Political
Philosophers
Tell us why we should run things their way. Some are sensible. Some are
vicious, blatant rogues. Some are plausible, which makes them effective. The
effective ones include Karl Marx &
Adolf Hitler; both adherents of
Hegel, a sour faced devil. Look at the harm they
wrought, then think whether they would, with advantage have been hanged at birth.
Political Scientists
Are the men or even, just possibly women who study how who does what to
whom. Political Philosophy is about
the reasons, the why rather than how. One might argue that women
understand politics rather better because they are prone to be interested in
people.
Adolf Hitler
Adolf was a sensitive soul, an artist, war hero and successful author. He
also gets a bad press because he didn't like Jews and did something about
them. Being blamed for the Second World War
didn't help.
Antonio Gramsci
Was a destroyer, vicious
and dangerous. He knew full well what Pope Leo had to say about the evils of
socialism in
Rerum Novarum and decided to destroy the
Church. He had huge success too. His recruitment of
Lenin's Useful Idiots to destroy
Western Civilization by
their Long March Through The
Institutions was highly effective and is going on to this day.
Conservatism
Has nothing to do with the
Conservative Party as currently
constituted; far from it. Conservatism is a decent approach to life, one that
deserves being better understood. In explaining
Roger Scruton, the
well known professor of philosophy has done us a service.
Karl Marx
His ideas led to almost 100 million murders. See
The Black Book of Communism for
more and better details. There are still millions using his ideas to
destroy.
John Stuart Mill
QUOTE
Mill's
book, On Liberty addresses the nature and limits of the power that can be
legitimately exercised by society over the individual. One argument that
Mill develops further than any previous philosopher is the
harm principle. The harm principle holds that each individual has the
right to act as he wants, so long as these actions do not harm others. If
the action is self-regarding, that is, if it only directly affects the
person undertaking the action, then society has no right to intervene, even
if it feels the actor is harming himself. Mill excuses those who are
"incapable of self-government" from this principle, such as young children
or those living in "backward states of society". It is important to
emphasize that Mill did not consider giving offense to constitute "harm"; an
action could not be restricted because it violated the conventions or morals
of a given society. The idea of 'offense' causing harm and thus being
restricted was later developed by
Joel Feinberg in his 'offense principle' essentially an extension of
J.S. Mill's 'harm principle'.
UNQUOTE
He
sounds reasonable to me albeit he wanted women to be given the vote. But you
can read his chief book, On Liberty and decide for yourself.
George Orwell
Was a writer, socialist, an honest man and a passionate
Englishman. He was hated by left wing subversives for telling the truth
about their manipulation. See for example
Nineteen Eighty Four
On Liberty - A View From Amazon.com
QUOTE
The terms 'liberal' and 'socialist' have undergone many changes in meaning over the past century and a half. By the definitions of his own day, Mill was certainly the former and arguably the latter. By today's definitions, he would be neither. For his time, he was a remarkably progressive, even radical, thinker. He was, for example, an ardent advocate of women's rights. On the other hand, his paternalistic attitude toward developing societies is typical of his age.
The basic principles of both
liberty and ethics that Mill propounds have been much criticized. It
is easy to list exceptions, provisos and limitations to them, but
they relate to extremely complex and intractable problems, and with
such issues it is necessary to start with greatly simplified models,
on which you can build. As first approximations, Mill's principles
are actually quite good. That they are not the last words on the
subjects should not distress us. Nothing ever will be. Only bigots
arrive at final, absolute answers....... Some parts have to be carefully
reread to make sense of all the subordinate clauses. But when he is
good, he is very good. The section on free speech is classic........ In
Utilitarianism, Mill is
building on the work of Jeremy Bentham, who in turn was part of a
tradition that can be traced back to ancient Greece and the
philosopher Epicurus.......... The Bantam edition.... is compact and cheap, but
the introduction by Alan Dershowitz is appallingly bad.
UNQUOTE
A good
intro. He got Dershowitz bang to rights.
Tom Paine
QUOTE
Thomas Paine (29 January
1737 – 8 June 1809) was an English
pamphleteer,
revolutionary,
radical,
inventor,
and
intellectual. He lived and worked in Britain until age 37, when he
emigrated to the British American colonies, in time to participate in the
American Revolution. His principal contribution was the powerful,
widely-read pamphlet
Common Sense (1776), advocating colonial America's independence from
the
Kingdom of Great Britain, and of
The American Crisis (1776–1783), a pro-revolutionary pamphlet
series.
Later, he greatly influenced the
French Revolution. He wrote the
Rights of Man (1791), a guide to
Enlightenment ideas. Despite not speaking French, he was elected to the
French
National Convention in 1792. The
Girondists regarded him an ally, so, the
Montagnards, especially
Robespierre, regarded him an enemy. In December of 1793, he was arrested
and imprisoned in Paris, then released in 1794. He became notorious because
of
The Age of Reason (1793–94), the book advocating
deism and
arguing against Christian doctrines. In France, he also wrote the pamphlet
Agrarian Justice (1795), discussing the origins of property, and
introduced the concept of a
guaranteed minimum income.
UNQUOTE
Common Sense reads well to this day. Get it from the
Gutenberg
Project.
Living Contract
Edmund Burke told
us that the living contract is an implicit arrangement between the
dead, living & unborn which carries forward the gifts of the past. This
makes more sense than the idea of a social contract.
Social Contract
Society is a contract between the living, the dead and the
unborn according to Burke. It sounds good to me but not to the Wiki which has
its own version.
Common Sense - the Wikipedia's View
QUOTE
Common Sense
was a
pamphlet
written by
Thomas Paine. It was first published anonymously on January 10, 1776,
during the
American Revolution. Common Sense presented the American
colonists with an argument for independence from
British rule at a time when the question of independence was still
undecided. Paine wrote and reasoned in a style that common people
understood; forgoing the philosophy and Latin references used by
Enlightenment era writers, Paine structured Common Sense like a
sermon and
relied on
Biblical references to make his case to the people. Historian
Gordon S. Wood described Common Sense as, “the most incendiary
and popular pamphlet of the entire revolutionary era.”
UNQUOTE
Worth reading still. It does not help the Divine Right of Kings theory.
Rerum Novarum
QUOTE
Rerum Novarum is subtitled "On
Capital and Labor". In this document, Leo set out the Catholic Church's
response to the social instability and labor conflict that had arisen in the
wake of industrialization and had led to the rise of socialism. The Pope
taught that the role of the State is to promote social justice through the
protection of rights, while the Church must speak out on social issues in
order to teach correct social principles and ensure class harmony. He
restated the Church's long-standing teaching regarding the crucial
importance of private property rights, but recognized, in one of the
best-known passages of the encyclical, that the free operation of market
forces must be tempered by moral considerations:
"Let the working man and the
employer make free agreements, and in particular let them agree freely
as to the wages; nevertheless, there underlies a dictate of natural
justice more imperious and ancient than any bargain between man and man,
namely, that wages ought not to be insufficient to support a frugal and
well-behaved wage-earner. If through necessity or fear of a worse evil
the workman accept harder conditions because an employer or contractor
will afford him no better, he is made the victim of force and
injustice.".
UNQUOTE
The Wikipedia can be
honest. This may well be one of those writings that is.
Quadragesimo Anno
QUOTE
Changes since Rerum
Novarum
Pope Pius XI issued his encyclical
exactly forty years after
Rerum Novarum....... In the first part he reviews
and applauds the encyclical of his predecessor. The Church can be credited
with participating in the progress made and contributing to it. It developed
a new social conscience. The welfare State has become a reality and the once
powerless workers have unionized and form a powerful opposite to
representatives of capitalism.
But for Pope Pius, this did not solve the social problems that Leo XIII talked about. New problems developed including a degree of industrialization, which was unthinkable in 1891. Industrialization has become an undeniable fact, effecting not only the workers in factories but society as a whole. The division of societies into opposing social classes increased, so the Pope. Both sides are highlighting differences and resulting social unrest is truly possible.
Private
Property
The Church has a role in discussing
these issues. Social and economic issues are vital to her not from a
technical point of view but in terms of moral and ethical issues
involved. Ethical considerations include the nature of private property.
within the Catholic Church several conflicting views had developed. Pope
Pius XI declares private property essential for the development and
freedom of the individual. Those who deny private property, deny
personal freedom and development. But, so Pius, private property has a
social function as well. Private Property looses [ sic ] its morality, if it is
not subordinated under the common good. Therefore governments have a
right to redistribution policies. In extreme cases, the Pope grants the
State a right of expropriation of private property.
Capital and
Labour
A related
issue, so Pius is the relation between capital and labour and the
determination of fair wages. Pius develops the following ethical
mandate: The Church considers it a perversion of industrial society, to
have developed sharp opposite camps based on income. He welcomes all
attempts to alleviate these cross differences. Three elements determine
a fair wage: His family, the economic condition of the enterprise and
the economy as a whole. The family has an innate right for development,
but this is only possible within the framework of a functioning economy
and a sound enterprise. This Pope Pius concludes, that solidarity not
conflict is a necessary condition, given the mutual interdependence of
the parties involved.
Social
Order
Industrialization, so Pius XI, resulted in
less freedom at the individual and communal level, because numerous free
social entities got absorbed by larger ones. A society of individuals
became a mass and class society. People are much more interdependent,
than in ancient times, and become egoistic or class-conscious in order
to save some freedom for themselves. The pope demands more solidarity,
especially between employers and employees through new forms of
cooperation and communication. Pius draws a negative view of Capitalism,
especially of the anonymous international finance markets.
He identifies here problems: dangers for small and
medium-size enterprises, who have insufficient access to capital markets
and are squeezed or destroyed by the larger ones. He warns, that capital
interests can become a danger for states, who would be reduced to be
“chained slaves of individual interests”
Communism and socialism
Regarding Communism and Socialism,
Pope Pius noted increasing differences. He condemns communism but also
the social conditions which nourish it. He demands that moderate
socialism not only distance itself from totalitarian communism as a
matter of convenience, but as a matter of principle, in light of the
dignity of the human person. Dignity and human freedom are ethical considerations,
which cannot be solved from a hostile class confrontation. Ethics is
based on religion, and so, the Pope, this is the realm where the Church
meets industrial society.
UNQUOTE
The Church has been good on analysis but not very effective in
influencing the debate.
