DESCRIPTION OF INTERACTIVE
A political ideology is a certain set of ethical principles, doctrines, institutions, and social movements, that prescribes how society should work.
There are a variety of political ideologies, or ways that governments and societies can be organized. While the list below is not exhaustive, political philosophers will generally talk about these five major political ideologies as a ‘blueprint’ for social order.
Classical liberalism has so profoundly influenced the modern world that we rarely realize how controversial its ideas were in early modern Europe. Back then, the idea that everyone, no matter their class or background in society, should have liberty and equality, was considered dangerous and inflammatory by traditional European governments.
Liberalism is based on a belief in the essential goodness of human beings, as well as the autonomy of the individual. Liberalism argues for the protection of political and civil liberties, and views the government as a crucial instrument for reducing or eliminating social inequities.
Age of Enlightenment.
Individualism.
John Stuart Mill.
John Locke.
The American War of Independence (1776).
The French Revolution (1789).
Conservatism began as a reaction to the violence during the Reign of Terror that occurred in the wake of the French Revolution, and to the liberal ideas that first fueled it.
Early conservatives, such as Edmund Burke, criticised liberalism for its rejection of traditional values, loyalties, and hierarchies - proposing that the rights of the individual were not as important as the preservation of the whole community.
As an ideology, conservatism values the preservation of tradition and the existing order, and advocates slow social or political reform, if any, to ensure stability.
Edmund Burke.
Capitalism.
Tories.
Socialism arose as a response to the Industrial Revolution in England at the end of the 18th century, when the emergence of technologies such as the steam engine and mass production created great economic divides between the social classes.
Central to socialism is the belief that the resources of the world are owned in common by the entire global population; that the sole object of production is to meet human needs; and that each person would take fairly from that which is communally produced.
Karl Marx.
Charles Fourier.
Communism.
Class Warfare.
Democratic Socialism.
From pharaohs to chieftains, from sultans to queens, much of Western civilization’s history was dominated by absolutism - the belief that a single ruler should have control over every aspect of the government and of the lives of its people.
In this form of government, complete and unlimited power is held by a centralized sovereign individual. There are no checks or balances, no electorate, no other governing body - the ruling individual has ‘absolute’ power.
Divine Right of Kings.
Thomas Hobbes.
Plato.
Elitism.
Dictatorship.
Anarchism is a political ideology that rejects social or political authority.
It is the belief that the best government is absolutely no government. This ideology argues that everything about governments is repressive and therefore must be abolished entirely. Anarchism advocates self-government.
Nihilism.
Mikhail Bakunin.
Anti-Statism.