Most liberals believe that the government is detrimental to liberalism’s beliefs because it does not allow everyone to be an individual since laws are in place to limit freedom. John Locke advocated this when he attacked the government saying ‘no government allows absolute liberty”. This is true because if no laws were in place then absolute liberty would soon be replaced by anarchy. Liberalism not only influenced equality but it was the basic idea behind the United States of America constitution. This was easy for the American governments to adopt because unlike other countries, it did not have to contend with aristocratic traditions and institutions.
- Liberalism is a form of political structure where the powers of the government are limited against the people and their property
Liberalism is an ideology and due to the changing views of historical persons, who have each viewed themselves to be Liberals, is difficult to define precisely. There are five agreed defining tenants of Liberalism. The most important of these, percolating through the ideology, is the ‘Importance of the Individual’, and closely interlinked with this is ‘Freedom’, which leads on to the concept of ‘Individual Freedom or liberty’. Liberals believe that humankind is a rational species, and thus ‘Reason’ is a third tenant. Furthermore Liberalism advocates that the principle of ‘Justice’ and Toleration’ are fundamental in the well being of society and each of these aspects relates directly back to the quintessential first tenant. Liberalism, according to Habermas “emphasizes individual freedom from restraint and is usually based on free competition, the self-regulating market, and the gold standard; c: a political philosophy based on belief in progress, the essential goodness of the human race, and the autonomy of the individual and standing for the protection of political and civil liberties.” As an individualist, rather than a collectivist ideology the individual is placed as the building block of society. J. S. Mill says ...
On the other hand, liberalism’s main principles emphasise, human rights, individuality, equality before the law...
This theory exemplifies the true spirit of democracy. It upholds equality of all people and argues that all are endowed with equal capability to rule. The liberal theory lays great stress on the wisdom of the masses and treats their representatives only as their agents or messengers who are not only answerable to the masses but also act as per the dictates of the general public. In its view, representatives of the people are their true representatives. Instead of using their own judgment they must translate the judgement of their constituents into concrete policy proposals.
Liberalism is a political or social philosophy that advocating the freedom of the individual, parliamentary system of government, nonviolent modification of political, social, or economic institutes to assure unrestricted development in all sphere of the human endeavor, and governmental guarantees of individual rights and civil liberties.
Liberalism-derived from the Latin word ‘liber’ which means “free and not enslaved”- is seen as the dominant ideology of the western civilisation. During the European history before the modern society, it was characterised by absolutism and feudalism. That time was also called ‘the age of absolutism’.... ... middle of paper ... ...
To understand the international relations of contemporary society and how and why historically states has acted in such a way in regarding international relations, the scholars developed numerous theories. Among these numerous theories, the two theories that are considered as mainstream are liberalism and realism because the most actors in stage of international relations are favouring either theories as a framework and these theories explains why the most actors are taking such actions regarding foreign politics. The realism was theorized in earlier writings by numerous historical figures, however it didn't become main approach to understand international relations until it replaced idealist approach following the Great Debate and the outbreak of Second World War. Not all realists agrees on the issues and ways to interpret international relations and realism is divided into several types. As realism became the dominant theory, idealistic approach to understand international relations quickly sparked out with failure of the League of Nation, however idealism helped draw another theory to understand international relations. The liberalism is the historical alternative to the realism and like realism, liberalism has numerous branches of thoughts such as neo-liberalism and institutional liberalism. This essay will compare and contrast the two major international relations theories known as realism and liberalism and its branches of thoughts and argue in favour for one of the two theories.
Liberalism is universalistic and tolerant. It believes that all persons share fundamental interest in self preservation and material well being. Each individual must be allowed to follow hi s or her own preferences as long as they do not d...
Classical liberal ideas often form the basis for opposition to the use of government to attain social objectives. They stress instead reliance on private initiatives or the free market to determine the best outcomes. Liberals believe in the government action the allows equal opportunities and equality for all. Liberals have a more fact-based, rather than faith-based, ideology. They are not so motivated by self-serving but actually negative emotions, such as prejudice, greed and fear, and thus can see the great advantages to a society of justice for all The basic duty of the government is to protect the common good and private rights of individuals. They consider the governments duty to help protect the individual and human rights. They emphasize the need for the government to solve their problems. Liberals are usually called the "extreme left"; social wealth, oriented toward change and more government. Liberals credit in socialism, meaning they value social equality in jobs, race, wages, education. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security are all apart of Liberal beliefs. Liberals also reflect that more people should be working and participating in government projects like voting. Each person should get what they need: wealth, food, shelter, education. They also trust that
The first paradigm of international relations is the theory of realism. Realism is focused on ideas of self-interest and the balance of power. Realism is also divided into two categories, classical realism and neo-realism. Famous political theorist, Hans Morgenthau was a classical realist who believed that national interest was based on three elements, balance of power, military force, and self interest (Kleinberg 2010, 32). He uses four levels of analysis to evaluate the power of a state.
The oxford dictionary has attempted to define power as the “ability to influence people or control the behaviour of people”. Power has been related to different forms such as political economic, military and even psychological. Power has widely been considered to be the classic determinant of conflict between interstates. Realists view power as a source of state preference. Animosity is constantly caused around power relations which in turn determine why states go to war and why politicians emphasize the role of power in conditioning distance. There is a non-linear relationship of power between the plural perspectives of realism. Realists consider states to be the principal actors in international relations as they are deeply concerned with the security of their own nation especially for the pursuit of national interest. However with this perspective there has been some scepticism with regards to the relevancy of morality and ethi...
international politics (politics in general) are objective to be interpreted by one's own understanding of