CCHU 9068:

SHAPING OUR WORLD: LIBERALISM,

SOCIALISM, AND NATIONALISM

Y C R Wong
1 February 2020
 PPT Note 01

IntroducJon to Ideologies
Shaping Our World
 Modern Era 18th – 20th Century

• Course on PoliJcal Philosophy of Modern Era

—poliJcal liberalism, economic capitalism
• Three most influenJal ideologies:
• Liberalism the first centerpiece ideology is
universalist
• Socialism a reacJon against liberalism, and is
also universalist
• NaJonalism another reacJon to liberalism,
but is non-universalist and tribalist/naJvist
• All three are modern poliJcal ideologies,
gradually displaced European feudal and
monarchical order under Christendom that
dominated 800 years, the Medieval Dark Ages
• Resulted in economic, poliJcal and military
ascendancy of the West, and spread across
the world
• Culture: individualisJc, urban, industrial,
progress, private property, market oriented
 Early Modern Era 15th – 18th Century

• Liberalism has roots in early modern era

• Influenced by Black Death, value free poliJcs,
Renaissance, ReformaJon, scienJfic
discoveries, humanism, religious skepJcism,
faith in human progress, and belief in science
and knowledge to advance human condiJon
• Early modern era rebelled against European
Christendom, feudal and monarchical order, return
to wisdom of ancient Greek philosophy and Roman
law, knowledge is virtue
• Liberalism was child of the Enlightenment Era:
– American & French RevoluJons of 1776 & 1789
– Rise of the world market economy/global
capitalism
– Culture of urban life, individualism, bourgeois
values, liberty & equality
Average global GDP per capita over the last
2000 years in constant dollars
 1500-1820

• In the first 300 grew at 0.2% pa, slow growth, not

stagnaJon
• Discovery of the New World and other
civilizaJons
• New resources were discovered and trade grew
• QuesJon: Different cultures, different values, is
this backwardness or just differences?
• From healthy skepJcism to civilizing
backwardness? Ascendancy of Western values
• Is backwardness now moral backwardness?
World average GDP per capita 1500-2000
 1820-2020

• In the next 200 years rapid economic growth

2.0% pa occurred with the Industrial
RevoluJon
• Demise of agriculture, rise of manufacturing &
services, urban life and alienaJon
• GlobalizaJon and technological progress
• Liberal values undergo transformaJon from
seeing differences as “sheer backwardness” to
“diversity, dignity, and (re-)imagined idenJty”
 Great Divergence and Convergence

• Rise of the West precipitated a total

rebalancing of the economic share of world
GDP from China and India to a few Western
naJons (including Japan) and especially the
USA aler 1820, process reversed aler 1980
• 200 years of economic growth brought social
poliJcal disrupJons
• Socialism/communism and naJonalism
contested liberalism & capitalism’s record of
progress
Share of World GDP 1-2008
• Rise of colonialism, imperialism, many
empires in Europe collapsed, two world wars
(1914-18, 1939-45), Great Depression
(1929-39), reforming liberalism & capitalism,
• Cold War and the Berlin Wall collapses in 1989
• Downfall of the Soviet Union (15 states
independent) & Yugoslavia (7 states) and the
Triumph of Liberal Capitalism??
• Another idea is conservaJsm, to be
disJnguished from reacJonary, also mounted
an important criJcism of liberalism
• Primary interest is the main ideologies and
trace their emergence and conflict
• Knowing the past will help us understand the
present and the future
• Understanding the ideas need a historical
background
• Ideas are not a simple reflecJon of reality, they
influence reality, and old ideas are reinterpreted
in the light of the new reality
• Ideas influence reality in unexpected dynamic
ways too
• Ideas are responses to other ideas in the context
of the Jmes
• They produce intellectual, poliJcal, economic and
socio-cultural legacies
• Background reading: John Hirst, The Shortest
History of Europe
 Promise & Surprise of Liberal PoliJcs

• From ancient Greece to the Enlightenment

• Hobbes & Locke on social contract and the
individualisJc origin of power
• Hume’s skepJcism & Montesquieu’s poliJcal
liberalism
• Smith on moral senJments and market economy
• Rousseau’s modernism & schism in the
Enlightenment
• French RevoluJon and Lel-Right PolarizaJon
• French RevoluJon and German Counter
Enlightenment
ContesJng Ideologies in a Capitalist Order

• Liberal versus Civic Republicanism

• Marxism and Communism
• The Other Europe & VarieJes of NaJonalism
• Progressive Reforms and Libertarian &
Communitarian Counter Reforms to Save
Capitalism
• Radical Individualism & Roots of IrraJonal
PoliJcs
• Western Marxism & Postmodernist Cultural Lel
• Conclusion to Ideologies Shaping Our World
 What is the poliJcal?
• PoliJcs and parJsanship
• PoliJcs without common good becomes mere
interest
• How and what to choose
• Choosing the common good democraJcally
• The Social Choice Theory dilemma—Arrow’s
Impossibility Theorem
 Impossibility Theorem
• Person A, Person B, and Person C
• Choice X, Choice Y, and Choice Z

• Person A: X > Y, Y > Z, and X > Z; i.e., X > Y > Z

• Person B: Y > Z, Z > X, and Y > X; i.e., Y > Z > X
• Person C: Z > X, X > Y, and Z > Y; i.e., Z > X > Y
• between X and Y, two persons agree X > Y
• between Y and Z, two persons agree Y > Z
• between Z and X, two persons agree Z > X

• yields the paradoxical result of X > Y > Z > X

• This result implies that it mauers which pair of issues
are voted on first, e.g.,
• If the pair X and Y are voted on first, then Persons A
and C will vote for X, and Y will be defeated.
• In the second round of voBng, the choice will be
between X and Z, and Persons B and C will vote for Z
defeaBng X.
• If you want Z to win then you must make sure that X
and Y are voted on first—agenda control.
• So what is the people’s choice? It can be
manipulated.
Prometheus
&
Frankenstein
 Prometheus Myth & Modernity
• If the people together cannot choose raJonally then how do
we make poliJcal decisions?
• Unreason, senJment, intuiJon, dignity, and thymos (anger)?
• In Greek mythology, Prometheus created men and stole fire
from the Gods to gave it to humanity—he was punished by
Zeus for his zealous ambiJon.
• Human yearning to determine their future and desJny was
according to the Gods Prometheus’ crime .
• Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is modern man’s dream to create
man? Or is it his nightmare?
End