Notes on Politics

Politics is the process of making decisions that apply to members of a group.

Welfare state

The welfare state is a concept of government in which the state plays a key role in the protection and promotion of the social and economic well-being of its citizens. It is based on the principles of equality of opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth, and public responsibility for those unable to avail themselves of the minimal provisions for a good life. The general term may cover a variety of forms of economic and social organization.[1] The sociologist T.H. Marshall described the modern welfare state as a distinctive combination of democracy, welfare, and capitalism.[2]

Modern welfare states include Germany, France, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands,[3] as well as the Nordic countries, such as Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland[4] which employ a system known as the Nordic model. Esping-Andersen classified the most developed welfare state systems into three categories; social democratic, conservative, and liberal.[5]

The welfare state involves a transfer of funds from the state to the services provided (i.e., healthcare, education, etc.) as well as directly to individuals (“benefits”). It is funded through redistributionist taxation and is often referred to as a type of “mixed economy”.[6] Such taxation usually includes a larger income tax for people with higher incomes, called a progressive tax. Proponents argue that this helps reduce the income gap between the rich and poor.[7][8][9]

Democratic socialism

Democratic socialism is a political ideology that advocates political democracy alongside social ownership of the means of production, often with an emphasis on democratic management of enterprises within a socialist economic system.

The term “democratic socialism” is sometimes used synonymously with “socialism”; the adjective “democratic” is often added to distinguish it from the Leninist, Stalinist and Maoist types of socialism, which are widely viewed as being non-democratic in practice.[1] The term “democratic socialism” is sometimes used as to refer to social democracy but many say this is misleading because democratic socialism advocates social ownership of the means of production and social democracy does not.[2]

Democratic socialism is distinguished from both the Soviet model of centralized socialism and from social democracy, where “social democracy” refers to support for political democracy; the nationalization and public ownership of key industries but otherwise preserving, but strongly regulating, private ownership of the means of production; regulated free markets in a mixed economy; and a robust welfare state.[3] The distinction with the former is made on the basis of the authoritarian form of government and centralized economic system that emerged in the Soviet Union during the 20th century,[4] while the distinction with the latter is made on the basis that democratic socialism is committed to systemic transformation of the economy while social democracy is not.[5]

That is, whereas social democrats only seek to “humanize” capitalism through state intervention, democratic socialists see capitalism as inherently incompatible with the democratic values of liberty, equality and solidarity; and believe that the issues inherent to capitalism can only be solved by superseding private ownership with some form of social ownership. Ultimately democratic socialists believe that reforms aimed at addressing the economic contradictions of capitalism will only cause more problems to emerge elsewhere in the economy, that capitalism can never be sufficiently “humanized”, and that it must therefore ultimately be replaced with socialism.[6][7]

Democratic socialism is not specifically revolutionary or reformist, as many types of democratic socialism can fall into either category, with some forms overlapping with social democracy, supporting reforms within capitalism as a prelude to the establishment of socialism.[8] Some forms of democratic socialism accept social democratic reformism to gradually convert the capitalist economy to a socialist one using pre-existing democratic institutions, while other forms are revolutionary in their political orientation and advocate for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the transformation of the capitalist economy to a socialist economy.[9]

Definition

Democratic socialism is defined as having a socialist economy in which the means of production are socially and collectively owned or controlled alongside a politically democratic system of government.[1]

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Cultural Marxism: An offshoot of Marxism that gave birth to political correctness, multiculturalism and “anti-racism.” Unlike traditional Marxism that focuses on economics, Cultural Marxism focuses on culture and maintains that all human behavior is a result of culture (not heredity / race) and thus malleable. Cultural Marxists absurdly deny the biological reality of gender and race and argue that gender and race are “social constructs”. Nonetheless, Cultural Marxists support the race-based identity politics of non-whites. Cultural Marxists typically support race-based affirmative action, the proposition state (as opposed to a nation rooted in common ancestry), elevating non-Western religions above Western religions, speech codes and censorship, multiculturalism, diversity training, anti-Western education curricula, maladaptive sexual norms and anti-male feminism, the dispossession of white people, and mass Third World immigration into Western countries. Cultural Marxists have promoted idea that white people, instead of birthing white babies, should interracially marry or adopt non-white children. Samuel P. Huntington maintained that Cultural Marxism is an anti-white ideology. Critics of Cultural Marxism have maintained that Cultural Marxists intend to commit genocide against white people through mass non-white immigration, assimilation, transracial adoption and miscegenation.

Critical theory stresses the reflective assessments and critique of society and culture by applying knowledge from the social sciences and the humanities.

As a term, critical theory has two meanings[citation needed] with different origins and histories: the first originated in sociology and political philosophy, while the second originated in literary studies and literary theory.

In sociology and political philosophy, the term “critical theory” (or “social critical theory”)[1] describes the neo-Marxist philosophy of the Frankfurt School, which was developed in Germany in the 1930s. The Frankfurt theorist Max Horkheimer described a theory as critical insofar as it seeks “to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them.”[2] Frankfurt theorists drew on the critical methods of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud. Critical theory maintains that ideology is the principal obstacle to human liberation.[3]

Colonialism is the establishment of a colony in one territory by a political power from another territory, and the subsequent maintenance, expansion, and exploitation of that colony. The term is also used to describe a set of unequal relationships between the colonial power and the colony and often between the colonists and the indigenous peoples.

Zionism (Hebrew: צִיּוֹנוּת‎ Tsiyyonut IPA: [t͡sijo̞ˈnut] after Zion) is the national movement of the Jewish people that supports the re-establishment of a Jewish homeland in the territory defined as the historic Land of Israel (roughly corresponding to Palestine, Canaan or the Holy Land).[1][2][3][4] Zionism emerged in the late 19th century in Central and Eastern Europe as a national revival movement, in reaction to anti-Semitic and exclusionary nationalist movements in Europe.[5][6] Soon after this, most leaders of the movement associated the main goal with creating the desired state in Palestine, then an area controlled by the Ottoman Empire.[7][8][9]

Until 1948, the primary goals of Zionism were the re-establishment of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel, ingathering of the exiles, and liberation of Jews from the antisemitic discrimination and persecution that they experienced during their diaspora. Since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Zionism continues primarily to advocate on behalf of Israel and to address threats to its continued existence and security.

A religious variety of Zionism supports Jews upholding their Jewish identity defined as adherence to religious Judaism, opposes the assimilation of Jews into other societies, and has advocated the return of Jews to Israel as a means for Jews to be a majority nation in their own state.[1] A variety of Zionism, called cultural Zionism, founded and represented most prominently by Ahad Ha’am, fostered a secular vision of a Jewish “spiritual center” in Israel. Unlike Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, Ahad Ha’am strived for Israel to be “a Jewish state and not merely a state of Jews”.[10]

Advocates of Zionism view it as a national liberation movement for the repatriation of a persecuted people residing as minorities in a variety of nations to their ancestral homeland.[11][12][13] Critics of Zionism view it as a colonialist,[14] racist[15] and exceptionalist[16] ideology that led advocates to violence during Mandatory Palestine, followed by the exodus of Palestinians, and the subsequent denial of their human rights.[17][18][19][20]

Karl Marx’s theory of alienation describes the estrangement (Ger. Entfremdung) of people from aspects of their Gattungswesen (“species-essence”) as a consequence of living in a society of stratified social classes. The alienation from the self is a consequence of being a mechanistic part of a social class, the condition of which estranges a person from their humanity.

The theoretic basis of alienation, within the capitalist mode of production, is that the worker invariably loses the ability to determine life and destiny, when deprived of the right to think (conceive) of themselves as the director of their own actions; to determine the character of said actions; to define relationships with other people; and to own those items of value from goods and services, produced by their own labour. Although the worker is an autonomous, self-realized human being, as an economic entity, this worker is directed to goals and diverted to activities that are dictated by the bourgeoisie, who own the means of production, in order to extract from the worker the maximum amount of surplus value, in the course of business competition among industrialists.

In political and social sciences, communism (from Latin communis, “common, universal”)[1][2] is the radical social, political, and economic ideology and movement whose ultimate goal is the establishment of the communist society, which is a socioeconomic order structured upon the common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes, money,[3][4] and the state.[5][6]

Communism includes a variety of schools of thought, which broadly include Marxism, anarchism (anarchist communism), and the political ideologies grouped around both. All these hold in common the analysis that the current order of society stems from its economic system, capitalism, that in this system, there are two major social classes: the working class – who must work to survive, and who make up a majority of society – and the capitalist class – a minority who derive profit from employing the proletariat, through private ownership of the means of production (the physical and institutional means with which commodities are produced and distributed), and that political, social and economic conflict between these two classes will trigger a fundamental change in the economic system, and by extension a wide-ranging transformation of society. The primary element which will enable this transformation, according to this analysis, is the social ownership of the means of production.

A polity is any kind of political entity. It is a group of people who are collectively united by a self-reflected cohesive force such as identity, who have a capacity to mobilise resources, and are organised by some form of institutionalised hierarchy.[1]

OverviewEdit

A polity can be manifested in many different forms, such as a state, an empire, an international organization, a political organisation and other identifiable, resource-manipulating organisational structures. A polity, like a state, does not need to be a sovereign unit. The most preeminent polities today are Westphalian states and nation-states, commonly (though incorrectly) referred to as “nations”.

It therefore encapsulates a vast multitude of organisations, many of which form the fundamental apparatuses of contemporary states such as their subordinate civil and local government authorities.[2] Polities do not need to be in control of any geographic areas, as not all political entities and governments have controlled the resources of one fixed geographic area. The historical Steppe Empires originating from the Eurasian Steppe are the most prominent example of non-sedentary polities. These polities differ from states because of their lack of a fixed, defined territory. Empires also differ from states in that their territories are not statically defined or permanently fixed, and consequently that their body politic was also dynamic and fluid.

It is useful, then, to think of a polity as a political community. A polity can be defined either as a faction within a larger (usually state) entity or, at different times, as the entity itself. Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan, for example, are parts of their own separate and distinct polity. They are also, though, members of the sovereign state of Iraq which is itself a polity, albeit one which is much less specific and, as a result, much less cohesive. It is therefore possible for an individual to belong to more than one polity at a time.

Thomas Hobbes was a highly significant figure in the conceptualisation of polities, and in particular of states. Hobbes considered notions of the state and the body politic in his most notable work, Leviathan.[3]

In previous centuries, body politic was also understood to mean “the physical person of the sovereign:” emperor, king or dictator in monarchies and despotisms, and the electorate in republics. As many polities have become more democratic in the last few centuries the body politic, where sovereignty is bestowed, has grown to a much greater size than simply the ruling elite, such as the monarchy. In present times, it may also refer to representation of a group, such as ones drawn along ethnic or gender lines.[citation needed] Cabinets in liberal democracies are chosen to represent the body politic.