Political Ideologies and Worldviews An Introduction

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

When we respond to real-world political and social cases using concepts like fairness, equality, freedom, and justice, we are already speaking the language of political ideology—a configuration of ideas that interprets, justifies, or challenges the prevailing state of affairs.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• What political ideology is: a "configuration of concepts" (set of ideas) used to make sense of the political and social world, which interprets that world and either justifies or challenges the status quo.
• How ideology emerges in everyday thinking: when reacting to real cases (drug pricing, gender inequality, ethnic persecution), people naturally reach for concepts like fairness, equality, freedom, justice, and human rights.
• Two historical views of ideology: De Tracy's "science of ideas" aimed at rooting out error; Marx and Engels's view of ideology as false belief that justifies an exploitative social order.
• Common confusion: ideology as "false belief" (Marx/Engels) vs. ideology as a neutral set of interpretive concepts (Freeden)—the excerpt introduces both but emphasizes the latter as the working definition.
• Why ideology matters: it shapes how we describe reality and whether we accept or challenge existing political, economic, and social arrangements.

🗣️ Ideology in everyday life

🗣️ Three real-life cases

The excerpt presents three contemporary examples to illustrate how ideology surfaces in our reactions:

Case	Issue	Concepts invoked
Profiteering Drug Company (USA)	CEO raised lifesaving drug price from $13.50 to $750 per pill, citing "capitalist rules"	Fairness, justice, human rights
Persistent Gender Inequality (Canada)	Despite decades of anti-discrimination laws, women's progress has stalled and they lag behind men by almost every metric	Equality, fairness
Ethnic Persecution (China)	Chinese government systematically detains Uighurs in re-education camps, reports of torture, forced sterilization, forced labor	Human rights, justice, freedom

🧠 What these cases reveal

• When confronted with these situations, people instinctively use ideas like fairness, equality, freedom, justice, human rights, and nationhood to articulate their responses.
• This instinctive reach for concepts is the beginning of "speaking the language of political ideology."
• Example: reacting to the drug-price case by saying "it's unfair to exploit sick people for profit" invokes concepts of fairness and justice, which are core to political ideology.

🧩 Defining political ideology

🧩 Freeden's configuration of concepts

A political ideology is a "configuration of concepts"—a set of ideas we use to make sense of our political and social world.

• Interprets the world: describes reality in certain ways (e.g., "capitalism is natural" vs. "capitalism is exploitative").
• Justifies or challenges: either supports the prevailing state of affairs or critiques it in light of ideas about how things ought to be.
• This definition is presented as key and will be the working definition for the text.

🔍 Why this matters

• Ideology is not just abstract theory; it is the lens through which we see and judge political reality.
• Every political ideology offers both a description (what is) and a prescription (what ought to be).
• Don't confuse: ideology as a neutral interpretive framework (Freeden) vs. ideology as inherently false or manipulative belief (Marx/Engels view, discussed next).

📜 Historical approaches to ideology

📜 De Tracy's "science of ideas"

• Origin: Antoine Destutt De Tracy (1754–1836) coined the term "ideology" to denote a "science of ideas."
• Goal: understand why people believe what they believe, then root out error and superstition (wrong beliefs) to build a more rational society.
• Problem 1: this is not what we typically mean by "ideology" today.
• Problem 2: determining what counts as "correct" vs. "false" belief is philosophically challenging—De Tracy assumed it was evident, but most philosophers disagree.
• Example: in an era of "fake news" and conspiracy theories like QAnon, De Tracy's project might seem appealing, but the difficulty of defining "correct belief" remains.

🔨 Marx and Engels: ideology as false belief

• Who: Karl Marx (1813–1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820–1895), founders of Marxism.
• Definition shift: instead of De Tracy's neutral "science of ideas," many scholars after him focused on the "false belief" element.
• Sophisticated form: ideology as the belief system that conditions people to accept and support a way of organizing society even when it is not in their own best interest.

🔨 Ideology as justification for exploitation

Ideology is what justifies the economic, political, and social order we live in; if that order is corrupt, ideology is a key part of the rip-off—a way of deluding exploited people into thinking their exploitation is necessary, normal, or even fair.

• Context: Marx and Engels analyzed the capitalist economic system enveloping 19th-century Europe (and still dominant today).
• Their critique: capitalism is fundamentally exploitative—it privileges the capitalist class (bourgeoisie), who own capital and businesses, and subordinates the workers (proletariat), who must sell their labor.
• The puzzle: why would exploited workers support such a system?

🧠 The answer: ruling-class ideas

• Marx and Engels: "The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas."
• Workers have been deluded by ideology—conditioned by "ruling ideas" to think:
  • Private property is an important freedom, even a "human right."
  • Competition and money-making greed are "natural" human traits.
  • We live in a "free" society because no law stops us from doing what we want.
• Mechanism: ideology makes exploitation seem acceptable, necessary, or natural.
• Don't confuse: this view sees ideology as inherently manipulative and false, whereas Freeden's view (the working definition) treats ideology as a neutral set of interpretive concepts that can justify or challenge the status quo.

🔄 Comparing the two views

Aspect	De Tracy's "science of ideas"	Marx/Engels's "false belief"	Freeden's "configuration of concepts"
Purpose	Root out error and superstition	Explain why exploited people accept exploitation	Make sense of the political/social world
Judgment	Ideology = wrong belief to be eliminated	Ideology = justification for corrupt order	Ideology = interpretive framework (can justify or challenge)
Problem	Hard to define "correct" belief	Assumes ideology is always false/manipulative	(Not discussed in excerpt)
Use today	Not the typical meaning	Influential but narrow	Working definition for this text

• The excerpt introduces all three views but signals that Freeden's definition will be the foundation for the textbook.
• Common confusion: conflating "ideology as false belief" (Marx/Engels) with "ideology as interpretive framework" (Freeden)—the latter is broader and does not assume ideology is inherently false.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Ideology can be understood either as a system of false beliefs that justifies unjust social arrangements (especially in the Marxist tradition), or as one of several plausible perspectives for interpreting political and social life (the pluralist approach).

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Origin of "ideology": De Tracy coined the term to mean a "science of ideas" that would root out error and superstition, but this differs from modern usage.
• Marxist view: ideology is a false belief system that conditions people to accept and support an exploitative social order (especially capitalism) even when it harms their own interests.
• Hegemony and reproduction: Gramsci argued that dominant beliefs become "common sense" through social institutions (teachers, media, family, etc.), making alternatives almost inconceivable.
• Common confusion: Marxist vs pluralist approaches—Marxists see ideology as delusion propping up injustice; pluralists see ideologies as competing plausible perspectives, none necessarily wholly right or wrong.
• Why it matters: understanding ideology helps explain why people accept certain political and economic systems and how those systems might be challenged or changed.

🔍 The origins and early meanings of ideology

📜 De Tracy's "science of ideas"

Ideology (De Tracy's usage): a "science of ideas" intended to understand why people believe what they believe, in order to root out error and superstition.

• De Tracy (1754–1836) hoped this science would eliminate wrong beliefs and build a more rational society.
• His definition is not what we typically mean by "ideology" today.
• Problem with this approach: determining what counts as "correct" versus "false" belief is philosophically challenging, not self-evident as De Tracy assumed.
• Example: In an era of "fake news" and conspiracy theories, De Tracy's project might seem appealing, but it presumes we already know what is true.

🔄 Shift to "false belief" definitions

• Many scholars after De Tracy focused on the "false belief" element.
• They defined ideology as a particular category of false belief—specifically, beliefs that condition us to accept a social order that may not serve our own best interests.
• This approach sees ideology as justifying the existing economic, political, and social order, especially when that order is corrupt or exploitative.

🏭 The Marxist critique of ideology

💰 Capitalism as an exploitative system

• Marx (1813–1883) and Engels (1820–1895) analyzed the capitalist economic system that dominated 19th-century Europe and continues today.
• Key claim: capitalism is fundamentally exploitative—it privileges the capitalist class (bourgeoisie, who own capital and businesses) and subordinates workers (proletariat, who must sell their labour).
• Central question: Why would exploited workers support such a system? Why would they believe it is acceptable or necessary?

🎭 Ideology as delusion

Ideology (Marxist usage): the belief system that deludes exploited people into thinking their exploitation is necessary, normal, or even fair and reasonable.

• Marx and Engels wrote: "The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas."
• How it works: people are conditioned by "ruling ideas" to believe:
  • Private property is an important freedom or "human right."
  • Competition and money-making greed are "natural" human traits.
  • Society is free because no law stops most actions.
  • People are equal because all have the same rights under the law.
• Reality according to Marx and Engels:
  • Workers lack resources for a fulfilling life and spend most time controlled by the bourgeoisie.
  • Workers are not meaningfully equal to capitalists, who have far more power and wealth.
  • The law systematically favours capitalist interests.
• Function of ideology: it masks relations of domination and subordination, disguising them in languages of justice, nature, and necessity.

🤔 Why study ideology if it's just false belief?

• If ideology is merely false belief propping up injustice, why study it in depth?
• Marx's famous assertion: "philosophers have merely interpreted the world; the point, however, is to change it."
• Early Marx suggested focusing on changing relationships of domination rather than analyzing ideology itself.
• Don't confuse: later Marxist scholars (including Gramsci and Critical Theory) did not dismiss ideology as unimportant; they studied how it operates to maintain social structures.

🧠 Gramsci and hegemony

🏛️ Hegemony as "common sense"

Hegemony (Gramsci): a belief system so dominant that alternative ways of thinking are almost inconceivable; capitalism becomes hegemonic when people overwhelmingly see its way of doing things as "common sense."

• Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) was less confident than Marx and Engels that ideas are secondary to economic relationships.
• He believed ideas and belief systems matter significantly in maintaining social order.

🔁 How hegemonic beliefs are reproduced

• Hegemonic beliefs are propagated through many social mechanisms:
  • Obvious sources: teachers, thinkers, journalists.
  • Less obvious sources: movies, novels, music, churches, the family.
• Counter-hegemony: Gramsci was interested in how to get people to think and act differently—meaningful change could be fostered by changing how people think.

🌊 Western Marxism and Critical Theory

• Later traditions (Western Marxism, Critical Theory) explored how support for capitalism is generated through:
  • Institutions
  • Psychology
  • Daily practices
  • Discourses
• Common conviction: capitalist market economies are faulty; we should challenge, destabilize, and transcend this system.
• Shift in thinking: these scholars became less certain that ideology is something we can leave behind entirely.
• Possibility: even a society freed of exploitation might still need "ideology" (a widely shared set of beliefs), but those beliefs would no longer prop up unjust arrangements.

🌈 The pluralist alternative

🔀 Ideology as one plausible perspective among many

• We do not have to define ideology as delusion or error.
• We are not required to follow Marxist/critical scholarship in radical critique of society.
• Alternative approach: see each ideology as one (more or less) plausible perspective of the social world, challenged by other plausible perspectives.
• Studying ideology becomes exploring a range of systematic and reasonably coherent options for thinking about social and political life.

⚖️ Openness without requiring equal validity

• This approach does not require believing each ideology is equally plausible (which would be impossible, since ideologies disagree on fundamental points).
• It does mean being open to the idea that no one ideology necessarily tells us everything we need to know.
• Don't confuse: "pluralist" does not mean "relativist"—we can still evaluate and critique ideologies, but we start by taking multiple perspectives seriously.

📚 Textbook consensus

• Most textbook definitions of political ideology proceed in this pluralist vein.
• They generally agree that a political ideology contains specific elements, including:
  1. A specific description of the social world we currently live in.
• Key insight: the "reality" of our world does not just obviously imprint itself on our brains; we need to interpret and make sense of social phenomena.
• Different ideologies focus on different units of analysis:

Ideology	Unit of analysis	What it emphasizes
Liberalism	Collection of individuals	The individual is of highest importance
Socialism	Social and economic classes	Classes (capitalist vs worker, rich vs poor) shape our lives; social order advantages one class over others

• Example: An organization might be described by a liberal as a voluntary association of individuals pursuing their interests, or by a socialist as a site where one class exploits another's labour.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

A pluralist approach treats each ideology as one plausible perspective among many competing perspectives, studying them as systematic options for thinking about social and political life rather than dismissing them as delusion or error.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• What pluralism means: openness to various ideological perspectives without assuming one best answer; no ideology is necessarily wholly right or wholly wrong.
• Three elements every ideology contains: (1) a description of the social world, (2) an evaluation of that world, and (3) a program of action.
• Common confusion—ideology vs. pragmatism: calling yourself "pragmatic" does not free you from ideology; determining "merit" always involves debatable judgments rooted in ideological commitments.
• How ideologies differ: they define key concepts differently, prioritize concepts differently, and sometimes diverge completely on fundamental principles.
• Why ideology matters: ideologies mobilize masses for action and have inspired millions to struggle, fight, and die for their visions of society.

🔍 What the pluralist approach is

🔍 Core definition and stance

A pluralist approach: open, in principle, to various ideological perspectives; does not assume there is one best answer to social dilemmas and is willing to consider many answers, none of which may be wholly right or wholly wrong.

• Not required to follow Marxist critique: you do not have to define ideology as delusion, error, or a tool of oppression.
• Not required to rank all ideologies equally: you can recognize that some are more plausible than others, but you remain open to the idea that no single ideology tells us everything we need to know.
• Textbook consensus: most textbook definitions proceed in this vein, treating ideologies as competing frameworks rather than as true vs. false systems.

🧬 Historical roots—Karl Mannheim

• Mannheim's break with Marx: agreed that ideology reflects group interests, but emphasized that society contains a range of groups, each translating its interests into ideology.
• Opens the door: studying a wider array of ideologies instead of reducing ideology to "ideas of the ruling class."
• Mannheim's limits: he still saw ideology as a mask for social interests and believed intellectuals could transcend ideology—the pluralist approach here does not assume anyone can fully transcend ideology.

🧠 Why we cannot escape ideology

• At a bare minimum, we cannot avoid debatable views on contested concepts like justice, freedom, community, order, and human nature.
• Example: you cannot have no opinion at all on whether there is a moral difference between selling ice cream and a police officer strangling a suspect.
• Don't confuse: "pragmatic" vs. "ideological"—calling yourself pragmatic does not mean you lack ideology; it only obscures your specific ideological commitments.

🧩 The three elements of every political ideology

📖 Element 1: A description of the social world

A specific description of the social world we currently live in.

• Why description matters: reality does not "just obviously imprint itself on our brains"; we must interpret and make sense of the swirling mass of social phenomena.
• Unit of analysis: each ideology focuses on a particular key that unlocks its preferred understanding of society.

Ideology	Unit of analysis	What it emphasizes
Liberalism	Collection of individuals	The individual is of highest importance
Socialism	Social and economic classes	Classes (capitalist vs. worker, rich vs. poor) shape our lives; society is constructed to advantage one class
Feminism	Gendered society	Power is distributed to favor heterosexual men over others
Nationalism	Nations	Human beings are grouped into nations; this is the overarching fact

• Example: a socialist describes society as divided into classes with unequal power; a liberal describes society as a collection of individuals with varying degrees of freedom.

⚖️ Element 2: An evaluation of the social world

An evaluation of the social world we currently live in.

• Not just description: an ideology also offers resources for assessing society—should the world be this way? Why or why not?
• Critical assessment: every ideology holds out the possibility of critique.
  • Feminists describe gendered power imbalance and argue it could and should be otherwise.
  • Liberals ask whether individual freedom and equality are optimally realized.
  • Marxists criticize class inequalities and may condemn the existence of social class itself.
  • Nationalists assess whether a nation is fully realizing its identity and autonomy.

🚀 Element 3: A program of action

A program of action: "what is to be done."

• Action follows evaluation: the program addresses problems identified by the ideology's evaluation.
• Examples:
  • Liberals argue for abolishing legal privileges that discriminate between individuals.
  • Socialists argue that exploited workers should seize power and wealth—through revolution or through electing governments that tax wealth and redistribute resources.
  • Feminists propose breaking down gender roles or dissolving gender itself to destroy gendered privilege.
• Key insight: political ideologies always combine ideas about politics with an emphasis on action.

Political ideology: a configuration of concepts that describes and assesses the social world with an eye to mobilizing people for action.

🔥 Ideology and action—realism, mobilization, and sacrifice

🌍 Realism vs. utopian fantasy

• What separates ideology from utopia: the conviction that it is realistic to change society to align with the ideology's vision.
• Believers do not necessarily think change will be easy or happen in their lifetime, but they must believe their vision is possible for humans to actualize and sustain.
• "Ought" implies "can": to say we should move society in a specific direction means doing so is a realistic, viable possibility.

🔥 Mass mobilization and sacrifice

• Emphasis on action: ideologies always have an eye to mass mobilization—building support and galvanizing people to bring the vision to fulfillment.
• Historical reality: ideologies have been so compelling that millions have died in their name.
  • Marxists have fought revolutions and wars for a classless society.
  • Suffragettes struggled for gender equality, often paying a high price in health and happiness.
  • Countless soldiers have fought and died for their nation.

🎓 Ideology vs. political theory/philosophy

• Political theory/philosophy: specialized scholarly pursuits committed above all to intellectual rigor.
• Political ideology: requires an ability to appeal to a wide range of people; less rarified, more action-oriented.

🧘 Moderation, humility, and conviction

🧘 Pluralism and moderation

• Temptation to see ideology as extreme: people often contrast the blinkered "ideologue" with the "pragmatic" person who assesses each situation without preconceived biases.
• Reply: this contrast is untenable.
  • You cannot approach social and political issues without some preconceived ideas about what is important and valuable.
  • Otherwise, you would not know whether to focus on a piece of lint or massive riots.
  • Determining "merit" almost always involves debatable judgments.
• Example: someone believes it is obvious that governments need to promote economic growth—but many environmentalists reject economic growth as unsustainable. Common sense cannot tell us who is right; we are enmeshed in ideological argument.

🤝 Reasonable ideology

• Not all ideologies demand rigidity: while it may be hard to find a reasonable fascist, one can be a reasonable liberal, conservative, socialist, feminist, nationalist, anarchist, or Confucian.
• Pluralism tilts toward moderation: openness to the possibility that more than one ideology may contain valuable insights.

💔 Value pluralism—Isaiah Berlin's insight

"Values may easily clash within the breast of a single individual; and it does not follow that, if they do, some must be true and others false. Justice, rigorous justice, is for some people an absolute value, but it is not compatible with what may be no less ultimate values for them—mercy, compassion—as arises in concrete cases… Some among the Great Goods cannot live together. That is a conceptual truth. We are doomed to choose, and every choice may entail an irreparable loss."

• Implication: the notion of a perfect whole where all good things coexist is conceptually incoherent.
• Nourishes humility and empathy: even toward views with which we thoughtfully disagree.
• Don't confuse moderation with passivity: a moderate, reasonable person may still be a person of conscience and conviction; faced with social evils (despotic tyranny, racist oppression), strong and uncompromising action may be required.

🔀 How ideologies differ from one another

🔀 Three ways ideologies vary

1. They define key concepts differently:

   • Concepts like equality, freedom, justice, order, and community are contested—no single universally shared definition.
   • Example: nationalism, socialism, and liberalism all commit to "freedom," but they mean somewhat different things by this term.

2. They prioritize key concepts differently:

   • Both liberalism and socialism endorse freedom, equality, and community, but socialism gives greater priority to equality and community.
   • Both recognize the value of the individual, but liberalism gives this principle pride of place, while socialism emphasizes collective categories like social class.

3. Sometimes they are completely divergent:

   • Fascism utterly rejects the principle of human equality—deeply different from liberalism, socialism, or feminism.
   • Environmentalism makes the flourishing of the natural world absolutely central, while no other ideology does this to anywhere near the same degree.

🗺️ The left-right spectrum

• Spatial metaphor: people often use a left-right "spectrum" or "continuum" to sort out how ideologies relate to each other.
• Organizing device: helps us understand similarities and differences; a person is "on the left" if their views reflect left-wing ideologies (the excerpt ends here without further detail).

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Ideologies differ primarily in how they define, prioritize, and sometimes completely diverge on key concepts like freedom, equality, and community, and these differences can be organized along a left-right spectrum that reflects opposing views about human equality.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Three ways ideologies differ: they define key concepts differently (contested meanings), prioritize concepts differently, and sometimes are completely divergent in their core concepts.
• Contested concepts: terms like "freedom" appear in multiple ideologies but mean different things—nationalism, socialism, and liberalism all value "freedom" but define it differently.
• The left-right spectrum: an organizing device originating from the French Revolution seating arrangement, where the furthest left represents the most egalitarian positions and the furthest right represents opposition to equality.
• Common confusion: seeing the same term (e.g., "freedom," "equality") in two ideologies does not mean they share the same understanding—you must inquire into what each ideology means by that term.
• Egalitarianism as the key axis: the left-right distinction can be understood as opposite views about human equality, with extreme egalitarians on the far left advocating equal rights, power, and possessions.

🔑 Three fundamental ways ideologies differ

🔤 Different definitions of key concepts (contested concepts)

Contested concepts: concepts that have no single, universally shared or "correct" definition; rather, each concept has a range of possible meanings associated with it.

• Most ideologies affirm ideals like equality, freedom, justice, order, and community—there is overlap.
• However, each ideology defines these terms differently.
• Why this matters: You cannot stop at discovering that two ideologies both value "freedom"; you must investigate what each means by the term.
• Example: Nationalism, socialism, and liberalism all commit to "freedom," but they use the same term to mean somewhat different things.
• Don't confuse: Shared vocabulary does not equal shared meaning—the same word can carry fundamentally different implications across ideologies.

⚖️ Different priorities among key concepts

• Even when ideologies share concepts, they rank their importance differently.
• Example: Both liberalism and socialism endorse freedom, equality, and community.
  • Socialism gives greater priority to equality and community than liberalism typically does.
  • Liberalism gives the human individual "pride of place," while socialism emphasizes collective categories like social class.
• The mechanism: Priority determines which value wins when values conflict in practice.

❌ Complete divergence in key concepts

• Sometimes ideologies reject concepts that others hold central, or introduce entirely new ones.
• Rejection example: Fascism utterly rejects the principle of human equality, making it deeply different from liberalism, socialism, or feminism.
• Introduction example: Environmentalism makes the flourishing of the natural world absolutely central to its vision, while no other ideology does this to anywhere near the same degree.
• These divergences create the sharpest contrasts between ideologies.

🗺️ The left-right spectrum as an organizing device

🏛️ Origins in the French Revolution

The left-right spectrum: an imaginary line that helps sort out how different ideologies relate to each other; a person is "on the left" if their views reflect left-wing ideologies, "on the right" if they reflect right-wing ideologies.

• Historical origin: The classification has its origins in the French Revolution.
  • The Revolution developed from moderate beginnings in 1789 into a violent movement for rebuilding society, culminating in dictatorship by the late 1790s.
  • Some regard it as "ground zero for political ideology as we know it"—the moment when the idea of comprehensively refashioning society became irrevocable.
• The seating arrangement: Most scholars trace "left" and "right" to the Estates General seating before the Revolution.
  • Radical democrats and sympathizers sat to the left of the king.
  • Supporters of the clergy and aristocracy sat on the right.
• This spatial metaphor became a lasting organizing device.

🟰 The equality axis: what left and right mean

• One convenient approach: the two poles represent opposite views about human equality.
• This captures much about how we actually use "left" and "right."

Position	View on equality	Characteristics
Furthest left	Most robustly egalitarian	Equal rights under law; equal power and standing in the community; approximately equal possessions (or common ownership)
Furthest right	(Implied: opposition to equality)	(Not detailed in this excerpt)

🔴 Extreme egalitarianism (far left)

Egalitarian: to believe in the surpassing importance and desirability of equality in human relations.

• For the extreme egalitarian, human beings should have:
  • Equal rights under law
  • Equal power and standing in the community
  • Approximately equal possessions (insofar as they have possessions at all, as opposed to everything being owned in common)
• A society that robustly realizes equality on all three dimensions may be described as communist or "anarcho-communist."
• The excerpt notes these labels will be unpacked in later chapters.

🤝 Similarities and the problem of generalization

🔗 Ideologies have similarities as well as differences

• The excerpt acknowledges that while ideologies vary in the ways described, they also share commonalities.
• This raises the problem of how to generalize about the relationships between various ideologies.
• The left-right spectrum is one answer to this problem—a tool for organizing and comparing ideologies systematically.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

The left-right spectrum organizes ideologies by their stance on human equality, with the far left embracing robust egalitarianism and the far right rejecting equality in favor of hierarchy and concentrated power.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Origin and purpose: The left-right spectrum originated in the French Revolution's seating arrangement and serves as an organizing device to sort how different ideologies relate to each other based on views about human equality.
• The equality axis: The spectrum's two poles represent opposite views about human equality—egalitarian on the left, inegalitarian on the right.
• Three dimensions of equality: Egalitarianism concerns equal rights under law, equal power and standing in the community, and approximately equal possessions.
• Common confusion: Some ideologies (anarchism, environmentalism, nationalism, populism) don't fit neatly because they either span both left and right variants or focus on concerns beyond human-to-human equality.
• Moderate vs extreme positions: Between the far-left (communism/anarcho-communism) and far-right (fascism) extremes fall moderate options like democratic socialism, liberalism, conservatism, and libertarianism, each with different emphases on redistribution and hierarchy.

🏛️ Historical origins and core meaning

🏛️ Birth in the French Revolution

• The left-right classification has its origins in the French Revolution, which developed from moderate beginnings in 1789 into a violent period of radical social rebuilding.
• Some regard the French Revolution as "ground zero for political ideology as we know it"—the moment when the idea of comprehensively refashioning society took hold.

🪑 The seating arrangement

The words "left" and "right" trace back to the seating arrangement of the Estates General in the years leading up to the French Revolution: radical democrats and their sympathizers sat to the left of the king, supporters of the clergy and the aristocracy on the right.

• This physical arrangement gave the first hint of what the distinction means: those favoring change and equality versus those favoring tradition and hierarchy.

⚖️ The equality principle

• The two poles represent opposite views about human equality.
• This approach captures much about how we actually use the terms "left" and "right" today.

🔴 The far left: robust egalitarianism

🔴 What egalitarian means

To be "egalitarian" is to believe in the surpassing importance and desirability of equality in human relations.

• For the extreme egalitarian, human beings should have equality across three dimensions:
  • Equal rights under law
  • Equal power and standing in the community
  • Approximately equal possessions (or everything owned in common)

🏘️ Communist and anarcho-communist societies

• A society that robustly realizes equality on all three dimensions may be described as communist or "anarcho-communist."
• These far-left ideologies imagine:
  • No state, no government, no coercive power (such as police forces)
  • Minimal (or no) private property
  • No exploitation
• Example: People might live in small communes and share resources among themselves.
• This is "as far left as one can go—because it is as ambitiously egalitarian as one can go."

🔵 The far right: robust inegalitarianism

🔵 What inegalitarian means

• The furthest point on the right entails rejection of equal rights, equal power and standing, and equal possessions.
• These are the most adamantly inegalitarian options available to political thought.

👑 Dictatorship and concentrated power

• To believe in dictatorship is to say that one person, or some small group, are entitled to rights and privileges not available to others.
• Specifically: the right and privilege to govern and make decisions for the whole society.
• Power is not shared but completely and (in theory) permanently concentrated in a few hands.

⚫ Fascism as extreme inegalitarianism

• Fascism argued explicitly that the superior man—and it was always a male—must rule and wield absolute power.
• Fascists argued that some groups of human beings should dominate others: stronger nations or races should subordinate the weaker.
• Fascism rejected socialist ideas about wealth being equally distributed.
• Massive political inequality and massive material inequality were unapologetically baked into the ideology.
• This extreme inegalitarianism positions fascism as an ideology of the "far right."
• Don't confuse: Fascists spoke about a "mystically unified nation" even while embracing massive inequality.

🎨 The moderate middle: gradations of equality

🟥 Democratic socialism (left of center)

• Slots "left" because it advocates for significant (not absolute) redistribution of wealth from rich to poor.
• Moves closer to equal possessions, but not all the way there.
• Retains belief in some degree of equal power and standing via equal rights to political participation.

🟨 Liberalism (center)

• A very varied ideology.
• By and large, less emphatic about redistribution of wealth than democratic socialism.
• Not quite so staunchly egalitarian as democratic socialism.
• Occupies the center of the spectrum.

🟦 Conservatism (right of center)

• As understood in the second half of the 20th century.
• Tends to oppose redistribution of wealth, favoring a higher level of economic inequality.
• Still (mostly) insists on equal rights and equal rights of participation.
• Tends to defend traditional social hierarchies (e.g., in gender relations and cultural identities).
• Falls to the right of liberalism.

🟪 Libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism (further right)

• Would unleash vastly higher levels of material inequality by reducing the state to a bare minimum or abolishing it altogether.
• Organize human affairs largely by market mechanisms.
• Nevertheless, retain a commitment to equal legal rights.
• This distinguishes them from fascism, which drops the commitment to equal legal rights entirely.

🧩 Ideologies that complicate the spectrum

🧩 Why some ideologies don't fit neatly

• Some ideological options are awkward fits for the left-right binary.
• Nevertheless, the contrast between egalitarianism and inegalitarianism can still help categorize them.

🚺 Feminism (broadly left)

• Seeks to break down gender hierarchies.
• This concern for equality is reflected in the tendency to see it as broadly of the left.
• Don't confuse: Not every self-defined feminist can be so classified.

📿 Religious fundamentalism (typically right)

• Tends to heavily favor traditional identity hierarchies, particularly in relation to gender and sexual orientation.
• Not surprising to find it typically classified as belonging on the right.

🌍 Environmentalism (difficult to classify)

• Especially difficult because its primary concern is less focused on human-to-human relations than human relationships with the natural world.
• Unusually open-ended ideology in terms of how it envisages social organization.

Scenario	Classification
If optimal human-natural relationship achieved via hierarchical social arrangements	Some environmentalists might endorse those (right)
Desire to give nature and animals greater standing	Pushes toward a kind of egalitarianism—placing human beings and natural world on more equal moral and political footing
In practice	Most environmentalists support egalitarian measures for human beings as well, so tend to be classified as on the left

🎭 Nationalism and populism (both left and right variants)

• Some ideologies encompass both strongly left- and right-wing variants.
• Nationalism and populism are cases in point.

Ⓐ Anarchism (spans both extremes)

• Offers a particularly interesting case.
• Anarcho-communism: falls on the extreme left (radical material equality—shared possessions, communally organized).
• Anarcho-capitalism: lands on the far right (radical material inequality—completely unregulated capitalism).
• What qualifies both as anarchist: their rejection of all forms of coercive, non-voluntary social coordination and government.
• All forms of anarchism have a strong bedrock commitment to human equality: no one should be able to compel anyone else to do anything.
• The difference: anarcho-capitalism leaves room for massive inequalities of wealth and real-world hierarchies (e.g., hierarchical chains of command within corporations), while anarcho-communism insists on equality in all spheres of life and in all senses of the word.

📏 Absolute vs local spectrums

📏 The absolute ideological spectrum

• The preceding exploration describes an absolute ideological spectrum.
• It encompasses all the major ideological options of modern politics.

🌐 Local ideological spectrums

• Since the Second World War, the day-to-day politics of most liberal democracies has tended to work within a much narrower band of possibilities.
• Example: Communism and fascism are mentioned as falling outside this narrower band (excerpt ends here).
• Don't confuse: The absolute spectrum (all possible ideologies) versus the local spectrum (what is actually debated in a given country or time period).

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

The left-right spectrum, though useful, struggles to neatly classify certain ideologies—feminism, religious fundamentalism, environmentalism, nationalism, populism, and anarchism—because their positions depend on how they approach equality and hierarchy in different domains.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• The core sorting principle: egalitarianism vs. inegalitarianism helps categorize even "awkward fit" ideologies.
• Feminism and religious fundamentalism: feminism breaks down gender hierarchies (left), while religious fundamentalism reinforces traditional identity hierarchies (right).
• Environmentalism's ambiguity: its primary focus on human-nature relations makes it unusually open-ended; most environmentalists support human egalitarianism and thus land on the left.
• Common confusion—anarchism's split: anarcho-communism (extreme left) and anarcho-capitalism (far right) both reject coercive government but differ radically on material equality.
• Local vs. absolute spectrums: day-to-day politics in liberal democracies operates within a much narrower band than the full ideological spectrum.

🧩 Ideologies with unclear placement

🧩 Why some ideologies are awkward fits

• The left-right binary is built on a single axis: egalitarianism (left) vs. inegalitarianism (right).
• Some ideologies focus on domains other than economic redistribution or legal equality, making their placement less obvious.
• The excerpt emphasizes that the egalitarianism-inegalitarianism contrast remains useful even for these cases.

🚺 Feminism

Feminism seeks to break down gender hierarchies.

• Its concern for equality aligns it broadly with the left.
• Don't confuse: not every self-defined feminist can be classified as left; the excerpt notes variation within feminism.

⛪ Religious fundamentalism

• Tends to heavily favor traditional identity hierarchies, particularly in relation to gender and sexual orientation.
• This defense of hierarchy places it typically on the right.

🌍 Environmentalism: an unusually open-ended ideology

🌍 Why environmentalism is difficult to classify

• Its primary concern is human relationships with the natural world, not human-to-human relations.
• This makes it "unusually open-ended" in terms of how it envisages social organization.

🌱 Two possible directions

If optimal human-nature relationship requires...	Then environmentalism might...	Spectrum placement
Hierarchical social arrangements	Endorse those arrangements	Right
Greater standing for nature and animals	Push toward a kind of egalitarianism (human beings and natural world on more equal footing)	Left

🌿 Why most environmentalists land on the left

• In practice, most environmentalists support egalitarian measures for human beings as well.
• The desire to give nature and animals greater standing pushes them toward egalitarianism.
• Example: An environmentalist viewpoint that places humans and the natural world on more equal moral and political footing reflects egalitarian principles.

🔀 Ideologies with both left and right variants

🔀 Nationalism and populism

• The excerpt notes these "encompass both strongly left- and right-wing variants."
• No further detail is provided; the excerpt promises to explore them later.

⚫ Anarchism: a particularly interesting case

⚫ What all anarchism shares

All forms of anarchism reject all forms of coercive, non-voluntary social coordination and government.

• All anarchism has a "strong bedrock commitment to human equality": no one should be able to compel anyone else to do anything.
• This shared rejection of coercion qualifies both major variants as anarchist.

⚫ Anarcho-communism (extreme left)

• Imagines radical material equality: shared possessions, communally organized.
• Insists on equality in all spheres of life and in all senses of the word.

⚫ Anarcho-capitalism (far right)

• Imagines radical material inequality: completely unregulated capitalism.
• Leaves room for massive inequalities of wealth and real-world hierarchies (e.g., hierarchical chains of command within corporations).

⚫ Don't confuse

• Both reject government, but they differ radically on material equality.
• Anarcho-communism = no coercion + material equality.
• Anarcho-capitalism = no coercion + material inequality.
• Example: An anarcho-communist community might share all property communally, while an anarcho-capitalist society might allow corporations to operate with internal hierarchies and vast wealth gaps.

🗺️ Absolute vs. local ideological spectrums

🗺️ Absolute ideological spectrum

The absolute ideological spectrum encompasses all the major ideological options of modern politics.

• This is the full range from extreme left (e.g., communism, anarcho-communism) to extreme right (e.g., fascism, anarcho-capitalism).
• It includes all the ideologies discussed in the broader text.

🇨🇦 Local ideological spectrum

• Since the Second World War, day-to-day politics in most liberal democracies has worked within a much narrower band of possibilities.
• Example: In Canada, communism and fascism exist only at the very fringes; the Marxist-Leninist Party received only 4,124 votes out of 18,350,359 in 2019—fewer than half the votes of the satirical Rhinoceros Party.
• Political debate in Canada clusters very heavily around the centre of the absolute continuum.

🏛️ What "left and right" means locally

• In Canadian politics, "left and right" refer to something much more confined than the absolute spectrum.
• Liberal ideology is at the core, with moderate social-democratic beliefs on the left and largely moderate conservatism on the right.
• Most heated debates (e.g., national Pharmacare, carbon tax, pipelines, deficits) concern minor policy disagreements within a broadly shared allegiance to liberal-democratic capitalism.

🔄 The shifting political centre

The political centre—meaning the median point between the most relevant political polarizations within a particular society—does tend to shift leftwards or rightwards as time passes.

• Example: Canada's political mainstream in the 1990s leaned further right (commitment to balanced budgets, high tolerance for material inequalities) than in the 1960s or arguably the 2020s.
• Canada is usually thought to lean further left than the United States, yet many European countries (especially Scandinavian ones) show much stronger commitments to wealth redistribution.
• Don't confuse: "centre" is relative to a particular society and time period, not an absolute position.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

While an absolute ideological spectrum encompasses all major political ideologies, day-to-day politics in most liberal democracies operates within a much narrower band of possibilities that shifts over time and varies by society.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Absolute vs. local spectrums: The absolute spectrum includes all ideologies (communism to fascism), but most liberal democracies debate within a narrow center band.
• What defines the local center: The median point between the most relevant political polarizations within a particular society, which shifts left or right over time.
• Geographic variation: What counts as "center" differs by country—Canada leans left of the U.S. but right of Scandinavian countries.
• Common confusion: "Left" and "right" in local politics refer to positions relative to that society's center, not to absolute ideological positions.
• Temporal shifts: The political mainstream in a single country moves left or right across decades (e.g., Canada in the 1990s vs. 1960s vs. 2020s).

🎯 The absolute vs. local distinction

🌍 What the absolute spectrum encompasses

The absolute ideological spectrum: encompasses all the major ideological options of modern politics.

• It includes the full range from extreme left (communism, anarcho-communism) to extreme right (fascism, anarcho-capitalism).
• This is the theoretical framework that covers every possible ideological position.

🏠 What local spectrums look like

• Since World War II, most liberal democracies operate within a much narrower band of the absolute spectrum.
• Example: In Canada, communism and fascism exist only at the very fringes—Canada's Marxist-Leninist Party received only 4,124 votes out of 18,350,359 in 2019, fewer than the satirical Rhinoceros Party.
• There is no self-defined fascist party in Canada at all.

🎪 Where debate actually clusters

• Political debate in Canada clusters heavily around the center of the absolute continuum.
• Liberal ideology is at the core, with moderate social-democratic beliefs on the left and largely moderate conservatism on the right.
• Most heated debates concern minor policy disagreements within a broadly shared allegiance to liberal-democratic capitalism and a global order of sovereign states.
• Example debates: Should Canada adopt national Pharmacare? A carbon tax? A pipeline? Higher or lower deficits?

🔄 How local centers shift

⏳ Temporal shifts within one society

• The political center—the median point between the most relevant political polarizations—shifts left or right over time.
• Example: Canada's political mainstream in the 1990s leaned further right (commitment to balanced budgets, high tolerance for material inequalities) than in the 1960s or arguably the 2020s.
• Don't confuse: The same country's "center" is not fixed; it moves as political priorities and values change across decades.

🗺️ Geographic variation between societies

Society	Relative position	What this means
United States	Further right	Less commitment to redistribution
Canada	Center	Usually thought to lean left of the U.S.
Scandinavian countries	Further left	Much stronger commitments to wealth redistribution and material equality

• What counts as "center" varies from society to society.
• Each society also leans further left or right and back again as it moves through time.

📍 What "left" and "right" mean locally

• When we talk about left and right in Canadian politics, we refer to something much more confined than the absolute ideological spectrum.
• "Left" in local politics means left of that society's current center, not left on the absolute spectrum.
• Example: A "centrist" position in Scandinavia might be considered left-wing in the United States.

🧩 Practical implications

🎯 Understanding political debate

• Most day-to-day political arguments are not about fundamental ideological differences (capitalism vs. communism, democracy vs. authoritarianism).
• Instead, they concern policy variations within a shared framework.
• The excerpt emphasizes that Canadian debates occur within "a broadly shared allegiance to liberal-democratic capitalism and a global order defined by sovereign states or nations."

🔍 Reading political labels

• Labels like "left," "right," and "center" are relative to the local spectrum, not absolute.
• A politician called "far left" in one country might be considered moderate in another.
• Don't confuse: Local labels with absolute ideological positions—context matters.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

The left-right spectrum is a meaningful but imperfect tool for categorizing ideologies, because some political debates do not fit neatly into the equality-based framework and no single conceptual structure can capture everything about politics.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• The spectrum's usefulness and limits: the left-right framework is meaningful and general, but cramming all ideological disagreement into it is unwise or at least challenging.
• Example of a tricky fit: the "Anywheres vs Somewheres" (or "Open vs Closed") debate focuses on loyalty to communities versus global mobility and diversity, which on the surface has little to do with equality.
• How the tricky case might still fit: "Somewheres" politics may privilege traditionally dominant identities (inegalitarian/right-wing), while "Anywheres" politics may reject traditional hierarchies and support open borders (egalitarian/left-wing).
• Common confusion: not every issue must be forced into the left-right binary—it's fine to accept that the spectrum does not perfectly capture everything.
• Alternative frameworks: tools like the Political Compass use a four-quadrant grid to better categorize ideological disagreements beyond a single left-right line.

🧩 The spectrum as a general tool

🧩 What the left-right spectrum does well

The left-right spectrum: a meaningful, if very general, way of categorizing ideologies.

• It provides a broad framework for understanding ideological positions.
• The excerpt emphasizes that it is "meaningful" but also "very general," so it works at a high level of abstraction.

⚠️ The challenge of fitting everything

• The excerpt warns that it may be "unwise to insist that all ideological disagreement can be crammed into the left-right binary."
• At the very least, forcing every issue into this framework is "challenging to do."
• Don't confuse: the spectrum is useful, but not exhaustive—some debates resist easy categorization.

🌍 The "Anywheres vs Somewheres" debate

🌍 What the debate is about

• Also called "Open versus Closed."
• A major fault-line exists between:
  • "Somewheres": people fiercely loyal to particular communities and traditions.
  • "Anywheres": people who are more mobile, comfortable with diversity, and "global" in outlook.

🗳️ Political examples

• "Somewheres" tend to back projects like Brexit and politicians like Donald Trump who want to strengthen borders.
• "Anywheres" tend to support globalization and are more "multicultural" in orientation.

🤔 Why it seems not to fit the left-right framework

• On its surface, this debate "seems to have little to do with equality in any sense."
• The left-right framework as sketched in the excerpt is based on attitudes toward equality, so a debate about community loyalty versus global mobility does not obviously map onto it.

🔄 How the debate might still fit (subtly)

🔄 "Somewheres" as right-wing

• The politics of "Somewheres" is often laced with worries about immigrants, "outsiders," and concerns that historically dominant identities are losing ground.
• This may represent an attempt to privilege traditionally dominant cultural identities over other identities.
• That move is in the "inegalitarian" right-wing direction.

🔄 "Anywheres" as left-wing

• The politics of "Anywheres" often entails a rejection of traditional cultural, gender, and sexual hierarchies.
• It can even extend to support for completely open borders and a view that it is unjust to treat citizens and non-citizens differently.
• That move is in an "egalitarian" left-wing direction.

🧠 The subtlety

• The excerpt says "in subtler ways, it does fit."
• The connection to equality is not immediately obvious, but both sides can be interpreted as taking positions on hierarchy and privilege.
• Example: A viewpoint that wants to preserve the dominance of a traditional identity is treating that identity as more important (inegalitarian); a viewpoint that rejects all such hierarchies is treating identities as equal (egalitarian).

🛠️ Accepting the limits and exploring alternatives

🛠️ It's okay not to force every issue into the spectrum

• Rather than "doing a lot of heavy lifting in order to make every last issue fit within the left-right continuum," we may prefer to simply accept that the left-right structure does not perfectly capture everything about politics.
• The excerpt reassures: "that's perfectly fine."
• It is not necessary to assume that any single belief system or conceptual structure must tell us "the totality of what we need to know or understand about the world."

🗺️ Alternative frameworks: the Political Compass

• Those who find a single left-right binary too limiting have developed other options.
• The Political Compass posits a four-quadrant grid as a better way of categorizing ideological disagreements.
• The excerpt mentions that readers can take a test to see where they fall on the Compass.
• The excerpt also includes an interactive slider showing how Canadian political parties' ideologies have shifted from 2008–2022 on the Compass.

Framework	Structure	What it captures
Left-right spectrum	Single line	Attitudes toward equality (general)
Political Compass	Four-quadrant grid	Multiple dimensions of ideological disagreement

• Don't confuse: the Political Compass is not a replacement that makes the left-right spectrum obsolete; it is an alternative for those who want more nuance.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Ideologies are not fixed doctrines but dynamic, evolving traditions that rise and fall in influence over time and whose core concepts shift across generations in response to changing historical needs.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Ideologies wax and wane: Different ideologies experience periods of greater or lesser mainstream influence (e.g., fascism's brief heyday, socialism's resurgence in the 2010s).
• Internal evolution: What counts as mainstream thinking within a given ideology changes over time, even as some core beliefs persist.
• Historical example: 19th-century liberalism embraced "progress" in ways that justified colonialism and forced assimilation—views modern liberals reject.
• Common confusion: Don't assume ideologies are static blueprints; they are better understood as living traditions that each generation redefines.
• Why it matters: Understanding ideologies as dynamic helps explain why the same label (e.g., "liberal") can mean different things in different eras.

📈 The rise and fall of ideologies

🎢 Fluctuating influence over time

• Different ideologies enjoy varying levels of mainstream impact across historical periods.
• The excerpt emphasizes that "ideological debate is never static."

🔥 Fascism's brief explosion

• Fascism had roots in late 19th/early 20th-century conservatism.
• It "exploded onto the European scene after the First World War."
• It "utterly evaporated as a mainstream option" after the Axis Powers' defeat in WWII.
• Its heyday lasted barely 20 years.

🔄 Socialism's journey

• For most of the 20th century, socialism was seen as the primary challenger to liberalism.
• Many believed socialism's triumph was inevitable.
• By the 1990s, socialism was widely seen as passé, with liberalism standing triumphant.
• In the 2010s, socialism resurfaced as respectable, with politicians like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez explicitly identifying as "democratic socialist."
• Example trajectory: socialism went from predicted victor → political wilderness → renewed respectability.

🌊 Other shifts mentioned

• Anarchism: popular in radical circles in the late 19th century → almost completely marginal after WWII.
• Liberalism: perceived as utterly dominant and unchallengeable (1990–2010) → now thought by some to be losing influence, challenged by "social justice" on the left and illiberal populism on the right.

🔄 Ideologies evolve internally

🧬 What "dynamic" means

Ideologies are "mutable—best conceived as dynamic, living, evolving traditions, which each generation alters and redefines in light of its needs rather than as completely fixed and unchanging sets of ideas."

• It is possible to identify core concepts and beliefs that define an ideology.
• However, certain concepts "give way before others within an ideology as it develops."
• What counts as mainstream thinking within any ideology shifts over time.

📚 The liberalism example: progress and colonialism

🧭 19th-century liberal beliefs

• Liberalism is associated with individualism and individual liberty.
• For 19th-century liberals, human progress was an equally fundamental principle.
• They believed some societies and cultures were further down the path of progress than others.
• Some cultures were seen as so "backward" that:
  • (a) It was justifiable for advanced societies to rule them to lift them out of backwardness.
  • (b) It would be good if backward cultures ceased to exist and were assimilated into advanced societies' norms, beliefs, languages, and practices.

🎓 John Stuart Mill's role

• Mill was "probably the most influential liberal thinker of the 19th century."
• He believed precisely these things about progress and backwardness.
• This thinking played a tragic role in shaping Canada's policy toward Indigenous peoples.
• Indigenous peoples were perceived as needing "civilizing" and were denied equal civil and human rights.
• They were subjected to brutal policies of forced assimilation—now regarded as genocide.

🚫 Modern liberal rejection

• Today's liberals tend to be appalled by such views.
• They are embarrassed that earlier generations of liberals subscribed to them.
• This understanding of progress was once a key component of liberalism but is no longer.
• Its influence receded dramatically after WWII, when "the horrors of Nazism revealed the ultimate terminus to which such thinking leads."

🔍 Why we can still call them "liberals"

• Important ingredients in the liberal recipe remain in place.
• This is why we can plausibly categorize people from different eras as "liberals" even though their views differ significantly.
• Don't confuse: The same ideological label can encompass very different beliefs across time periods.

🌐 Similar shifts in other ideologies

• The excerpt notes that "similar historical shifts can be observed in other ideologies."
• No specific examples are provided for other ideologies in this section.

🧩 Implications for understanding ideologies

🧩 Each generation redefines

• Ideologies are traditions that "each generation alters and redefines in light of its needs."
• This is not a weakness or inconsistency—it's a fundamental characteristic of how ideologies work.

🔬 Core vs. evolving elements

• Each ideology has:
  • Core concepts: relatively stable defining features.
  • Evolving elements: concepts whose prominence and interpretation shift over time.
• Example: Liberalism retains individualism and liberty (core) but has abandoned certain interpretations of progress (evolving).

⚠️ Common confusion to avoid

• Don't treat ideologies as "completely fixed and unchanging sets of ideas."
• Don't assume that because an ideology's name stays the same, its content is identical across centuries.
• Do recognize that ideologies are "living" and responsive to historical context.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Political ideologies address far broader questions than just government policy—spanning economics, social power, and cultural values—and should not be conflated with the platforms of political parties that share their names.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Scope beyond government: Political ideologies encompass sweeping questions about economic organization, gender relations, environmental approaches, and the pace of social change—not just what governments should do.
• Core concepts vary: Each ideology focuses on a limited range of core concepts and builds its vision around them, but none are constrained to government action alone.
• Common confusion—parties vs ideologies: Political parties often use ideological labels (e.g., Liberal, Conservative), but parties prioritize winning elections and may deviate from ideological principles to appeal to voters.
• Investigation, not assumption: Whether a party or person aligns with an ideology's principles is a matter for investigation at any given moment, not a given fact.

🌐 The broad scope of political ideology

🌐 What political ideology covers

Political ideology generally takes a much broader approach to 'politics' than just the question of what governments should do (although it is usually interested in that too).

• Ideologies address fundamental questions about society and power:
  • What form of economic organization is best?
  • How should genders relate, and is gender a useful category at all?
  • How should human societies deal with the natural world?
  • Should social change be resisted, adopted gradually, or embraced with revolutionary fervor?
• The excerpt emphasizes that "all important questions about social power" can be dealt with under the banner of political ideology.
• Example: An ideology might take positions on workplace organization, family structures, and environmental policy—far beyond just taxation or healthcare legislation.

🎯 Focus on core concepts

• Most ideologies focus on a limited range of core concepts and build their vision around them.
• This means ideologies are selective, not exhaustive—each emphasizes certain themes while de-emphasizing others.
• The excerpt notes that none are "constrained by a need to focus only on the actions of governments."

⚠️ The party-ideology distinction

🏛️ Why parties use ideological labels

• Political parties often adopt names that align with political ideologies (e.g., Canada's Liberal and Conservative parties).
• This creates a potential trap: students may assume a tidy correlation between party beliefs and ideological principles.
• The excerpt warns: "We should not assume a tidy correlation between the beliefs and values expressed by a political party and those associated with a political ideology."

🗳️ Parties prioritize elections over principles

Aspect	Political parties	Political ideologies
Primary goal	Contest and win elections	Express coherent worldview and principles
Flexibility	May deviate from principles to appeal to voters	Evolve over time but maintain core concepts
Alignment	May or may not align with ideology at any given time	Define the principles themselves

• Parties advocate for principles and policies that appeal to large numbers of voters.
• If an ideology is unpopular at a given moment, a party bearing that ideology's name may deviate from its principles to get elected.
• Example: If ideological conservatism is not especially popular, a Conservative Party may find it convenient to deviate from conservative principles.

🔍 How to approach the relationship

• Don't confuse: Looking at a party for guidance on what an ideology means would be a mistake.
• The excerpt emphasizes that "at any given moment, we should not assume that any particular political party aligns perfectly—or at all, really—with any particular political ideology."
• Analysts cannot define ideologies without reference to what self-identified believers actually think, since ideologies evolve over time.
• However, the extent to which a party (or person) aligns with ideological descriptions should be seen as a matter for investigation, not a given.
• This is an empirical question to be examined, not an assumption to be made based on labels alone.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Story sits at the beginning, middle, end, and centre of Indigenous worldview—not necessarily in linear order—and serves as the foundation for understanding knowledge and connection to place.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Story as foundation: Story is always at the heart of Indigenous worldview and knowledge, learned from Kookum's kitchen at age 9.
• Non-linear structure: Indigenous worldview does not fit linear writing; story exists at beginning, middle, end, and centre simultaneously, not in fixed order.
• Place and displacement: Connection to place is immense in Indigenous ways of knowing, yet displacement through forced migration and residential schools affects how worldview is maintained and represented.
• Common confusion: Indigenous worldview is not simple or linear—it is complicated and cannot be reduced to a single narrative structure.
• Relational knowledge: Worldview emerges through relationships with mentors, Elders, and storytelling figures like Coyote, who teach through questions and answers together.

📖 Story as the centre of Indigenous worldview

📖 What story means in this context

Story is always at the beginning, middle, end and centre of what we do and not necessarily in that order.

• This teaching came from Kookum's kitchen when the author was 9 years old.
• Story is not just a narrative tool; it is the structural foundation of Indigenous worldview.
• The best place to start understanding Indigenous worldview is always with a story.

🔄 Non-linear nature of story

• Writing worldview in a linear way "felt wrong and did not seem to encompass all the knowledge I have been gifted."
• Story does not follow beginning → middle → end in fixed sequence.
• Story exists simultaneously at multiple points: it can be the beginning, the middle, the end, and the centre all at once.
• Don't confuse: This is not disorganization—it reflects how Indigenous knowledge is structured and transmitted.

🌍 Place, displacement, and connection

🌍 Connection to place in Indigenous ways of knowing

Connection to place is an immense part of Indigenous ways of knowing.

• Place is not just physical location; it is deeply tied to how knowledge is understood and transmitted.
• The excerpt describes story as "weaved together to create a place that just is, a place that is neither people's home territories but is their home territories at the same time."
• This paradox reflects how story creates connection to place even when physical presence is complicated.

💔 Displacement and intergenerational effects

• The author has been displaced due to forced migration.
• This displacement is "just one of the intergenerational effects of the residential schools that plague my family."
• The author worries: "How can I represent this without being physically connected to my home?"
• The challenge is presenting an Indigenous worldview that is culturally relevant yet personal, despite displacement.

🦊 Coyote as teacher and storytelling figure

🦊 Coyote's role in teaching

• Coyote appears as a friend and writing partner in what may be a dream or vision.
• Coyote teaches through humor, self-centeredness, and paradox: "I am the centre of everything, and everything is the centre of me."
• Coyote emphasizes putting "people's voices at the heart of everything you do" and the importance of listening.
• Coyote knows "a story for everything and that stories live forever."

🤔 How Coyote teaches

• Coyote leaves the author "baffled and enlightened."
• "As the way of all good storytellers, he has left me with answers and questions."
• Coyote does not provide direct instruction; instead, he models the relationship between storytelling, place, and knowledge.
• Example: Coyote's rambling monologue about being the centre of everything actually teaches that story connects everything and everyone, not just one individual.

🔗 Relational knowledge

• The author's worldview emerges through relationships with "mentors, Elders and Coyote."
• Coyote's mentoring "centres you and connects story to place and (dis)place."
• Story is "weaved together" through these relationships, creating understanding that transcends physical displacement.

🧩 Complexity and cultural relevance

🧩 Indigenous worldview is complicated

• The author states directly: "Indigenous worldview is complicated."
• It cannot be captured in simple, linear writing.
• The challenge is "How do I present an Indigenous worldview that is culturally relevant yet my own?"

🎯 Starting point despite complexity

• Despite the complexity and the struggle, the author returns to the foundational teaching: "the best place to start is always with a story."
• This does not simplify the worldview; it acknowledges that story is the appropriate entry point for understanding complexity.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Indigenous worldview cannot be captured through linear Western academic writing because stories, displacement, and connection to place weave together in non-linear ways that reflect the teaching of "All My Relations."

📌 Key points (3–5)

• The central tension: the author struggles to write her Anishinaabe/Nehiyaw worldview in a linear academic format when Indigenous knowledge is inherently non-linear and story-centered.
• (Dis)placement as shaping worldview: forced migration due to residential schools disconnected the author's family from their homeland, yet stories and teachings were passed down orally without physical connection to the land.
• Story as ceremony and healing: engaging with story requires the same respect as ceremony; listening and sharing stories can heal disconnection and identity crisis caused by displacement and colonial education.
• Common confusion: Indigenous worldview is not a fixed, linear concept to be "organized"—stories have no beginning, middle, or end and resist straight-line filing.
• "All My Relations" as the core: this teaching shows that all beings and stories are interrelated and weave together, forming a worldview that is both individual and collective.

🌀 The problem of linear writing vs. Indigenous knowledge

🌀 Why linear writing feels wrong

• The author states that "writing it in a linear way felt wrong and did not seem to encompass all the knowledge I have been gifted."
• Her Kookum (grandmother) taught her at age 9 that "story is always at the beginning, middle, end and centre of what we do and not necessarily in that order."
• Indigenous ways of knowing do not follow a straight path: "linear learning is not our Indigenous way."

🐑 The metaphor of wrangling stories

• The author imagines herself as "Mary Had a Little Lamb," trying to guide stories like sheep into a straight line.
• The stories "insist on running around and circling around each other."
• This image captures the tension: Western academic order demands coherence and sequence, but Indigenous stories resist being filed linearly.
• Don't confuse: the lack of linear order is not chaos—it reflects a different structure where stories circle and weave.

🏞️ (Dis)placement and connection to place

🏞️ Forced migration and loss of homeland

• The author's grandparents were displaced from their home territories in the early 1960s.
• They moved around Saskatchewan and eventually relocated to another province to keep their children from attending residential school.
• This relocation was technically a choice, but it "actually resulted from the forced migration of Indigenous peoples of the Plains due to a lack of resources and safety."
• The author's Kookum cried every day upon arriving in Vancouver: "It's ugly here. Everything is so different. I miss our people."

🧬 (Dis)placed worldview

• The author worries: "Connection to place is an immense part of Indigenous ways of knowing. How can I represent this without being physically connected to my home?"
• She eventually understands "the power of what I think of as a (dis)placed worldview."
• Her aunt reassures her: "our worldview is always with us, even when we are (dis)placed and that the need to engage in story is weaved into my DNA."
• Example: Many Indigenous people today receive teachings through oral stories passed down without physical connection to the land.

🌆 Urban displacement and identity crisis

• The author grew up in an urban area with a non-Indigenous adoptive mother, only getting "glimpses into my culture during summer vacations and visits from my grandfather."
• She was "starved for stories of my culture, my homelands and ways of knowing that spoke to my soul."
• Research and personal experience show that blending into mainstream society or not identifying with Indigenous roots "creates a sense of isolation, fear, identity crisis, and even loathing."
• Don't confuse: displacement is not just physical—it includes cultural and spiritual disconnection.

🧵 Story as weaving and healing

🧵 Weaving stories together

• The author's aunt says "story is weaved into my DNA."
• Weaving is an important metaphor: "Our stories weave together, and through them we learn the importance of being connected."
• The author's worldview comes from "the weaving together of stories from two different nations, from the stories of (dis)placement and loss, and from the stories of strength and resilience."

💚 Story as ceremony and healing

• Wilson (2008) writes that "he sees research and writing as ceremony."
• The author initially struggled to understand "the connection of the sacredness of ceremony and the academic world of research and writing."
• She now sees: "I need to engage in writing with the same care that I would enter a ceremony."
• She is "not exposing the sacredness of the ceremony but embracing the sacredness of the stories that will be shared with me."
• Healing comes from "being connected to the stories of those who have walked before me."

👂 Listening with respect

• The author's aunt advises: "Speak from the heart and listen to the stories of others. What you need is there if you listen with your heart."
• The author commits to "listen with an open heart and mind as well as recognize the need for respect, relevance, responsibility and reciprocity when engaging in listening, sharing, telling and learning from story."
• Example: Learning true stories can be "used as a tool of healing" in the journey of rediscovery after disconnection.

🌐 "All My Relations" as worldview

🌐 What "All My Relations" means

"All My Relations": the teaching that we are all interrelated with each other and the land, animals, plants, air and spirit world around us.

• This teaching is central to Indigenous worldview.
• It reminds us of "our responsibilities to each other and how our stories may change, but they are always the same."
• The concept shows that worldview is not individual but relational and interconnected.

🔄 Stories that circle and return

• The author wonders: "what happens to [stories] when they get lost. Where do they go? Where do they live?"
• She thinks about "the concept of stories finding their way home."
• Stories do not disappear—they may "visit with the ancestors, or … hibernate like a bear does in the winter."
• Don't confuse: stories are not static objects to be filed—they are living, moving, and always in relation.

🎓 Navigating academia and colonial education

🎓 The damage of colonial education

• Daniels-Fiss (2008) states that "learning to be Nehiyaw (which was once ingrained in her) is difficult and that early education had almost made her question her traditional ways of knowing."
• The author knows that "education has damaged and, in some cases, continues to damage the identity and ways of knowing of Indigenous people."
• Learning to be Anishinaabe/Nehiyaw "competes with a dominant framework and way of knowing that often imposes and makes me forget my traditional ways of knowing."

🛡️ Engaging Indigenous knowledge in a good way

• "Misunderstanding and misusing Indigenous ways of knowing or worldviews also has a history that has inflicted damage on Indigenous peoples."
• The author has been taught that Indigenous knowledge "must be engaged with in a way that upholds the stories, ways of knowing and Indigenous knowledge that are shared with you."
• She worries about presenting "an Indigenous worldview that is culturally relevant yet my own."
• Her aunt's words reassure her: "What you need is there if you listen with your heart."

🦊 Coyote as mentor and storyteller

• Coyote is the author's "friend and writing partner."
• Coyote reminds her that "story is at the heart of everything" and that "stories live forever."
• Coyote says: "I am the centre of everything, and everything is the centre of me."
• The meeting with Coyote "leaves me baffled and enlightened. As the way of all good storytellers, he has left me with answers and questions."
• Example: Coyote's playful, non-linear teaching style mirrors the nature of Indigenous storytelling itself.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Indigenous ways of knowing can coexist with academic expectations when the researcher learns to dwell in a "third space" that honors both worlds, treating oral stories as relations and centering them in the research process.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Third space as a safe dwelling place: the author learns to balance Indigenous ways of knowing and academic expectations by dwelling "in between" rather than choosing one over the other.
• Stories as relations: oral stories are not just data but relations that tie past and future generations, requiring care and relationship rather than extraction.
• Centering Stories in research: like child-centered education, Stories should take the lead in the research process, not be subordinated to the researcher's agenda.
• Common confusion: the researcher initially treats Stories as objects to be used, causing harm, rather than as relations requiring care and consent ("what about the Stories?").
• Coyote as guide: Coyote appears as a conversational partner who helps the author reflect on ethical research practice and Indigenous pedagogy in a safe, virtual gathering space.

🦊 Coyote and the third space

🦊 Who Coyote is

• Coyote first appeared to the author during the first year of a master's degree in Curriculum and Leadership.
• Coyote is not a literal being but a conversational partner in writing—a figure who helps the author navigate tensions between Indigenous and academic worlds.
• Writing in partnership with Coyote became "not just a writing style but a virtual space of gathering."

🌐 What third space means

Third space: a safe place where the author can dwell between Indigenous ways of knowing and academia without having to choose one over the other.

• The author references Nakata (2007) to name this concept.
• In this space, the author can "reflect on and speak freely about areas of contention" and growing understanding.
• Don't confuse: third space is not about compromise or dilution; it is about dwelling comfortably in both worlds simultaneously, upholding Indigenous ways of knowing within a Eurocentric curriculum "without losing any of my own beliefs about learning."

🍎 Connection to Miss O

• The author also met Ted Aoki's (1986/2012) "Miss O," who dwells between curriculum-as-lived and curriculum-as-planned.
• The author resonates with Miss O because being flexible in teaching mirrors learning to dwell between Indigenous and academic worlds.
• Example: just as Miss O adapts planned curriculum to lived experience, the author learns to adapt academic expectations to Indigenous pedagogy.

📖 Stories as relations

📖 What oral stories are

Oral stories are born of connection within the world, and thus recounted relationally. They tie us with our past and provide a basis for continuity with future generations. (Kovach, 2010)

• Stories are not objects or data points; they are relations.
• They connect past, present, and future generations.
• The author realizes: "I should treat the Stories as my relations."

💔 The harm the author caused

• The author initially did not treat Stories as relations, causing them to "whimper."
• Coyote asks, "But what about the Stories?"—highlighting that the author's focus was on research ethics for human participants but not on the Stories themselves.
• The author reflects: "I made the Stories feel" harmed, and "there may not always be someone there to undo the harm I cause."
• Key insight: "The need for relationship and care in those I work with is more important than I realize."

🛡️ How to repair the relationship

• Coyote comforts the Stories (he has "Cheerios and applesauce stuck in his fur," suggesting he has been caring for them like children).
• The author finds the Stories in "what appears to be a small nursery" with "small bundles lying in cradles."
• The author rocks a cradle and says, "You are so important."
• Coyote affirms: "Beautiful aren't they?"

🎓 Centering Stories in research

🎓 What it means to center Stories

• The author realizes: "Like child-centred education, the Stories will take the lead."
• Stories are "the centre of everything we do," not tools subordinated to the researcher's agenda.
• Coyote nods and hands the author "a crying bundle of Story," symbolizing the ongoing responsibility to care for and respond to Stories.

🔄 The shift in approach

Before	After
Stories as objects to be used	Stories as relations requiring care
Researcher-centered (extractive)	Story-centered (relational)
Focus on human participants only	Focus on Stories as participants too

• Don't confuse: this is not about anthropomorphizing data; it is about recognizing that oral stories carry relational obligations in Indigenous epistemology.

🤔 Coyote's teaching method

• Coyote does not lecture; he asks questions, offers patience, and lets the author struggle to make sense.
• "You always make it harder than it is… Did you ever think that you were the reason I needed a nap and not the Stories?"
• Coyote's humor and care model the relational approach the author needs to adopt.

🌱 Implications for Indigenous research

🌱 Doing no harm in ethnography

• The excerpt begins with the author thinking about "what it means to do no harm" in ethnography, typically understood as protecting research participants.
• The author's realization expands this: harm can also be done to Stories if they are not treated relationally.
• Example: extracting Stories without care or consent, or using them only to serve the researcher's goals, causes harm.

🌱 Relationship and care as method

• The author learns that relationship and care are not optional add-ons but foundational to Indigenous research.
• "There may not always be someone there to undo the harm I cause"—the researcher must be proactive, not reactive.
• Coyote's kindness and support for the Stories model what the researcher should do.

🌱 Dwelling between worlds

• The author is learning to "walk in both these worlds" (Indigenous and academic) comfortably.
• This is not about assimilation or code-switching but about "uphold[ing] Indigenous ways of knowing and worldviews in a Eurocentric curriculum."
• The author acknowledges: "Of course, it was not quite that [easy]"—the process is ongoing and requires continual reflection.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

The author learned to dwell in the space between Indigenous ways of knowing and academia by engaging with Coyote as a guide, discovering that she did not have to choose one worldview but could balance both while maintaining her Indigenous identity and connection to stories.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Third space as a safe meeting ground: The author found safety in a virtual gathering space with Coyote, where she could reflect on and reconcile Indigenous knowledge with academic expectations.
• Stories as relations: Margaret Kovach's teaching that oral stories are "born of connection" and "tie us with our past" means treating stories as relations, not just data or objects.
• Dwelling between worlds: Inspired by Ted Aoki's Miss O (who dwells between curriculum-as-lived and curriculum-as-planned), the author learned to walk in both Indigenous and Eurocentric worlds without losing her own beliefs.
• Common confusion: The author initially struggled to understand that she didn't have to choose one way of knowing over another; she could learn to dwell in between.
• Kiscâyãwin and belonging: The word means "to belong somewhere," and its absence (kaskeyihtamowin—longing for home to the point of physical illness) reflects the author's struggle with disconnection from her home territory despite being tied to it through song, story, and blood memory.

🦊 Meeting Coyote and finding third space

🦊 Who Coyote is and what he represents

• Coyote first appeared to the author during her master's degree in Curriculum and Leadership as she unpacked how Indigenous ways of knowing fit into academia.
• Writing in partnership with Coyote helped her balance her identity as an Indigenous learner and educator while meeting academic and work expectations.
• Coyote became more than a writing style—he created a "virtual space of gathering" where the author could safely engage in conversations.

🌐 Third space as a dwelling place

Third space (Nakata, 2007): a safe space where the author could reflect on and speak freely about areas of contention and her growing understanding of Indigenous ways of knowing.

• This space was safe and allowed the author to dwell between different worlds.
• She did not have to choose one way of knowing; she could learn to dwell in between.
• Example: The author could uphold Indigenous ways of knowing within a Eurocentric curriculum without losing her own beliefs about learning.

🧑‍🏫 Miss O and curriculum-as-lived

• The author met Ted Aoki's (1986/2012) Miss O, who dwells between curriculum-as-lived and curriculum-as-planned.
• She resonated with Miss O not just because flexibility in teaching makes sense, but because this mirrored her own learning as an Indigenous educator.
• She was learning to dwell comfortably in the space between Indigenous ways of knowing and academia.

Don't confuse: This is not about simply being flexible in lesson planning; it is about learning to walk in both worlds in a way that honors Indigenous worldviews within Eurocentric structures.

📖 Stories as relations and the need for care

📖 What Kovach teaches about stories

Margaret Kovach (2010): "Oral stories are born of connection within the world, and thus recounted relationally. They tie us with our past and provide a basis for continuity with future generations" (p.94).

• This means the author should treat Stories as her relations, not as research data or objects.
• The excerpt shows the author realizing she made the Stories feel harmed and needed to ask them what they needed.
• Coyote comforted the Stories and taught the author that relationship and care in her work are more important than she realized.

🍼 Stories as child-centered

• The author comes across a small nursery with small bundles (Stories) lying in cradles.
• Coyote teaches her: "They are the centre of everything we do. Like child-centred education, the Stories will take the lead."
• The author realizes she was making things harder than they needed to be; the Stories should guide the work, not be controlled or harmed by the researcher.

Don't confuse: Ethnographic "do no harm" typically refers to research participants, but here the author extends that care to the Stories themselves as living relations.

🏞️ Longing for home and connection to land

🏞️ Kiscâyãwin and kaskeyihtamowin

• The author's aunty offers the word kiscâyãwin: to belong somewhere.
• Kaskeyihtamowin: to long for home to a point that it causes physical illness.
• The author reflects on how her need for a sense of belonging has caused physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental sickness throughout her life.

🩸 Tied to land through song, story, and blood memory

• Daniels-Fiss (2008) reminds the author that as a Nehiyaw woman, she is tied to the traditional land of her people through song, story, and blood memory.
• This tie to a land she has never lived on continues to call to her and move her forward in her work.
• The author grapples with a sense of loss, knowing there are stories forever lost to her due to growing up away from her home territory.

Example: The author knows theories about connection to land, pedagogy of place and space, walking in two worlds, and land education, yet she still longs for a place to call home—showing that intellectual understanding does not replace lived connection.

🌙 The dream and its layered messages

🌙 The dream narrative

• In a dream at the start of graduate school, the author found herself in her home territory, hearing pow wow drums and smelling sweet grass.
• She met an old man who revealed himself as Coyote, then Nanabush (a young grass dancer), and Raven appeared as well.
• The author was straddling a space between the land she grew up on as a guest and the land she called home.
• Nanabush told her: "I have been here always. If I don't have the answer, ask Raven or Coyote... if we are not around you are not doing things in a good way."
• Coyote's final message: "If you don't know something, ask and listen to the stories. It's never too late to say, 'Can you tell me that story again'."

🔄 What the dream teaches now

• The author notes that the dream means something different as she rereads it; the layered messages are now apparent.
• This is what happens when we engage in sharing stories: the current environment shifts, and we learn in a different space and place, one that connects us with stories waiting to be heard.
• What a story teaches depends on where we are in our life journey—this is at the heart of Indigenous worldview (at least for the author).

🌉 Dissonance and learning to dwell

• The author considers the dissonance she felt when she first started visiting Coyote in their interstitial meeting place.
• She understands that learning to dwell in place and space can be difficult and uncomfortable for non-Indigenous learners.
• She wonders what Coyote's role could be in helping others engage in place and space in a meaningful way.

Don't confuse: The dream was not just a personal experience; it represents the stories that inform the author's worldview, which were "waiting for me even before I was aware of them" (Cajete, 1994; McLeod, 2012).

🌱 Creation stories and becoming a place

🌱 Tuck & Yang on creation stories

• Tuck & Yang (2014) discuss the importance of understanding creation stories that belong to a place.
• More importantly, they discuss how people become a place.
• The excerpt ends here, suggesting that the author's journey involves not just understanding place but becoming part of it through stories and relationships.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Stories shift our understanding depending on where we are in our life journey, and Coyote serves as a guide in an interstitial space where Indigenous and non-Indigenous worldviews can meet and where connection to place, story, and belonging can be understood.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Stories change with context: what a story teaches depends on where we are in our life journey; rereading reveals layered messages.
• Interstitial space as learning place: Coyote inhabits an in-between space where the author learns best, balancing Indigenous and Eurocentric worldviews.
• Coyote's role: Coyote is an important historian in many Indigenous nations, sharing stories about histories, philosophies, and ways of knowing, and ensuring understanding of connection to land, place, and space.
• Common confusion: it may not be physical space that matters for understanding Indigenous worldview, but an in-between space where Coyote helps us understand belonging, connection, and story as worldview.
• Connection to land and story: engaging with stories and place is a critical component of Indigenous ways of knowing and addresses feelings of displacement.

📖 Stories and shifting meaning

📖 Layered messages in stories

• The author rereads the dream and finds it means something different; layered messages become apparent over time.
• Why this matters: the current environment we are in shifts, allowing us to learn in a different space and place that connects us with stories waiting to be heard.
• What a story teaches depends on where we are in our life journey.
• The author believes this is at the heart of Indigenous worldview (at least for her).

🔄 Creating safe spaces for learning

• The author strives to create safe spaces to engage in ways that allow others to understand Indigenous ways of knowing in a meaningful way.
• Example: Coyote has helped the author safely unpack her own struggles with understanding Eurocentric concepts and worldviews, as well as understand her own worldview.

🌉 The interstitial space and Coyote's role

🌉 Balancing two worlds

• The concept of having to balance in two worlds: dwelling in a space and place that one does not understand is hard.
• The author felt dissonance when she first started visiting Coyote in their interstitial meeting place.
• Learning to dwell in place and space can be difficult and uncomfortable for non-Indigenous learners.

🦊 Coyote as guide and historian

Coyote's role is important in many Indigenous nations; without Coyote we would be missing an important historian that shares with us stories about our histories, philosophies and ways of knowing.

• Coyote works hard to ensure we understand our connection to the land, place and space around us.
• The author's relationship with Coyote: he has become the interstitial space where she learns best.
• Or perhaps they have become the interstitial space where they visit, and neither exists in that space without the other; the space would fail to exist if their stories were not intertwined.

🗺️ In-between space vs physical space

• Key distinction: maybe it is not physical space that we need to dwell in to understand the importance of Indigenous worldview, but an in-between space.
• In this in-between space, Coyote can help us understand the importance of belonging, connection, and the importance of story as a worldview.
• Don't confuse: physical land with the interstitial space where stories and worldviews meet.

🌲 Connection, belonging, and displacement

🌲 Coyote as key to worldview

• Coyote is the key to the author's worldview, as he allows her to address her sense of (dis)placement in a way that feels like she still belongs to home.
• Connection to land and the stories it holds is a critical component of Indigenous ways of knowing.
• Through engaging with Coyote in their interstitial place of gathering, the author has found a way to connect.

🪑 The waiting room scene

• The author rests her head on her desk and notices the scent of forest; the sounds and feeling of the space shift.
• She finds herself in the in-between space where she meets Coyote, but this time during the day and in what looks like a small waiting room.
• The space contains chairs, tables, and magazines with titles like "Coyote Weekly," "Trickster Times," and "Journal of a Place That Just Is."
• Forest animals sit in chairs looking bored; a possum explains they are "waiting of course."
• Coyote appears and rushes the author through the forest to the side of the river, dressed as a doctor and writing notes in a chart, saying "I have other patients you know!"

🤔 Questioning reality in the interstitial space

• Even in the interstitial space, the author questions the possum's existence and wonders if she is dreaming.
• She notes she should examine why she questions the possum's existence even in this space, but saves that for later.
• The scene illustrates the dissonance and uncertainty that can accompany learning in an unfamiliar space.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

The author uses encounters with Coyote in an interstitial space to understand Indigenous worldview as cyclical, story-centered, and inseparable from connection to land and community, rather than linear or bounded by beginnings and endings.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Interstitial space as learning site: The author meets Coyote in an "in-between space" that exists only through their intertwined stories, serving as the place where understanding unfolds.
• Coyote's role: Coyote functions as historian, teacher, and guide who helps the author understand connection to land, belonging, and Indigenous ways of knowing through story.
• Cyclical vs linear understanding: Indigenous worldview is cyclical—stories have no fixed beginning, middle, or end; the author is born into stories already in progress.
• The four R's: Respect, reciprocity, responsibility, and reverence must always be enacted when engaging with story.
• Common confusion: Worldview is not a static definition or endpoint but "forever changing yet always staying the same," carried in hearts and stories rather than physical locations alone.

🌲 The interstitial space and Coyote

🌲 What the interstitial space is

The interstitial space: an in-between place where the author and Coyote meet, which exists only because their stories are intertwined.

• It is not purely physical space but a relational space created through connection.
• The author describes it as "where I learn best" and "where we visit and neither of us exists in that space without the other."
• Without their intertwined stories, this space would fail to exist.
• Example: The author rests her head on her desk, smells the forest, and suddenly finds herself in the clearing where she always meets Coyote—a waiting room with forest animals, magazines titled "Coyote Weekly" and "Trickster Times."

🦊 Coyote's role as guide and historian

• Coyote is important in many Indigenous nations as a historian who shares stories about histories, philosophies, and ways of knowing.
• Coyote "works hard to ensure we understand our connection to the land, place and space around us."
• The author suggests Coyote is "the key to my worldview," allowing her to address her sense of displacement while still belonging to home.
• In the narrative, Coyote appears as a doctor with "other patients," emphasizing his role as healer and teacher to many.
• Don't confuse: Coyote is not just a character but a method—he embodies the interstitial space where understanding happens through story.

🏞️ Connection to land through story

• Connection to land and the stories it holds is a critical component of Indigenous ways of knowing.
• The author finds a way to connect by engaging with Coyote in their interstitial gathering place.
• Worldview is not dependent on physically dwelling in a place but on understanding "the importance of belonging, connection and the importance of story as a worldview."

🔄 Cyclical learning and belatedness

🔄 No fixed beginning, middle, or end

• Coyote tells the author: "Sometimes there is more than one worldview. There is always more than one story, and there is never a beginning, middle or end."
• He advises: "Stop struggling with how to start, as it has already started long before you got here."
• Later, Coyote explains: "The thing about cyclical understanding is it can be the beginning, middle or end all at the same time, or it could be none of those."
• This contrasts with linear learning, which assumes a fixed sequence and endpoint.

📜 Belatedness and responsibility

• The author reflects on Hannah Arendt's concept of belatedness: "I have been born into a story that was already started."
• This brings "a certain sense of responsibility" but also means "there is important work done by those who have walked before me."
• The author's responsibility is to "uphold this work and engage with it in a good way."
• Example: The author thinks about "the women I have met that have and the stories they shared that led me to this space in my educational journey."

🔁 The Neyihaw creation story as cyclical example

• The Neyihaw creation story tells of a time when animals spoke to humans and they lived together as a large community.
• When humans took advantage and forgot unity, Creator planned to take the animals away, but the animals refused because they understood the importance of interconnection.
• The animals gave up the ability to communicate with humans to continue nurturing them.
• The author notes: "Just like that, we are back at the very first story, even though we are at the end and it is this that reiterates the importance of learning in a cyclical and not linear way."
• The story will always be "at the heart of understanding, being and worldview."

🤝 The four R's and engaging with story

🤝 What the four R's are

The four R's: Respect, reciprocity, responsibility, and reverence—principles that should always be enacted when engaging with story in any way.

• These are taught as essential practices for working with Indigenous stories and knowledge.
• The author brings Coyote a small gift "to show my appreciation for Coyote for always embracing the 4 R's with me."
• The four R's guide ethical engagement with story and knowledge transmission.

🔍 Worldview as ongoing inquiry

• The author asks: "So, does this sum up Indigenous worldview? I would hope not."
• She has been taught: "If I do not have more questions than when I started, I had better go back and do it again."
• Indigenous worldview is "forever changing yet always staying the same."
• Don't confuse: Worldview is not a fixed definition to be memorized but an ongoing process of questioning and understanding through story.

🌕 Carrying worldview in story

🌕 Worldview as portable and relational

• Coyote tells the author: "We carry our worldview in our hearts and in the stories we have known since well since before forever."
• Location is not the determining factor: "It doesn't matter how you get there or where there is; as long as there is story there will be."
• This addresses the question of how one can be connected to a place or way of knowing without having been to that place physically.
• The author realizes her journey with Coyote is "far from over, just as I know the beginning, middle and end come in no particular order."

🌐 Interconnectedness and community

• The Neyihaw creation story emphasizes that "without them [the animals] we would not survive."
• The animals understood "the importance of interconnection" and refused to leave humans even when Creator offered them safety.
• This illustrates that worldview is not individual but relational, shaped by "the experiences of others around us (both historically and currently)."
• The interstitial space itself exists only through the intertwined stories of the author and Coyote, demonstrating that understanding emerges through relationship.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

The narrator's cyclical journey with Coyote reveals that Indigenous worldview and story exist outside linear time, carrying meaning simultaneously as beginning, middle, and end.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Cyclical vs. linear learning: the excerpt emphasizes that Indigenous understanding is cyclical—stories and knowledge do not follow a fixed beginning-middle-end sequence.
• Story as the heart of worldview: story is central to understanding, being, and worldview; it persists "since before forever" and ensures continuity.
• Interconnection and the 4 R's: the narrator brings a gift and practices the 4 R's (respect, relevance, reciprocity, responsibility) with Coyote, reflecting interconnected relationships.
• Common confusion: "beginning, middle, or end"—the narrator initially seeks linear markers, but Coyote teaches that cyclical understanding means all phases can exist at once or none at all.
• Ongoing journey: the encounter is not a conclusion; the narrator knows the journey with Coyote continues, reinforcing the cyclical nature of learning.

🌀 Cyclical understanding vs. linear time

🌀 What cyclical learning means

Cyclical understanding: knowledge and story do not follow a fixed sequence; they can be beginning, middle, or end all at the same time, or none of those.

• The narrator asks, "Is this the end or the beginning?"
• Coyote replies, "It just is," and explains that cyclical understanding transcends linear categories.
• Why it matters: this challenges Western linear models (beginning → middle → end) and reflects Indigenous epistemology.
• Don't confuse: cyclical does not mean "repeating the same thing"—it means the story and understanding are always present, accessible from any point.

🔄 Returning to the start

• The narrator is "back where I started, as I am sitting on a rock in the forest with the moonlight shining down on me."
• She is also "back at the very first story, even though we are at the end."
• This physical and narrative return illustrates that learning circles back, reinforcing concepts rather than leaving them behind.
• Example: the Neyihaw creation story (animals refusing to leave humans) reappears at the "end," showing that the story remains central throughout.

💬 Story as the foundation of worldview

💬 Story at the heart

• Coyote says, "we carry our worldview in our hearts and in the stories we have known since well since before forever."
• The excerpt states, "the story will always be at the heart of understanding, being and worldview."
• Why it matters: story is not decoration or illustration—it is the core mechanism through which worldview is transmitted and understood.
• How it works: stories encode values, relationships, and knowledge; they persist across generations and contexts.

🌲 Place and presence

• The narrator sits "on a rock in the forest with the moonlight shining down."
• She "sense[s] Coyote before I see him," indicating a relationship that is felt, not just observed.
• Coyote "always brings me a sense of peace, even though confusion often accompanies the peace."
• This suggests that learning and understanding are embodied, situated in place, and relational.

🤝 Interconnection and the 4 R's

🤝 The 4 R's in practice

• The narrator brings "a small gift to show my appreciation for Coyote for always embracing the 4 R's with me."
• The 4 R's are: respect, relevance, reciprocity, responsibility (not explicitly defined in this excerpt, but the narrator's actions illustrate them).
• Reciprocity: the narrator gives a gift in return for Coyote's patience and teaching.
• Respect: she acknowledges Coyote's role and waits for him.
• Patience and process: Coyote is "patient while I work my way through challenging concepts and learn new stories."

🦊 Coyote's role

• Coyote is a guide and teacher, but also a companion who "plops down beside me" and "pats my hand."
• He does not provide linear answers; instead, he reframes the narrator's questions to deepen understanding.
• Example: when asked "Is this the end or the beginning," Coyote responds, "Oh my girl… you still don't get it. It just is."
• Don't confuse: Coyote is not a passive symbol—he actively teaches through dialogue and presence.

🌍 Worldview and continuity

🌍 Worldview carried in the heart

• Coyote emphasizes, "we carry our worldview in our hearts and in the stories we have known since well since before forever."
• Worldview is not external or abstract; it is embodied and relational.
• "It doesn't matter how you get there or where there is; as long as there is story there will be."
• Why it matters: this suggests that worldview persists regardless of physical location or temporal sequence, as long as story is present.

♾️ The journey continues

• The narrator knows "my journey with Coyote is far from over, just as I know the beginning, middle and end come in no particular order."
• This reinforces that learning is ongoing and cyclical, not a destination to be reached.
• The excerpt closes with the narrator and Coyote sitting "in silence," a moment of presence and continuity.

🔍 Discussion questions (from the excerpt)

The excerpt includes five discussion questions that highlight key themes:

Question	Theme
How do your own stories pass down through your family influence your own worldview(s)?	Story and worldview transmission
Explore the concept of interconnectedness? How do the experiences of others around us (both historically and currently) change how a worldview is formed?	Interconnection and relational worldview
Discuss the difference between cyclical learning and linear learning.	Cyclical vs. linear epistemology
What is Coyote's role in the author's journey of understanding her own worldview?	Coyote as guide and teacher
How can you be connected to a place or way of knowing if you have never been to that place?	Place, story, and connection beyond physical presence

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Conservatism is a near-universal political attitude rooted in attachment to past or current ways of doing things, but it varies widely across contexts because conservatives in different places seek to conserve different traditions and institutions.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Core attitude: Conservatism is based on attachment to past or current ways of doing things—a widespread human experience.
• High internal diversity: There is so much disagreement among conservatives that identifying common ideals or values across all conservatives is difficult.
• Context-dependent nature: Conservatism differs from place to place because it aims to conserve specific local traditions and institutions (e.g., American vs. Canadian conservatism).
• Common confusion: Not all conservatives share the same values—populist conservatism, Tory democracy, and other variants can be very different from one another.
• Two broad categories: Most conservative outlooks fall into classical conservatism or modern conservatism (the New Right).

🌍 The universal yet varied nature of conservatism

🌍 Conservatism as a general human experience

• A large segment of any population tends to have an attachment to past or current ways of doing things.
• As a political attitude, this attachment forms the basis of what is now called conservatism.
• Because this attachment is widespread, the conservative political attitude is a near-universal phenomenon.

🔀 Why conservatism differs so much

• Despite being universal, conservatism shows such high internal disagreement that finding a set of ideals or values common to all conservatives is difficult.
• Example: Donald Trump's populist conservatism is very different from former Prime Minister Stephen Harper's conservatism, and neither resembles the Tory democracy of Benjamin Disraeli or John A. MacDonald.
• Don't confuse: "Conservative" does not mean a single, unified ideology—it encompasses many competing approaches.

🗺️ Context shapes what is conserved

🗺️ Conservatism aims to conserve

At the simplest level, conservatism aims to conserve.

• The specific traditions a conservative movement seeks to conserve depend on the political traditions in question.
• This is why conservatism is inherently context-dependent: it will differ from place to place.

🇺🇸🇨🇦 Example: American vs. Canadian conservatism

• American conservatism is often different from Canadian conservatism.
• The reason: conservatives in each country are attempting to conserve different traditions and institutions.
• The excerpt emphasizes that the content of what is conserved varies by national or regional context.

🏛️ Two broad categories

🏛️ Classical conservatism and modern conservatism

• Most conservative outlooks fall into one of two broad categories:
  • Classical conservatism
  • Modern conservatism (sometimes called the New Right)
• The excerpt indicates that the chapter will examine both variants, starting with classical conservatism, then modern conservatism, and finally the future of the ideology.

🧩 Classical conservatism preview

• Classical conservatism is characterized by a complex of themes and values, none of which are completely independent of each other.
• As the name implies, conservatism seeks to conserve something from the past, namely traditional modes of thought, life, and political practice.
• Conservatives tend to believe that the political health of a society is best preserved by holding on to the best traditions of the past.
• (The excerpt cuts off before completing this thought.)

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Liberalism emerged as the first ideology of modernity, arising during Europe's transition from feudal society to a modern condition marked by individualism, mobility, and dynamic market economies, and it provides a way of thinking that justifies many of modernity's core tendencies.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Historical context: Liberalism was born during Europe's 16th–18th century transition from feudal society to modernity.
• Feudal vs modern: Feudal society featured closed economies, religious orthodoxy, inherited social rank, and little mobility; modernity features capitalism, urbanization, high mobility, individualism, and diverse populations.
• Key shift in identity: Feudal people saw themselves primarily as members of fixed social groups; modern individuals see themselves as unique persons with choices and paths to discover.
• Common confusion: Modernity is not just about Medieval Europe—it contrasts with 'traditional' agrarian societies worldwide and has spread globally with many variations.
• Liberalism's role: Liberalism supplies a way of thinking that justifies and explains the tendencies of modernity, making it the first ideology of this new era.

🏰 The feudal world before liberalism

🏰 Structure of feudal society

Feudal society: marked by closed economies based on subsistence agriculture, religious orthodoxy, and complex layers of inherited social rank.

• Most people lived as peasants or serfs, owing fealty to a local lord, who in turn owed loyalty to a king.
• Social hierarchy was rigid and inherited: "a man is his rank," and that rank usually passed from generation to generation.
• Each rank came with distinctive sets of expectations, norms, legal privileges, and responsibilities.

👥 Identity in feudal times

• People were seen as members of social groups (family, village, community, class) rather than as unique individuals.
• Lives and identities were largely determined by these groups in a process that changed little across generations.
• Little social mobility: people did not "find themselves" or choose careers; identity was defined by the community and role one was born into.

🚶 Limited physical mobility

• People did travel (e.g., religious pilgrimages), but most lived out their lives in the same village or valley of their birth.
• Local communities tended to be quite homogenous.
• Don't confuse: feudal immobility with complete isolation—some travel occurred, but it was limited and did not change one's fixed social position.

🌍 The modern condition

🌍 Economic and technological transformation

Modernity: the world we know today, marked by dynamic, competitive market economies—a system eventually labeled capitalism.

• Kicked into high gear by the Industrial Revolution (beginning in the 18th century).
• Driven by a combination of the scientific method and competitive market economics.
• Ever-changing technology characterizes modern life.

🏙️ Urbanization and mobility

• High levels of urbanization: people move from rural areas to cities.
• Extremely mobile populations moving over vast distances, aided by transportation technologies (trains, planes, motorized ships).
• Social mobility: people move up and down the social ladder much more swiftly than in feudal times—sometimes within a generation, certainly across generations.
• Example: a father might be poor, his son middle-class, and his grandson rich (the reverse also holds true).

🏛️ Centralized states and diversity

Feature	Description
State structure	Large, centralized, bureaucratic states (countries) with national populations living under shared laws and (usually) shared language
Homogenization	Modern states have tended to subsume and destroy many local varieties of pre-modern life (e.g., France: almost half the people did not speak French until the latter half of the 1800s)
Paradoxical diversity	Modern life is extraordinarily diverse due to massive mobility and urbanization—people from all sorts of cultural backgrounds, religions, and philosophical outlooks live together in the same space

🧑 The rise of individualism

• The decline of religious orthodoxies and fixed, inherited systems of rank contributed to heightened individualism.
• Individualism: the sense that each individual is unique, with a path in life that is not predetermined at birth but rather explored and chosen by the individual themselves.
• People confronted a broader range of choices and social possibilities, encouraged to think for themselves and in personal terms.
• Key shift: as the certainties of feudal life broke down, a new intellectual climate emerged.

💭 Intellectual foundations of modernity

⛪ Protestant Reformation (mid-16th century)

• Shattered the Roman-Catholic unity of Europe.
• Emphasized salvation through faith alone with the Bible as the ultimate source of authority.
• Encouraged people to value individual conscience more than church orthodoxy.
• Protestantism argued that the individual had a direct relationship with God, making followers more self-directed and disciplined.
• Over time, material success became viewed as "a sign of God's favour," influencing capitalism.

🔬 The Enlightenment (18th century)

• Emphasized the power of human reason to shape and improve the world.
• Society was increasingly understood from the viewpoint of the human individual.
• Scientific explanations gradually came to displace traditional religious theories.

🧩 The individual as the unit of value

• Individuals were thought to possess personal and distinctive qualities: each was of special value.
• Emphasizing the importance of the individual draws attention to the uniqueness of each human being.
• Individuals are defined primarily by the inner qualities and attributes specific to themselves.
• Don't confuse: this with feudal identity, where people were defined by their group membership and inherited rank.

🌐 Modernity beyond Europe

🌐 Modernity vs traditional societies

• Modernity is often contrasted not just with Medieval Europe, but with "traditional" societies around the world.
• Traditional societies tend to be:
  • Agrarian
  • Defined by somewhat static and homogenous local identities
  • Relatively disengaged from technological dynamism and science

📈 Development and modernization

• The classic process of political and economic "development" (or modernization) generally entails a traditional society moving into a more "modern" condition.
• Modernity has spread, with many variations, across much of the globe.

🎯 Liberalism as the ideology of modernity

🎯 Liberalism's historical emergence

Liberalism can be understood as the first ideology of modernity.

• It arose as European society gradually shifted from its feudal to its modern incarnation.
• It supplies a way of thinking that justifies many of the tendencies of modernity.
• Example: liberalism's emphasis on individual choice and mobility aligns with modernity's social and physical mobility; its focus on reason aligns with the scientific method.

🔗 Why liberalism fits modernity

• Liberalism emerged during the same period (16th–18th centuries) when Europe transitioned to modernity.
• The ideology reflects and rationalizes the core features of modern life: individualism, market economies, mobility, diversity, and reason.
• Don't confuse: liberalism with modernity itself—liberalism is an ideology that explains and justifies modernity, not modernity itself.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Liberalism centers on individual liberty as its supreme value, balanced by reason, equality, and toleration, with governments needed to protect freedom while being limited to prevent tyranny.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Liberty as the core: Individual liberty is the unifying principle of liberalism, derived from the Latin word liber meaning 'free.'
• Two threats to liberty: Other individuals (who can steal, harm, or enslave) and governments (which can become tyrannical and oppressive).
• Negative vs positive freedom: Negative freedom is absence of interference; positive freedom is actual capacity to pursue one's ends—don't confuse legal permission with real ability.
• Individualism and equality: Humans are first and foremost individuals of equal moral worth, leading to foundational equality, legal equality, and meritocracy rather than inherited privilege.
• Why it matters: These values justify limited government, rule of law, democratic participation, and toleration of diversity.

🗽 Liberty: the supreme value

🗽 What liberty means

Individual liberty: for liberals a supreme political value and the unifying principle of the ideology.

• The word "liberalism" comes from the Latin liber, meaning 'free.'
• Early liberals saw individual liberty as a 'natural' or God-given right, essential for a truly human existence.
• Liberty gives individuals the opportunity to pursue their own interests by exercising choice.

⚔️ Two threats to individual liberty

Liberals identify two main dangers:

Threat	How it endangers liberty	Liberal response
Other individuals	Can steal property, harm our person, enslave us, encroach on our freedom	Individuals do not have unlimited freedom; each must respect others' liberty (as John Stuart Mill argues)
Governments	Can grow tyrannical, using massive power to arbitrarily control, detain, punish, terrorize, or kill	Must have limited government with "Guards and Fences" (John Locke); support rule of law

⚖️ Rule of law

Rule of law: the idea that laws must be publicly known and apply to all equally so that no one, including governments, can be exempt from them.

• This ensures governments cannot expand their power too far and corrode liberty.
• Example: A government cannot arbitrarily detain someone without publicly known legal grounds that apply to everyone.

🔓 Negative vs positive freedom

🔓 Negative freedom

• Called 'negative' because it is defined by the absence of something: the absence of interference in the individual's affairs by external actors.
• Particularly important to classical liberalism and neoliberalism.
• Example: You are "free" to attend university as long as no one physically bars your access to campus.

➕ Positive freedom

• Defined as the capacity for self-mastery or self-realization; the actual capacity to pursue one's ends in life.
• For an individual to be truly free, they must have real ability, not just legal permission.
• Usually needs some form of external intervention, often performed by the state.
• Example: If you lack funds to pay for expensive tuition, your "freedom" to attend university is meaningless; positive freedom means making education accessible via free education or student loans so all can potentially attend regardless of income.
• Usually associated with reform liberalism.

Don't confuse: Negative freedom (no one stops you) with positive freedom (you have the real means to do it).

🧑 Individualism and reason

🧑 Individualism

Individualism: the idea that human beings are first and foremost individuals and that the individual has supreme moral value.

• This is a bold change from the more group-centered dynamics of traditional societies.
• Reflects the emphasis on individual liberty throughout liberalism.

🧠 Reason and progress

• Liberalism moves faith away from religion and toward reason.
• Deep roots in the Enlightenment project, which aimed to release humankind from bondage to superstition and ignorance.
• To the extent that human beings are rational, thinking creatures, they are capable of defining and pursuing their own best interests.
• Many liberals view human history—or at least modern history—in terms of progress.
• The expansion of knowledge, especially through the scientific revolution, enables people to understand, explain, and shape their world for the better.
• Reason emancipates humankind from the grip of past superstitions and traditions; each generation can advance beyond the last.
• Strong emphasis on education, discussion, debate, and the free exchange of ideas.

⚖️ Justice and equality

⚖️ What justice means

Justice: a particular kind of moral judgment, one focused on the distribution of rewards and punishments (or what each person is 'due').

Liberal views of justice are based on belief in equality of various kinds:

🟰 Foundational equality

• Human beings are seen as born equal in the sense that each individual is of equal moral worth.
• From this logic emerge the concepts of natural rights or human rights.
• Each person's happiness should be given equal consideration in moral and political calculations.

📜 Formal/legal equality

• Also called equal citizenship: individuals should enjoy the same legal status within society, particularly in terms of the distribution of rights and entitlements.
• Liberals fiercely disapprove of social privileges or advantages enjoyed by some but denied to others on the basis of irrational factors such as caste, color, gender, race, religion, or socio-economic background.
• Everyone should be equal under the law; arbitrary discrimination is unacceptable.

🏆 Meritocracy

Meritocracy: a system in which individuals characterized by their ability, skill, and education (merit) hold power positions; ensures employments are not used as political favors.

• The word combines Latin 'merit' (to earn) and Greek 'kratos' (strength/power).
• Every individual should have the same freedom to rise (or fall) in society.
• Does not mean equality of outcome or reward, since liberals accept that people possess different talents and skills, and some work harder than others.
• Social rewards (wealth, power) should be available to everyone regardless of arbitrary factors of birth and should go to those who earn them through hard work and ability.
• Society should reward merit, not inherited privilege.
• Merit is often decided by examination; in the economy, by open competition for jobs and market share.

Don't confuse: Legal equality (same rights under law) with equality of outcome (same results for everyone).

🎯 Equality of opportunity

• One form of liberalism, reform liberalism, argues that legal equality and absence of formal discrimination is not enough to achieve meritocracy.
• We must all have real-life access to a wide range of opportunities and the capacity to meaningfully pursue them.
• Everyone should have an equal shot at succeeding in life.
• The absence of discrimination under law does little to empower us if we are trapped in grinding poverty.
• Achieving equality of opportunity requires assistance from the state.

🗳️ Democracy and toleration

🗳️ Democratic participation

• Emphasis on legal equality, meritocracy, and individual freedom steers liberals toward belief in equal rights of political participation.
• Liberals tend to support democratic forms of political organization in which competition for public office is open to all.
• However, democratic decision making should always conform to liberal principles.
• Example: It is fundamentally illegitimate for a democratically elected government to persecute a minority group or compromise basic liberties, even if doing so is extremely popular with a majority of citizens.

🤝 Toleration

Toleration: a willingness to accept moral, cultural, and political diversity.

• Originates in religious wars between Catholics and Protestants (16th–18th centuries).
• John Locke argued that persons of good conscience would never agree on which form of Christianity was correct, so the state should not force one model on everyone but should tolerate such differences.
• Famous quote (often wrongly attributed to Voltaire): "I detest what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it."

Two dimensions:

Dimension	Meaning
Ethical ideal	A corollary of individual liberty; respect that other people are autonomous, in control of their own destinies, and entitled to live as they please
Social principle	Establishes rules about how human beings should behave towards one another when it comes to disagreement: through rational discussion

• Some liberals (e.g., John Rawls) argue that the fundamental structures and symbolism of the state should be neutral regarding the 'comprehensive doctrines' (life philosophies) of its citizens.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Liberals disagree fundamentally on how to justify their core principles—some argue liberalism maximizes happiness (utilitarianism), while others argue it protects inherent human rights (rights-based liberalism)—and these abstract debates have shaped the practical split between classical and reform liberalism.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Two justifications for liberalism: utilitarianism (liberalism creates the most happiness) vs. rights-based (liberalism protects inherent human rights).
• Utilitarian logic: individuals know best what makes them happy, so leaving people free to choose maximizes overall societal happiness.
• Rights-based logic: human beings have intrinsic rights (freedom, due process, security) that cannot be compromised for other gains like happiness or prosperity.
• Common confusion: utilitarianism focuses on consequences (happiness outcomes), while rights-based approaches focus on principles (justice and rights regardless of outcomes).
• Classical vs. reform liberalism: the most important practical division within liberalism, affecting ordinary people's lives beyond abstract theory.

🔍 Two ways to justify liberalism

🎯 Utilitarianism: maximizing happiness

Utilitarianism: a family of ethical theories holding that the priority in important choices should be creating the most happiness possible.

• Jeremy Bentham (1780): humans are governed by "pain and pleasure," which determine what we ought to do.
• The utilitarian case for liberalism: choose the ideology that, when implemented, maximizes overall societal happiness.
• Does not require making everybody happy—only that total happiness is higher than under any other system.
• Plenty of room for unhappiness in theory; the goal is maximization, not perfection.

Why liberalism maximizes happiness:

• You know better than anyone else what will make you happy.
• You may make mistakes, but outcomes are more likely to result in happiness if you are free to choose than if parents, priests, or governments manage your life.
• Therefore, leaving people alone to run their own lives builds the happiest possible society.
• This is a utilitarian argument for the core liberal principle of individual liberty.

⚖️ Rights-based liberalism: intrinsic value of principles

Rights-based (deontological) approaches: center on the intrinsic value of liberal principles, irrespective of their real-world consequences.

• Immanuel Kant's phrase Fiat justitia, pereat mundus ("let justice be done, though the world perish") captures the idea that justice has such high value for its own sake that real-world considerations cannot distract from our commitment to it.
• The effects of choices (including happiness or unhappiness produced) are less important than the principles that inform those choices.
• For rights-based liberals, human beings just do have rights—to freedom, due process, security of the person, and so forth.
• Violating individuals' rights is wrong in and of itself.
• There is an inherent worth to the human individual that cannot be compromised for greater gains in happiness, prosperity, or other considerations.
• Rights-based liberals argue liberalism is the best ideology because it protects these rights better than any alternative.

Don't confuse:

• Utilitarianism = consequences matter most (happiness outcomes).
• Rights-based = principles matter most (justice and rights, regardless of outcomes).

🏛️ John Locke's social contract theory

🌲 The state of nature and natural rights

• John Locke argued humans once lived in a "state of nature"—a world without government.
• In this world, people had natural rights to do as they pleased.
• Locke thought people would generally respect the "laws of nature" (basic moral principles about how to treat others).
• However, there was no way to ensure they would, absent government.
• Some people would be predatory, stealing property or threatening lives and liberty.
• Sometimes people would honestly disagree over how to treat each other, with no way to arbitrate disputes without government.

📜 The social contract

The social contract: the principle whereby we agree to limit our natural freedoms under laws enforced by governments in order to better protect our natural rights.

• Locke concluded that to better protect our natural rights, human beings agree to establish governments and abide by their laws.
• The entire point of creating governments is to better protect our rights, which Locke saw as God-given.
• A government that consistently fails to protect our rights, or makes itself a threat to them, breaks the terms of the contract.
• We are no longer obligated to obey such a government; indeed, we can justly overthrow it.

Note on Locke's approach:

• Locke published before the distinction between utilitarianism and rights-based liberalism had emerged.
• His writing freely mixes the two levels of argument.
• His thought experiments (like the social contract) have influenced later generations of rights-focused thinkers.

🎭 John Rawls and the veil of ignorance

🎭 The veil of ignorance thought experiment

The veil of ignorance: a hypothetical situation in which we deliberate about the basic rules of society without knowing our actual situation in life (e.g., whether we are rich or poor).

• John Rawls, the most important liberal thinker of the postwar era, used this thought experiment to determine what a just society would look like.
• Not knowing whether we were rich or poor would allow us to settle upon genuinely fair principles of economic organization, unaffected by our vested interests.
• Example: knowing that, once the veil was lifted, we might end up as members of a vulnerable minority would motivate us to build very strong protections for freedom and equality into our society.

🔐 Lexical priority of freedom and equality

• As a rights-based liberal, Rawls thought we would agree that individual freedom and equality of persons should be afforded strong protection by society.
• They should have "lexical priority" over considerations of happiness—meaning they should come first, having primacy over other values.
• This is a rights-based argument: principles (freedom, equality) take precedence over outcomes (happiness).

🏛️ Classical liberalism: the original form

📜 Origins and core beliefs

• Classical liberalism represents the ideology in its original form.
• Coalesced in Britain and penetrated into America and Europe over the 17th and 18th centuries.
• By the middle of the 19th century, classical liberalism had attained peak influence, becoming the "common sense" of many statesmen.
• Opposed a model of society defined by aristocratic privilege, religious orthodoxy, and closed economies.
• Emphasized individual liberty and what we would today call "personal responsibility."

🏗️ Limited government role

• A person could do as they pleased as long as they injured no one.
• The appropriate role for government intervention in social life was modest:
  • Maintaining a military.
  • Building roads, bridges, and other basic infrastructure.
• This approach gave people considerable freedom to live as they wished.

⚠️ Harsh consequences for "irresponsible" choices

• People who made what were understood to be irresponsible or immoral choices were left to fend for themselves, relying on private charity.
• Those who could not pay debts were thrown in prison.
• Little consideration was given to life circumstances.
• Example: if someone turned to crime, the fact that they might have been born into abject urban poverty and had few other options was simply irrelevant.

⚖️ Narrow definition of equality

Formal/legal equality was an important classical liberal principle, but it was usually defined very narrowly by today's standards.

Group	Status under classical liberalism	Reasoning
Propertied men	Full rights of citizenship, including the right to run for office	Possessed a stake in social prosperity; could be trusted to make responsible choices with the public purse
Poor and working-class people	No full rights of citizenship	"When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose"—no stake in social prosperity; reason and humanity required cultivation beyond their reach due to desperate daily grind
Women	Regarded as less than fully rational; generally considered property of their husbands; lacked full legal rights and entitlements	Could find employment in some domains (teaching, service) but lacked the full array of rights that classical liberal "equality" demanded for propertied men

Advance and limitations:

• Classical liberalism represented a huge advance for equality compared to the complicated networks of inherited legal ranks and privileges in pre-liberal Europe.
• However, its limitations are obvious: only propertied men had full rights of citizenship.

Don't confuse:

• Classical liberalism's "equality" = legal equality for propertied men only.
• Modern understanding of equality = broader inclusion of all people regardless of property, gender, or class.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Classical liberalism, which emerged in 17th–18th century Britain and peaked in the mid-19th century, championed individual liberty and minimal government intervention but defined equality narrowly—limited to propertied men—and relied on laissez-faire capitalism that produced both immense wealth and appalling poverty, eventually prompting liberals to rethink their ideology.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Core principles: individual liberty, personal responsibility, minimal government (military, infrastructure), and formal/legal equality—but equality was narrowly defined (propertied men only).
• Economic doctrine: Adam Smith's laissez-faire capitalism—free markets as an "invisible hand" optimally efficient, government should stay out of the way.
• Narrow equality vs. radical seed: early classical liberals excluded women, the poor, and working classes from full citizenship, yet the rhetoric of "rights of man" and "all men created equal" eventually enabled broader demands for equality.
• Common confusion: classical liberalism's "equality" meant legal equality for a privileged subset, not equal opportunities or social support; it is not the same as modern egalitarianism.
• Historical outcome: laissez-faire capitalism and industrialization created technological innovation and wealth but also urban slums, child labor, and desperate poverty, leading to doubts and the rise of reform liberalism.

🏛️ Origins and core principles

🏛️ When and where classical liberalism emerged

• Coalesced in Britain over the 17th and 18th centuries.
• Spread into America and Europe.
• By the mid-19th century, it had become the "common sense" of many statesmen—peak influence.

🗝️ What classical liberals emphasized

Classical liberalism opposed the old model of society:

• Old model: aristocratic privilege, religious orthodoxy, closed economies.
• Classical liberal model: individual liberty and personal responsibility.

Key tenets:

• A person could do as they pleased as long as they injured no one.
• Government's role was modest: maintaining a military, building roads/bridges and other basic infrastructure.
• People had considerable freedom to live as they wished.
• But: those who made "irresponsible or immoral choices" were left to fend for themselves, relying on private charity.
  • Example: people who could not pay debts were thrown in prison; life circumstances (e.g., being born into abject urban poverty) were considered irrelevant if someone turned to crime.

⚖️ Equality: formal but narrow

⚖️ What classical liberal equality meant

Formal/legal equality: an important classical liberal principle, but usually defined very narrowly by today's standards.

• Early classical liberals believed in legal equality for propertied men.
• This was a huge advance compared to pre-liberal Europe's complicated networks of inherited legal ranks and privileges.
• But its limitations are obvious: it excluded the poor, working classes, and women.

🚫 Who was excluded and why

Group	Reason for exclusion	Consequence
Non-propertied men	Belief: no property = no stake in social prosperity ("when you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose"); could not be trusted with the public purse.	Denied full rights of citizenship, including the right to run for office.
Poor and working-class people	Belief: reason and "fully realized humanity" required cultivation beyond their reach; they were consumed with a desperate daily grind.	Only well-to-do men had full rights of citizenship.
Women	Regarded as less than fully rational; generally considered property of their husbands.	Lacked the full array of legal rights and entitlements; unattached women could work in some domains (teaching, service) but had limited rights.

• Example: Women in Canada were not legally declared "persons" until 1929—exemplifying the blatantly patriarchal assumptions of 18th–19th century classical liberal thought.

🌱 The radical seed in classical liberal equality

Despite its narrow application, classical liberalism contained a radical seed:

• The rhetoric of "the rights of man" and "all men [being] created equal" was bold compared to what came before.
• Over time, these ideals were leveraged to demand broader rights:
  • Full legal rights for all males, irrespective of property or wealth (achieved over the 19th century in Britain, Canada, the United States).
  • Legal discrimination based on religion and race gradually became more distasteful.
  • The English words "man" and "men" often meant "humanity as a whole," including women.
  • Suffragettes called upon the same ideals to demand equal legal rights for women—winning many key victories in the early 20th century.

Don't confuse: classical liberal "equality" was initially exclusionary, but its principles provided the language and logic for later, more inclusive equality movements.

💰 Economic doctrine: laissez-faire capitalism

💰 Adam Smith's influence

Classical liberal economic doctrine was heavily influenced by Adam Smith, the great economist and moral philosopher.

Smith's core argument:

The free market is an optimally efficient system.

🤚 The "invisible hand" mechanism

• Profit motive: gives businesses a strong incentive to produce things people want to buy.
• Competition: gives businesses strong incentives to produce as cheaply and efficiently as possible.
• The market acts like an "invisible hand":
  • Overproduction is swiftly corrected: flooding the market destroys profits, so people stop producing such items/services.
  • Under-production is swiftly corrected: rewards come from meeting untapped demand.

🏛️ Government's role in the economy

• Laissez-faire (leave the market alone) was the watchword.
• The best thing for governments to do is get out of the way.
• Government's role: provide national security, law enforcement, and infrastructure (which could not profitably be provided by market actors).
• Smith also argued for public provision of schooling at all levels and showed openness to government regulation in some cases, but later generations of his followers often ignored these arguments.
• Doing all this will lead to economic expansion, or "the wealth of nations."

🏭 Historical outcomes: wealth and poverty

🏭 Classical liberalism's apparent success

• Classical liberalism grew in influence as capitalism and the Industrial Revolution spread throughout Europe, North America, and beyond.
• These forces created:
  • Colossal technological innovation.
  • Urbanization.
  • Huge amounts of private wealth.
• The classical liberal model seemed to work: countries influenced by it seemed incredibly dynamic and often very prosperous, taken as a whole.

😞 The dark side: appalling poverty

However, the second half of the 19th century brought increasing doubts:

What laissez-faire capitalism and industrialization created:

• Immense wealth and technological innovation.
• But also:
  • Appalling poverty.
  • Laborers often worked in miserable conditions for long hours and minimal pay.
  • They were frequently children (see the excerpt's reference to "Breaker Boys," young coal miners in 1911).
  • Urban slums abounded, rife with prostitution, disease, and violence.
  • Economic slumps brought little assistance from the state and could leave even hard-working and capable people in desperate straits.

🔄 The shift toward reform liberalism

As conditions worsened:

• Workers gradually acquired voting rights.
• Labor unions increasingly mobilized.
• Socialism and anarchism gathered force as possible alternatives.
• Liberals began to rethink what their ideology meant.
• This gradually ushered in a new version of liberalism often called "reform" liberalism.

Don't confuse: classical liberalism's economic success (aggregate wealth and innovation) with the lived experience of workers and the poor—the system produced both prosperity and misery, prompting ideological evolution.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Reform liberalism emerged in response to the failures of laissez-faire capitalism, redefining liberty and equality to justify an active government role in ensuring citizens have real capacity to pursue their goals and equal opportunities through welfare programs and economic management.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Why reform liberalism arose: Classical liberalism created immense wealth but also appalling poverty, child labor, urban slums, and economic insecurity, prompting liberals to rethink their ideology in the late 19th century.
• Core conceptual shift: Reform liberals redefined liberty from merely "absence of interference" (negative liberty) to include "actual capacity to pursue ends" (positive liberty), and equality from "equal legal rights" to "equal opportunities."
• How reform liberalism works: Government actively redistributes wealth through taxation and provides universal social programs (welfare state) plus uses Keynesian economics to manage the business cycle.
• Common confusion: Reform vs classical liberalism—both value liberty and equality, but reform liberals argue rights are worthless without the real means to exercise them, requiring much more government intervention.
• Historical arc: Reform liberalism dominated 1945–1980 but began breaking down in the 1970s amid stagflation, high deficits, and economic challenges.

🔄 The crisis that sparked reform

💔 Failures of classical liberalism

• Classical liberalism and laissez-faire capitalism produced:
  • Immense wealth and technological innovation
  • Appalling poverty alongside prosperity
  • Miserable working conditions: long hours, minimal pay, frequent child labor
  • Urban slums with prostitution, disease, and violence
  • Economic slumps with no state assistance, leaving even hard-working people desperate

🗳️ Political pressures for change

• Workers gradually acquired voting rights
• Labour unions increasingly mobilized
• Socialism and anarchism gathered force as possible alternatives
• These pressures forced liberals to rethink what their ideology meant in the second half of the 19th century

🔑 Redefining core liberal values

🆓 Liberty: from negative to positive

Classical liberal view:

• Focus on negative liberty: freedom as the absence of interference with the individual
• The freedom to be left alone

Reform liberal addition:

Positive liberty: for an individual to be truly free, they must have an actual capacity to pursue their ends in life.

• Reform liberals agree negative liberty is important but insufficient
• Real freedom requires not just absence of barriers but actual means to act

Example: The right to get a university education is worthless unless one has a meaningful opportunity to act on it—e.g., through government subsidies paid by taxation that make attendance financially affordable.

⚖️ Equality: from legal rights to opportunity

Classical liberal view:

• Equality in terms of equal legal rights

Reform liberal expansion:

Equality of opportunity: equal rights are important, but we also have to have equal opportunities.

• Legal rights alone don't create real equality
• People need the practical means to exercise those rights

Don't confuse: Both versions value equality, but reform liberals insist formal rights must be backed by material conditions.

🏛️ The welfare state solution

💰 Redistribution mechanism

The standard reform liberal answer to creating positive liberty and equality of opportunity:

• Much more active government than classical liberals imagined
• Redistributing wealth: taxing those with higher incomes
• Directing money into government-sponsored programs accessible to all

🛡️ What the welfare state includes

The welfare state: the assemblage of social programs intended to protect citizens from destitution 'from cradle to grave.'

Programs typically include:

• Old-age pensions
• Unemployment insurance
• Subsidized higher education
• Publicly funded health insurance
• And many other protections

📈 Historical expansion

• By the mid-20th century, the welfare state had become a more-or-less consensus position in liberal democracies
• The role of the state expanded massively between 1900 and 1970
• Governments influenced by reform liberal ideas became providers of a huge array of programs

🎯 Roosevelt's vision (1944)

U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt captured the spirit of reform liberalism in his 1944 State of the Union Address:

"True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. Necessitous men are not free men."

He proposed a new Bill of Rights including rights to:

• A good job
• Food, clothing, recreation
• Housing
• Medical care
• Good education
• Economic security in old age

These aspirations capture the reform liberal view of government's role.

📊 Keynesian economics

🔧 The problem Keynes addressed

• Classical liberal view: Laissez-faire and the "invisible hand" would self-correct economic problems
• Reality: Recessions and depressions caused enormous unnecessary suffering
• The Great Depression of the 1930s showed the invisible hand could not be trusted to end suffering in a timely manner

💡 Keynes's solution

Key figure: economist John Maynard Keynes argued against laissez-faire preferences.

Government should:

• Stimulate "aggregate demand" for products and services through:
  • Make-work projects
  • Infrastructure development
  • Subsidies to individuals and companies
  • (Later Keynesians added tax cuts and lower interest rates)

Fiscal policy:

• Practice deficit spending during downturns to pay for stimulus
• Pay down the deficit once the economy picks up again

Goal:

Keynesian economics: smooth out the 'business cycle' of economic growth and contraction that had long bedeviled capitalist economies.

🎯 What this promised

• Lift economies out of recession
• Get things back on track
• Reduce the severity of boom-bust cycles

Don't confuse: Keynesian deficits are strategic (spend during downturns, pay back during growth), not permanent debt accumulation.

🌍 The reform liberal era (1945–1980)

🏆 Dominance and consensus

The combination:

• Welfare states + Keynesian economics = reform liberalism
• Became the dominant liberal model during the postwar era

What most liberal-democratic governments practiced:

• Suite of social programs
• Regulations
• Powerful labour unions
• "Macro-economic management" (economic planning and public ownership)
• Full employment often the stated goal

🎭 The state's new role

Before reform liberalism	Under reform liberalism
Leave people to fend for themselves in a dynamic but merciless market	Direct responsibility for the economic welfare of its people
Minimal government intervention	Active planning, ownership, and management

The state now had a much larger degree of economic planning and public ownership than had prevailed before the Second World War.

📉 The breakdown (1970s onward)

By the 1970s, the semi-consensus began to break down:

Economic challenges:

• The western postwar boom seemed to have ground to a halt
• Stagflation: combination of high inflation and high unemployment
• This baffled economists and challenged governments
• Governments found themselves running structural (ongoing) deficits
• Debt ratcheted up

Implication: These problems opened the door for a return to classical liberal ideas in the form of neoliberalism.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Neoliberalism emerged as a revival of classical liberal ideas in response to the crisis of reform liberalism, achieved dominance from roughly 1980–2010 through tax cuts, privatization, and deregulation, but ultimately contained internal contradictions—especially rising inequality and financial instability—that led to its decline and a return to government intervention.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Why neoliberalism arose: classical liberal thinkers argued that the reform liberal state had become bloated, inefficient, and oppressive, stifling economic dynamism through excessive government control.
• Core neoliberal agenda: much smaller government, lower taxes (especially for wealthy and corporations), privatization, deregulation, free trade/globalization, and tight money supply.
• Initial success: sustained economic growth and technological change (digitization, internet) through the 1990s–2000s, with even left-leaning governments adopting neoliberal policies.
• Seeds of demise: globalization increased inequality and hollowed out western working classes; financial deregulation contributed to the 2008 Great Recession; governments returned to Keynesian stimulus and deficit spending.
• Common confusion: neoliberalism vs classical liberalism—neoliberalism is a revival of classical liberal ideas in a modern context (late 20th century), not identical to 19th-century laissez-faire; it emerged specifically as a reaction to mid-20th-century reform liberalism.

🔄 The return of classical liberalism

📚 Classical liberalism's persistence

• Classical liberal thinkers and economists never disappeared; they "toiled on the margins during the reform liberal heyday."
• When reform liberalism entered crisis (structural deficits, rising debt), these thinkers "once more stepped into the spotlight."

🧠 Key neoliberal thinkers and their critiques

Friedrich Hayek's argument:

The reform liberal state developed over the 20th century was bloated, inefficient, and oppressive.

• The tyranny problem: the more government does, the more of our lives falls under "a single, coordinated source of human control."
• Contrast with laissez-faire:
  • In a laissez-faire economy: outcomes determined by "a multitude of free and uncoordinated individual choices by producers and consumers."
  • In a heavily redistributive economy: outcomes "are determined by a small number of deciders in government, backed by the coercive power of law."
• Hayek called this tyranny, the "road to serfdom."

Milton Friedman's argument:

• High inflation caused partly by minimum wage laws and labor union demands driving up wages.
• This "distorted price signals and discouraged entrepreneurial dynamism, thereby crushing economic growth."

🎯 The shared solution

Both Hayek and Friedman agreed on the answer:

• Much smaller and less active government
• Much lower taxation
• Minimal regulation
• General emphasis on private ownership and market mechanisms
• Rolling back government and minimizing redistribution would create "a dynamic and innovative economy that spurs higher levels of prosperity and is freer to boot."

🏛️ Neoliberalism in practice

👔 Political champions

Leaders who embraced neoliberalism:

• U.S. President Ronald Reagan (1980–88)
• U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (1979–1990)

This configuration became known as 'neoliberalism.'

📋 The neoliberal policy agenda

Policy area	Specific measures
Taxation	Tax cuts, including to the wealthy and corporations
Public assets	Privatization of publicly-owned assets and companies
Trade	International and global trading agreements designed to lock in free movement of capital and (to a lesser extent) labor across borders—'free trade' and later 'globalization'
Monetary policy	Tight money supply

⚖️ The trade-off argument

• Costs acknowledged: lower protection for citizens and workers—weakened social programs, diminished unions, reduced job security, possibly stagnating wages, rising inequality.
• Promised benefits: greater innovation and economic dynamism, cheaper consumer costs (from increased competition), lower interest rates and taxes, balanced government budgets.

🌍 Mainstream acceptance

• By 2000, even "nominally left-tilting governments" embraced much of this recipe:
  • Tony Blair's Labour Party in Britain
  • Jean Chrétien's Liberal Party in Canada
• These years marked by sustained (if unspectacular) economic growth and enormous technological change (digitization, rise of the internet).

💥 The unraveling of neoliberalism

🌐 Globalization's downsides

Globalization brought increased levels of inequality in the prosperous countries that embraced it most fervently.

• Many felt that "globalization hollowed out much of the western working classes, as jobs migrated to low-wage countries such as China."
• Example: manufacturing jobs moving overseas left communities without employment alternatives, concentrating wealth among those who benefited from global capital flows.

💸 The Great Recession (2008)

• Cause: deregulation of the financial sector (in line with neoliberal preference for less intrusive government) "contributed directly to a global economic meltdown in 2008 triggered by irresponsible mortgage lending."
• Response: governments "frantically rediscovered Keynesianism, launching huge stimulus programs."
• Don't confuse: this was a reversal of neoliberal principles, not their continuation—governments returned to active intervention when markets failed catastrophically.

📊 Inequality returns to the agenda

• Under influence of protests (Occupy Movement) and progressive economists (Thomas Piketty), "economic inequality returned to the mainstream public agenda after years of being little discussed."
• Western governments "once again fell into structural deficits, as citizens demanded more active spending without quite being willing to surrender the neoliberal emphasis on low taxation."

🚧 Backlash against globalization

Trade agreements and integration came under attack:

• 1994's North American Free Trade Agreement criticized
• European Union's deeper economic and political integration challenged
• Populist-nationalist governments emerged:
  • Donald Trump administration (2016–2020)
  • 'Brexit'-supporting U.K. Conservative Party pulled Britain out of the EU

Result: "Globalization seemed on the retreat, and government spending was back 'in.'"

🔄 Return to government intervention

• Keynesian stimulus dominated the 2010s
• "Then came the dramatic government response to the even more dramatic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic."
• The excerpt concludes: "The neoliberal project (peaking from 1980–2010) seems to have fallen into disarray."

🔍 Understanding neoliberalism's trajectory

📅 Timeline summary

Period	Dominant approach	Key characteristics
Pre-1980	Reform liberalism	Active government, social programs, Keynesian management
1980–2010	Neoliberalism peak	Tax cuts, privatization, deregulation, globalization
2008 onward	Neoliberal decline	Return to stimulus, rising deficits, globalization retreat

🧩 The internal contradiction

Neoliberalism perhaps contained the seeds of its own demise.

The excerpt identifies a pattern:

1. Neoliberal policies (deregulation, globalization) created conditions for crisis (inequality, financial instability)
2. Crises forced governments to abandon neoliberal principles (return to intervention, stimulus)
3. But citizens wanted both active spending and low taxes—an unsustainable combination
4. Result: "massive government deficits and ongoing low rates of economic growth in western nations"

🔄 What replaced neoliberalism

The excerpt describes the post-neoliberal period as characterized by:

• "A somewhat nostalgic turn back toward reform liberalism"
• Nationalist economic protection
• Massive government deficits
• Ongoing low rates of economic growth in western nations

Don't confuse: this is not a return to the reform liberal heyday, but rather an unstable hybrid—citizens want reform liberal spending without reform liberal taxation levels.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Neoliberalism has fallen into disarray and liberalism now faces fundamental challenges from anti-racist, decolonizing, and feminist critics who argue it fails to address systemic injustice, as well as from the existential threat of climate change, leaving its future status uncertain.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Neoliberalism's decline: The neoliberal project (1980–2010) has been succeeded by a return to reform liberalism, nationalist protectionism, and massive government deficits.
• Critique from social justice perspectives: Anti-racist, decolonizing, and feminist intellectuals argue liberalism's emphasis on individual liberty and equality of opportunity is insufficient because it allows invisible biases and systemic injustices to persist.
• The foundational injustice problem: Liberal societies like Canada are built on seized indigenous lands and genocide, yet liberalism has failed to address systemic racism, microaggressions, and colonial foundations.
• Common confusion: Social justice proponents seek transformation beyond liberalism, while many liberals worry this approach neglects due process, formal equality, and sincere disagreement.
• Climate change challenge: Global warming raises questions about whether capitalism's endless growth quest is compatible with human flourishing on the planet.

🔄 The End of Neoliberalism

📉 What replaced neoliberalism

The excerpt states that the neoliberal project, which peaked from 1980 to 2010, "seems to have fallen into disarray."

What came after:

• A "somewhat nostalgic turn back toward reform liberalism"
• Nationalist economic protection
• Massive government deficits
• Ongoing low rates of economic growth in western nations

🌍 Context from earlier trends

The excerpt references earlier developments (from section 3.4):

• Trade agreements like NAFTA (1994) and the EU came under attack
• Populist-nationalist governments (e.g., Trump administration 2016–2020, Brexit-supporting U.K. Conservative Party)
• Globalization seemed on the retreat
• Government spending was back "in"
• Keynesian stimulus dominated the 2010s
• Dramatic government response to COVID-19 pandemic

Don't confuse: This is not a rejection of all liberalism, but specifically a move away from neoliberal low-taxation and free-trade orthodoxy.

🔍 Critiques from Social Justice Perspectives

🎯 The core argument against liberalism

Anti-racist, decolonizing, and feminist intellectuals make a fundamental critique:

Liberalism's emphasis upon individual liberty, and even reform liberalism's ideals of equality of opportunity, are insufficient.

Why insufficient:

• Liberalism takes "people as they are"
• It encourages mere "toleration" rather than deep understanding of and deference toward marginalized perspectives
• This allows "profound and invisible biases to fester"

🧠 How invisible bias operates

The excerpt provides concrete mechanisms:

Sphere	How bias manifests
Hiring	Committees might unconsciously favor Caucasian, settler males
Politics	Voters and parties might harbor received understandings of "leadership" as inherently male (or white)
Institutions	Standard practices in business and government, presented as "fair" and "neutral," might in fact reflect norms created by (and for) straight, white, able-bodied, male settlers

Key insight: The problem is not just explicit discrimination but practices that appear neutral yet embed particular group norms.

🏛️ The foundational injustice problem

The excerpt emphasizes a deeper structural issue:

Liberal societies in countries like Canada are built on the seizure of indigenous lands and the genocide of indigenous inhabitants.

What liberalism has failed to address:

• Systemic racism
• Microaggressions
• Liberal-democratic states and economies having been constructed upon indigenous territories
• The forced labour of black bodies

Example: A liberal society might guarantee formal equality and individual rights, yet its very existence depends on historical injustices that continue to shape present conditions.

🔄 The call for transformation

Proponents of "social justice" articulate a need to:

• Go beyond liberalism
• Transform "the prevalent practices, beliefs and assumptions at work in liberal societies"

This is not reform within liberalism but a move beyond it.

⚖️ Liberal Response and Tension

🤔 Liberal concerns about social justice approaches

The excerpt notes that "many liberals worry" about the social justice emphasis:

What they fear is being neglected:

• Due process
• Formal equality
• The possibility of sincere and thoughtful disagreement

Source cited: Campbell & Manning (2018) represent this liberal concern.

🔀 The fundamental disagreement

Social justice perspective	Liberal perspective
Transformation of underlying practices and assumptions needed	Due process and formal equality are essential safeguards
"Toleration" is insufficient; need deep understanding and deference	Sincere and thoughtful disagreement must remain possible
Invisible biases require systemic change	Individual liberty and equality of opportunity are core values

Don't confuse: This is not simply a disagreement about tactics but about whether liberalism's foundational commitments are adequate or themselves part of the problem.

🌡️ The Climate Challenge

🌍 The existential threat

The excerpt states:

The existential threat of global warming casts a pall over contemporary capitalism, raising questions about whether the endless quest for economic growth associated with market economics is even compatible with the flourishing of human life on the planet.

Key elements:

• This is described as an existential threat (not merely a policy challenge)
• It targets capitalism's "endless quest for economic growth"
• The question is about compatibility with human flourishing
• Market economics itself is implicated

Example: A liberal market economy might maximize individual choice and economic efficiency, yet its growth imperative could undermine the planetary conditions necessary for any human society.

🔮 Liberalism's Uncertain Future

❓ The open question

The excerpt concludes:

It remains to be seen whether liberalism, which has been so influential for the past 200 years, can retain its favoured status in light of such challenges.

What is uncertain:

• Whether liberalism can adapt to diverse critiques (social justice perspectives)
• Whether it can address the climate crisis
• Whether it will retain its "favoured status" (dominant position in political thought)

Context: After 200 years of influence, liberalism faces challenges that question its fundamental adequacy, not just its specific policies.

🧩 The nature of the challenge

The challenges are not:

• Technical problems requiring better implementation
• Disagreements about which liberal principles to prioritize

The challenges are:

• Foundational (liberal societies built on injustice)
• Structural (invisible biases embedded in "neutral" practices)
• Existential (capitalism's growth logic vs. planetary survival)

Don't confuse: This is not about reforming liberalism but about whether liberalism itself can survive as the dominant framework.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Conservatism is a political attitude rooted in attachment to past and current ways of doing things, emphasizing tradition, hierarchy, and gradual change over radical reform, though it manifests differently across places and includes competing variants like classical conservatism, libertarianism, and neoconservatism.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Universal yet diverse: Conservatism appears in most societies but varies greatly by location and tradition—what conservatives seek to conserve depends on local political history.
• Two broad categories: Classical conservatism (tradition, hierarchy, organic society) vs. modern conservatism/New Right (free markets, limited government, ideological principles).
• Common confusion: Classical conservatism can support state intervention for social health, while modern conservatism often opposes government activity—they differ fundamentally despite sharing the "conservative" label.
• Internal tensions today: Libertarians, social conservatives, neoconservatives, and populists all claim the conservative label but disagree on key issues like government's role in personal life, economics, and foreign policy.

🏛️ Classical conservatism's core themes

🕰️ Tradition as foundation

Tradition: Ideas and practices that have stood the test of time and form a partnership between the living and the dead.

• Tradition plays two roles:
  • Proven wisdom: Practices that have persisted across generations count as evidence in their favor.
  • Unavoidable inheritance: We cannot escape being shaped by our society's traditions; reform proposals only make sense within that context.
• Edmund Burke's metaphor: tradition is like a conversation—new ideas should arise naturally from what has been said before, not abruptly change the topic.
• Example: A society might reform its institutions, but reforms should build on existing norms rather than import entirely foreign systems.

⚖️ Hierarchy and authority

Hierarchy: Social order requires some stratification—some members must have more power than others (e.g., politicians over citizens, parents over children).

Authority: Legitimate power recognized as rightful, not merely coercive force.

• Social bonds depend on legitimacy, not just power:
  • Superiors must honor their authority; subordinates should respect it.
  • When authority becomes exploitation, it loses legitimacy and harms social order.
• The family unit is crucial: it provides the first experience of legitimate hierarchical authority and builds broader communal loyalty.
• Don't confuse: This is not a defense of all inequality or the status quo—classical conservatives argue that legitimate authority (not mere power) best protects human rights and social stability.

🌱 Organic theory of society

Organic theory: The state is like a living organism—it can be healthy or sick, and each part must perform its function for the whole to flourish.

• Plato's analogy: Just as the soul has thinking, desiring, and courageous parts, the city has guardians, auxiliaries, and producers—each class must fulfill its proper role.
• Gradual change only: Radical reforms are like sudden mutations—unlikely to be perceived as legitimate and harmful to social cohesion.
• Political reform must arise from principles already at work in the society, like biological growth following genetic structure.
• Example: Introducing a completely foreign political system risks instability because citizens lack natural allegiance to unfamiliar institutions.

🧩 Human imperfection and fallibility

• Opposition to political rationalism: The idea that politics should follow a perfect rational blueprint ignores that humans act on emotion, loyalty, and self-interest, not reason alone.
• Laws designed purely on abstract principles will fail because they don't account for the full range of human motivations.
• Prudence over perfection: No political system will ever be perfect; attempting to impose an ideal vision risks doing more harm than good.
• No universal blueprint: Different societies need different systems based on their own history and culture—imposing foreign models (like democracy promotion) often fails to gain local support.
• Example: Canada's founders sought self-government while preserving British parliamentary traditions (the "Tory touch"), not importing a revolutionary new system.

💼 Modern conservatism / The New Right

🔄 The Reagan-Thatcher shift

• Post-WWII, conservatism changed drastically, especially in the 1980s.
• Classical conservatism was socially conservative (protecting institutions) but not opposed to state economic intervention for the common good.
• The Reagan-Thatcher revolution emphasized free markets, deregulation, and privatization—"Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem."
• Modern conservatism combines hints of classical conservatism with classical liberalism's economic principles and is more ideological/rationalist.

🗽 Libertarianism

Libertarianism: Anti-statist outlook that limits government to a carefully defined sphere and opposes unnecessary interference in citizens' lives.

• The state should enforce neutral legal rules fairly, not engineer specific outcomes.
• Equality of opportunity vs. result: Endorses legal equality (same freedoms for all) but rejects active wealth redistribution.
• Differences from classical conservatism:
  • Libertarians prioritize free markets even when they harm social cohesion; classical conservatives would intervene to protect social health.
  • Libertarianism is ideological—based on universal claims about rights—while classical conservatism works within local traditions.
• Despite disagreements, libertarians align more with the New Right than with left-wing parties.
• Example: Maxime Bernier (Canada), Ron Paul and Rand Paul (U.S.) are prominent libertarians in conservative parties.

🛡️ Neoconservatism

• Emerged from 1930s-40s New York intellectuals; Irving Kristol called the "Godfather of Neoconservatism."
• Domestic policy: Emphasizes law, order, traditional values—supports strong police, harsh criminal punishments, government censorship of materials threatening traditional values.
• Foreign policy (three main points):
  1. Friends vs. enemies framework: Global politics understood through sharp divisions (Cold War legacy; later framed radical Islam as global threat).
  2. Distrust of international organizations: Seen as potential bridges to tyrannical world government, especially when constraining U.S. interests.
  3. American exceptionalism: U.S. has special moral role to promote democracy globally (legacy of WWII victory).
• The 2003 Iraq invasion exemplifies neoconservative principles in action.
• Don't confuse: Neoconservatism is comfortable with a strong state in criminal justice, foreign affairs, and culture—unlike libertarianism's anti-statism.

🔮 Contemporary challenges and tensions

🧩 Internal divisions

Fault line	Libertarians	Social/Neoconservatives
Personal freedoms	Support legalization of abortion, same-sex marriage	Oppose these to preserve traditional values
Government role	Minimal interference	Active role in preserving moral culture
State intervention	Limited to neutral rules	Justified for social health

• Example: Bill C-7 (medical assistance in dying) in Canada saw 13% of Conservative MPs break ranks to support it, while Liberals voted 142-2 in favor—reflecting Conservative Party's internal diversity.

📊 Classical conservatism vs. left-right divide

• Some classical conservative ideas bridge the left-right divide:
  • Support for labor unions
  • Government regulation to reduce inequality
  • Environmental regulations
• Canadian classical conservatives Eugene Forsey and George Grant supported the left-wing CCF (precursor to NDP).
• Don't confuse: "Right-wing" and "conservative" are not synonyms—classical conservatism can advocate left-wing policies.

🌊 The populist turn

Populism: Political attitude based on distinction between elites (cultural, political, business) and ordinary people; seeks to restore power to common people.

• Examples: Donald Trump's presidency, Brexit movement.
• Key questions for conservatism's future:
  • Is populism a lasting change or temporary phenomenon?
  • How does it differ from classical conservatism and the New Right?
• Populists disagree with libertarians and neoconservatives on:
  • State regulation of the economy
  • Global military action
  • Adherence to traditional constitutional norms
• The challenge: Can conservative parties manage these competing factions and agree on consistent policies?

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Classical conservatism prioritizes social order and stability by preserving inherited traditions, maintaining legitimate hierarchies, and accepting human limitations rather than pursuing radical reform based on abstract rational principles.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Core attitude: conservatism is a political attachment to past or current ways of doing things, aiming to conserve traditions that vary by place and culture.
• Four defining themes: tradition (tested practices), hierarchy and authority (legitimate social stratification), organic theory of the state (society as a living body), and human imperfection (limits of reason and idealism).
• Prudence over perfection: classical conservatives emphasize gradual change and social stability over radical redesign, warning that tearing down institutions is easier than rebuilding them.
• Common confusion: conservatism is not necessarily defending the rich and powerful; it argues that legitimate authority and social bonds—not abstract rights alone—best protect freedom and order.
• Context-dependent: because conservatism seeks to conserve specific traditions, American and Canadian conservatism differ (e.g., Canada's "Tory touch" and loyalty to parliamentary traditions).

🏛️ The role of tradition

🏛️ What tradition means

Tradition: the accumulation of practices and ideas that have been proven to work for generations; a partnership between the living and the dead.

• Tradition is not "every old idea is good," but persistence counts as a point in favor of an idea or practice.
• We cannot help but be shaped by inherited traditions; reform proposals only make sense if they arise from a society's own traditions.
• Example: a society with a long history of parliamentary governance should reform its legislature incrementally, not replace it with an entirely foreign system.

💬 Tradition as conversation

• Philosopher Michael Oakeshott described traditions as "neither fixed nor finished," more like ongoing conversations.
• New ideas are acceptable if they arise naturally from what has been said before, not as abrupt topic changes.
• This means political reform should be based on longstanding practices and norms, not imported blueprints.

⚠️ Institutions take time to build

• Once torn down, political systems can only be rebuilt with great difficulty.
• Radical change risks instability; there is no guarantee the new system will be more just or stable than the old.
• Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) argued that the French Revolution destroyed the basis of order: "Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half an hour than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years."
• Russell Kirk summarized: conservatives "prefer the devil they know to the devil they don't know."
• Don't confuse: this is not blind resistance to all change, but a warning that reform must begin from what currently exists, even if imperfect.

🔺 Hierarchy and authority

🔺 What hierarchy means

Hierarchy: a social order that requires at least some stratification, with some members having more social or political power than others.

• This does not mean those with more power are intrinsically more important or intelligent (though some conservatives have wrongly believed this).
• There must be inequality between certain groups: politicians and citizens, employers and employees, parents and children.
• The goal is social order and stability, not justifying all existing inequalities.

🛡️ Authority vs. power

Authority: power that is recognized as legitimate, creating obligations on both sides.

• Authority is different from mere power; it requires the recognition of legitimacy.
• Citizens, employees, and children should respect legitimate authority; superiors must behave in ways that honor and preserve that legitimacy.
• Example: an employer who exploits employees degenerates legitimate authority into illegitimate power—classical conservatism opposes such abuse.
• Social bonds flourish under legitimate authority, not coercion alone.

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 The family as foundation

• Families are often the first experience of legitimate hierarchical authority.
• Family allegiance helps create broader bonds of allegiance and legitimacy that a healthy social order requires.
• Don't confuse: this is not about preserving all family structures unchanged, but recognizing the family's role in building social cohesion.

🤝 Not a defense of injustice

• Classical conservatism is not necessarily a justification of an unjust status quo for the rich and powerful, as critics might argue.
• The disagreement is about the best way to protect human rights, not whether to protect them.
• Burke argued that abstract natural rights alone cannot be the basis of political order; the best guarantee of freedom is preserving the "natural aristocracy" (the system of hierarchy and authority held together by legitimacy and allegiance).

🌱 Organic theory of society and the state

🌱 Society as a living organism

Organic theory of the state: states or political communities are best understood as being like a living body.

• Terms like "body politic" or "social body" are taken seriously by classical conservatives.
• A political society can be healthy or sick, just like a living organism.
• Relationships—even unequal ones—must remain legitimate; a system upheld by power or coercion alone is unhealthy and cannot survive or flourish.

🧩 Each part has a function

• Like a physical body, the body politic requires many parts, each performing its assigned function for the organism to flourish.
• Plato's Republic compared the city to the human soul: the thinking part, desiring part, and courageous part correspond to guardians, auxiliaries, and producers in the city.
• A just city, like a just individual, is one in which each class performs its proper function.

🐢 Change must be gradual

• Radical or sudden change is unlikely to be perceived as legitimate by citizens, harming social cohesion and stability.
• Political reform must arise out of principles already at work in the society and its inherited traditions.
• Biological organisms change slowly and in keeping with their inner principles (genetic structure); this is the ideal model of social and political change for classical conservatives.
• Example: introducing a completely new governing principle abruptly is like forcing a biological organism to change its genetic code overnight—it threatens the organism's survival.

🧠 Human imperfection and fallibility

🧠 Opposition to political rationalism

Political rationalism: the idea that political systems should be patterned after rational and all-encompassing systems of thought, based on universally valid principles of reason.

• Classical conservatism is less idealistic and more pessimistic than other ideologies.
• Human beings are motivated by feelings, friendships, and allegiances as well as by reason.
• Reducing politics to rational principles risks failing to secure citizens' allegiance; political allegiance must appeal to the heart as well as the head.
• Example: even if a set of laws were perfectly designed according to the best rational plan, they would not work in the real world because people act on communal loyalty, custom, and selfish interests in addition to abstract principles.

⚖️ Prudence over perfection

• Prudence: the recognition of the limitations of what is possible.
• This does not mean no concern with justice, but greater emphasis on the dangers of redesigning society after a systematic blueprint.
• One conservative writer suggested that conservative politics has no proper "end in view" other than the continuance of social life; the social relationship has a life of its own and is its own goal.
• Some classical conservatives prefer to speak of conservatism as a disposition or attitude rather than an ideology.

🌍 No universal blueprint

• There is no single political system that will work in all times and places.
• Every society ought to be governed according to principles that naturally arise out of its own history, culture, and traditions.
• The danger of imposing a foreign political system is that eliciting broad support is overwhelmingly difficult when the ideas are foreign.
• Example: proponents of democracy promotion overseas have discovered that transplanting institutions without cultural fit leads to instability.
• Conservatism prefers a closer fit between society and government, even if the resulting system falls short of rational standards of justice.

🍁 Canadian example: the Tory touch

• The founders of Canadian confederation were motivated by classical conservative values.
• They struggled for self-government without discarding parliamentary and constitutional traditions rooted in British North America.
• Canada's House of Commons and Senate were patterned after Britain's House of Commons and House of Lords, while remaining loyal to the Crown.
• This classical conservative—or "high Tory"—heritage is one factor accounting for the difference between Canadian and American conservatism (the "Tory touch" thesis).

🔄 Classical conservatism today

🔄 Remnants in contemporary conservatism

• Even though conservatism has evolved in recent decades, remnants of classical conservatism persist.
• Contemporary conservatives often warn against "social engineering": attempts by the state to alter society in accordance with a rational plan.
• Some defenses of the traditional family are based on classical conservative premises, such as the need to maintain the family as an important social institution for raising and educating children.
• Don't confuse: these arguments are about preserving institutions that sustain social cohesion, not necessarily about opposing all family structure changes.

🆚 Contrast with modern conservatism

• Much of contemporary conservative discourse and policy making bears little resemblance to classical conservatism.
• The Reagan-Thatcher revolution in the 1980s saw a pronounced shift away from classical conservatism.
• Classical conservatism was socially conservative (protecting society from threats to institutions) but not economically conservative in the modern sense.
• The excerpt notes that classical conservatives were generally not opposed to [text cuts off here].

Classical conservatism	Modern conservatism (New Right)
Socially conservative (protect institutions)	[Excerpt does not provide details]
Not economically conservative (modern sense)	[Excerpt does not provide details]
Emphasis on tradition, hierarchy, organic change	Reagan-Thatcher revolution (1980s shift)

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Tradition serves as a crucial limitation on political action for classical conservatives because it represents accumulated wisdom that has stood the test of time and because political institutions, once destroyed, are extremely difficult to rebuild.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Two distinct roles of tradition: (1) ideas and practices proven to work over generations, and (2) political institutions that take time to build and are risky to tear down.
• Tradition as unavoidable shaping force: we cannot help but be shaped by inherited traditions; political reform only makes sense if it arises from a society's own traditions.
• How to distinguish acceptable vs. unacceptable change: new ideas are acceptable if they arise naturally and organically from existing practices (like a conversation), not as abrupt changes of topic.
• Common confusion: tradition does not mean every old idea is good or all new ideas must be rejected; persistence counts as a point in favor, but is not absolute proof of value.
• Why it matters: tradition limits what can or should be done politically; justice and social order are best achieved by building on what currently exists, even if imperfect.

🏛️ Tradition as accumulated wisdom

🏛️ Partnership between living and dead

Tradition: the accumulation of practices and ideas that have been proven to work for generations.

• Edmund Burke (1729–1797) described this as "the partnership between the living and the dead."
• The fact that an idea or practice has persisted counts as a point in its favor.
• This is not absolute: not every old idea is good, and not all new ideas must be viewed with suspicion.
• The key is that longevity provides evidence of value, not proof.

🌊 Tradition as unavoidable shaping force

• Conservatives argue we cannot help but be shaped by the traditions our society has inherited.
• Proposals for political reform only make sense or are feasible in a given society if they are products of its own traditions.
• This does not mean no new ideas are possible, but they must emerge from existing traditions.

Don't confuse: This is not about rejecting all change; it's about recognizing that we are always already embedded in traditions, so reform must work with them, not against them.

💬 The conversational model of tradition

💬 Oakeshott's metaphor

Michael Oakeshott (1901–1990) suggests traditions are "neither fixed nor finished," but are more like conversations.

• New ideas can always be introduced into a conversation.
• Better if they arise naturally and organically out of what has been said before.
• Worse if they are an abrupt change of topic.

✅ Acceptable vs. unacceptable change

Type of change	Relationship to tradition	Conservative view
Organic, natural development	Arises from longstanding practices and norms	Acceptable
Abrupt, disconnected change	Ignores or breaks from existing traditions	Unacceptable or risky

Example: A political reform that builds on existing legal principles and gradually extends them is like continuing a conversation. A reform that tears down the entire legal system and starts from scratch is like abruptly changing the topic.

⚠️ Tradition as institutional stability

⚠️ Difficulty of rebuilding institutions

• Political institutions take time to build.
• Once torn down, they can only be rebuilt with great difficulty.
• Though existing institutions are not perfect and may serve unjust purposes, conservatives warn against radical change.

🎲 Risk of radical change

• Radical change in the hope of a more just alternative is risky.
• No guarantee that the new system will be more just or stable than the old.
• Russell Kirk (1918–1994): "[conservatives] prefer the devil they know to the devil they don't know."

🔥 Burke's warning about the French Revolution

Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) argued that the French Revolution destroyed the basis of order and stability by toppling the existing political system.

Burke wrote:

"Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half an hour than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years. The errors and defects of old establishments are visible and palpable. It calls for little ability to point them out. … At once to preserve and reform is quite another thing."

• Destruction is fast and easy; construction is slow and difficult.
• Pointing out flaws is easy; preserving while reforming is hard.
• The challenge is to "preserve and reform" simultaneously, not to tear down and start over.

🎯 Tradition as political limitation

🎯 What tradition limits

Tradition is a set of limitations on what can or should be done in the political sphere.

• It does not forbid all change.
• It channels change through existing practices and norms.
• It warns against radical, disconnected reforms.

🎯 Why limitation matters

Justice and social order will be best achieved if we begin from what we currently have, even if it falls short of perfection.

• Starting from existing traditions is more likely to produce stable, legitimate outcomes.
• Starting from scratch is more likely to produce instability and unintended consequences.

Don't confuse: This is not about defending every aspect of the status quo; it's about recognizing that reform must build on existing foundations rather than demolishing them.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Classical conservatives argue that legitimate hierarchy and authority—not mere power—are essential to preserve social order and stability, because political communities survive only when members feel natural allegiance to their leaders.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Hierarchy means necessary stratification: not that all differences are natural or just, but that some unequal distribution of power is required for social order.
• Authority ≠ power: authority requires recognition of legitimacy; power alone is coercion and cannot sustain a healthy political community.
• Mutual obligations: those with authority must behave legitimately; those under authority should respect it—exploitation destroys legitimacy.
• Common confusion: conservatism is not about justifying unjust status quo for the rich; it is about the best way to protect human rights through legitimate bonds, not abstract rights alone.
• Family as foundation: families are the first experience of legitimate hierarchical authority and help create broader social allegiance.

🏛️ What hierarchy means in conservatism

🏛️ Stratification, not inherent superiority

Hierarchy does not mean that all social differences are natural or just, but only that a social order requires at least some stratification.

• At the most basic level: some members of society must have more social or political power than others.
• This does not mean those with more power are intrinsically more important or intelligent.
  • The excerpt notes that some conservatives have unfortunately believed this, but it is not a necessary part of the concept.
• Example: politicians and citizens, employers and employees, parents and children—each pair involves unequal power.

⚖️ Why stratification is needed

• Classical conservatives see hierarchy as a means to preserve social order and stability.
• Without some distribution of roles and authority, a political society cannot function.
• The focus is on function, not on justifying every existing inequality.

🔑 Authority vs power

🔑 The core distinction

Authority requires the recognition of legitimacy and is therefore different than mere power.

• Power: the ability to compel or coerce.
• Authority: power that is recognized as legitimate by those under it.
• Authority goes hand in hand with hierarchy because the social bond must be held together by a sense of legitimacy if the political community is to survive.

🤝 Mutual obligations

Authority creates two sets of obligations:

Role	Obligation
Citizens, employees, children	Should respect the legitimate authority of their superiors
Superiors (politicians, employers, parents)	Must behave in such a way that they honor and preserve the legitimacy of their authority

• When superiors fail to honor legitimacy, authority degenerates into illegitimate power.
• Example: employers who exploit their employees destroy the legitimacy of their authority.
• Classical conservatism is strongly opposed to such exploitation and abuse.

🌱 Why legitimacy matters

• Social bonds, political order, and stability flourish in an environment of legitimate authority rather than mere power.
• A political system upheld by power or coercion alone is unhealthy and cannot be expected to survive or flourish.
• People must feel a natural allegiance to their community.

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 The role of the family

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 First experience of legitimate authority

• For many of us, families are the first experience of legitimate hierarchical authority.
• Families are the basis of communities.
• Family allegiance helps create the broader bonds of allegiance and legitimacy that a healthy social order requires.

🔗 From family to political order

• The family unit is important to conservatives because it models how legitimate authority works.
• The bonds learned in families extend outward to the wider political community.

🛡️ Conservatism and human rights

🛡️ Not a defense of injustice

• Some liberal or radical critics argue that conservatism is a justification of an unjust status quo for the benefit of the rich and powerful.
• The excerpt clarifies: conservatism—at least as defined by some of its major theorists—is not necessarily this.
• The disagreement is not about whether human rights should be protected, but about the best way to protect those rights.

📜 Edmund Burke's argument

• Without denying the importance of human rights, Edmund Burke argued that abstract natural rights alone cannot be the basis of political order.
• Counter-intuitively, the best guarantee of political freedom is to preserve the "natural aristocracy."
• By "natural aristocracy," Burke meant the system of hierarchy and authority that is held together by feelings of legitimacy and allegiance.

🚫 Don't confuse

• Not: conservatism = defending every existing inequality or privilege.
• Instead: conservatism = arguing that legitimate hierarchy and authority are the most effective way to protect rights and maintain order.
• The focus is on legitimacy and allegiance, not on raw power or inherited privilege for its own sake.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Classical conservatives view the state as a living organism that requires all parts to perform their proper functions, meaning political change must be gradual and rooted in existing traditions to maintain legitimacy and social health.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• The organic metaphor: the state is like a living organism that can be healthy or sick, requiring legitimate relationships and natural allegiance rather than coercion alone.
• Functional hierarchy: just as a body needs different parts performing different roles, society requires unequal distribution of rank and authority for each class to fulfill its proper function.
• Gradual vs. radical change: change must be slow and incremental, arising from inherited principles, not sudden or based on completely new governing principles.
• Common confusion: organic change is not stagnation—conservatives accept reform, but it must grow from within existing traditions, like biological organisms changing slowly according to their genetic structure.
• Why legitimacy matters: a system upheld only by power or coercion is unhealthy and cannot survive or flourish; people must feel natural allegiance to their community.

🌱 The living organism metaphor

🏛️ Body politic as organism

The state is like a living organism: a political society can be healthy or sick, and the preservation of social health is of utmost importance to conservatives.

• Politicians and theorists use terms like "body politic" or "social body," but classical conservatives take this idea very seriously.
• Health depends on legitimacy: relationships—even unequal ones—must feel natural and command allegiance.
• A political system upheld by power or coercion alone is considered unhealthy and unsustainable.

Example: An organization where members obey only out of fear (coercion) is "sick"; one where members feel genuine loyalty and belonging is "healthy."

🧩 Many parts, one whole

• Just like a physical body requires many parts, the body politic requires many parts, each performing its assigned function.
• This explains why conservatives support unequal distribution of rank and authority: different roles are necessary for the organism to flourish.
• Don't confuse: This is not about justifying injustice; it's about functional differentiation—each part has a role, and all are needed.

🏺 Plato's model of the just city

🧠 Three parts of the soul and city

Plato (in the Republic) compared the city to the human soul:

Part of soul	Corresponding class in city	Function
Thinking part	Guardians	Rule and guide
Courageous/passionate part	Auxiliaries	Support and enforce
Desiring part	Producers	Provide material needs

• In a just individual, the thinking part controls the desiring part with the help of the courageous part.
• In a just city, each class performs its proper function in the same hierarchical relationship.
• This ancient model underpins the conservative idea that hierarchy is natural and necessary for justice and flourishing.

🐌 Gradual change, not radical transformation

🌿 Why change must be incremental

Change must be gradual and incremental, not drastic and sudden.

• Radical change or the introduction of completely new governing principles is unlikely to be perceived as legitimate by most citizens.
• Lack of perceived legitimacy harms social cohesion and political stability.
• Political reform is possible and often desirable, but it must arise out of principles already at work in the society and its inherited traditions.

🧬 The biological growth model

• Biological organisms do change, but they change slowly and in keeping with their inner principles (genetic structure).
• For classical conservatives, this kind of growth is the ideal model of social and political change.
• Don't confuse: Organic change is not rejection of all change; it is change that respects continuity and internal logic.

Example: A viewpoint might evolve over generations as new circumstances arise, but it builds on existing customs rather than importing an entirely foreign system overnight.

🔗 Legitimacy and allegiance

💚 Heart and head together

• The organic conception emphasizes that political allegiance and social bonds must appeal to feelings, friendships, and allegiances as well as reason.
• A system based purely on abstract rational principles risks failing to secure the allegiance of citizens.
• Why it matters: Without felt legitimacy and natural allegiance, even the most rationally designed system will be unstable and unhealthy.

⚖️ Unequal but legitimate

• Relationships can be unequal (hierarchy and authority) and still be legitimate if people feel natural allegiance to their community.
• The key is not equality of rank, but that each part performs its function and that the whole is held together by feelings of legitimacy.
• Don't confuse: This is not a defense of oppression; conservatives argue that legitimate hierarchy protects rights better than abstract principles alone (as discussed in the preceding section on Burke and natural aristocracy).

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Classical conservatism rejects political rationalism because human beings are motivated by feelings, loyalty, and custom as well as reason, making idealistic rational blueprints impractical and potentially destabilizing.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Core claim: Classical conservatism opposes political rationalism—the idea that political systems should follow all-encompassing rational principles—because human nature is too complex and flawed for such idealism to work.
• Why rationalism fails: People act on communal loyalty, custom, and selfish interests, not just abstract principles, so perfectly rational laws won't secure allegiance or maintain order in the real world.
• Prudence over perfection: Classical conservatism emphasizes recognizing the limits of what is possible rather than pursuing an ideal vision of justice, which risks instability.
• No universal blueprint: Because no single political system works everywhere, each society should be governed by principles arising from its own history and traditions, not foreign rational models.
• Common confusion: Classical conservatism is not an ideology with a fixed end goal; some prefer to call it a disposition or attitude focused on preserving social relationships and continuity.

🚫 Why classical conservatism rejects political rationalism

🚫 What political rationalism is

Political rationalism: the idea that political systems should be patterned after rational and all-encompassing systems of thought, based on universally valid principles of reason understandable to anyone willing to exercise their faculty of reason.

• Emerged with modern philosophy in the 16th and 17th centuries.
• Assumes one set of universally valid principles of justice exists.
• Claims any state failing to implement these principles is unjust and violates citizens' rights.
• Example: A political theorist proposes a rational plan for justice that should work anywhere, regardless of local traditions.

🧠 The problem: humans are not purely rational

• Classical conservatism argues that human beings are motivated by feelings, friendships, and allegiances as well as reason.
• Reducing politics and law to rational principles risks failing to secure the allegiance of citizens.
• Political allegiance and social bonds must appeal to the heart as well as the head.
• Even the best possible set of laws, perfectly designed by rational principles, would not work in the real world with people as they are.

🌍 A more negative view of human nature

• Classical conservatism has a more negative or cynical conception of human nature than liberalism or socialism.
• The progressive pursuit of more just arrangements according to rational principles is a dead end, not only because the principles may be wrong, but because the limitations of human nature will prevent their realization.
• Don't confuse: This is not saying justice doesn't matter; it's saying that human imperfection makes idealistic visions dangerous.

⚖️ Prudence over perfection

⚖️ What prudence means

Prudence: the recognition of the limitations of what is possible.

• Classical conservatism emphasizes prudence rather than perfection.
• There is concern with justice, but greater emphasis on the dangers of redesigning society after a systematic blueprint.
• One prominent conservative writer suggested that conservative politics has no proper "end in view" other than the continuance of social life.
• The social relationship and communal bonds have a life of their own and are therefore their own goal.

🎭 Conservatism as disposition, not ideology

• Because of this outlook, some classical conservatives prefer to speak of conservatism as a disposition or attitude rather than as an ideology.
• This reflects the lack of a fixed, universal end goal beyond preserving social continuity.

🌐 No universal political blueprint

🌐 Why one-size-fits-all doesn't work

• There is no single political system that will work in all times and places.
• Every society ought to be governed according to principles that naturally and organically arise out of its own history, culture, and traditions.
• The danger of imposing a foreign political system: eliciting broad social support is overwhelmingly difficult when the ideas themselves are foreign.
• Example: Proponents of democracy promotion overseas have discovered that foreign political systems struggle to gain allegiance because they don't fit the society's inherited traditions.

🔗 Preference for fit over ideal justice

• Classical conservatism prefers a closer fit between society and government, even if the resulting system may fall short of rational standards of justice.
• This reflects the conservative preference for social order over the risk of instability.
• Don't confuse: This is not saying justice is unimportant; it's saying that stability and legitimacy require alignment with existing traditions, not abstract ideals.

🏛️ Traditional institutions as guarantors of stability

🏛️ Why tradition matters

• In practice, classical conservatives see traditional customs and political institutions as the best available guarantor of peace and stability.
• They are wary of political programs that threaten to replace existing institutions with entirely new ones.
• Historical examples from the excerpt:
  • Edmund Burke's opposition to the French Revolution.
  • United Empire Loyalists' opposition to the American Revolution.

🇨🇦 Canadian confederation as an example

• The founders of Canadian confederation were motivated by classical conservative values.
• They struggled for Canadian self-government without getting rid of parliamentary and constitutional traditions that had taken root in British North America.
• Examples of classical conservative themes:
  • Patterning Canada's House of Commons and Senate after Britain's House of Commons and House of Lords.
  • Remaining loyal to the Crown.
• Canada's classical conservative (or "high Tory") heritage is one important factor accounting for the difference between Canadian and American conservatism (the "Tory touch" thesis).

🔄 Remnants of classical conservatism today

🔄 Social engineering warnings

• Contemporary conservatives often warn against the dangers of social engineering: attempts by the state to alter the shape of society in accordance with a rational plan.
• This echoes the classical conservative skepticism of rationalist blueprints.

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Defense of traditional family

• Some defenses of the traditional family are based on classical conservative premises.
• Reasoning: The need to maintain the family as an important social institution because raising and educating children has traditionally taken place in the family unit.
• Hence, most attempts to modify the family are viewed with suspicion by many conservatives.

📜 Legacy persists despite changes

• Even though conservatism has evolved in recent decades, and some aspects have reversed, the legacy of classical conservatism has not been completely eradicated.
• The excerpt notes that much of contemporary conservative discourse bears little resemblance to classical conservatism, especially after the Reagan-Thatcher revolution in the 1980s, but remnants remain.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Modern conservatism has shifted drastically from classical conservatism by combining free-market classical liberalism with selective social conservatism, becoming more ideological and rationalist while moving away from state intervention in the economy.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• The Reagan-Thatcher revolution: 1980s conservatives shifted toward free markets, deregulation, and minimal government, encapsulated in Reagan's view that "government is the problem."
• Modern conservatism's hybrid nature: combines hints of classical conservatism with classical liberal emphasis on limiting state interference in economic matters, plus a more ideological and rationalist approach.
• Libertarianism within conservatism: embraces free markets and small government but sits uneasily with social conservatives, especially when individual freedoms are restricted.
• Common confusion: equality of opportunity vs equality of result—modern conservatives endorse legal equality but reject state redistribution to eliminate real inequalities.
• Internal tensions: libertarians and classical conservatives disagree on whether markets should be regulated to protect social cohesion, and on the role of universal principles vs tradition-based reforms.

🔄 The shift from classical to modern conservatism

🏛️ What classical conservatism prioritized

• Socially conservative: protected society from threats to long-standing institutions and practices.
• Not economically conservative in today's sense: classical conservatives did not oppose state intervention in the economy when it could strengthen social bonds or promote the common good.
• Example: Canada's high Tory conservative tradition emphasized this willingness to use the state for social purposes.

🌊 The Reagan-Thatcher revolution

Reagan-Thatcher Revolution: a pronounced shift in the 1980s under British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (1979–1990) and American President Ronald Reagan (1981–1989) toward free markets, deregulation, and a business-first approach to statecraft.

• Core philosophy: most political problems arise from excess government regulation and activity.
• Policy aim: unleash private market forces into areas previously under government oversight.
• Reagan's 1981 inaugural address: "Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem."
• This marked a drastic change from classical conservatism's acceptance of state economic intervention.

🧩 What modern conservatism combines

• Hints of classical conservatism: some remnants remain (e.g., warnings against social engineering, defense of traditional family as an important social institution).
• Classical liberal elements: emphasis on limiting state interference in economic matters.
• More ideological and rationalist: unlike classical conservatism's pragmatic, tradition-based approach.
• The excerpt notes "many different perspectives and outlooks in the New Right," with libertarianism and neoconservatism as two important versions.

🗽 Libertarianism within modern conservatism

🗽 Core libertarian principles

Libertarianism is anti-statist: it prefers to limit state activity to a carefully defined sphere and demands that it not unnecessarily interfere with citizens' lives.

• Not opposed to the state's existence, but wants minimal interference.
• The state should enforce a neutral set of legal rules fairly and equally, rather than enforcing particular outcomes.
• Individuals' interactions and decisions should transpire as they will within this neutral legal framework.

⚖️ Equality of opportunity vs equality of result

Concept	What it means	Libertarian stance
Equality of opportunity	Legal equality; everyone has the same legal freedom to pursue life projects and seek wealth	Endorsed
Equality of result	State actively redistributes wealth to eliminate real inequalities	Rejected

• Modern conservatism makes this distinction central.
• Libertarians agree with classical conservatives that social engineering (using the state to produce desired outcomes) is dangerous.
• Example: legal equality means everyone can start a business, but the state should not redistribute profits to ensure equal wealth.

🤝 Where libertarians agree with other conservatives

• Free market and small government ideals: shared with other modern conservatives.
• Opposition to social engineering: shared with classical conservatives.
• Political alignment: despite disagreements, libertarianism has more in common with the New Right than with left-of-centre parties.
• Example: Maxime Bernier (before starting the People's Party of Canada) and Paul Ryan, Ron Paul, and Rand Paul in the U.S. Republican Party are prominent libertarians.

⚠️ Where libertarians sit uneasily within conservatism

• Social conservatism conflicts: libertarians do not always agree with social conservatives, particularly when social conservatism is used to justify restricting individual freedoms.
• The excerpt notes "tensions within or between conservative groups" as an important theme.

🏘️ Social conservatism explained

🏘️ What social conservatism aims to protect

Social conservatism: a multifaceted set of political concerns related to the broad aim of protecting society from threats.

• Not inherently religious: can be motivated by either religious or secular concerns, though much of today's social conservative movement is religiously based.
• Different types of social conservatives worry about different threats.

🛡️ Three types of threats social conservatives identify

1. Moral threats: pornography, profanity, gratuitous violence in films and video games—government should act against these.
2. Cultural threats: preservation of culture through education system inculcating values; some conservative opposition to immigration stems from this concern.
3. Threats to social cohesion: rise of individualism can weaken social bonds and community; excessive economic inequality can weaken mutual loyalty between rich and poor.

• Example: a social conservative might support government regulation of media content (moral threat) or oppose rapid cultural change through immigration (cultural threat).
• Don't confuse: social conservatism with religious conservatism—the former can exist without religious motivation.

🔀 Key differences: libertarianism vs classical conservatism

🔀 Markets and social cohesion

• Classical conservative view: unregulated markets can have a corrosive effect on social cohesion and moral character; excessive economic inequality can break down social trust.
• Libertarian view: let the market play out as it will, even if it has negative impacts on the social fabric.
• When faced with market forces harming society, classical conservatives prefer state activity to protect social health; libertarians prefer minimal state interference.

🌍 Ideology vs tradition

• Libertarianism is ideological: a set of philosophical claims about the primacy of individual rights and proper limitations on government; comprised of universally valid claims that ought to apply everywhere.
• Classical conservatism is tradition-based: emphasizes working within existing traditions to bring about reforms that are a proper fit for the society in question.
• The excerpt notes "it is difficult to see anything but a major difference between these views."
• Example: a libertarian might argue for universal individual rights regardless of local tradition; a classical conservative would adapt reforms to fit the specific society's history and institutions.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Libertarianism sits uneasily within modern conservatism because, while it shares the free-market and small-government ideals, it rejects social conservatism's willingness to restrict individual freedoms and differs sharply from classical conservatism's emphasis on tradition and social cohesion.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Core stance: Libertarianism is anti-statist, preferring to limit government activity to a carefully defined sphere and opposing unnecessary interference in citizens' lives.
• Key distinction: Libertarians endorse equality of opportunity (legal freedom to pursue goals) but reject equality of result (state redistribution to eliminate real inequalities).
• Tension with social conservatism: Libertarians do not always agree with social conservatives when social conservatism is used to justify restricting individual freedoms.
• Tension with classical conservatism: Classical conservatives worry that libertarian free markets corrode social cohesion and moral character, while libertarians prefer to let markets play out rather than intervene to protect social health.
• Common confusion: Despite major disagreements with other conservative outlooks, libertarianism has more in common with the New Right than with left-of-centre political parties.

🏛️ What libertarianism stands for

🚫 Anti-statist philosophy

Libertarianism is anti-statist. This does not mean it opposes the existence of the state as such, but it prefers to limit its activity to a carefully defined sphere and demands that it not unnecessarily interfere with citizens' lives.

• The state should exist but only within narrow boundaries.
• Government should not enforce particular outcomes but should provide a neutral set of legal rules enforced fairly and equally.
• Individuals' interactions and decisions should transpire as they will within this neutral framework.

⚖️ Equality of opportunity vs. equality of result

Libertarians make a crucial distinction between two types of equality:

Type of equality	What it means	Libertarian stance
Equality of opportunity	Everyone has the same legal freedom to pursue life projects and seek wealth	✅ Endorsed
Equality of result	The state actively redistributes wealth to eliminate real inequalities	❌ Rejected

• Legal equality is supported: everyone should have the same legal rights.
• Economic redistribution is opposed: the state should not intervene to equalize actual wealth or outcomes.
• Example: Two people may both be legally free to start a business (opportunity), but the state should not redistribute wealth if one becomes much richer than the other (result).

🤝 Agreement with classical conservatism

Libertarians share one important view with classical conservatives:

• Both oppose social engineering—using the state to produce desired outcomes.
• Both are skeptical of government attempts to shape society according to a particular vision.
• However, this agreement is limited; major differences emerge beyond this point.

🔀 Tensions within conservatism

⚔️ Conflict with social conservatism

Social conservatism refers to a multifaceted set of political concerns, all of which are related to the broad aim of protecting society from threats.

What social conservatives worry about:

• Moral threats: pornography, profanity, gratuitous violence in films and video games
• Cultural threats: preservation of culture through education; some opposition to immigration
• Threats to social cohesion: rise of individualism weakening social bonds; excessive economic inequality weakening mutual loyalty between rich and poor

The libertarian objection:

• Libertarians do not always agree with social conservatism when it is used to justify restricting individual freedoms.
• Social conservatism can be motivated by religious or secular concerns, but libertarians prioritize individual liberty over government enforcement of social or moral norms.
• Don't confuse: Social conservatism is not inherently religious; much of today's movement is religiously based (e.g., opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage), but secular social conservatism also exists.

🏚️ Conflict with classical conservatism

Two major differences emerge:

💰 Markets vs. social cohesion

• Classical conservative view: The libertarian emphasis on free markets and individual rights allows markets to have a corrosive effect on social cohesion and moral character.
• Specific concern: Excessive economic inequality from unregulated markets can break down social trust, which classical conservatives value highly.
• Classical conservative response: Prefer state activity to protect social health when market forces harm the social fabric.
• Libertarian response: Prefer to let the market play out as it will, even if it harms social cohesion.
• Example: If unregulated markets create extreme wealth gaps that weaken community bonds, classical conservatives would support government intervention to preserve social trust, while libertarians would oppose such intervention.

📜 Ideology vs. tradition

• Libertarianism's character: A set of philosophical claims about the primacy of individual rights and proper limitations on government; comprised of universally valid claims that ought to apply everywhere.
• Classical conservatism's character: Emphasizes working within existing traditions to bring about reforms that fit the society in question; skeptical of universal ideological claims.
• The contrast: Libertarianism is ideological and rationalist; classical conservatism is tradition-based and context-sensitive.
• Don't confuse: Despite both being labeled "conservative," these are fundamentally different approaches—one applies universal principles, the other adapts to local traditions.

🗳️ Libertarianism's place in politics

🤝 Alignment with the New Right

Despite disagreements with other conservative outlooks, libertarianism has more in common with the New Right than with other contemporary political outlooks.

Evidence from political parties:

• Canada: Maxime Bernier was a well-known libertarian in the Conservative Party of Canada before starting the People's Party of Canada.
• United States: Paul Ryan, Ron Paul, and Rand Paul are prominent libertarians in the Republican Party.
• Contrast: It is difficult to find many self-described libertarians in today's left-of-centre political parties.

Why this matters:

• Libertarians share the New Right's commitment to free markets, deregulation, and small government.
• These shared economic priorities outweigh the tensions with social and classical conservatism.
• The libertarian position on individual rights and limited government fits better with right-of-centre than left-of-centre politics in contemporary practice.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Neoconservatism combines free-market economics with a strong state role in law, culture, and foreign policy, viewing America as having a special moral mission to promote democracy globally while treating international politics as a struggle between friends and enemies.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Origins and influences: rooted in 1930s–1940s New York intellectuals who were anti-communist and saw American power as morally positive after World War II.
• Domestic policy: supports free markets and economic growth (like libertarianism) but also favors a strong state in criminal justice, cultural values, and education.
• Foreign policy lens: understands global politics through friends vs. enemies, distrusts international organizations, and promotes American-style democracy worldwide.
• Common confusion: neoconservatism shares free-market emphasis with libertarianism but differs sharply in accepting strong state intervention in culture, law, and foreign affairs; it also differs from classical conservatism by being ideological and universalist rather than tradition-focused.
• Why it matters: neoconservative principles help explain major foreign policy decisions (e.g., the 2003 Iraq invasion) and represent a distinct strand within contemporary conservative politics.

🏛️ Origins and core identity

🏛️ Historical roots

• Neoconservatism emerged from a group of New York intellectuals at City College of New York in the 1930s and 1940s.
• Irving Kristol is called the "Godfather of Neoconservatism."
• The movement has been particularly influential in American politics, with some influence in Canadian conservatism as well.

🛡️ Foundational attitudes

• Anti-communism: the neoconservative outlook was decidedly anti-communist from the start.
• Moral view of American power: the US-led victory over fascism in World War II gave neoconservatives a favorable impression of the moral role of American power in the world.
• These two elements combined to create a distinct political outlook that is neither libertarian nor classically conservative.

Neoconservatism: a political movement rooted in anti-communism and belief in the moral role of American power, combining free-market economics with strong state action in law, culture, and foreign policy.

🏠 Domestic policy stance

💼 Economic approach

• Shares libertarianism's emphasis on free markets, privatization, and economic growth.
• This is a key similarity with other New Right strands.

⚖️ Law, order, and culture

• Stresses the importance of law, order, and traditional cultural values.
• In practice, neoconservatives have supported:
  • Strong and active police forces
  • Harsh criminal punishments
  • Government censorship of pornography and other materials that would threaten traditional values
• Example: a neoconservative government might ban certain media content to protect traditional moral standards, rather than leaving such decisions to the market or individual choice.

🎓 State role in public morality

• Neoconservatives see education and public morality as proper concerns of the state.
• They believe a healthy democratic culture can only be preserved if the state takes an active role in preserving it.
• This shows clear similarities to classical conservatism's emphasis on the preservation of social health.
• Don't confuse: while classical conservatives also value social health, neoconservatives are more willing to use state power actively and are more ideological (universalist) rather than tradition-bound.

🌍 Foreign policy approach

👥 Friends and enemies framework

Global politics is understood through the lens of friends and enemies.

• It is of utmost importance for neoconservative leaders to understand who their friends and enemies are.
• This may be a product of the Cold War environment in which neoconservatism took shape; the world at this time was sharply divided between rival blocs, each seeking the destruction of the other.
• After the Cold War ended, neoconservatives framed radical Islam as a global threat, much in the same way as Soviet communism had been understood.

🚫 Distrust of international organizations

• Neoconservatism is distrustful of international organizations and sees them as a possible bridge to tyrannical world government.
• This distrust is especially strong when international organizations attempt to constrain behavior that neoconservatives see as in America's best interest.
• Example: a neoconservative leader might reject international treaty obligations if they believe those obligations limit America's ability to act in what they perceive as the national interest.

🗽 American Exceptionalism and democracy promotion

• Since America was influential in bringing the Second World War to what they perceive as a moral conclusion, neoconservatives see a special role for America in the world.
• They pay close attention to the internal politics of other states and prioritize the global promotion of democracy and political liberty.
• This is related to a broader theme in American politics known as American Exceptionalism: the idea that America is set apart from other nations due to its unique emphases on democracy and political liberty.

🎯 Foreign policy consequences

• The 2003 invasion of Iraq is arguably the best-known event in the neoconservative foreign policy legacy.
• It is a foreseeable consequence of these principles: the distrust of international organizations and the goal of spreading American-style democracy could have increased support for the Iraq War.
• The excerpt notes that these themes point to the ideological nature of this outlook.

🔀 How neoconservatism differs from other conservatisms

🆚 Neoconservatism vs. Libertarianism

Aspect	Neoconservatism	Libertarianism
Economic policy	Free markets, privatization, growth	Free markets, privatization, growth
State role in culture/law	Strong state in criminal justice, censorship, education	Minimal state intervention
Comfort with state power	Much more comfortable with a strong state in non-economic areas	Prefers minimal state across all areas

• Key difference: neoconservatism accepts and promotes strong state action in law, order, culture, and foreign affairs, whereas libertarianism seeks to minimize state power in all domains.

🆚 Neoconservatism vs. Classical Conservatism

Aspect	Neoconservatism	Classical Conservatism
Ideological character	Strongly ideological; believes in universally valid political ideals that should be in place everywhere	Emphasizes working within existing traditions; reforms should fit the society in question
Core principles	Anti-communist; promotes American-style democracy globally	Preservation of social health and tradition
Approach	Universalist and interventionist	Particularist and tradition-focused

• Key difference: neoconservatism is at its core strongly anti-communist and believes in a universally valid set of political ideals; it differs significantly from classical conservatism in this ideological and universalist aspect.
• Classical conservatism prefers tradition-based, context-specific reforms, while neoconservatism promotes a universal political model.

🧩 Common confusion reminder

• Don't confuse: neoconservatism's support for free markets with libertarianism—neoconservatives are much more willing to use state power in non-economic areas.
• Don't confuse: neoconservatism's concern for social health with classical conservatism—neoconservatives are ideological and universalist, not tradition-bound and particularist.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Contemporary conservatism encompasses multiple competing factions with deep philosophical differences, and the rise of right-wing populism is likely to be the defining challenge for conservative parties in the foreseeable future.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Conservatism is not monolithic: multiple groups claim the conservative label, with deep political and philosophical differences between them.
• Classical conservatism bridges left-right divide: Canadian classical conservatives have supported labor unions, economic regulation, and environmental protections—policies typically associated with the left.
• Major internal fault line: libertarians favor limited government in personal affairs (supporting abortion and same-sex marriage), while social and neoconservatives want government to preserve traditional values.
• Common confusion—"right wing" vs. conservatism: grouping all conservatives as "right wing" is misleading, since classical conservatism often supports activist government policies.
• Populism reshapes the landscape: right-wing populism distinguishes "elites" from "common people" and creates tensions with libertarian, neoconservative, and classical conservative outlooks on key issues.

🌈 The diversity within conservatism

🌈 Many varieties, not one ideology

• The chapter emphasizes that there is not one form of conservatism, but many.
• Multiple groups and perspectives claim the conservative label.
• Although there are some commonalities, there are also deep political and philosophical differences.

🚫 Why "right wing" is insufficient

• It is of little use to group all conservatives under "right wing."
• Some conservative ideas bridge the left-right divide that shapes political discourse in advanced democracies.
• This is especially true for classical conservatism.

🇨🇦 Classical conservatism and the left-right spectrum

🇨🇦 Canadian classical conservatives' left-wing policies

Classical conservatives in Canada have advocated for policies recognizably left-wing:

• Support for labor unions
• Government regulation to reduce economic inequality
• Stronger environmental regulations

Example: Eugene Forsey and George Grant, two influential classical conservative writers, strongly supported the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, the precursor to today's left-wing New Democratic Party.

🏛️ Classical conservatism prefers activist government

• Classical conservatism generally prefers a more activist state than do many of today's right-wing parties.
• This is not just a Canadian phenomenon; it is a broader characteristic of classical conservatism.
• Don't confuse: "conservative" does not automatically mean "small government" or "right-wing."

⚔️ Fault lines within today's conservative parties

⚔️ Libertarians vs. social/neoconservatives on social issues

Faction	View on government role	Position on abortion & same-sex marriage
Libertarians	Prefer limited government involvement in personal affairs	More willing to support legalization
Social & neoconservatives	Government's duty to preserve traditional values	More likely to oppose these practices

📊 Case study: Bill C-7 in Canada

• Bill C-7 (medical assistance in dying) was passed by the Canadian House of Commons on December 10, 2020.
• It would relax safeguards, including the requirement that a person's death be reasonably foreseeable.
• Almost complete unanimity within all parties except the Conservative Party of Canada.
• Conservative Party: almost 13% of MPs (15 of 118) broke from colleagues to support the bill.
• Liberals voted 142-2 in favor.
• This reflects the relative diversity of the Conservative Party on social issues, showing differences between varied political outlooks that call themselves conservative.

🔥 The rise of populism and the future of conservatism

🔥 What is populism?

Populism: a political attitude based on a core distinction between the elites and everybody else.

• Cultural, political, and business elites are working against the interests of the common people.
• Populists seek to restore political power and influence to ordinary people.
• There are competing definitions, but most accounts agree on this core distinction.

🌍 Recent populist phenomena

• Donald Trump's presidency was largely a populist phenomenon.
• The Brexit movement in the UK is another example.
• In both cases, much public support arose from frustration with the failure of political elites to understand and serve the needs of common people.

🔮 Populism's impact on conservatism

The excerpt poses two key questions:

1. Does the populist turn represent a lasting change in mainstream conservatism?
2. If so, how does it differ from classical conservatism and the New Right?

Current assessment:

• Whatever becomes of populism within conservative parties, it will probably be one of multiple factions competing for influence alongside libertarianism, neoconservatism, and others.
• From the current vantage point, right-wing populism is here to stay.

⚠️ Tensions populism creates

Populists do not see eye-to-eye with libertarians or neoconservatives on important issues:

• The role of the state in regulating the economy
• The importance of global military action
• The value of adhering to traditional norms of constitutionalism and liberal democracy

Challenge for conservative parties:

• It is not clear how the Conservative Party of Canada or the American Republican Party will manage this emerging perspective.
• It is uncertain whether they will be able to agree on a consistent set of policy proposals.
• This dynamic is likely to be the defining feature of conservative politics for the foreseeable future.

🤔 Discussion questions raised

🤔 Classical conservatism and structural reform

• Classical conservatives believe political reform should take existing traditions and institutions into account and should not reject them out of hand.
• Question: How would they respond to the claim that a certain institution (e.g., modern police forces) is structurally racist and beyond reform?

🤔 Commonalities across conservatisms

• Given the many differences between classical and modern conservatism, does it make sense to call them both conservative?
• Are the many perspectives currently called conservative bound together by any commonalities?

🤔 Is populism really conservative?

• Many classical conservatives, libertarians, and neoconservatives have argued that right-wing populism is not really conservative at all.
• If right-wing populism is deserving of the conservative label, on what grounds?
• If not, why not?

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Socialism is not a dying ideology but is reinventing itself in response to 21st-century economic, environmental, and technological transformations, generating new intellectual momentum and future currents.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Socialism's current status: declining as a political force at the beginning of the 21st century, but not outdated or moribund.
• Reinvention context: more diversified, open, and globalized societies with new economic, labor, environmental, and technological issues.
• New industrial revolution: leading to re-reading of past socialist theories and creating tomorrow's currents.
• Intellectual revival: success of figures like Thomas Piketty (2014) demonstrates renewed interest in socialist ideas.
• Common confusion: declining political force ≠ dead ideology—socialism is adapting rather than disappearing.

🔄 Socialism's transformation

🔄 Not outdated, but evolving

The excerpt warns: "we should not believe that it is an outdated, moribund ideology."

• Socialism's decline as a political force does not mean it has become irrelevant.
• The ideology is actively reinventing itself rather than fading away.
• Don't confuse: reduced political power in the early 21st century with ideological death—the two are distinct.

🌍 New context for reinvention

The excerpt identifies three key characteristics of contemporary societies driving socialism's transformation:

• More diversified: societies are less homogeneous than in classical socialist periods.
• More open: increased connectivity and exchange across borders.
• More globalized: economic and social systems operate at planetary scale.

These changes create different conditions than those faced by earlier socialist movements.

⚙️ Forces generating new momentum

⚙️ Economic and labor transformations

• The excerpt mentions "economic and labor transformations" as one source of new momentum.
• These changes are part of what the excerpt calls a "new industrial revolution."
• Example: shifts in how work is organized or what kinds of labor exist may create new questions for socialist thought.

🌱 Environmental and technological issues

• Environmental and technological questions are generating fresh energy for socialist ideas.
• These are presented as new concerns that earlier socialist theory did not fully address.
• The excerpt suggests these issues require socialist thought to adapt and develop new responses.

📚 Re-reading past theories

📚 Engagement with historical ideologues

• The new industrial revolution is "leading to a re-reading of the theories formulated by yesterday's ideologues."
• This is not abandoning past thinkers but reinterpreting them for current conditions.
• The process connects historical socialist thought with contemporary challenges.

💡 Contemporary intellectual figures

Aspect	Detail
Example figure	Thomas Piketty (2014)
Significance	"Success of intellectual figures" demonstrates renewed interest
Implication	Past theories remain relevant when applied to new contexts

• Piketty's success illustrates how socialist-adjacent economic analysis resonates in the 21st century.
• The excerpt presents this as evidence of socialism's ongoing intellectual vitality.

🔮 Future directions

🔮 Creating tomorrow's currents

• The excerpt concludes that this reinvention process "will undoubtedly create the currents of tomorrow."
• This is a prediction: current transformations will generate new forms of socialist thought and practice.
• The emphasis is on continuity through change—socialism evolving rather than being replaced.

❓ Open questions

The excerpt poses three discussion questions that frame ongoing debates:

1. Geographic scope: Have all regional and national contexts seen a socialist movement?
2. New proletariat: Are globalization and new environmental/social questions creating a "new proletariat"?
3. Learning from history: What can socialism today learn and keep from the past?

These questions suggest areas where socialist thought is still developing answers.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Socialism aims to transform society into an egalitarian community through social progress and emancipation from all forms of oppression, grounded in a shared conception of human relationships, equality, and beneficial historical change.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Core definition: Socialism is an ideology advocating for an egalitarian community and social progress to emancipate people from oppression.
• Five foundational concepts: constitutive human relationships, human welfare as desirable, work as natural activity, equality through rejection of alienation, and history as beneficial change.
• Critical stance toward capitalism: Socialism opposes capitalism as a system enabling those who control production means to dominate others.
• Common confusion: Socialism is hard to define because it incorporates many currents (sometimes antagonistic and contradictory), but all share the same conception of society.
• Three guiding principles: equality, emancipation, and progress—intended to serve the worker class and oppressed people.

🏛️ What socialism is and why it's diverse

🏛️ The definitional challenge

Socialism is an ideology hard to define because it incorporates many currents that are sometimes antagonistic and often contradictory.

• Despite internal diversity, all socialist currents share a common conception of society.
• They perceive society as an egalitarian human community aspiring to the common good through social progress.
• The ideology is characterized by ideological diversity, including communism, social democracy, and eco-socialism.

📖 Official definition

Socialism is an ideology that society should aspire to become an egalitarian community and social progress should be made to emancipate people from any kind of oppression.

• The definition emphasizes two goals: creating an egalitarian community and achieving emancipation.
• It positions socialism as forward-looking (aspiration and progress) rather than preserving the status quo.

🧩 The five foundational concepts

🧩 Constitutive nature of human relationships

• Society is understood as "the sum of connections and relationships in which individuals find themselves" (Marx).
• This means individuals are not isolated atoms; they are shaped by and exist within social relationships.
• Example: A person's identity and opportunities are determined by their connections to others, not by individual traits alone.

🎯 Human welfare as a desirable objective

• Socialism places human welfare—well-being and flourishing—at the center of its goals.
• This contrasts with systems that prioritize profit or power over people's needs.

⚙️ Human nature as active

• Work is seen as a major component of natural activity.
• This concept treats labor not as a burden but as a fundamental part of being human.
• It implies that people are naturally productive and creative when not constrained.

⚖️ Equality through rejection of alienation

• Socialism rejects any kind of alienation.
• Differences based on social condition (rich vs. poor) result from the domination of the bourgeoisie.
• The goal is to eliminate structures that create inequality, not just redistribute wealth.

📜 History as an arena of beneficial change

• In Karl Marx's perspective, human beings are masters of their own history.
• However, the domination of the bourgeoisie deprives them of their life choices.
• Class struggles are a means of historical change—conflict drives progress toward a better society.
• Don't confuse: History is not predetermined; people can shape it, but current domination blocks this potential.

🔥 Critique of capitalism and the goal of emancipation

🔥 Why socialism opposes capitalism

• Capitalism is seen as a system that allows those who hold the means of production to establish their domination.
• The critique is not just economic but also about power: ownership of production means translates into control over others.
• Example: Factory owners control not only the workplace but also workers' livelihoods and choices.

🕊️ What emancipation means

Emancipation means "overcoming obstacles in the path of self-control; a release from waged production …; and the consequence enabling of self-realization within a social framework, which exploitation and alienation had impeded."

• Emancipation has three dimensions:
  • Self-control: removing barriers to autonomy.
  • Release from waged production: freeing people from dependence on selling their labor.
  • Self-realization: enabling people to develop their potential within a supportive social framework.
• This emancipation purpose leads socialism to oppose any oppressive power and institution, such as the state, the market, the church, and so forth.

🎯 Target audience and methods

• Socialism intends to be the ideology of the worker class and the oppressed people.
• It promotes comprehensive social policies and a system change.
• The goal is not just reform within the current system but transformation of the system itself.

🧱 Core concepts: Historical materialism and class struggle

🧱 Historical materialism

The materialist conception of history (or historical materialism) is at the core of Karl Marx's socialism.

• Historical materialism is based on Hegel's dialectics, though it rejects his idealism.
• Key reversal: According to Karl Marx, ideas or beliefs do not determine human beings but rather their material condition.
• Changes in the modes of production—slavery, feudalism, then capitalism—have generated struggles between a dominant class that monopolizes the production means and a dominated class that is deprived of these means.
• Don't confuse: Marx inverts Hegel—material conditions shape ideas, not the other way around.

💰 How capitalism creates exploitation

• Karl Marx conceives that the value of a good is determined by the material cost of production and the work to produce it.
• However, the dominant class owns the production means.
• In the capitalist era, production means are not just tools but a form of capital that corrupts the value of a good.
• Capital is no longer related to the value of production and is instead based on the value of exchange.
• This exchange value includes the remuneration of capital.

📉 Surplus value and exploitation

• To remunerate itself, capital attributes to itself surplus value.
• Definition of surplus value: the difference between the value added by the worker to the good and the value of the workforce for its production.
• Conclusion: The holding of capital is therefore the exploitation of the labor of others.
• Example: A worker adds $100 of value to a product but receives only $60 in wages; the $40 difference is surplus value captured by the capital owner.

⚔️ Class struggle: Proletariat vs. Bourgeoisie

• Karl Marx calls the dominant class the "bourgeoisie" and the dominated class the "proletariat" in the capitalist era.
• The constant search for profit leads to the accumulation of capital, which causes the impoverishment of the proletariat.
• Beyond exploitation to alienation: The proletariat is not only exploited by the bourgeoisie; rather, it is alienated.
• The state, the nation, religions, and many collective values have been established to protect the domination of the capitalist class.

🚩 The call to revolution

• At the end of The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848/1969), Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote: "Working Men of All Countries, Unite!" to rally the proletariat against the bourgeoisie.
• Because of the domination of society and institutions, Karl Marx pleads for a revolution to overthrow the existing system.
• The goal is to build a society in which production means are collectivized—a socialist society.
• According to Karl Marx, to win the class struggle, a transitional step to socialism called "the dictatorship of the proletariat" is mandatory.

🌈 The diversity of socialist currents

🌈 Three historical divisions

The currents of socialism share the same values, but they diverge about the model of society and the strategy to achieve socialism.

Division	Two sides	What they disagree on
First	Idealistic ("utopian") vs. Rationalist ("scientific")	Whether socialism should be based on ideals or scientific analysis
Second	Anti-statist (libertarian) vs. Statist (communist)	The role of the state in achieving socialism
Third	Revolutionary (Marxist) vs. Reformist (social democracy)	Whether change requires revolution or can be achieved through reform

🔍 Four main historic currents

• The excerpt mentions four main historic currents to illustrate these divisions:
  • Utopian socialism
  • Libertarian socialism
  • Communism
  • Social democracy
• (Note: The excerpt introduces these but does not provide detailed descriptions beyond utopian socialism.)

📋 Summary: The three principles

Principle	What it means
Equality	Rejection of alienation and domination based on social condition
Emancipation	Overcoming obstacles to self-control, release from waged production, enabling self-realization
Progress	History as beneficial change driven by human action and class struggle

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Socialism seeks to transform society into an egalitarian community by emancipating people from oppression through class struggle and collective ownership of production means.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Core ideology: socialism aspires to egalitarian community and emancipation from all forms of oppression (state, market, church, etc.).
• Historical materialism: material conditions and modes of production—not ideas—determine society and generate class struggles between those who own production means and those who don't.
• Class struggle mechanism: capitalism creates surplus value (exploitation) where the bourgeoisie extracts the difference between what workers add and what they're paid, leading to alienation.
• Common confusion: utopian vs scientific socialism—utopian currents propose ideal communities; scientific currents seek pragmatic transformation (though "utopian" was a label imposed by Engels to undermine credibility).
• Strategic divisions: socialism splits into anti-statist vs statist, revolutionary vs reformist, and idealistic vs rationalist currents.

🎯 What socialism stands for

🎯 Definition and purpose

Socialism is an ideology that society should aspire to become an egalitarian community and social progress should be made to emancipate people from any kind of oppression.

• Socialism is critical of capitalism because capitalism allows owners of production means to dominate others.
• Emancipation means: overcoming obstacles to self-control, release from waged production, and enabling self-realization that exploitation and alienation had blocked.
• It opposes any oppressive power: the state, the market, the church, and similar institutions.

🧱 Three core principles

Principle	What it means
Equality	Society should be egalitarian
Emancipation	Freedom from oppression and exploitation
Progress	Social advancement toward these goals

• Socialism positions itself as the ideology of the worker class and oppressed people.
• It promotes comprehensive social policies and system change.

🏭 Historical materialism and value

🏭 Marx's materialist conception of history

Historical materialism: the view that material conditions—not ideas or beliefs—determine human beings and drive historical change.

• Based on Hegel's dialectics but rejects idealism.
• Changes in modes of production (slavery → feudalism → capitalism) generate struggles between:
  • A dominant class that monopolizes production means
  • A dominated class deprived of these means

💰 How capitalism creates exploitation

• Marx argues the value of a good is determined by material cost of production plus the work to produce it.
• In capitalism, production means become capital—a corrupting force because:
  • Capital is no longer related to production value
  • Instead based on exchange value, which includes remuneration of capital itself
• Surplus value: the difference between the value the worker adds to the good and the value paid for the workforce.
  • Capital attributes this surplus to itself.
  • Holding capital = exploiting the labor of others.

Example: A worker adds value through labor, but the capitalist pays less than that added value and keeps the difference as profit—this gap is surplus value and constitutes exploitation.

⚠️ Don't confuse

• Production value vs exchange value: production value reflects actual work and materials; exchange value includes capital remuneration and creates the basis for exploitation.

⚔️ Class struggle: bourgeoisie vs proletariat

⚔️ The two classes in capitalism

Class	Role	Relationship to production means
Bourgeoisie	Dominant class	Owns production means and capital
Proletariat	Dominated class	Deprived of production means; sells labor

• The constant search for profit leads to capital accumulation.
• This accumulation causes impoverishment of the proletariat.

🔗 Alienation beyond exploitation

• The proletariat is not only exploited but alienated.
• The state, nation, religions, and collective values have been established to protect capitalist class domination.
• These institutions reinforce the system that oppresses workers.

🚩 Marx's call to action

• Marx and Engels wrote in The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848): "Working Men of All Countries, Unite!"
• Purpose: rally the proletariat against the bourgeoisie.
• Because society and institutions are dominated by the bourgeoisie, Marx advocates for:
  • Revolution to overthrow the existing system
  • Building a society with collectivized production means (socialist society)
• Transitional step: "dictatorship of the proletariat" is mandatory to win the class struggle before achieving socialism.

🌈 Divisions within socialism

🌈 Three historical splits

Socialism shares core values but diverges on society models and strategies:

Division	Two sides	Key difference
First	Idealistic ("utopian") vs Rationalist ("scientific")	Ideal communities vs pragmatic solutions
Second	Anti-statist (libertarian) vs Statist (communist)	Reject state power vs use state power
Third	Revolutionary (Marxist) vs Reformist (social democracy)	Overthrow system vs gradual reform

🏛️ Utopian socialism overview

Utopian socialism: socialist currents that seek to transform society through an ideal organization.

• Opposed to "scientific socialism" which seeks pragmatic transformation.
• The "utopian" label was imposed by Friedrich Engels to undermine credibility (calling them unrealistic).
• Common point: wanting to establish ideal communities.
• Two influential currents: Saint-Simonism and Owenism.

🔧 Saint-Simonism: the workshop utopia

• Founder: Claude-Henri de Rouvroy, Count de Saint-Simon.
• Religious dimension: belief that the law of gravitation is the foundation of all things (why Marxists call it "utopian").
• Vision: social classes join together to manage the nation for the common good.
• Structure: parliament with three chambers:
  1. Chamber of inventors (conceive projects)
  2. Chamber of scientists (examine projects)
  3. Chamber of industrialists (adopt and execute projects)
• Society as a workshop where everyone works together.
• Not deterministic: anyone can ascend the social ladder through hard work.
• No inequality based on gender, birth, social class, or cultural criteria.
• Influence: Marx adopted several Saint-Simonian concepts, including the notion of social class.

🤝 Owenism: the cooperative movement

• Founder: Robert Owen, precursor of the cooperative movement.
• Approach: innovations in upbringing, crime, building design, gender relationships, and work organization.
• Principle: by introducing changes based on rationality and cooperation, behavior would be transformed.

Example: An organization redesigns work and community structures around cooperation rather than competition, believing this will fundamentally change how people behave and relate to each other.

⚠️ Don't confuse

• Utopian vs scientific socialism: utopian proposes ideal communities (often with philosophical or religious foundations); scientific seeks pragmatic, material-based solutions. Remember that "utopian" was a polemical label, not necessarily how these thinkers saw themselves.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Socialist currents share core values but diverge on the ideal society model and the strategy to achieve socialism, splitting historically into idealistic versus rationalist, anti-statist versus statist, and revolutionary versus reformist camps.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Three historical divisions: idealistic ("utopian") vs rationalist ("scientific"); anti-statist (libertarian) vs statist (communist); revolutionary (Marxist) vs reformist (social democracy).
• Utopian socialism: seeks transformation through ideal organizations like workshops or cooperatives, rather than pragmatic solutions.
• Libertarian socialism: anti-statist currents (mutualism, anarcho-collectivism) that aspire to immediate abolition of the state, contrasting with statist approaches that see the state as a transitional tool.
• Common confusion: "utopian" vs "scientific" is a label imposed by Engels to undermine idealistic currents, not a neutral classification.
• Why it matters: understanding these divisions clarifies why socialist movements pursue different strategies (revolution vs reform, state power vs abolition).

🌀 The three historical divisions

🌀 Idealistic vs rationalist

• Idealistic ("utopian") socialism: transforms society through ideal organizations.
• Rationalist ("scientific") socialism: transforms society through pragmatic solutions.
• The division was imposed by Friedrich Engels to undermine the credibility of "utopian" currents by labeling them unrealistic.
• Don't confuse: "utopian" is a polemical term, not a self-description by those currents.

🌀 Anti-statist vs statist

• Anti-statist (libertarian): aspires to immediate abolition of the state (e.g., mutualism, anarcho-collectivism).
• Statist (communist): perceives the state as a transitional instrument to eliminate capitalism (e.g., Marxist socialism).
• This division emerged during the First International (1864), which united labor movements across Europe and the United States.

🌀 Revolutionary vs reformist

• Revolutionary (Marxist): seeks to overthrow the existing system through revolution.
• Reformist (social democracy): pursues gradual change within existing institutions.
• The excerpt mentions this division but focuses detail on utopian and libertarian currents.

🏛️ Utopian socialism

🏛️ What utopian socialism is

Utopian socialism: socialist currents that seek to transform society through an ideal organization.

• Opposed to "scientific socialism," which seeks pragmatic solutions.
• Historically included several currents with different philosophical influences, united by the goal of establishing ideal communities.
• Two very influential currents: Saint-Simonism and Owenism.

🔧 Saint-Simonism: the workshop utopia

• Founder: Claude-Henri de Rouvroy Count de Saint-Simon.
• Religious dimension: based on the belief that the law of gravitation is the foundation of all things (why Marxists labeled it "utopian").
• Vision: social classes join together to manage the nation for the common good; industry is the engine of society, politics exists only to maximize it.
• Ideal parliament: three chambers:
  1. Chamber of inventors (conceive projects)
  2. Chamber of scientists (examine projects)
  3. Chamber of industrialists (adopt and execute projects)
• Society as workshop: everyone works together.
• Meritocracy: not deterministic; anyone can ascend the social ladder through hard work; no inequality based on gender, birth, social class, or culture.
• Influence: Karl Marx adopted several Saint-Simonian concepts, including the notion of social class.

🤝 Owenism: the cooperative movement

• Founder: Robert Owen, precursor of the cooperative movement.
• Vision: transform society through cooperatives—communities with collective production means and property.
• Innovations: upbringing of children, approach to crime, building design and location, relationships between sexes, work organization.
• Principles: rationality and cooperation to transform behavior.
• Strategy: rejects revolution; circumspect about political organization.
• Influence: seen as the father of British socialism; the Fabian Society (which established the Labour Party) was inspired by him; all trends within New Labour claim Owen's legacy (from Tony Blair to Jeremy Corbyn).

Example: A cooperative where workers collectively own production means, fairly distribute workload and incomes, and organize work rationally without private owners extracting profit.

🚩 Libertarian socialism

🚩 Origins in the First International

• Founded: 1864 as the International Association of Workers ("First International").
• Goal: unite the labor movement across most European countries and the United States.
• Three initial tendencies:
  1. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's mutualism
  2. Mikhail Bakunin's anarcho-collectivism
  3. Karl Marx's socialism (statist approach)
• The first two are libertarian (anti-statist); the third is statist.

🔗 Mutualism

• Founder: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.
• Critique of private property: property is capital that allows one to receive income by exploiting the collective force from labor.
• Difference from Owenism: Proudhon rejects the idea of owning property entirely, not just private ownership.
• Strategy: workers organize production themselves by mutualizing production means and abolishing private property.
• Political continuity: federalism is the political form of this mutualization of work.
• Don't confuse: mutualism is not the same as Owen's cooperatives; mutualism is more radical in rejecting all property ownership.

⚡ Anarcho-collectivism

• Founder: Mikhail Bakunin.
• Part of the libertarian tradition.
• Aspires to immediate abolition of the state.
• (The excerpt does not provide further detail on anarcho-collectivism's specific mechanisms.)

📋 Summary table: utopian socialism examples

Current	Ideal organization	Key features	Strategy
Saint-Simonism	Workshop society	Three-chamber parliament (inventors, scientists, industrialists); meritocracy; no inequality by birth/gender/class	Collective management for common good
Owenism	Cooperative	Collective production means and property; rational and cooperative principles	Reject revolution; transform through cooperatives

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Utopian socialism seeks to transform society by establishing ideal communities based on cooperation and collective ownership, rather than through pragmatic or revolutionary means.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• What utopian socialism is: socialist currents that aim to change society through ideal organizations (communities, workshops, cooperatives).
• How it differs from "scientific socialism": utopian socialism proposes ideal models, while "scientific" socialism focuses on pragmatic solutions—this distinction was imposed by Engels to undermine utopian currents as "unrealistic."
• Two main currents: Saint-Simonism (society as a workshop managed by inventors, scientists, and industrialists) and Owenism (cooperative communities with collective ownership).
• Common confusion: utopian socialism is not deterministic—Saint-Simonism, for example, believes anyone can rise through hard work, rejecting inequality based on birth or class.
• Historical influence: Saint-Simon influenced Marx's concept of social class; Owen inspired the British cooperative movement and the Labour Party.

🏛️ What utopian socialism means

🏛️ Core definition

Utopian socialism: socialist currents that seek to transform society through an ideal organization.

• The term "utopian" was imposed by Friedrich Engels to contrast these currents with "scientific socialism."
• Engels used "utopian" to suggest these currents were unrealistic, undermining their credibility.
• Despite different philosophical influences, all utopian socialist currents shared the goal of establishing ideal communities.

🔍 Utopian vs scientific socialism

Approach	Strategy	Perception
Utopian socialism	Transform society through ideal organizations	Labeled "unrealistic" by Engels
Scientific socialism	Transform society through pragmatic solutions	Positioned as rational and practical

• Don't confuse: "utopian" is not a self-description but a label applied by opponents to dismiss these currents.

🏭 Saint-Simonism: the workshop utopia

🏭 Society as a workshop

Saint-Simon envisioned society as a workshop where all social classes work together for the common good.

• Industry as the engine: production would drive society, with politics existing only to maximize industrial output.
• Three-chamber parliament:
  • Chamber of inventors: conceive projects
  • Chamber of scientists: examine projects
  • Chamber of industrialists: adopt and execute projects
• Everyone collaborates in this workshop model.

🌟 Religious and philosophical foundation

• Saint-Simon integrated a religious dimension based on the belief that the law of gravitation is the foundation of all things.
• This religious element is one reason Marxist thinkers labeled him "utopian."

⚖️ Non-deterministic equality

Saint-Simonism rejects predetermined inequality:

• Anyone can ascend the social ladder through hard work.
• No inequality based on gender, birth, social class, or cultural criteria.
• Don't confuse: although Saint-Simonism envisions social classes working together, it does not accept fixed class hierarchies—mobility is possible through merit.

🧬 Influence on Marx

• Karl Marx adopted several Saint-Simonian concepts.
• Most notably, Marx took up and further developed the notion of social class from Saint-Simon.

🤝 Owenism: the cooperative movement

🤝 Core principle: cooperatives

Cooperatives: communities in which the production means and the property are collective.

Robert Owen was the precursor of the cooperative movement, aiming to transform society through collective ownership and rational organization.

🔧 Comprehensive social innovation

Owen's approach covered multiple dimensions of social life:

• Upbringing of children
• Approach to crime
• Design and location of buildings and leisure facilities
• Relationships between the sexes
• Organization of work

Key claim: by introducing changes based on rationality and cooperation, human behavior would be transformed.

🚫 Rejection of revolution

• Owenism rejects the idea of revolution as a means to achieve socialism.
• It is also circumspect (cautious/skeptical) about the political organization of society.
• Example: rather than overthrowing the state, Owen proposed building cooperative communities where workload and incomes are fairly distributed among workers.

🇬🇧 Legacy in British socialism

• Robert Owen is often seen as the father of British socialism.
• The Fabian Society, a political club that established the Labour Party, was inspired by Owen.
• All trends within New Labour—from Tony Blair to Jeremy Corbyn—claim Owen's legacy.

📋 Summary comparison

📋 Two main utopian currents

Current	Key figure	Ideal organization	Core mechanism	Political stance
Saint-Simonism	Saint-Simon	Society as workshop	Three-chamber parliament (inventors, scientists, industrialists) managing industry for common good	Social classes collaborate; merit-based mobility
Owenism	Robert Owen	Cooperative communities	Collective ownership of production means and property; fair distribution of work and income	Rejects revolution; cautious about political organization

🎯 What both share

• Belief that transforming social organization will transform society.
• Emphasis on cooperation and collective management.
• Rejection of fixed inequalities (though through different mechanisms).
• Focus on establishing ideal communities rather than seizing state power or engaging in class struggle.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Libertarian socialism seeks to abolish both the state and private property immediately, rejecting the use of state power as a transitional tool to overcome capitalism.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Core division: libertarian socialists (Proudhon, Bakunin) demand immediate abolition of the state, while Marx's socialism sees the state as a temporary instrument to dismantle capitalism.
• Two main schools: mutualism (Proudhon) emphasizes federalism and individual autonomy; anarcho-collectivism (Bakunin) emphasizes revolution and autonomous federations based on identity and interests.
• Common confusion: libertarian socialism vs cooperative socialism—mutualism rejects private property as exploitative capital, whereas Owenism focuses on collective ownership without necessarily abolishing property.
• Why it matters: this anti-statist tradition shaped the First International's internal conflict and influenced later revolutionary debates about whether the state can ever serve emancipatory goals.

🏛️ Historical origins and the First International

🏛️ The First International (1864)

• The International Association of Workers united labor movements across Europe and the United States.
• Three main tendencies emerged:
  • Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's mutualism
  • Mikhail Bakunin's anarcho-collectivism
  • Karl Marx's socialism (covered in section 5.2.3)
• The split between "anti-statist" (libertarian) and "statist" currents defined the movement's trajectory.

🔍 What sets libertarian socialism apart

• Immediate abolition of the state: libertarian socialists reject any transitional phase that uses state power.
• No private property: both mutualism and anarcho-collectivism oppose private ownership, but for different reasons and with different organizational models.
• Don't confuse: libertarian socialism is not simply "less government"—it is a radical vision of a stateless society organized through voluntary federations and mutual aid.

🤝 Mutualism (Pierre-Joseph Proudhon)

🤝 Core principle: mutualization of production means

Mutualism: workers organize production themselves by mutualizing production means and abolishing private property.

• Why reject private property? Property is capital that allows owners to exploit the collective force of labor.
• Workers must control production directly, not through state ownership or cooperative ownership that retains property rights.
• Example: instead of a factory owned by shareholders or the state, workers collectively manage it without any individual or entity holding property title.

🗺️ Federalism as political structure

• Proudhon sees federalism as the political extension of mutualized work.

• Federalism: a contract by which communities share resources based on their needs and organize common projects at different levels.

• How it works:
  • Individuals form communities.
  • Communities gather into territorial entities.
  • Entities federate by pooling public services, mutualizing credit, and equalizing taxes.
• Result: a stateless society where "political functions are reduced to industrial functions, social order would result solely from transactions and exchanges."

🧩 Individualistic foundation

• Proudhon's libertarian socialism rests on autonomy and an individualistic conception of society.
• A community is "ultimately the result of individual wills."
• Don't confuse: this is not liberal individualism—it emphasizes voluntary association and mutual aid, not market competition.

🔗 Influence on Marx

• Proudhon's ideas about property, capitalism, and alienation of the working class shaped Marx's own theories.
• However, Marx later diverged sharply on the role of the state.

⚡ Anarcho-collectivism (Mikhail Bakunin)

⚡ Critique of Marx's "dictatorship of the proletariat"

• Bakunin adopts Proudhon's concept of anarchy but vigorously opposes Marx's vision of a transitional state.
• Marx proposed a "dictatorship of the proletariat" (a temporary proletarian state) to break with capitalism before achieving a stateless society.
• Bakunin's objection:

  • "Both the theory of the state and the theory of so-called revolutionary dictatorship are based on this fiction of pseudo-popular representation – which in actual fact means the government of the masses by an insignificant handful of privileged individuals, elected (or even not elected) by mobs of people rounded up for voting and never knowing what or whom they are voting for."

  • Any state, even a "proletarian" one, becomes rule by a small elite, not genuine popular power.
• Don't confuse: Bakunin does not reject revolution—he rejects using the state as a revolutionary tool.

🏭 Anarcho-collectivist model

• Immediate steps:
  • Abolish private property.
  • Share production means.
  • Establish self-management in agriculture and industry.
• Organization: individuals form autonomous federations based on common identity, interests, and aspirations.
• The state is the "counterpart of capitalism" and must be destroyed, not repurposed.

🔍 How anarcho-collectivism differs from mutualism

Aspect	Mutualism (Proudhon)	Anarcho-collectivism (Bakunin)
Foundation	Individualistic; communities arise from individual wills	Collective identity and shared interests drive federation
Political structure	Federalism through contracts and resource-sharing	Autonomous federations based on common aspirations
Emphasis	Mutualization of work and credit; transactions and exchanges	Revolution, abolition of private property, self-management
Critique of the state	State functions reduced to industrial functions	State must be destroyed as capitalism's counterpart

📖 Definition and summary

📖 What is libertarian socialism?

Libertarian socialism: a radical perspective of socialism aiming to create a stateless society without private property.

• Key features:
  • Immediate abolition of the state (no transitional phase).
  • Abolition of private property (not just redistribution or state ownership).
  • Organization through voluntary federations, mutual aid, and self-management.
• Common confusion: libertarian socialism vs reformist socialism—libertarian socialists reject gradual reform and any use of state power; they demand revolutionary transformation without a state apparatus.

🧭 Why this division matters

• The conflict between anti-statist (libertarian) and statist (Marxist) currents shaped the First International and later socialist movements.
• It raises a fundamental question: can the state ever be a tool for emancipation, or does any state inevitably reproduce domination?
• This debate continues to influence contemporary anarchist and socialist thought.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Communism evolved from an abstract ideal stage of socialism into a concrete political movement after 1917, when Lenin reinterpreted Marx's ideas to justify a vanguard party seizing state power and collectivizing production.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Before 1919: no clear distinction between socialism and communism; Marx and Engels rarely used "communism" and called their work "scientific socialism."
• Lenin's paradigm shift (1917): redefined communism as a party-led revolutionary movement and a state that collectivizes means of production, even if imperfect.
• Key division: "revolutionary" currents (break with capitalism via revolution) vs. "reformist" currents (peaceful transformation).
• Common confusion: Marx's communism (final, perfect stage) vs. Lenin's communism (imperfect state led by a vanguard party).
• Today: only five officially communist states remain; most adopted capitalist-oriented models, and Western communist parties have declined or rebranded.

🔀 Revolutionary vs. Reformist Currents

🔀 The third division of socialism

• The excerpt identifies a third way to classify socialism: revolutionary vs. reformist.
• Revolutionary currents believe the break with capitalism requires a revolution.
• Reformist currents aim to transform society by peaceful means through existing institutions.
• This division took shape in the 19th century and became critical after the Russian Revolution (1917) and the creation of the Communist International (Third International) in 1919.

📜 Socialism or Communism? The Conceptual Origins

📜 Marx and Engels on communism

On a conceptual level, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels explain communism is the ultimate stage of socialism describing an ideal society, emancipated from capitalism and any kind of alienation.

• Before 1919, there was no clear distinction between socialism and communism.
• Marx and Engels rarely used the term "communism" in their writings, especially after the League of Communists was dissolved in 1852.
• They did not define themselves as Communists; Marx called his ideology "scientific socialism"—socialism based on scientific analysis of human societies.
• Therefore, it is difficult to speak of communism as a distinct movement before 1919.

📜 Why the term fell out of use

• Marx and Engels joined the League of Communists in 1847 and wrote The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) for it.
• After the League dissolved in 1852, they and their successors (commonly called "Marxists") stopped using "communism" to describe themselves.

🔴 The Bolshevik Revolution and Lenin's Paradigm Shift

🔴 Lenin's reinterpretation (1917)

• After the Russian Revolution in 1917, Lenin achieved a paradigmatic shift.
• Lenin developed Marx's concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat (see section 5.1.1), proposing a proletarian state to establish a communist society.
• Lenin argued that a state can be called communist even if imperfect:

  "as the means of production becomes common property, the word 'communism' is also applicable here" (Lenin, 1918/1999), adding that it is certainly not an "integral communism."

• In Lenin's view, a political regime can be qualified as "communist" even if it is imperfect.

🔴 The vanguard party concept

• In What Is to Be Done? (1902), Lenin wrote that the proletarian revolution must be organized by a vanguard—a party of professional revolutionaries—whose objective is taking power.
• Communism is no longer a regime or a state; it is a party.
• This interpretation justified the Russian Revolution and the creation of the Soviets.

🔴 Criticism from orthodox Marxists

• Lenin's interpretation was highly criticized by Rosa Luxembourg, Karl Kautsky, and other "orthodox Marxists" (Marx's heirs).
• According to them:
  • The revolution must emanate only from the social movement, not from a vanguard party.
  • Communism is the final and perfect stage of socialism, not an imperfect state.
• Nonetheless, Lenin succeeded in imposing the idea that the Bolshevik Revolution was the beginning of a world proletarian revolution and the concrete perspective of communism.

🔴 Marxism-Leninism and other revolutions

• Other revolutions followed: China (1949), Cuba (1961), Vietnam (1954), Yugoslavia (1945).
• Despite differences, all were inspired by Marxism-Leninism theory, characterized by:
  • A single party centered on a vanguard.
  • Internationalism of the workers' movement.
  • The dictatorship of the proletariat.
  • Collectivization of the means of production.

🌍 Communism Today

🌍 Collapse and decline

• After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, only five states remained officially communist: Cuba, China, Laos, Vietnam, and North Korea.
• Several other states (Bangladesh, Moldova, Nepal, Nicaragua, Guyana, Tanzania) are or were led by a communist party.

🌍 Adoption of capitalism-oriented models

• Most communist countries—except North Korea—adopted a capitalism-oriented model:
  • China in 1978 with the "socialist market economy."
  • Laos in 1979.
  • Vietnam in 1986.
  • Cuba implemented capitalistic reforms only in 2018, but its domestic market remains closed.
• The shrinking of the communist area of influence and the adoption of capitalism by communist countries ensured the decline of communist parties in Western countries.

🌍 Rebranding in the West

• Like Podemos in Spain or Die Linke in Germany, most Western communist parties have changed their name and political stances.
• They withdrew any reference to communism or Marxism to fulfill a renewed radical leftism.

🔑 Definition Summary

🔑 What is Communism?

In the Karl Marx perspective, communism designates the ultimate stage when socialism is reached. After the Russian Revolution in 1917, communism designates a current of socialism based on the Lenin perspective conceiving that a vanguard revolutionary proletarian party can achieve communism, and a state can be called communist whether it collectivizes means of production.

Don't confuse:

Marx's communism	Lenin's communism
The final, perfect stage of socialism	An imperfect state that collectivizes production
An ideal society emancipated from capitalism and alienation	A party-led movement and a proletarian state
Rarely used term; preferred "scientific socialism"	Redefined after 1917 to justify the Bolshevik Revolution

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Social democracy evolved as a revisionist socialism that rejects violent revolution in favor of gradual democratic reform to emancipate society as a whole, though today it faces electoral decline and struggles to redefine its identity.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Origins: Social democracy emerged from debates between orthodox Marxism and revisionism in early 20th-century Germany, building on Lassalle's belief in democratic state transformation and universal suffrage.
• Bernstein's key revision: Eduard Bernstein rejected Marx's revolutionary predictions, arguing that improved proletarian conditions and the emergence of a middle class made violent revolution unnecessary and harmful.
• How to distinguish from communism: Social democracy favors evolution over revolution, seeks to emancipate all dominated classes (not just the proletariat), and views democracy as the instrument to suppress class government rather than dictatorship of the proletariat.
• Local diversity: Social democracy developed differently across countries—French republican socialism, British Fabianism, Italian progressive republicanism, American trade unionism—making it a heterogeneous current.
• Contemporary crisis: Today's social democratic parties face declining electoral support due to their "third way" neoliberal turn, shift from industrial workers to urban professionals, and loss of public-sector voters.

🏛️ Historical foundations in Germany

🏛️ Lassalle's democratic state vision

• Ferdinand Lassalle founded the General German Workers' Association (ADAV) in 1863, establishing the first German social democratic organization.
• Unlike Marx and Engels, Lassalle believed:
  • A democratic and socialist state is the ideal framework for working-class emancipation.
  • Universal suffrage (extremely rare at the time) could be the instrument of state revolution.
• The Gotha Program (1875) became a founding act of German social democracy, though Marx strongly criticized it for Lassalle's influence over the workers' movement.
• Don't confuse: Lassallism was not Marxism—it emphasized state transformation through democratic means rather than revolutionary overthrow.

📚 Bernstein's revisionist break

Eduard Bernstein published "Problems of Socialism" (1896-1898) and "Evolutionary Socialism" (1899), marking a breaking point with orthodox Marxism.

His central question: Is revolution desirable?

His key arguments:

• Marx's predictions were wrong because:
  • The material condition of the proletariat had improved.
  • A middle class had emerged.
• Socialist analysis cannot be dogmatic.
• Violent revolution and dictatorship of the proletariat would be dramatic, even for the proletariat.
• Socialism must fight for emancipation of society as a whole, not just the proletariat.
• Social democracy must integrate all dominated classes, including the middle classes.

🔄 Evolution over revolution

Democracy as "the suppression of class government" (Bernstein, 1899/1907).

• Bernstein favored evolution rather than revolution.
• He adopted the Lasallian thesis of universal suffrage but argued it neutralizes the bourgeois character of the state to become an instrument of the general interest.
• This requires genuine democracy to achieve socialist aims.
• Example: Rather than seizing state power through violent uprising, social democracy would gradually transform the state through electoral participation and legislative reform.

🌍 International variations

🇫🇷 France: Republican socialism

• Inspired by republicanism, utopian socialism, and mutualism.
• Blended local political traditions with revisionist Marxism.

🇬🇧 United Kingdom: Fabian labor movement

• The labor movement was influenced by the Fabian Society.
• Combined the heritage of Owenism with trade unionism.

🇮🇹 Italy: Progressive republicanism

• Filippo Turati developed a non-dogmatic reading of Marx.
• Rooted in progressive republicanism inspired by Giuseppe Mazzini, a father of Italian unification.

🇺🇸 United States: Trade union and anti-segregationist roots

• Built on the trade union and anti-segregationist movements.
• Developed distinct characteristics from European social democracy.

🧩 Why diversity matters

This broad diversity of local contributions makes it difficult to designate social democracy as a homogeneous current—each national context shaped its own version by drawing on local political ideologies to revise Marxist theses.

📉 Contemporary challenges

📉 Electoral decline

According to Giacomo Benedetto, Simon Hix, and Nicola Mastrorocco (2020):

"Social democratic parties that once commanded over 40% of votes have collapsed to the low twenties, tens, or lower."

Old social democratic parties have been losing their predominant role across Europe.

🔍 Three causes of decline

Cause	Explanation	Impact
"Third way" turn	Social democratic parties turned to neoliberalism in the 2000s (see Pro-globalization socialism)	Lost ambition, blurred scope, drove wedge between socialist currents
Electorate shift	Deindustrialization changed voter base from industrial workers to urban professionals	New base is more centrist and more versatile
Public-sector losses	Parties contributed to privatization of state-owned enterprises and state withdrawal from many sectors during 2000s	Lost many voters from public-sector workers' electorate

🌊 Przeworski's waves

Adam Przeworski (2001) identified three historic waves for social democracy:

1. Revolution: trying to struggle capitalism
2. Revisionism: trying to reform capitalism
3. Remedialism: trying to mitigate capitalism

Przeworski speculated about resignationism as a potential new wave—social democracy capitulating to capitalism.

🌱 Potential renewal

Despite declining electoral results, many social democratic parties remain in power in Europe and are reinventing themselves.

Example: In Portugal, the Partido Socialista shifted leftwards, proposing new focus on environmental concerns and postcapitalist issues.

The excerpt suggests: "Maybe the new wave will be the renewal."

🎯 Defining social democracy

Social democracy is a revisionist socialism, aiming to intervene in the economy to create an egalitarian society and democratically reform the state in order to emancipate the society as a whole.

Key distinguishing features:

• Revisionist: breaks with orthodox Marxism's revolutionary doctrine
• Economic intervention: aims to create an egalitarian society through state action in the economy
• Democratic reform: uses democratic institutions rather than revolution
• Universal emancipation: seeks to emancipate society as a whole, not just the proletariat

Don't confuse with communism: Social democracy was not clearly distinguishable from socialism until 1919 (when communism became associated with Leninist vanguard parties). As a polysemous expression, it referred to both socialist parties and "reformist" currents proposing gradual transformation through democratic institutions.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Despite predictions of its decline, socialism is reinventing itself by adapting to contemporary challenges such as environmentalism, globalization debates, feminism, multiculturalism, and nationalism.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Why socialism appears to be declining: utopian and libertarian currents are marginal, communist regimes collapsed or adapted to markets, communist parties abandoned revolution, and social-democratic parties suffered electoral setbacks in the 2000s–2020s.
• Why socialism persists: its capacity to adapt to new contemporary challenges and divisions.
• New divisions reshaping socialism: productivism vs. environmentalism, globalization vs. anti-globalization.
• Common confusion: the "third way" vs. anti-globalization socialism—both respond to globalization but from opposite positions (acceptance vs. rejection of neoliberal globalization).
• Emerging issues: socialism is reinventing itself through feminism, multiculturalism, and nationalism.

📉 The appearance of decline

📉 Four signs of decline

The excerpt lists four phenomena that suggest socialism is weakening:

• Utopian and libertarian currents are now marginal.
• Communist regimes collapsed after the Berlin Wall (1989) or adapted to market economies.
• Communist parties in liberal democracies transformed themselves, abandoning revolution and Marxist references.
• Social-democratic parties recorded major electoral setbacks in the 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s.

🔄 Why predictions of socialism's end were wrong

• The resilience of socialism lies in its capacity to adapt to new contemporary challenges.
• New divisions have emerged, and socialism is reinventing itself through new issues.

🌱 Productivism vs. Environmentalism

🏭 Historical productivist doctrine

• Despite early environmentalist critique by Friedrich Engels in The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845), socialism adopted a productivist doctrine for a long time.
• Productivism sought to increase the means of production through exploitation of resources and domination of nature.

🌍 The rise of eco-socialism

Eco-socialism: an alternative to capitalist and socialist productivism, at the convergence of social critique and environmental critique, renewing socialist thinking.

• Authors like André Gorz (1987) emphasized that capitalism cannot be ecological because it is based on producing goods with exchange value, while the environment has use value.
• The solution: subordinate exchange value to use value to refocus production on social needs and environmental preservation.
• Example political formations that evolved toward eco-socialism: Left Party (Sweden), Die Linke (Germany), Syriza (Greece), La France Insoumise (France), Podemos (Spain), Democratic Socialists of America (United States).

⚠️ Don't confuse

• Not all of the left has abandoned productivism; part of the left is still productivist.
• Eco-socialism represents a specific evolution, primarily among post-communist parties.

🌐 Globalization vs. Anti-Globalization

🌐 The division within socialism

In the 1990s and 2000s, globalization created a split:

• Some social democratic currents adhere to globalization, seeing it as an opportunity for a more regulated world through international agreements and control of international organizations.
• Others perceive globalization as the upper stage of capitalism, where globalized companies free themselves from states and impose neoliberal ideology, exploiting developing countries and creating a globalized proletariat.

🚫 Anti-globalization socialism

The anti-globalization movement is heterogeneous and weakly organized, but the Porto Alegre Manifesto (2005 World Social Forum) lays out orientations:

• Establishment of an international tax on financial transactions.
• Cancellation of public debts of developing countries.
• Guarantee of food security through self-sufficiency and fair trade.
• Fight against racism in all forms and restoration of Indigenous rights.

Example: These proposals find echo in South American socialism mixed with populism, particularly in Hugo Chavez's Bolivarianism.

✅ Pro-globalization socialism: the "third way"

Third way: a position between the "old" statist and redistributive social democracy and deregulatory and unequal neoliberalism, theorized by Anthony Giddens and Tony Blair (1998).

• Because globalization imposes economic, political, and societal changes, the third way aims to regulate them with equal opportunities for everyone.
• It is based on strong societal progressivism with recognition of ethnic, national, and sexual minorities.
• Ideologically, it corresponds to social liberalism.

Examples of leaders inspired by the third way:

• German Chancellor Gerard Schröder (1998–2005)
• US President Bill Clinton (1993–2001)
• French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin (1997–2001)

🔍 How to distinguish the two approaches

Aspect	Anti-globalization socialism	Pro-globalization socialism (third way)
View of globalization	Upper stage of capitalism; exploitative	Opportunity for regulated world
Strategy	Resist neoliberal globalization; promote self-sufficiency	Accept and regulate globalization
Ideological position	Opposes neoliberalism	Social liberalism (between old social democracy and neoliberalism)
Geographic examples	South American socialism (Bolivarianism)	Western leaders (Blair, Clinton, Schröder, Jospin)

👩 Socialist feminism

👩 Early connections between socialism and feminism

• At the end of the 19th century, many contributors linked the domination of capitalism to patriarchy, foreshadowing intersectionality.
• Despite strong misogyny among certain socialist thinkers, August Bebel theorized the oppression of women from a socialist perspective in Woman and Socialism (1879/1910).
• Several activists such as Claire Zetkin (1857–1933) and Alexandra Kollontai (1872–1952) contributed to this development.

🔗 Intersectionality precursor

• The excerpt notes that linking capitalism's domination to patriarchy was an early form of what would later be called intersectionality.
• This represents socialism's capacity to address multiple forms of oppression simultaneously.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Eco-socialism emerged as an alternative to both capitalist and socialist productivism by subordinating exchange value to use value in order to refocus production on social needs and environmental preservation.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Early environmentalist roots: Engels critiqued working conditions from an environmental perspective in 1845, but socialism later adopted productivist doctrine for a long time.
• Why capitalism cannot be ecological: Capitalism produces goods with exchange value, while the environment has use value—these are fundamentally incompatible.
• Core principle of eco-socialism: subordinate exchange value to use value to refocus on social needs and environmental preservation.
• Common confusion: productivism vs. eco-socialism—productivism seeks to increase production through resource exploitation and domination of nature; eco-socialism converges social and environmental critiques.
• Political evolution: part of the left remains productivist, but certain post-communist parties have evolved toward eco-socialism since the 1980s.

🌱 From productivism to environmental critique

🌱 Early environmental awareness

• Friedrich Engels developed an environmentalist critique in The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845/1969).
• He denounced pollution, noise, and other environmental issues affecting working conditions.
• Despite this precursor work, socialism did not immediately embrace environmentalism.

🏭 The productivist doctrine

Productivist doctrine: a long-standing socialist approach that sought to increase the means of production through the exploitation of resources and the domination of nature.

• This doctrine dominated socialism for a long time after Engels' early critique.
• It prioritized production growth over environmental concerns.
• Don't confuse: productivism is not the same as increasing production for social needs—it specifically involves resource exploitation and nature domination.

🔄 The eco-socialist alternative

🔄 Why capitalism cannot be ecological (André Gorz)

• André Gorz (1987) and other authors emphasized a fundamental incompatibility in the 1980s.
• The excerpt explains the core mechanism:
  • Capitalism is based on producing goods with exchange value (what they can be sold for).
  • The environment has use value (what it provides directly).
  • These two value systems are incompatible.
• Example: A forest has use value (clean air, habitat, recreation) but capitalism focuses on its exchange value (timber to sell).

🎯 The core principle: subordinating exchange to use

• The excerpt states: "It is important to subordinate exchange value to use value."
• This means:
  • Production should be refocused on social needs (what people actually need).
  • Production should prioritize preservation of the environment (maintaining use value).
• This is the foundational principle that distinguishes eco-socialism from both capitalist and socialist productivism.

🌍 What eco-socialism is

Eco-socialism: an alternative to capitalist and socialist productivism, at the convergence of a social critique and an environmental critique, renewing socialist thinking.

• It combines two critiques:
  • Social critique: traditional socialist concern with exploitation and inequality.
  • Environmental critique: concern with resource depletion and ecological damage.
• It renews socialist thinking by integrating environmental concerns that were previously marginalized.

🗺️ Political landscape and evolution

🗺️ Division within the left

• The excerpt notes: "If part of the left is still productivist, certain political formations – including post-communist parties – have evolved towards eco-socialism."
• This shows that the shift is not universal; productivism still exists within socialist movements.

🏛️ Examples of eco-socialist parties

The excerpt lists several political formations that have evolved toward eco-socialism:

Country	Party
Sweden	Left Party (Vänsterpartiet)
Germany	Die Linke
Greece	Syriza
France	La France Insoumise
Spain	Podemos
United States	Democratic Socialists of America

• These are described as post-communist parties or formations that have incorporated eco-socialist principles.
• The development occurred alongside the environmentalist movement in the 1980s.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Globalization divided socialism in the 1990s and 2000s into anti-globalization currents that see it as advanced capitalism and pro-globalization social democrats who seek to regulate it through a "third way" between statism and neoliberalism.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• The split: globalization created a division within socialism—some currents embrace it, others oppose it.
• Anti-globalization view: globalization is the upper stage of capitalism; globalized companies escape state control and impose neoliberal ideology, exploiting developing countries and creating a globalized proletariat.
• Pro-globalization view: social democracy developed the "third way," seeking a middle path between old statist redistribution and deregulatory neoliberalism, aiming to regulate globalization with equal opportunities and societal progressivism.
• Common confusion: both camps are socialist, but they differ on whether globalization can be regulated for the common good or is inherently capitalist exploitation.
• Real-world expressions: anti-globalization found echo in South American socialism and populism; the third way influenced Western leaders in the 1990s–2000s.

🌍 The globalization divide in socialism

🌍 Why globalization split socialism

• In the 1990s and 2000s, globalization became a dividing line within socialist movements.
• Some social democratic currents saw globalization as an opportunity: a more regulated world through international agreements and control of international organizations.
• Others perceived globalization as the upper stage of capitalism—a continuation and intensification of capitalist exploitation on a global scale.

⚖️ Two competing interpretations

View	Core claim	What globalization means
Anti-globalization	Globalization = advanced capitalism	Companies free themselves from states, impose neoliberal ideology, exploit developing countries, create a globalized proletariat
Pro-globalization (third way)	Globalization can be regulated	Opportunity for international regulation, equal opportunities, and societal progressivism

• Don't confuse: both are socialist currents, but they disagree fundamentally on whether globalization can serve the common good or is inherently exploitative.

🚫 Anti-globalization socialism

🚫 Core critique

• Globalized companies escape the control of states.
• They impose a neoliberal ideology that legitimizes private interests at the expense of the common good.
• Developing countries are exploited, creating a globalized proletariat—workers oppressed on a worldwide scale.

🌐 The anti-globalization movement

• The movement is very heterogeneous and weakly organized.
• The Porto Alegre Manifesto (2005 World Social Forum) laid out key orientations:
  • Establish an international tax on financial transactions.
  • Cancel public debts of developing countries.
  • Guarantee food security through self-sufficiency and fair trade.
  • Fight racism in all its forms.
  • Restore Indigenous rights.

🌎 South American expression

• Anti-globalization proposals found echo in South American socialism mixed with populism.
• Example: the Bolivarianism of Hugo Chavez reflects anti-globalization themes.

✅ Pro-globalization socialism: the "third way"

✅ What the third way claims

The "third way": a position between the "old" statist and redistributive social democracy and deregulatory and unequal neoliberalism.

• Theorized by Anthony Giddens and Tony Blair (1998).
• Recognizes that globalization imposes economic, political, and societal changes.
• Aims to regulate these changes rather than reject globalization outright.

🎯 Key features

• Equal opportunities for everyone: not old-style redistribution, but ensuring everyone can compete.
• Strong societal progressivism: recognition of ethnic, national, and sexual minorities.
• Ideologically corresponds to social liberalism.

🌐 Western adoption

• The third way was emulated across the West in the 1990s–2000s:
  • German Chancellor Gerard Schröder (1998–2005).
  • US President Bill Clinton (1993–2001).
  • French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin (1997–2001).
• Example: these leaders sought to balance market-friendly policies with social protections and minority rights, rather than opposing globalization or returning to heavy state intervention.

🔍 How to distinguish from anti-globalization

• Anti-globalization: globalization is inherently capitalist and exploitative; resist it.
• Third way: globalization is inevitable and can be shaped; regulate it for fairness and inclusion.
• Both are socialist, but the third way accepts globalization's framework and seeks reform within it, while anti-globalization rejects the framework itself.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Socialist feminism links women's oppression to capitalist domination and has evolved from being sidelined in early socialist movements to becoming a core demand across all socialist currents by the 1980s.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Historical roots: Late 19th-century thinkers and activists connected capitalism to patriarchy, foreshadowing intersectionality.
• Key early figures: August Bebel theorized women's oppression from a socialist perspective; Claire Zetkin and Alexandra Kollontai linked feminist and proletarian struggles.
• Long marginalization: Despite early efforts, feminist struggles were relegated to the background by socialist ideology for decades.
• 1980s revival: Socialist feminism was revitalized through the work of intellectuals like Marlene Dixon, leading socialist and communist parties to integrate feminist demands into their platforms.
• Core demands today: Abortion rights, political parity, and gender equality are now assumed by all socialist currents.

🌱 Early development and pioneers

📚 Theoretical foundations

At the end of the 19th century, many women and men contributed to developing socialism and linked the domination of capitalism to patriarchy.

• This early work foreshadowed intersectionality—the idea that different forms of oppression are interconnected.
• The excerpt notes that while some socialist thinkers were strongly misogynistic, others laid important groundwork.

August Bebel in his book Woman and Socialism (1879/1910) theorized the oppression of women from a socialist perspective.

• Bebel's contribution: analyzing women's oppression through the lens of socialist theory, not as a separate issue.

👥 Key activists

Two major figures linked feminist and proletarian struggles:

Activist	Contribution
Claire Zetkin	Founded Socialist International Women in 1907
Alexandra Kollontai	Free-love theorist and defender of free sexuality

• Both activists explicitly connected feminist struggles to proletarian (working-class) struggles.
• Example: Rather than treating women's rights as a separate cause, they argued that liberating women required dismantling capitalist exploitation.

Don't confuse: These activists did not separate feminism from socialism—they saw them as intertwined struggles, not parallel movements.

🚧 Long marginalization

⏸️ Sidelined by socialist ideology

Despite the efforts of early pioneers, feminist struggles were long relegated to the background by socialist ideology.

• The excerpt emphasizes "long relegated," indicating decades of marginalization.
• Why this happened: Socialist movements prioritized class struggle and often treated gender oppression as secondary or derivative.
• This meant that even though some socialists theorized women's oppression, the broader movement did not make feminist demands central to its platform.

🔄 1980s revival and integration

🌟 Intellectual renewal

Socialist feminism underwent a revival in the 1980s, most notably thanks to the work of feminist intellectuals such as Marlene Dixon (1978).

• Dixon and others brought renewed theoretical attention to the intersection of gender and class oppression.
• This revival was not just academic—it translated into political action.

🏛️ Party integration

Through their militancy, socialist and communist parties gradually integrated feminism into their platforms.

• Militancy here means active advocacy and organizing by feminist activists within socialist movements.
• The result: feminist demands moved from the margins to the center of socialist platforms.

✊ Core feminist demands

The excerpt identifies three main demands that became assumed by all socialist currents:

1. Right to abortion: Reproductive rights and bodily autonomy
2. Parity of political bodies: Equal representation in political institutions and decision-making
3. Equality between men and women: Broad gender equality across social, economic, and political spheres

Key shift: These demands are now "assumed by all socialist currents"—meaning they are no longer controversial or optional within socialism, but foundational.

Example: A contemporary socialist party platform would include abortion rights and political parity as core commitments, not as add-ons or concessions to a separate feminist movement.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Socialism has oscillated between viewing individuals solely through social class (monism) and recognizing collective affiliations like nations and cultures as part of emancipatory struggle (pluralism), gradually embracing pluralism after confronting its own history of discrimination.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Core tension: socialism postulates that capitalism reduces individuals to social class, yet collective affiliations (cultures, ethnic groups, nations, religions) also participate in domination—leading to ideological contradictions.
• The national question: Marx prioritized class over nation, but Austromarxism (Otto Bauer) theorized that nations are not naturally oppressive; the bourgeoisie weaponizes nationalism to divide workers, so socialism should achieve "international unity in national diversity."
• From monism to pluralism: socialism initially aimed to unite the dominated by class alone, but later recognized that collective affiliations could be emancipatory against bourgeois ideology, imperialism, and colonialism.
• Common confusion: socialism as inherently anti-nationalist vs. socialism as defender of oppressed nations—the excerpt shows both positions coexist, depending on whether nationalism serves bourgeois division or proletarian self-determination.
• Historical reckoning: socialism was not immune to hate speech (anti-Semitism, racism, homophobia, misogyny); only after decolonization, anti-segregation struggles, and 1980s minority recognition movements did socialism describe itself as pluralist.

🌍 The national question and ideological shift

🏴 Marx's primacy of class

• Marx's position: social class comes first; ethnical or national belonging is secondary.
• Acknowledgment of oppressed nations: Marx recognized nations like Ireland and Poland as victims of imperialism, even while prioritizing class.
• This creates a tension: class is primary, yet national oppression exists and matters.

🇦🇹 Austromarxism and Otto Bauer's theory

Austromarxism: a revisionist current rooted in the Austrian context that theorizes national struggles as reverberations of class struggles.

• Otto Bauer's argument (1907/2000):
  • Nations are not naturally instruments of oppression.
  • The bourgeoisie creates nationalism to divide the workers' movement and prevent the proletariat from recognizing itself as a unified class.
  • A nation is both:
    • A community of character: individuals who share social and cultural characteristics.
    • A community of fate: individuals with common interests and history.
• Bauer's solution: the working class must reappropriate the nation to reclaim cultural goods confiscated by capitalism.
• Role of socialism: achieve international unity in national diversity through a multinational state.

🚩 Lenin and self-determination

• Lenin's adoption: reappropriated Bauer's concept and declared support for self-determination of nations within the USSR (1917).
• Marxism-Leninism as defender of oppressed nations: inspired national liberation movements and decolonization authors like Franz Fanon (1965).
• Example: a colonized nation seeking independence could align with socialist ideology as a struggle against capitalist imperialism.

🧩 Monism vs. pluralism

🔍 What the tension means

Approach	What it emphasizes	Implication
Monism	Individual reduced to social class alone	Unite all dominated to fight the dominant; collective affiliations seen as distractions or bourgeois tools
Pluralism	Collective affiliations (culture, nation, religion) as emancipatory	Recognize that domination operates through multiple axes; socialism must address imperialism, colonialism, and cultural oppression

• Why the oscillation: socialism's core claim is that capitalism exploits the dominated, but collective affiliations can either divide workers (bourgeois nationalism) or unite oppressed groups (anti-colonial nationalism).
• Don't confuse: pluralism here does not mean abandoning class analysis; it means recognizing that class struggle intersects with national, cultural, and ethnic struggles.

🌐 Collective affiliations and domination

• The excerpt states that cultures, ethnic groups, nations, and religions participate in domination under capitalism.
• Bourgeois ideology and its corollaries: imperialism and colonialism use collective affiliations to maintain exploitation.
• Pluralism as emancipatory: recognizing and supporting oppressed nations/cultures becomes part of the socialist project.

🚨 Racism and discrimination within socialism

🗣️ Hate speech in socialist ranks

• Socialism was not immune: anti-Semitic, colonialist, homophobic, misogynic, racist, and xenophobic discourses were reproduced by some theorists in their fight against capitalism.
• This contradicts socialism's emancipatory claims and shows internal ideological contradictions.

🛡️ August Bebel's counter-example

• Bebel's positions (1879/1910):
  • Advocated for equality between men and women.
  • Pleaded for the legalization of homosexuality.
  • Virulently denounced anti-Semitism in socialist ranks, calling it "socialism of fools".
• Bebel represents an early pluralist stance within socialism, but he was not the norm.

🔄 The shift to pluralism

• Catalysts for change:
  • Decolonization movement.
  • Anti-segregationist and anti-apartheid struggles.
  • Widespread immigration and the composition of an immigrant proletariat.
  • 1980s struggles for recognition of minorities.
• Result: only after these movements did socialism describe itself as pluralist.
• Example: an immigrant worker facing both class exploitation and racial discrimination requires socialism to address both axes of domination, not just class.

🧠 Key takeaways

🧠 Why this matters for understanding socialism

• Ideological contradictions: socialism's internal debates over monism vs. pluralism reveal tensions between universal class struggle and particular national/cultural struggles.
• Historical evolution: socialism adapted its ideology in response to real-world struggles (decolonization, civil rights, immigration), showing it is not a static doctrine.
• Practical implications: recognizing oppressed nations and minorities became part of socialist platforms, influencing movements for self-determination and anti-discrimination.

🔍 Common confusion revisited

• Nationalism as bourgeois tool vs. emancipatory force:
  • Bourgeois nationalism divides workers (e.g., "workers of Nation A vs. Nation B").
  • Proletarian or anti-colonial nationalism unites oppressed groups against imperialism (e.g., a colonized nation seeking independence).
• The excerpt shows socialism must distinguish between these two uses of nationalism.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Nationalism has succeeded globally for over two centuries by claiming the world should be divided into nations, and its malleability across the political spectrum allows it to resurface in every crisis as if an ambiguous past promises a better future.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Core claim of nationalism: the world is, or should be, divided into nations—a modern ideology that has spread to every continent.
• Why nationalism endures: its malleability allows diverse and even antagonistic political actors to mobilize it, making it adaptable across contexts.
• Resilience in crises: although repeatedly predicted to decline, nationalism always resonates anew during moments of crisis.
• Common confusion: nationalism is not a passing phase tied to one era or political position; it is a flexible ideology that can be adopted across the entire political spectrum.

🌍 The global reach and durability of nationalism

🌍 A world divided into nations

Nationalism has implied for more than two centuries that the world is, or should be, divided into nations.

• This is the foundational claim: political organization should follow national boundaries.
• The success of this ideology is described as "undeniable"—it has spread to every continent.
• Example: Actors holding diverse or even antagonistic positions throughout the political spectrum have mobilized nationalism.

🔄 Why nationalism persists

• The excerpt attributes nationalism's triumph to its malleability: it can be adapted and used by many different political actors.
• It has been announced as "a passing phase that is in decline" many times, yet it always resurfaces.
• Don't confuse: nationalism is not a relic of the past; it is a recurring force that "resonates anew" in moments of crisis.

🔁 The paradox of nationalism's future

🔁 The ambiguous past and the better future

• The excerpt concludes with a striking image: "the remains of an ambiguous past were indicative of a better future."
• This suggests nationalism draws on historical narratives (even unclear or contested ones) to promise improvement.
• The phrase "as if" signals that this promise may be more rhetorical than real, yet it remains powerful.

⚠️ A recurring pattern

• Nationalism is not disappearing; instead, it re-emerges during crises.
• The excerpt emphasizes that this pattern has repeated over two centuries.
• Example: In moments of instability or uncertainty, nationalist mobilization gains traction by offering simple answers and a sense of belonging.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Anarchism is a diverse political philosophy unified by the rejection of permanent, coercive government in favor of horizontal, egalitarian organizations that preserve individual and societal freedoms.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Core definition: anarchism rejects institutionalized, permanent leadership and coercive government; the word comes from Greek anarkhia meaning "without ruler."
• Diversity within anarchism: beyond rejecting permanent political authority, anarchism encompasses a wide variety of interpretations and practices, some at odds with each other.
• Common confusion—anarchism vs socialism: both aim to end labor exploitation and establish equality, but socialists seek to capture state power for revolution while anarchists seek to abolish the state through grassroots social revolution.
• Historical roots: formal anarchist thought emerged from 18th–19th century European revolutions; stateless societies existed long before in indigenous and semi-nomadic populations.
• Contemporary relevance: after Cold War dormancy, anarchist movements are rising again, focusing on workers' movements, anti-capitalism, and climate justice.

🏛️ What anarchism rejects and seeks

🚫 The rejection of permanent authority

Anarchism: the rejection of institutionalized, permanent leadership and coercive government in order to preserve individual and societal freedoms.

• The etymological root is Greek anarkhia: an- (without) + arkhos (ruler).
• Proudhon's 19th-century declaration "I declare him my enemy" (referring to government) captures this core stance.
• Anarchists see permanent institutions with monopolistic power to exercise violence and impose their will as dangerous, harmful, and inhibiting of human capacities and freedoms.

🤝 What anarchists seek instead

Anarchism is best understood as a collection of practices and philosophical traditions that seek to dissolve hierarchical political power into horizontal, egalitarian organizations of willing individuals and groups.

• The goal is not chaos but restructuring: replacing top-down hierarchy with voluntary, equal participation.
• Organizations are horizontal (no permanent leaders) and egalitarian (equal standing).
• Example: instead of a permanent government imposing laws, temporary task-based leadership chosen by willing participants.

🧩 The diversity and difficulty of defining anarchism

🧩 Why anarchism is hard to pin down

• Beyond consensus on rejecting permanent political authority, there is no single definition.
• Two reasons for this diversity:
  • Long history: anarchist thought has evolved over centuries.
  • Complexity of targets: the political structures anarchists seek to abolish and replace are immensely complex.
• Result: a wide variety of interpretations, some of which can be at odds with each other.

🗺️ Where anarchism sits on the political spectrum

• Most anarchists see themselves as on the far left of the political spectrum.
• They identify as anti-capitalists and anti-fascists.
• Historically associated with socialism, sharing many assumptions and aims.

⚖️ Anarchism vs socialism: key distinctions

🤝 What they share

Shared goal	What the excerpt says
End labor exploitation	Both aim to end the exploitation of labor
Establish equality	Both seek to establish genuine equality in society
Revolutionary origins	Socialist thought owes formative concepts to William Godwin, the first modern anarchist, whose theories on inherent equality and illegitimacy of political institutions influenced European revolutionary thought during and after the French Revolution

🔀 Where they diverge most

• Socialists: seek to capture state power needed to carry out the political revolution.
• Anarchists: seek to create popular grassroots organizations to carry out a social revolution and abolish the state and its institutions.
• Don't confuse: both want revolution, but socialists use the state as a tool while anarchists see the state itself as the problem to be eliminated.

🌱 The social vs political revolution distinction

• Anarchists emphasize social revolution: transformation from the bottom up through grassroots organizing.
• Socialists emphasize political revolution: seizing and wielding state power to enact change.

📜 Historical context and evolution

🏺 Pre-modern stateless societies

• Societies without permanent political structures are as old as humanity, dating back to before the first cities, realms, and empires.
• They exist today throughout the globe, particularly in indigenous and semi-nomadic populations where leadership is often task-based and temporary.
• Example: a community might choose a leader for a specific hunt or harvest, but that person holds no permanent authority.

📖 Formal codification of anarchism

• The formal codification and definition of anarchism and its main principles date back to the revolutions in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries.
• William Godwin is identified as the first modern anarchist; his theories profoundly influenced European revolutionary thought.

⚔️ Anarchist involvement in major conflicts

• Anarchist groups and thinkers have been involved in rebellions and revolutions since the 18th century.
• Most notable involvements:
  • Springtime of Peoples (19th century)
  • Russian civil war (20th century)
  • Spanish civil war (20th century)

🔄 Contemporary resurgence

• Following a period of relative quiet during the Cold War, anarchist political movements are on the rise once more.
• Current focus areas:
  • Grassroots methods to create and support workers' movements
  • Joining anti-capitalist struggles
  • Joining climate justice struggles

💭 Proudhon's vision of government

📜 What "to be governed" means

Proudhon's 1851 statement describes government as a system of comprehensive control and exploitation:

• Surveillance and control: "kept in sight, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, estimated, valued, censured, commanded."
• Economic extraction: "noted, registered, enrolled, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized... placed under contribution, trained, ransomed, exploited, monopolized, extorted, squeezed, mystified, robbed."
• Punishment for resistance: "at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, despised, harassed, tracked, abused, clubbed, disarmed, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed."
• Final indignity: "mocked, ridiculed, outraged, dishonoured."

⚖️ Proudhon's critique of legitimacy

• Those who govern are described as "creatures who have neither the right, nor the wisdom, nor the virtue to do so."
• Government claims to act "under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest," but Proudhon sees this as false justification for oppression.

🎯 Criticism and debate

🔍 How critics view anarchism

• Critics describe anarchism as:
  • Utopian: unrealistic ideal that cannot be achieved.
  • Unrealistic: impractical in complex modern societies.
  • Often dangerous: potentially leading to chaos or violence.

🛡️ The anarchist counter-argument

• Anarchists argue that only a true transformation of society can bring about a real political revolution.
• The implication: incremental reforms or state-led changes are insufficient; fundamental restructuring is necessary.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Anarchism unites around rejecting permanent political authorities and the state's monopoly on violence, but splits into diverse schools—primarily social anarchism, individual anarchism, and others—that prioritize different values and prescribe different actions.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Core unifying principle: all anarchists reject the state as an illegitimate, dangerous institution that relies on domination and violence.
• Why anarchists oppose the state: they see permanent institutions with monopolistic power to exercise violence as harmful and inhibiting of human freedoms.
• Main classification: anarchist thought divides into three streams—social anarchism (collectivist/socialist), individual anarchism, and others.
• Common confusion: anarchism is not a single doctrine; it encompasses dozens of schools of thought, though social anarchism is so dominant that "anarchism" often refers specifically to it.
• Historical context: anarchist movements have been involved in revolutions since the 18th–19th centuries and are rising again in grassroots, anti-capitalist, and climate justice struggles.

🚫 The core rejection: why anarchists oppose the state

🚫 What anarchists reject

At its core, anarchism is the rejection of permanent political authorities.

• The abolishment of states is the central, unifying theme across all anarchist strands.
• Anarchists see the state as an illegitimate construct that uses propaganda and ultimately naked force to control people.

⚔️ The monopoly of violence

• Anarchists argue that permanent institutions hold monopolistic power to exercise violence and impose their will on populations.
• This monopoly is seen as dangerous, harmful, and inhibiting of human capacities and freedoms.
• Quote from Mikhail Bakunin (19th-century philosopher): "If there is a State, there must be domination of one class by another and, as a result, slavery; the State without slavery is unthinkable, and this is why we are enemies of the State."

🔗 State control in practice

The excerpt provides a concrete example of state control through the monopoly of violence:

• Incarceration: Almost 1% of the US population is incarcerated—more than any society in history; the overwhelming majority are imprisoned for nonviolent offences.
• Surveillance: A further 1.5% is registered in the penal system under constant control through practices like parole.
• Forced labor: Incarcerated people are forced to work for wages from $0.25 to $1 per hour for large corporations (Walmart, Microsoft, Starbucks, Nintendo, Whole Foods, Chevron, Bank of America, Boeing, Costco, and others).
• Prisoners have repeatedly rebelled, arguing these practices amount to slave labor.

Don't confuse: This is not a critique of specific policies but an illustration of how all states, through their monopoly on violence, control populations—anarchists see this control as inherent to the state itself.

🌿 The three main streams of anarchist thought

🌿 Why anarchism splits into schools

• Anarchism focuses on individual liberty and freedoms, which leads to diverse interpretations.
• Beyond the consensus on rejecting the state, anarchists prioritize different values and prescribe different actions.
• The excerpt identifies dozens of schools of thought, grouped into three main streams.

📊 Classification of anarchist streams

Stream	Description	Notes
Social anarchism	Collectivist or socialist wing	Dominant form; so common that "anarchism" often refers specifically to this stream
Individual anarchism	(Not detailed in excerpt)	Mentioned as a separate category
Others	(Not detailed in excerpt)	Catch-all for remaining schools

🔴 Social anarchism: the dominant stream

Social anarchism is a category that comprises the collectivist or socialist wing of anarchist thought.

• Social anarchism has been and remains the dominant form of anarchist thought.
• The most common usage of the term "anarchism" refers to social anarchism.
• The excerpt emphasizes that social anarchism is so prevalent that it is often treated as synonymous with anarchism itself.

Common confusion: When people say "anarchism," they usually mean social anarchism specifically, not the entire spectrum of anarchist thought.

📜 Historical and contemporary context

📜 Origins and revolutions

• Anarchism's main principles date back to the revolutions in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries.
• Anarchist groups and thinkers have been involved in rebellions and revolutions since then, most notably:
  • The Springtime of Peoples in the 19th century
  • The Russian and Spanish civil wars in the 20th century

🌱 Contemporary resurgence

• After a period of relative quiet during the Cold War, anarchist political movements are on the rise once more.
• Current focus: grassroots methods to create and support workers' movements; joining anti-capitalist and climate justice struggles.

⚖️ Anarchist claims vs. critics

• Anarchists argue: only a true transformation of society can bring about a real political revolution.
• Critics describe anarchism as: utopian, unrealistic, and often dangerous.

💬 Proudhon's vision of government

💬 What it means "To Be Governed"

The excerpt includes a famous passage from Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1851) describing government as a system of comprehensive control and oppression:

• Surveillance and control: "kept in sight, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, estimated, valued, censured, commanded"
• Economic exploitation: "placed under contribution, trained, ransomed, exploited, monopolized, extorted, squeezed, mystified, robbed"
• Repression: "at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, despised, harassed, tracked, abused, clubbed, disarmed, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed"
• Humiliation: "mocked, ridiculed, outraged, dishonoured"

Proudhon concludes: "That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality."

Why this matters: This passage captures the anarchist view that government is not merely flawed but fundamentally oppressive—those who govern "have neither the right, nor the wisdom, nor the virtue" to do so.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Social anarchism, the dominant and most politically engaged form of anarchist thought, seeks to replace the state with bottom-up, collectively owned and democratically managed organizations that prioritize community cooperation alongside individual freedom.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Core claim: Social anarchism is the collectivist/socialist wing of anarchism and has historically been the most common and politically active form.
• View of the state: The state is an oppressive institution that inhibits freedoms and forcibly destroys collectivist organizations it cannot control.
• Political project: Replace the state with smaller-scale, naturally democratic collectives—workers' cooperatives, citizens' assemblies, and horizontal confederations—emerging organically from everyday life.
• Common confusion: Social anarchism is not purely individualistic; it prioritizes community, cooperation, and social freedoms as necessary for and complementary to individual freedoms.
• Range of action: Engagement spans from establishing cooperatives and trade unions to armed uprisings and grassroots alliances.

🏛️ The anarchist critique of the state

🏛️ State as illegitimate and oppressive

Anarchists reject all arguments for the legitimacy of the state and see it as an illegitimate construct that relies on propaganda and, ultimately, inescapably naked force to control and command people.

• The excerpt quotes Bakunin: "If there is a State, there must be domination of one class by another and, as a result, slavery."
• Social anarchists specifically view the state as an institution that inhibits freedoms and forcibly prevents or destroys collectivist organizations.
• What the state cannot control, it seeks to destroy.

🔒 Monopoly of violence example

The excerpt provides a concrete illustration of state control:

• US incarceration: Almost 1% of the total population is incarcerated (more than any society in history), overwhelmingly for nonviolent offenses.
• Penal system control: A further 1.5% is under constant surveillance through parole and correctional practices.
• Forced labor: Incarcerated people work for $0.25 to $1 per hour for large corporations; prisoners have repeatedly rebelled, calling this slave labor.

Don't confuse: This example is not an argument for anarchism in the excerpt; it illustrates the anarchist claim that states exercise a monopoly of violence to control populations.

🤝 What social anarchism prioritizes

🤝 Community, cooperation, and social freedoms

• Social anarchism is the collectivist or socialist wing of anarchist thought.
• It prioritizes community, cooperation, and social freedoms, seeing them as necessary for and complementary to individual freedoms.
• This distinguishes it from purely individualist anarchism (mentioned as a separate stream).

🔥 Historical engagement

• Social anarchism has been and remains the dominant form of anarchist thought.
• The most common usage of the term "anarchism" refers to social anarchism.
• It has historically always been more engaged with political struggles and conflicts.
• Different forms (anarcho-communism, anarcho-syndicalism, social-libertarianism, collectivism) have played major roles in numerous revolutions.

🏗️ The social anarchist political project

🏗️ Replace the state with bottom-up collectives

Social anarchists seek to replace the state with smaller-scale, naturally democratic collectives that organically emerge from life:

Type of collective	Description
Workers' cooperatives	Allow workers to collectively own and manage factories
Citizens' assemblies	Allow direct democratic participation in decision making in communities and cities
Horizontally connected citizens' confederations	Will eventually replace the state through bottom-up organization

• These structures are meant to emerge organically from everyday life, not imposed top-down.
• The goal is direct democracy and collective ownership at every level.

⚙️ Range of tactics and struggles

Anarchists from this school are involved in struggles on both smaller and larger scales:

• Smaller scale: Establishing and defending workers' cooperatives, associations, and trade unions.
• Larger scale: Armed uprisings and assassinations.
• Grassroots organizing: Groups like anarcho-feminists and green-anarchists prioritize forming organic groupings and establishing horizontal alliances.

Example: A workers' cooperative collectively owns a factory and makes decisions through direct democratic participation; it connects horizontally with other cooperatives rather than being controlled by a state or corporation.

🌈 Varieties of social anarchism

🌈 Six main forms

The excerpt lists and briefly explains various forms of social anarchism:

Form	Focus
Anarcho-communism	Geographical communities collectively owning land, ruled through direct democracy
Anarcho-syndicalism	Workers' cooperatives, trade unions, and horizontal alliances between them
Social-libertarianism	Shake off all authority; create individualistic communes each with their own rules
Collectivism	Similar communities to anarcho-communism but giving priority to the group over the individual
Anarcho-feminism	Focus on gender inequalities; aim to dismantle structures of patriarchy
Green-anarchists	Prioritize human-to-non-human interactions; dismantle domination of the environment

🎭 Emma Goldman example

The excerpt highlights Emma Goldman (1869–1940) as one of the most famous 20th-century anarchists:

• A theorist, agitator, prisoner, and would-be assassin.
• Played an immense role in developing and popularizing anarchism in North America.
• Fought in major events including the Russian October Revolution and the Spanish Civil War.
• Best known today for her tireless feminist work.

Her view of anarchism and joy: The famous quote "If I can't dance, I don't want to be in your revolution" is derived from her memoirs. She insisted:

"I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from conventions and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy... 'I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things.' Anarchism meant that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world."

• She rejected the idea that political commitment requires asceticism or denial of pleasure.
• This illustrates the social anarchist emphasis on freedom, self-expression, and life as integral to the movement, not separate from it.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Individual anarchism takes anarchist opposition to organized power to its extreme by championing individual freedom above all else—including society, community, and even revolutionary organizations—and has thrived primarily in philosophy and literature rather than political activism.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Core principle: individual freedom and will are supreme; no legitimate power—state or collective—may override them.
• Philosophical focus: less politically active than social anarchism; has established much of anarchism's theoretical foundation through philosophy and literature.
• Key distinction from social anarchism: rejects submitting the individual to revolutionary parties or anarchist organizations, viewing such submission as another form of despotism.
• Common confusion: social anarchists criticize individual anarchism as merely a non-political lifestyle choice (dress, behavior) rather than genuine political action.
• Historical roots: Max Stirner (Germany) is the forefather; the tradition flourished in the United States with thinkers like Thoreau, Tucker, and Warren.

🧩 Core principle and scope

🧩 What individual anarchism prioritizes

Individual anarchism: champions individual freedom over all else, including society and the community.

• It extends anarchist opposition to organized power to its extreme.
• No legitimate power over an individual's will and freedom is acknowledged.
• All power over an individual is seen as external tyranny.

🎯 Focus on the individual, not the community

• Individual anarchists focus on the individual as the primary and ultimate extent of government.
• They reject not only the state but also collective or community-based authority.
• Example: even an anarchist organization seeking to abolish the state is rejected if it requires individuals to submit to its authority.

🧷 Relationship to social anarchism

🧷 Shared foundations

• Individual and social anarchists agree on some main precepts of anarchistic thought.
• Individual anarchism has largely established the theoretical doctrines and arguments that form the basis of anarchism.

⚖️ Key difference: rejecting revolutionary collectives

• Individual anarchists argue that the individual should not be subsumed into a revolutionary party.
• Reasoning: submitting to one organization (even an anarchist one) to counter a greater despotism (the state) is still submission.
• Don't confuse: both reject the state, but individual anarchists also reject collective revolutionary structures.

🔍 Criticism from social anarchists

• Social anarchists criticize individual anarchism as a non-political lifestyle choice.
• They argue it does not go beyond non-conformist individual choices such as dress or behavior.
• This criticism (Bookchin, 1995) suggests individual anarchism lacks genuine political engagement.

🧠 Philosophical and literary tradition

🧠 Less politically active, more theoretical

• Individual anarchism is described as a less politically active stream of anarchist thought.
• It has thrived in philosophy and literature rather than in direct political action.
• Its contribution: establishing the theoretical backbone of anarchism.

📚 Key thinkers and geographic roots

Region	Key figure	Role
Germany	Max Stirner	Forefather of individualistic anarchism; prioritized individual freedom and liberty above all
United States	Henry-David Thoreau, Benjamin Tucker, Josiah Warren	Flourished in a tradition of individual freedoms; argued against state despotism and collective submission

• The United States provided fertile ground for individual anarchism due to its long-standing tradition of individual freedoms.
• These thinkers accepted the state as despotism but extended their skepticism to revolutionary organizations.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Beyond the main social and individual branches, anarchism encompasses diverse religious variants (especially Christian anarchism) and contested "anarcho-" ideologies that may reject one hierarchy while embracing another, contradicting anarchism's core egalitarian principles.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Six major schools: Kropotkin identified Mutualist, Collectivist, Communist, Individualist, Literary, and Christian anarchism.
• Religious anarchism: Christian anarchism and anarcho-pacifism remain active in communities like Quakers, Mennonites, and Doukhobors; other religions (Taoism, Islam) also contain anarchistic elements.
• Contested "anarcho-" ideologies: anarcho-capitalism, anarcho-monarchism, and anarcho-primitivism use the prefix but may contradict core anarchist principles.
• Common confusion: not all ideologies using "anarcho-" share anarchism's rejection of all hierarchies—some reject the state but embrace other forms of domination (markets, feudal rulers, etc.).
• Core anarchist criticism: true anarchism rejects all hierarchies, domination, and unjustified authority; variants that substitute one hierarchy for another are seen as misinterpretations.

🌍 The diversity of anarchist schools

📚 Kropotkin's six schools

Peter Kropotkin identified six major branches of anarchism:

School	Grouping (per excerpt)
Mutualist	Social anarchism
Collectivist	Social anarchism
Communist	Social anarchism
Individualist	Individual anarchism
Literary	Individual anarchism
Christian	Separate religious branch

• The first three (Mutualist, Collectivist, Communist) are grouped as social anarchism.
• The next two (Individualist, Literary) are grouped as individual anarchism.
• Christian anarchism stands as a distinct religious variant.

🌐 Why this matters

• The excerpt notes "far too many variations to fully describe," emphasizing anarchism's internal diversity.
• Understanding these schools helps distinguish between core anarchist principles and peripheral or contested variants.

✝️ Religious anarchism

⛪ Christian anarchism and anarcho-pacifism

Christian anarchism and anarcho-pacifism: branches of anarchist thought rooted in Christian reformist traditions, emphasizing escape from state control and establishment of autonomous communities.

• Active communities: Quakers, Mennonites, and Doukhobors exemplify living Christian anarchist traditions.
• Core practice: these groups seek to escape the state's control and establish their own autonomous communities.
• Historical figure: Leo Tolstoy, the most famous anarcho-Christian, donated his wealth to the Doukhobor cause.

🕉️ Anarchistic veins in other religions

• The excerpt mentions that "almost all religions have been said to contain anarchistic veins."
• Specific examples given: Taoism and Islam.
• Don't confuse: having "anarchistic veins" does not mean the religion itself is anarchist; it means anarchist thought and behavior occupy a place in the religion's reformist history.

⚠️ Contested "anarcho-" ideologies

🏷️ Ideologies using the "anarcho-" prefix

The excerpt lists several ideologies that use "anarcho-" but do not always share core anarchist principles:

Ideology	What it rejects	What it embraces	Why it's contested
Anarcho-capitalism	State presence and power	Free markets and capitalist economy	Embraces market hierarchy
Anarcho-monarchism	(Implied: modern state)	Feudal-like rulers over territories	Embraces feudal hierarchy
Anarcho-primitivism	Modern political organization	Pre-historical scale of very limited organization	May still involve hierarchy

🚫 Why these are criticized

• Core anarchist principle: rejection of all hierarchies, domination, and unjustified/unjustifiable authority.
• The problem: the above variants "reject one form of domination for another that seems preferable in their assessment."
• Criticism: they are "either misinterpreting or purposefully misrepresenting the egalitarian nature of the ideology."

Example: An ideology that rejects the state but embraces capitalist markets still accepts the hierarchy of employer over worker, contradicting anarchism's rejection of all hierarchies.

🔍 How to distinguish genuine anarchism

• Test: Does the ideology reject all hierarchies and domination, or only some?
• Genuine anarchism: rejects all unjustified authority, including state, economic, feudal, and other hierarchies.
• Contested variants: reject one hierarchy (e.g., the state) but accept or embrace another (e.g., market, monarchy).

🧩 Essential principles revisited

🧩 What defines anarchism

The excerpt emphasizes that criticism of contested variants "flows from the essential principles of anarchism":

• Rejection of all hierarchies
• Rejection of all domination
• Rejection of all unjustified and unjustifiable authority

🔄 The substitution problem

• Key insight: substituting one form of domination for another is not anarchism, even if it rejects the state.
• Don't confuse: rejecting the state with rejecting all hierarchy—anarchism requires the latter.
• Example: An organization that abolishes government but installs a corporate hierarchy has not achieved anarchism; it has merely changed the source of domination.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Anarchism experienced a golden age of political influence in the early 20th century but retreated to the margins during the Cold War, only to resurface strongly in recent decades through diverse social movements.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• The paradox of the 20th century: anarchism achieved major political gains in the first half but became marginalized and misunderstood as "chaos" in the second half.
• Cold War suppression: both capitalist democracies and state-socialist regimes saw anarchism as a threat and worked to silence it.
• Early successes: anarchists played key roles in labor struggles, established the world's first stateless territory (Ukrainian Free Territory), and participated in major resistance movements.
• Post-Cold War resurgence: after the Soviet collapse, disillusionment with capitalism and ecological crises have fueled a strong comeback of anarchist movements in workers' collectives, climate justice, feminist, and LGBTQI+ organizing.
• Common confusion: "anarchism" in public perception became synonymous with disorder and violence, obscuring its actual principles of egalitarianism and self-governance.

📈 The early 20th century golden age

🌍 Global presence and influence

• At the turn of the century, anarchists inherited a strong heritage of political action across the globe.
• They were present "across the political spectrum, from violent political action to philosophy and literature."
• Anarchist labor organizations were notable parts of global struggles for the five-day workweek and eight-hour workday (previously seven days of 12 to 14 hours).
• Example: anarchists organized and agitated for better working conditions while others published philosophical works and engaged in direct action.

⚔️ Direct action and violence

• Some anarchists engaged in violent political action, targeting heads of state and political leaders.
• The excerpt lists specific assassinations:
  • Italian anarchist Gaetano Bresci killed King Umberto of Italy in 1900
  • American anarchist Leon Czolgosz killed US President William McKinley in 1901
• This violence was part of a broader strategy of direct action against what anarchists saw as despotic authority.

📚 Philosophical contributions

• Anarchism was making significant intellectual contributions during this period.
• Peter Kropotkin, "once a Russian Prince and aid to the Tzar before stepping down for his ideals," published Mutual Aid in 1902.
• This shows anarchism was not only a movement of action but also of serious philosophical development.

🏴 The Ukrainian Free Territory (1918-1921)

The Free Territory was a large swath of Ukraine managed by free Soviets (workers' associations) and communes that federated closely to form the world's first Stateless-Libertarian territory.

• Protected by the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Anarchist Army, widely known as the Black Army.
• Named in rivalry to the communists' Red Army and monarchists' White Army.
• Numbered between 20,000 and 100,000 troops with irregular members.
• Marched under the slogan: "Land to the peasants, factories to the workers."

🤝 Uneasy alliance and betrayal

• The Black Army formed an alliance with the Red Army against monarchist forces in the Russian Civil War.
• Combined anarchist-communist forces defeated the Tzarist armies.
• However: as soon as victory was near, communist forces turned on the anarchists.
• Through scorched earth tactics (burning land, killing inhabitants), communists isolated the Black Army.
• Over 300,000 troops were sent against it, finally annihilating its regular forces.
• Remaining anarchist forces dispersed and continued guerilla operations until well into the 1940s.
• Don't confuse: the alliance between anarchists and communists was tactical, not ideological—communists ultimately saw anarchists as rivals to be eliminated.

🛡️ Resistance movements

• Following World War I, "widespread disillusionment with the economic and political systems further fueled anarchist movements."
• Anarchists had a major presence in the Spanish Civil War, resisting fascist takeover alongside communist forces.
• Anarchists were present in all resistance movements fighting Nazi occupation.
• They formed loosely organized guerilla forces throughout Europe.

❄️ Cold War marginalization

🌐 The bipolar world order

• The "relatively stable bipolar world order following the Second World War left little room for anarchism."
• Both poles opposed anarchism: authoritarian communism and liberal capitalism "fought to silence alternative ideologies."
• This was a "concerted effort from the world's superpowers" to suppress anarchist thought and action.

📉 Public perception shift

• Anarchism "ceased to be perceived as a major world ideology."
• It was "demoted in the public eye to disorganized chaos and meaningless violence."
• This represents a significant distortion of anarchism's actual principles and history.
• Common confusion: the public came to see "anarchism" as synonymous with disorder, rather than as a coherent political philosophy opposing unjustified hierarchy.

🌱 Survival in the margins

• Despite suppression, "anarchist communes blossomed wherever they could find room":
  • Freed territories in Denmark
  • Kibbutzim in Israel
  • Communes in San Francisco
• "In the absence of diminished militantism and direct political action, literary anarchism became the main stream of anarchist presence."
• This continued "a strong tradition of anarchistic education theory (like the Ferrer and Moderna schools)."
• Thinkers and writers such as Robert Paul Wolff, John Simmons, and James C. Scott "have been prolific in arguing the case of anarchy in history, philosophy, and political science."

🌊 Post-Cold War resurgence

💔 Disillusionment with capitalism

• Following the Soviet Union's collapse, "it seemed, momentarily, that capitalist liberal democracies had won the day."
• "Disillusionment soon followed, however."
• People faced "tremendous economic inequality and collapsing ecological systems."
• These conditions created fertile ground for anarchism's return.

🔄 Contemporary anarchist movements

Anarchistic communes and movements are "resurfacing throughout the globe" in diverse forms:

Movement type	Description
Workers' collectives	Associations, syndicates organizing labor
Anti-fascist organizations	Direct action against fascist movements
Climate justice movements	Ecological activism
Feminist and LGBTQI+ movements	Social justice organizing
Local electoral politics	Engagement in grassroots democracy

• These have become "fertile grounds for social anarchists seeking to engage in direct political action."
• The excerpt concludes: "compared to a few decades ago, it is safe to say that anarchists and anarchism are making a strong and visible comeback."

🔍 Why the resurgence matters

• The return of anarchism is tied to specific contemporary crises: economic inequality and ecological collapse.
• Anarchist principles of direct action, horizontal organization, and opposition to hierarchy resonate with these movements.
• Don't confuse: contemporary anarchism is not the "chaos and violence" of Cold War propaganda, but organized movements addressing real social problems through egalitarian principles.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Multiculturalism functions both as a public philosophy offering moral guidelines for diverse societies and as a type of public policy, with scholars distinguishing it from everyday uses of the term that describe demographic diversity or beliefs about diversity.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Scholarly vs everyday meanings: scholars use "multiculturalism" to describe public philosophy and policy, while everyday conversation uses it to describe demographic diversity or beliefs about diversity.
• Two dimensions: multiculturalism operates as both a set of moral/ethical guidelines (public philosophy) and as a type of public policy.
• Two schools of thought: multiculturalism has two main intellectual traditions that converge on some points but differ in important respects.
• Common confusion: don't confuse the demographic fact of diversity, beliefs about diversity, the philosophical framework, and the policy approach—these are distinct uses of the same term.

📚 Everyday vs scholarly meanings

📚 How the term is used in conversation

In day-to-day conversation, "multiculturalism" typically refers to two things:

• Demographic phenomenon: the racial, linguistic, and religious diversification of societies (describing what is).
• Particular beliefs: the view that modern societies are better if they are more diverse and heterogeneous (a value judgment).

🎓 How scholars use the term

Scholars sometimes use the word in the everyday ways above, but they also use it in two additional, more specific ways:

• Public philosophy: a specific set of moral and ethical guidelines for how modern societies and governments should operate.
• Public policy: a type of government policy approach.

Don't confuse: The demographic fact (society is diverse), the belief (diversity is good), the philosophy (ethical guidelines), and the policy (government actions) are four different meanings of the same word.

🧩 Multiculturalism as public philosophy

🧩 What public philosophy means

Public philosophy: a specific set of moral and ethical guidelines for modern societies and governments.

• This is not just describing diversity or saying "diversity is good."
• It provides a framework for how societies and governments should respond to or manage diversity.
• The excerpt emphasizes this is a scholarly use focused on normative principles (what should be done).

🏫 Two schools of thought

The excerpt states that multiculturalism as public philosophy has "two main intellectual traditions or what we might call multiculturalism's two schools of thought."

Key characteristics:

• These schools represent different approaches within the same broad concept.
• They "converge on certain key points" (share some common ground).
• They "also differ in important respects" (have meaningful disagreements).

Note: The excerpt introduces these schools but does not detail what they are; the chapter promises to explore them further.

🔍 Distinguishing the dimensions

🔍 Philosophy vs policy

Dimension	What it is	Focus
Public philosophy	Moral and ethical guidelines	Normative principles: what societies/governments should do
Public policy	A type of government policy	Practical actions: what governments actually do

• Philosophy provides the ethical foundation; policy is the implementation.
• Example: A public philosophy might argue that governments should recognize cultural differences; a public policy might establish funding for minority-language education.

🌍 Complexity and multiple facets

The excerpt emphasizes that "multiculturalism is a complex and multifaceted concept."

Why it's complex:

• The same word operates at multiple levels (demographic, belief, philosophy, policy).
• Even within the scholarly use, there are competing schools of thought.
• The relationship between philosophy and policy is not always straightforward.

Don't confuse: When reading about multiculturalism, always clarify which meaning is being used—demographic description, value belief, philosophical framework, or policy approach.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Nationalism is a political principle demanding that cultural and political boundaries align, and modern theories explain nations as products of industrialization and state-building that unintentionally homogenized cultures while drawing on pre-modern ethnic symbols.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Core principle of nationalism: political and cultural boundaries should be congruent; the nation becomes the most important political force (unlike liberalism's focus on individuals or Marxism's focus on classes).
• Modernist explanation: nations emerged unintentionally through industrialization—mass education and print capitalism standardized cultures to meet economic needs, creating new forms of communal belonging.
• Ethnosymbolic addition: nations are modern but require pre-modern ethnic cores (myths, symbols, memories) that make each nation unique.
• Common confusion: don't confuse nation (a people) with state (a political entity); nationalism seeks to make them match.
• Key mechanisms: mass education monopolizes legitimate culture (Gellner), and print capitalism creates "imagined communities" through shared language and daily news (Anderson).

🏛️ What nationalism is and how it differs from other ideologies

🏛️ The core principle

Nationalism: a political principle according to which political and cultural boundaries should be congruent.

• A nationalist movement aims to implement this congruence—making the boundaries of a nation (a territorially concentrated, culturally distinctive group) match those of its governance unit.
• The nation is seen as a concrete historical entity and the most important political force.

🔍 How nationalism differs from liberalism and Marxism

Ideology	Core unit / motor of history
Liberalism	Free and rational individuals
Marxism	Relations between classes
Nationalism	Nations as political forces

• Nationalism does not prioritize individual freedom or class struggle; it centers on the nation as the organizing principle.

🚫 Nation vs. state

• Nation: the people, a culturally distinctive group.
• State: a political entity, the governance unit.
• Don't confuse: the term "nation" nowadays often refers to people living within a state, but they are conceptually distinct.
• Nationalism seeks to make them congruent.

🏭 Modernist theories: nations as unintended products of industrialization

🏭 Gellner's argument—mass education and cultural homogenization

• Context: 18th-century Europe during industrialization.
• Economic need: modern industrial economies require workers who can communicate in a standard language and rapidly learn new roles.
• Solution: universal mass education (exo-education) becomes necessary.
• Mechanism: only the state can sustain large-scale educational systems; the state uses mass education to standardize the culture of political elites over a territory.
• Unintended consequence: homogenization of cultures—people come to understand the world through a shared national culture, not through loyalty to a monarch or religion.
• Result: individuals unintentionally become nationalist by mastering the cultural idiom of their state.

Cultural idiom: the standardized language and cultural framework taught through mass education; it becomes the basis of citizenship.

• Key shift: the monopoly of legitimate education becomes more important than the monopoly of legitimate violence (Weber's theory of the state).
• Example: an individual invests in learning the idiom of their state's culture to participate in the economy; in doing so, they adopt a nationalist identity without intending to.

📰 Anderson's argument—print capitalism and imagined communities

• Mechanism: the diffusion of books in printed languages (below Latin, above local dialects) created unified fields of communication.
• Effect: speakers of many varieties of French, English, or Spanish who could not understand each other in conversation could now comprehend one another via print.
• Cultural shift: print capitalism spread as two older systems (religions and dynasties) lost influence.
• New representation of belonging: shared language, culture, and daily life (similar news, events, interests, routines) allowed people to imagine a community.

Imagined communities: communities in which members will never meet all compatriots but can still imagine their existence and everyday life through shared print culture.

• Example: a person reads the same newspaper as thousands of strangers in their nation; they imagine these strangers as part of the same community, even though they will never meet.
• Don't confuse: "imagined" does not mean fake or invented; it means the community is mentally constructed through shared symbols and routines, not through direct personal contact.

🔄 Summary of the modernist school

• Nations and nationalism are unintended consequences of state policies (mass education, print capitalism) enforced to sustain modern economies.
• These policies inadvertently homogenized cultures, creating new forms of communal belonging.
• Over time, nationalism became an efficient means of binding citizens and political elites.

🧬 Ethnosymbolic theory: the ethnic core of nations

🧬 What the ethnosymbolic school adds

• Founder: Anthony D. Smith.
• Agreement with modernists: nations are a modern phenomenon.
• Key addition: nations require the unifying myths, symbols, and memories of pre-modern ethnicities.

Ethnic core: the combination of myths, symbols, and memories from pre-modern ethnicities that makes a nation unique.

🔑 Why the ethnic core matters

• Most components of a nation (codified laws, common rights and duties, unified economic zones, delimited territories) are interchangeable from one nation to another.
• The ethnic core is what makes each nation unique—it is the particularities that distinguish one nation from another.
• Don't confuse: the ethnosymbolic school does not reject modernist explanations; it supplements them by explaining what is actually national (i.e., what gives each nation its distinct identity).

🧩 How ethnosymbolic theory complements modernism

• Modernist theories explain how nations emerged (through industrialization and state policies).
• Ethnosymbolic theory explains what makes each nation distinct (through pre-modern ethnic symbols and memories).
• Example: two nations may both have mass education and print capitalism, but their unique myths and symbols (from pre-modern times) give them different national identities.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Modernist theories argue that nations emerged unintentionally from industrialization-driven state policies like mass education and print capitalism, while ethnosymbolic theories add that nations require pre-modern ethnic cores of myths, symbols, and memories to become truly national.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Modernist view (Gellner & Anderson): Nations arose as unintended consequences of state policies—mass education standardized culture for industrial economies, and print capitalism created shared language communities.
• Ethnosymbolic view (Smith & Hutchinson): Nations are modern but built on pre-modern ethnic cores; what makes a nation unique is its particular myths, symbols, and memories, not just shared laws or territory.
• Common confusion: Modernists focus on how nations emerged (state mechanisms), while ethnosymbolists focus on what makes nations distinct (ethnic content); both agree nations are modern phenomena.
• Key mechanism difference: Gellner emphasizes mass education as the monopoly that legitimizes states; Anderson emphasizes print capitalism creating "imagined communities" through shared language and daily news.
• Hutchinson's distinction: Nationalism involves two complementary processes—cultural nationalism (artists/scholars regenerating moral identity) and political nationalism (building civic institutions).

🏭 Modernist theories: unintended nation-building

🏭 Gellner's industrialization argument

Industrial cultures require communication between strangers in a standard idiom and a mobile workforce able to rapidly learn new positions.

• The mechanism:

  • Modern economies need workers who can communicate across regions and switch jobs quickly.
  • Only mass education (exo-education) can produce such a workforce.
  • The state is the only institution capable of sustaining universal education systems.

• Homogenization process:

  • States use mass education to standardize the culture of political elites over large territories.
  • This homogenization is a necessary measure to meet economic needs, not a deliberate nation-building project.
  • The way people understand the world becomes uniform, but this is unintentional.

• Consequences:

  • Individuals shift loyalty from monarchs or religions to national culture.
  • States become legitimate only when they represent and protect this culture.
  • Key claim: The monopoly of legitimate education is now more important than the monopoly of legitimate violence (Weber's theory).
  • Acquiring the cultural idiom becomes the basis of citizenship; individuals become nationalist by mastering their culture's idioms.

• Example: A worker in an industrial economy must learn standardized language and skills through state schools; by doing so, they unconsciously adopt the national culture taught in those schools.

📰 Anderson's print capitalism argument

Print capitalism created unified fields of exchange and communication below Latin and above spoken vernaculars.

• The mechanism:

  • Books published in printed languages allowed speakers of different dialects (e.g., varieties of French, English, or Spanish) to understand each other via print, even if they couldn't converse.
  • This happened during the proto-industrial era as two older systems (religions and dynasties) lost influence.

• Creating "imagined communities":

  • Mass publication created new symbols of communal belonging: shared language, culture, and daily life marked by similar news, events, interests, and routines.
  • Communities became "imagined" because members will never meet all compatriots but can still imagine their existence and everyday life.

• Why "imagined": Not because they are fake, but because the connection relies on shared media consumption rather than face-to-face interaction.

• Example: A person reading a daily newspaper in a standardized language feels connected to thousands of other readers they will never meet, all consuming the same news and routines.

🔄 Modernist summary

Theorist	Key mechanism	What it produces	Why unintentional
Gellner	Mass education for industrial workforce	Standardized national culture	Economic necessity, not deliberate nation-building
Anderson	Print capitalism	Imagined communities via shared language/news	Market-driven, not state policy

• Core modernist claim: Nations and nationalism are unintentional consequences of industrialization that later became efficient means of binding citizens and elites.
• Don't confuse: Both theorists see nations as modern phenomena, not ancient; the "unintentional" aspect means they arose from economic/technological changes, not nationalist ideology.

🧬 Ethnosymbolic theories: the ethnic core

🧬 Smith's ethnic core concept

The ethnic core of a nation consists of unifying myths, symbols, and memories of pre-modern ethnicities.

• What ethnosymbolic adds to modernist theories:

  • Modernists explain how nations emerged but not what is actually national.
  • Smith agrees nations are modern but emphasizes their ethnic origins.

• What makes nations unique:

  • Most components are interchangeable: shared laws, common rights/duties, unified economic zones, delimited territories.
  • The ethnic core (myths, symbols, memories) is what makes each nation unique.
  • This distinction separates the concept of a nation from a state—a distinction modernists rarely underlined.

• How ethnic cores form:

  • Keepers of traditions (elites and their collaborators) pass on cultural components throughout history.
  • By the end of medieval times, culturally homogenous elites formed the core of what would become states.
  • As states grew, they annexed culturally different territories.
  • To strengthen legitimacy, leaders encouraged assimilation of minorities to appear as a nation-state (representing one people).

• What is modern about nations:

  • The idea of merging political identity with cultural identity.
  • Endowing the nation as the basis of state citizenship.

• Example: A state with a particular set of founding myths and historical symbols (ethnic core) encourages minorities to adopt these symbols through education and media, creating a unified national identity.

🎭 Hutchinson's twofold nationalism

Hutchinson identifies two distinct processes with different actors and complementary goals:

🎨 Cultural nationalism

• Who: Artists, scholars (historians, anthropologists, political scientists)—"ethnic revivalists."
• Goal: Regenerate the moral of the national community in response to erosion of traditional religious and feudal identities.
• Method: Use the past to formulate cultural ideals of the nation.
• Effectiveness depends on:
  • Invoking and appropriating genuine communal memories.
  • Connecting them to specific homelands, cultural practices, and forms of sociopolitical organization.

🏛️ Political nationalism

• Who: (The excerpt cuts off, but implies political leaders/state actors.)

• Goal: Erect a rational and civic political community.

• (The excerpt does not provide further details on this process.)

• Don't confuse: Cultural nationalism is about identity and morals (backward-looking, using the past); political nationalism is about institutions and citizenship (forward-looking, building civic structures). Both are necessary and complementary.

🔍 Comparing the two schools

Aspect	Modernist	Ethnosymbolic
Are nations modern?	Yes, emerged with industrialization	Yes, but built on pre-modern ethnic elements
Main focus	How nations emerged (mechanisms: education, print)	What makes nations distinct (content: myths, symbols)
Role of the state	Unintentional homogenization for economic needs	Deliberate assimilation to merge political and cultural identity
What binds citizens	Standardized culture and shared daily life	Ethnic core plus civic institutions
Key theorists	Gellner, Anderson	Smith, Hutchinson

🧩 How to distinguish in practice

• If the question is about state policies and economic drivers → think modernist (mass education, print capitalism).
• If the question is about what makes one nation different from another → think ethnosymbolic (ethnic core, myths, symbols).
• If the question is about artists/scholars vs. political leaders → think Hutchinson's twofold nationalism.

🎯 Why these theories matter

🎯 Legitimacy and citizenship

• Gellner: Legitimacy now rests on representing a national culture, not just monopolizing violence; citizenship is based on mastering the cultural idiom.
• Smith: Legitimacy requires merging political and cultural identity; the ethnic core distinguishes a nation-state from a mere state.

🎯 Understanding nationalism's origins

• Modernist: Nationalism is an unintended consequence that became a powerful tool.

• Ethnosymbolic: Nationalism is a modern construction using pre-modern materials, making it both new and rooted in history.

• Don't confuse: "Unintended" (modernist) does not mean "accidental and weak"; it means the original policies (education, print) had economic goals, but the nationalist outcome became durable and efficient.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Nationalism is not only a historical or large-scale political phenomenon but an everyday, endemic condition reproduced through subtle routines, symbols, and habits that constantly remind individuals of their national belonging.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• The everyday turn: Only in the 1990s did nationalism studies shift to examine the meso and micro-sociological aspects—how nations persist through daily life, not just grand historical events.
• Banal nationalism: Michael Billig argues that nationalism is an "endemic condition" in established nations, reproduced through subtle, often unnoticed ideological habits and symbols.
• Waved vs unwaved flags: Billig distinguishes between conscious, active displays of national symbols (waved) and passive, unnoticed reminders (unwaved) that keep national identity alive.
• Common confusion: Nationalism is often thought to occur only during wars or crises, but banal nationalism shows it is embedded in everyday routines and symbols even in peaceful times.
• Why it matters: Understanding banal nationalism reveals how individuals are constantly socialized to the nation without conscious awareness, ensuring the reproduction of national identity.

🔄 The shift to everyday nationalism

📅 Historical context: Renan's early insight

• Ernest Renan, a French historian and philologist, was among the first to address the nation as a concept in 1882.
• He defined the nation as:

  A modern historical construction that prompted a significant number of individuals to wish to live together under specific conditions while sustaining both the idea of a common past and a foreseeable future.

• Renan noted that for this idea to succeed, "the nation must be a daily plebiscite."
• Despite his romanticized view, Renan raised an issue not properly addressed until the late 20th century: the everyday aspect of nationalism.

🔬 The 1990s meso and micro-sociological turn

• Only in the 1990s did nationalism studies shift focus to meso and micro-sociological analyses.
• This turn echoed Renan's position: regardless of how a nation came into being, its existence may rest on everyday plebiscites.
• The shift moved away from purely sociohistorical and macro-sociological perspectives (state policies, industrialization, ethnic cores) to examine how nationalism operates in daily life.

🏴 Banal nationalism: the endemic condition

🧩 Billig's core thesis

• Michael Billig's Banal Nationalism (1995) revitalized the study of nationalism's everyday aspect.
• His central claim:

  "Nationalism, far from being an intermittent mood in established nations, is the endemic condition."

• Nationalism is not only a political phenomenon during civil or international warfare; it is also at the core of the social reproduction of Western countries, even in very subtle forms.

🔁 How banal nationalism works

• Banal nationalism covers the ideological habits that enable established nations to be reproduced.
• Individuals are constantly socialized to the nation through:
  • Different mechanisms
  • Patterns
  • Daily routines
  • Symbols
• These routines, rituals, and symbols are embedded in everyday life and usually go unnoticed.
• Result: individuals never forget to which nation they belong, but they forget how they are consistently reminded of this belonging.

⚠️ Don't confuse with overt nationalism

• Billig argues nationalism is not only associated with the pre-nation-state era or dramatic political events.
• It is intrinsic to the everyday life of all inhabitants of a state, even in peaceful, stable periods.
• Example: A flag on a public building may go unnoticed, yet it unconsciously reinforces national identity.

🏴 Waved vs unwaved flags

🏴 The waved flag: active use

The waved flag refers to the most conscious use of the flag—or any other national symbols, signs, references, or lexicons—to assert a sense of national belonging or to make a statement involving the nation.

• This occurs on occasions such as:
  • National holidays
  • International sports competitions
• Example: A singer performing the national anthem before a major sports event (as illustrated by the figure of Billy Joel singing before the 2015 World Series).
• The waved flag is a deliberate, visible display of nationalism.

🏴 The unwaved flag: passive use

The unwaved flag applies to a flag—or any other national symbols, signs, references, or lexicons—that goes unnoticed, on a public building for example, but that reminds us unconsciously of our national belonging.

• The unwaved flag is passive and subtle.
• It operates in the background of daily life, reinforcing national identity without conscious awareness.
• Example: A flag hanging on a government building that people pass by every day without noticing.

🔍 Everyday life is filled with both

• Billig argues that everyday life is filled with waved and unwaved flags.
• The lexicon of politicians, public symbols, and daily routines all contribute to this constant, often invisible, socialization to the nation.
• The excerpt notes that the text continues with "the lexicon of politicians," suggesting further examples of banal nationalism in language and discourse.

📊 Comparison: macro vs micro perspectives

Perspective	Focus	Key scholars/concepts	What it explains
Macro-sociological	Large-scale historical processes, state policies, industrialization	Gellner, Anderson (modernist); Smith, Hutchinson (ethnosymbolic)	How nations emerged as modern phenomena; the role of ethnic cores, cultural and political nationalism
Meso/micro-sociological	Everyday life, routines, symbols, habits	Renan (early insight), Billig (banal nationalism)	How nations are reproduced daily through subtle, often unnoticed mechanisms; the endemic nature of nationalism

• The shift to meso and micro perspectives does not reject macro explanations but complements them by examining how nationalism persists in established nations.
• Common confusion: Thinking nationalism only matters during nation-building or crises; banal nationalism shows it is always present, even in mundane contexts.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Contemporary scholars argue that the classic civic/ethnic divide in nationalism is insufficient, proposing instead a typology that recognizes how all nationalisms—even seemingly inclusive ones—promote culturally specific institutions and evolve over time.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Classic distinction: civic nationalism (Western Europe/US, Enlightenment-based, horizontal citizen solidarity) vs. ethnic nationalism (Central/Eastern Europe, Romantic-era, language/cultural/ethnoreligious identification).
• Key critique: even "civic" nationalism promotes institutions and symbols that are not culturally neutral (official language, history, legal traditions).
• Common confusion: civic ≠ culturally neutral—all nationalism institutionalizes specific cultural elements, even when it appears inclusive.
• Evolution over time: states can shift their nationalism type (e.g., Germany moved from ethnic to civic policies in 1999).
• Contemporary typology: researchers now use terms like "homogenizing nationalism" to better capture how institutionalized nationalism becomes "banal" or "normal."

🏛️ The classic civic vs. ethnic divide

🏛️ Civic nationalism

Civic nationalism: a political force that fosters horizontal solidarity of citizens, in theory equal before the law, who identify with the state and its constitutional legacy.

• Developed in Western Europe and the United States.
• Rooted in Enlightenment political thought and liberalism.
• Led to democratic revolutions in France and the United States.
• Values identification of all citizens with the state.
• Has been a political force behind the unification of many states.

🌳 Ethnic (cultural/organic) nationalism

Ethnic nationalism: a type that fosters identification of the nation's members with a given language, cultural tradition, and often ethnoreligious symbols.

• Developed in Central and Eastern Europe.
• Associated with the Romantic reaction to the Enlightenment.
• Under extreme variants, can lead to policies of ethnic cleansing and genocide.
• Often referred to as cultural or organic nationalism.

⚖️ How to distinguish them

Aspect	Civic nationalism	Ethnic nationalism
Geographic origin	Western Europe, United States	Central and Eastern Europe
Intellectual roots	Enlightenment, liberalism	Romantic reaction to Enlightenment
Basis of solidarity	Constitutional legacy, equal citizenship	Language, cultural tradition, ethnoreligious symbols
Identification with	The state and its institutions	Shared culture and heritage

🔍 Limitations of the civic/ethnic opposition

🔍 The cultural neutrality myth

• Rogers Brubaker contested the shortcomings of the civic/ethnic divide (1998).
• Key critique: even when nationalism appears inclusive and civic, it always promotes institutions and symbols that are not culturally neutral.
• Examples of non-neutral elements:
  • An official language
  • An official history
  • Political institutions
  • A constitutional order
  • Legal traditions
• Don't confuse: "not always contested" does not mean "culturally neutral."

🇨🇦 Example: Canada

• Many institutions and traditions are part of the heritage of the British Empire.
• The head of state remains the head of the British monarchy.
• This shows how "civic" nationalism still embeds specific cultural heritage.

🇩🇪 Example: Germany's evolution

• Germany was long associated with ethnic nationalism and very restrictive citizenship policies.
• In 1999, it adopted a much more civic political culture.
• Citizenship policies shifted from blood-based to soil-based.
• Why this matters: the relations between states, nationalism, and citizenship policies are always evolving—nationalism types are not fixed.

🔄 Contemporary typologies

🔄 Moving beyond the divide

• Contemporary researchers argue it is sometimes necessary to move beyond the ethnic/civic divide.
• Goal: provide a better typology of different forms of nationalism.

🏢 Homogenizing nationalism

Homogenizing nationalism: a fully recognized and institutionalized form of nationalism that provides the principal vector of integration to the political culture of a state.

• Civic nationalism or French Republicanism is sometimes better described as homogenizing nationalism.
• Because it is always at the core of a state's institutions, it becomes "banal" or "normal" for many observers.
• This connects to earlier discussions of banal nationalism—the everyday, unnoticed reproduction of national identity.
• Don't confuse: "homogenizing" does not mean "neutral"—it means the dominant nationalism becomes so institutionalized it appears natural.

🔁 Why the new typology matters

• It recognizes that all nationalism involves cultural choices, not just ethnic nationalism.
• It accounts for how nationalism evolves over time within the same state.
• It avoids the false dichotomy that civic = good/neutral and ethnic = bad/exclusionary.
• It helps researchers avoid automatically treating nations as fixed groups (avoiding "groupism" as mentioned in earlier sections).

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

The classic civic-versus-ethnic nationalism distinction remains a useful ideal-type, but contemporary scholars argue it oversimplifies how nationalism actually works because even "civic" nationalism promotes culturally specific institutions and because states' citizenship policies evolve over time.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• The classic opposition: civic nationalism (Western Europe/US, Enlightenment-rooted, horizontal citizen solidarity) versus ethnic nationalism (Central/Eastern Europe, romantic-era, language/culture/ethnoreligious symbols).
• Civic nationalism's hidden culture: even seemingly inclusive civic nationalism promotes institutions and symbols (official language, history, legal traditions) that are not culturally neutral.
• States evolve: citizenship policies and nationalist character change over time—Germany shifted from ethnic to civic policies in 1999.
• Common confusion: civic ≠ culturally neutral; "civic" institutions still embed specific cultural heritages (e.g., Canada's British Empire legacy).
• Why move beyond the dichotomy: contemporary typologies (homogenizing, state-seeking, homeland, diaspora, national-populist) better capture the variety of nationalist forms.

🏛️ The classic civic-ethnic divide

🏛️ Civic nationalism

Civic nationalism: the political force that fosters horizontal solidarity of citizens, in theory equal before the law, who identify with the state and its constitutional legacy; rooted in Enlightenment and liberalism.

• Developed in Western Europe and the United States.
• Associated with democratic revolutions in France and the US.
• Values identification of all citizens with the state.
• Has been a unifying force behind many states.
• Example: a state where membership is defined by shared constitutional principles rather than ethnicity.

🌾 Ethnic (cultural, organic) nationalism

Ethnic nationalism: fosters identification of nation members with a given language, cultural tradition, and often ethnoreligious symbols; associated with the romantic reaction to the Enlightenment.

• Developed in Central and Eastern Europe.
• More generally linked to romanticism, not Enlightenment rationalism.
• Under extreme variants, can lead to ethnic cleansing and genocide.
• Example: a movement that defines the nation by shared ancestry, language, and religious heritage.

🔍 Critiques of the civic-ethnic dichotomy

🔍 Civic nationalism is not culturally neutral

• Sociologist Rogers Brubaker contested the shortcomings of the civic-ethnic opposition (1998).
• Even "inclusive and civic" nationalism promotes institutions and symbols that are culturally specific:
  • Official language
  • Official history
  • Political institutions
  • Constitutional order
  • Legal traditions
• These institutions may not always be contested, but that does not make them culturally neutral.
• Example: Canada's institutions and traditions are part of the British Empire heritage; the head of state remains the head of the British monarchy.
• Don't confuse: "civic" does not mean "no culture"—it means the culture is embedded in state institutions rather than explicit ethnic markers.

⏳ States and citizenship policies evolve

• The relationship between states, nationalism, and citizenship policies is always changing.
• Germany was long associated with ethnic nationalism and very restrictive citizenship policies.
• In 1999, Germany adopted a much more civic political culture and citizenship policies based on soil rather than blood.
• This shows that the civic-ethnic distinction is not fixed; states can shift from one type to another.

🗂️ Contemporary typologies of nationalism

🗂️ Why new typologies are needed

• Contemporary researchers argue it is sometimes necessary to move beyond the ethnic/civic divide.
• The goal is to provide a better typology that captures the variety of nationalist forms.
• The following types offer more nuanced descriptions.

🏠 Homogenizing nationalism

Homogenizing nationalism: a fully recognized and institutionalized form of nationalism that provides the principal vector of integration to the political culture of a state.

• Always at the core of a state's institutions.
• Becomes "banal" or "normal" for many observers because it is so embedded.
• Civic nationalism or French Republicanism is sometimes better described as homogenizing nationalism.
• Example: a state where the dominant national identity is so institutionalized that it seems like the default, not a particular cultural choice.

🚩 State-seeking nationalism

State-seeking nationalism: prominent among members of a group who seek to build their own sovereign state.

• Often arises when many members of a polity share a different subjective understanding of their past, culture, or collective memory.
• They mobilize to secede from a state that does not recognize their cultural specificities.
• Ethnic nationalism has often taken this form.
• Example: a minority group within a larger state mobilizes to create an independent nation-state based on their distinct language and history.

🌍 Homeland nationalism

Homeland nationalism: transborder mobilization used by a state towards ethnic minorities in neighboring states that "belong" to the dominant ethnic group of the homeland state.

• Occurs in peculiar geopolitical contexts.
• Can become a core instrument of the homeland state's foreign policy.
• May seek:
  • Geopolitical annexation of another state's territory or a section of it.
  • Political destabilization of a foreign state's regime to empower forces aligned with the homeland state.
• Example: a state mobilizes ethnic kin in a neighboring country to support annexation or regime change.

🌐 Diaspora nationalism

Diaspora nationalism: the nationalist beliefs and practices of diaspora members who remain attached to another state that they consider their homeland.

• Diasporic nationalist practices can be directed toward an imagined homeland even if members have never set foot in the actual state.
• Emphasizes that the nation is an imagined community.
• Can be imagined from within the existing territory of a nation-state or from outside it.
• Example: second- or third-generation emigrants who identify strongly with a "homeland" they have never visited.

🗣️ National populism

National populism: the core ideology of the European radical right that blends nationalism, populism, and authoritarianism.

• National-populist movements mobilize along two axes:
  • Horizontal axis: galvanize the "people" against the "elites."
  • Vertical axis: galvanize members of the nation against non-members, foreigners, or minority groups.
• Also oppose counter-powers constitutive of liberal democracy: independent judiciary, free press (excerpt cuts off here).
• Example: a movement that claims to represent "ordinary citizens" against both political elites and immigrants.

📊 Comparison of nationalism types

Type	Core feature	Context	Example mechanism
Civic	Horizontal citizen solidarity, constitutional identity	Western Europe/US, Enlightenment	Identification with state and law
Ethnic	Language, culture, ethnoreligious symbols	Central/Eastern Europe, romanticism	Identification with shared ancestry
Homogenizing	Institutionalized, "banal" integration vector	Core of state institutions	Official language, history become default
State-seeking	Mobilization to build sovereign state	Minority group within larger state	Secession based on distinct culture
Homeland	Transborder mobilization toward ethnic kin	Geopolitical, neighboring states	Annexation or destabilization
Diaspora	Attachment to imagined homeland	Outside homeland territory	Identification without physical presence
National-populist	People vs. elites + nation vs. outsiders	European radical right	Dual-axis mobilization, anti-liberal

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Contemporary scholars argue that the ethnic/civic divide is insufficient and propose a richer typology—homogenizing, state-seeking, homeland, diaspora, and national-populist nationalisms—to better capture how nationalism operates in different political contexts.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Why the ethnic/civic divide is limited: even "civic" nationalism promotes culturally specific institutions (language, history, legal traditions) that are not neutral, and states can shift from ethnic to civic policies over time (e.g., Germany in 1999).
• Homogenizing nationalism: the dominant, institutionalized nationalism at the core of a state that becomes "banal" or "normal" and serves as the main vector of integration.
• State-seeking nationalism: mobilized by groups who share a distinct collective memory and seek their own sovereign state, often to secede from a state that does not recognize their cultural specificities.
• Homeland and diaspora nationalisms: homeland nationalism is transborder mobilization by a state toward ethnic minorities in neighboring states; diaspora nationalism is attachment to a homeland from outside its territory, emphasizing the "imagined" nature of nations.
• Common confusion: civic nationalism is often assumed to be culturally neutral, but it always embeds specific institutions and symbols; also, nationalism types are not fixed—states and movements can evolve (e.g., Germany's shift, or the changing nature of Québec nationalism).

🔍 Limits of the ethnic/civic opposition

🔍 Why civic nationalism is not culturally neutral

• Rogers Brubaker (1998) contests the shortcomings of the ethnic/civic ideal-type.
• Even inclusive, "civic" nationalism promotes institutions and symbols that are culturally specific:
  • Official language
  • Official history
  • Political institutions
  • Constitutional order
  • Legal traditions
• Example: In Canada, many institutions and traditions are part of the British Empire heritage, and the head of state remains the British monarch.
• Don't confuse: "not always contested" does not mean "culturally neutral."

⏳ States and nationalism evolve over time

• The relationship between states, nationalism, and citizenship policies is always changing.
• Example: Germany was long associated with ethnic nationalism and restrictive citizenship (blood-based), but in 1999 it adopted a more civic political culture and soil-based citizenship policies.
• This shows that the ethnic/civic categories are not fixed or permanent.

🏛️ Homogenizing nationalism

🏛️ What it is

Homogenizing nationalism: a fully recognized and institutionalized form of nationalism that provides the principal vector of integration to the political culture of a state.

• It is always at the core of a state's institutions.
• Because it is institutionalized and dominant, it becomes "banal" or "normal" for many observers—people stop noticing it as nationalism.
• Example: French Republicanism is sometimes better described as homogenizing nationalism rather than purely "civic."

🧩 Why it matters

• Homogenizing nationalism is the main way people are integrated into the political culture of the state.
• It is not contested in the same way as minority or state-seeking nationalisms, so it appears neutral or natural.

🗺️ State-seeking, homeland, and diaspora nationalisms

🗺️ State-seeking nationalism

State-seeking nationalism: nationalism mobilized by members of a group who seek to build their own sovereign state.

• Often prominent among groups who share a different subjective understanding of their past, culture, or collective memory.
• They mobilize to secede from a state that does not recognize their cultural specificities.
• Example: A group within a larger state that feels its culture and history are not recognized may mobilize state-seeking nationalism to create its own sovereign state.

🌍 Homeland nationalism

Homeland nationalism: transborder mobilization used by a state toward ethnic minorities in neighboring states that "belong" to the dominant ethnic group of the homeland state.

• This type of nationalism can become a core instrument of the homeland state's foreign policy.
• It can seek:
  • Geopolitical annexation of another state's territory or a section of it
  • Political destabilization of a foreign state's political regime to empower forces aligned with the homeland state
• Example: A state mobilizes support for ethnic minorities in a neighboring country who share the same ethnicity as the homeland's dominant group, aiming to expand influence or territory.

🌐 Diaspora nationalism

Diaspora nationalism: the nationalist beliefs and practices of members of a diaspora who remain attached to another state that they consider their homeland.

• Diasporic nationalist practices can be directed toward an imagined homeland even if the actual members of the diaspora have never set foot in that state.
• This emphasizes that the nation is an imagined community and can be imagined from outside the actual territory of a nation-state.
• Example: Members of a diaspora living in one country maintain strong nationalist attachment to a homeland they may never have visited, participating in its politics or culture from abroad.

🚩 National populism

🚩 What it is

National populism: the core ideology of the European radical right that blends elements of nationalism, populism, and authoritarianism.

• National-populist movements mobilize their membership along two axes:
  • Horizontal axis: galvanize the so-called "people" against the so-called "elites"
  • Vertical axis: galvanize members of the nation against non-members, foreigners, or minority groups

🚩 Opposition to liberal democracy's counter-powers

• National-populists are opponents of the counter-powers constitutive of a liberal democracy:
  • Independent judiciary system
  • Free and diversified press
  • Constitutionalized division of power
  • Charters of rights
• According to national-populists, these counter-powers have gained too much power in liberal democracies and threaten the expression of the political will of the majority.
• Don't confuse: national populism is not simply nationalism or populism alone; it combines both with authoritarianism and opposition to liberal-democratic institutions.

📚 Summary table: contemporary typologies

Type	Core feature	Context/goal
Homogenizing nationalism	Institutionalized, dominant, "banal"	Main vector of integration into state political culture
State-seeking nationalism	Mobilized by groups with distinct collective memory	Seek own sovereign state, often to secede
Homeland nationalism	Transborder mobilization by a state	Target ethnic minorities in neighboring states; foreign policy tool
Diaspora nationalism	Attachment to homeland from outside its territory	Emphasizes imagined nature of nation; can be directed at a state never visited
National populism	Blends nationalism, populism, authoritarianism	Mobilizes "people" vs "elites" and nation vs outsiders; opposes liberal-democratic counter-powers