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Lecture 3: Comparing
Ideologies and State Systems

• Ideology as a set of coherent ideas for

organized political action
• A World view about the existing order
• An “utopia”
Major state • How to get from here to there

ideologies • Ideology as:

• Guidance to action
• Framework of reference
• Legitimation device

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• Ideologies differ in terms of:

• Assumptions about human
nature: e.g., rational or
irrational? Good or evil?
• Role of individual vs
state/collective
• Conceptions towards equality,
in terms of human nature,
rights and status

Liberalism
• Meta-ideology
• Primacy of Individuals – state works for individual’s interests
• Individual freedom and rights paramount, above equality and
justice
• Believe in individual rationality and reasoning – “free
marketplace of ideas”
• Origins of state as a social contract (Hobbes & Locke) 
popular sovereignty
• Political equality of citizens  foundational equality
• Toleration: the willingness of people to allow others to think,
speak and act

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• “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men

are created equal, that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among
these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
• That to secure these rights, Governments are
instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from
the consent of the governed,
An Example • That whenever any Form of Government becomes
destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People
to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new
Government, laying its foundation on such principles
and organizing its powers in such form, as to them
shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and
Happiness.”

• ‘Negative’ liberty: non-interference,

or the absence of external
constraints on the individual
• Unsympathetic attitude towards
the state and all forms of
Classical government intervention
Liberalism • Minimal or “nightwatchman” state
• Economic liberalism: faith in free
market

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• Big government
• “Positive freedom”: ability of the
individual to gain fulfilment and
achieve self-realization
Modern • Redistribution and social welfarism
Liberalism
(Progressivism)

Conservatism

• Stress on law and order

• Appeal to tradition: good old days
• Skeptical to change  prefer status quo, no or
slow change
• Elitism and authority (pragmatism)  lower
confidence on individual morality and rationality
• Human imperfection: security-seeking
• Organicism: society as an organic whole  social
hierarchy as necessary
• Subject individual rights to collective goals (e.g.
security, order, devt)

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Paternalistic conservatism

• Organicism, hierarchy and duty

• Duty of the privilege: the powerful and propertied inherit a responsibility to look
after the less well-off
• A blend of market competition and government regulation
• Christian democracy: embraces market economy, but addresses social welfares

The New Right Conservatism

• Neo-liberalism
• “Roll back the frontiers of the state”
• The ‘dead hand’ of the state saps initiative and discourages
enterprise; government, however well-intentioned, invariably
has a damaging effect on human affairs.
• Thatcherism and Reaganism: “there is no such thing as
society, only individuals and their families.”
• Libertarianism
• Neo-conservatism
• Authority: guarantee social discipline and respect
• Multiculturalism as a threat

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Left vs Right
• Origins: the National Assembly, the French Revolution
• Left as: anti-establishment, radical, socialist, revolutionary, etc.
• Right as conservative, pro-monarchy, pro-establishment, pro-
capitalist
• Modern Left: socialist, communist, social democrats, pro-
grassroots, greens, pro-state
• Modern right: pro-business, pro-market, fascists, religious
conservatives, pro-order, etc.

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The Political Compass/ 8 Values Test

• https://www.politicalcompass.org/analysis2
• https://8values.github.io/

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Socialism
• Community and fraternity
• A communitarian view of human society
 problems to be solved by society
• Equality in status & outcome, instead of
only rights and opportunities
• Need: ‘from each according to his ability,
to each according to his need’
• Collective ownership + strong state role
in economy and redistribution

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Basic Principles of
Marxism
• Marxism as Social Critique
• Situation of English working class in early 19th
century
• terrible working and living conditions
• sub-subsistence wages and child labor
• Repressive regime with no representation of workers
 bourgeois democracy
• Social & labor unrest  Luddism

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• Historical Materialism–historical
devt determined by forces of
production vs relations of
production
Basic Tenets

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Base & Superstructure

• Intentionally left blank

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• Capitalism important to destroy feudalism

• Capitalism as de-humanizing and alienating
Alienation (異化) due to commodification (勞力商品
化)

& Surplus • All value of goods comes from human labor

• Capitalists made profit from exploiting the

Value surplus value (剩餘價值) from workers

• Capitalists continue to squeeze wages to
maximize profit, with a large reserve army of
peasants driven off the land

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Road to Revolution
• Tendency of capitalism to monopolize and to maximize
profit
• Reduction of all middle strata and small businesses to
proletariat
• Increasing exploitation on proletariat drove them to
revolution – “nothing to lose but their chains”
• “Communists” instill class consciousness into proletariat,
change them from “class in itself ” to “class for itself ”

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The Communist Utopia

• Revolution will first bring Socialism
as transition phase, with
“dictatorship of proletariat”, where
the state will transform other classes
• Communism as utopia– a classless
society of no deprivation where the
state will “wither away”

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Lenin’s problems

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Solution A: Theory of
Imperialism
• Imperialism as high stage of capitalism
• “Transfer exploitation” & delay revolution
• Resist imperialism in the Third World vital
for domestic & world revolution

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• Communist party to promote class consciousness

Solution B: and bringing about revolution
• Highly disciplined, centralized, elitist party
The • Democratic Centralism (民主集中制):
• Election of party leadership
Vanguard • Debates and majority decisions
• Obedience & Discipline to upper level
Party • Reports to upper levels

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Stalinist Communism
• Stalin’s Terror
• Theory of devt for “Socialism in One Country”
• Rapid industrialization by state power, terror and mobilization
• Party as machine of control, with communist ideology playing
a major role
• Personal Dictatorship, personal cult, and totalitarian control
• Central Planning/command economy to direct every aspect
of economy

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Orthodox Communist System

• All Powerful Party-State  Party almost control everything
• Party Congress  Central Committee 
Politburo/Secretariat  Standing Committee
• Organizational parallelism: party organs in every govt. &
social institution
• Nomenklatura as system of control
• “Reductionism”– power highly centralized
• Became the political model of later Socialist states

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Neo-Marxism
• human beings as makers of history,
and not simply as puppets controlled
by impersonal material forces
• Antonio Gramsci: Ideological
hegemony

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Social Democracy/Democratic
Socialism
• A balance between the market and the state, a balance
between the individual and the community
• Compromise:
• acceptance of capitalism as the only reliable
mechanism for generating wealth
• distribute wealth in accordance with moral, rather than
market, principles
• Democratic but state played major role in economy
• Liberal commitment to positive freedom and equal
opportunities
• Conservative sense of paternal duty and care

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Feminism
• Sex and gender
• Patriarchy: power relationship
between men and women
• Liberal feminism: reforms and
equal access
• Socialist feminism: female
subordination linked to capitalism
• Radical feminism: all societies
characterized by patriarchy

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Fascism
• Italian Fascism ultra-right ideologies
• Anti-liberalism  Indiv. rights & freedom
subservient to the state / leader
• Law and Order as paramount: little tolerance
of alternative opinion
• Elitism and obedience to hierarchical power
+ personal cult  military discipline
• Heroism, past glories (myths)
• Strong nationalism & racism: Aryanism
• State capitalism as econ. model

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Anarchism

• Political authority in all its forms, and

especially in the form of the state, is both
evil and unnecessary
• free individuals manage their own affairs
through voluntary agreement and
cooperation
• Anarcho-capitalism vs anarcho-
communism

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• Religious Fundamentalism: Religion as the highest

and proper expression of politics
Other • Cosmopolitanism: world government

Ideologies • Green Ideology: Question Anthropocentrism

• Populism: Anti-establishment, instincts and wishes of
the people

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