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Introduction
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Lesson 1. Introduction to Political Thought
Lesson Outcome:
At the end of this lesson, the learners must have:
1. described the theoretical formation of states over time as a by-product of
evolution, expansion and development.
3. There are four (4) theories of a state: Force Theory, Evolutionary Theory,
Divine Right Theory and Social Contract Theory. A state is created through
some force, as the losers of war subject themselves to the victorious new
rulers; the Force Theory follows this thought. The evolutionary theory supports
the idea that formation of states developed naturally and gradually as by
product of historical development, factors of which include family and kinship,
religion, natural social instinct, economic needs and politics. (Evolutionary
Theory)
5. What is then the role of the government running off the state?
Major State responsibilities include schools, hospitals, conservation and
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environment, roads, railways and public transport, public works, agriculture
and fishing, industrial relations, community services, sport and recreation,
consumer affairs, police, prisons and emergency services. These form
government spending and subsidies that are primarily sourced from
taxes. Moreover, government‘s role to development includes controls over
production, distribution, consumption of commodities. To achieve these
objectives, it devises physical controls, monetary and fiscal measures that
are essential for reducing economic and social inequalities (Suman) that
prevail in underdeveloped economies like the Philippines.
Technical Terms
2. Fiscal measures are policy handles of the government like taxation and
government spending that greatly affect overall spending adjustments of the
country.
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Name: Score:
Curriculum and Section:
Subject:
Unit No.: Date:
Let’s Do This!
Kindly choose five states and describe its history, economic system,
military strengths, political structures and general provisions of the government
to the people. (This is worth 50 full points, 10 points for each country and 2
points in each variable). You may limit your answers in five paragraphs for each
country. Submit your work, written in Word, Tahoma, 11 font, single space and
1” margin everywhere on ________________________ to ramsaragrace@
yahoo.com.
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(c) trade policy
(d) tax policy
(e) fiscal policy
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(c) the government is ready for war
(d) violence is the weapon against rebellion
(e) the people are naturally ready for violence
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Lesson 2: The Republic
Lesson Outcome:
At the end of this lesson, the learners must have:
1. differentiated the concepts of an ideal city or an ideal state presented in
the discourse of Socrates and his companions about how to achieve a
perfect government as opposed to other kinds of states.
4. The healthy state needs guardians (now called political leaders) that protect
the city from attacks and the discussion furthered describing what type of
education is appropriate for them in their early years. They concluded that to
ascribe evil to the gods are untrue and hence, should not be taught. What
should be the lifestyle of the guardians? Essentially, the city is assumed to
contain individuals who are happy in the occupations that best suit them. If
the city is happy, the individuals are happy.
5. For the guardians, in the physical education and diet, the emphasis is on
moderation; for both poverty and excessive wealth corrupt them. Without
controlling their education, the city cannot control the future rulers. Socrates
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says that it is pointless to worry over specific laws, like those pertaining
to contracts, since proper education ensures lawful behaviour, and poor
education causes lawlessness (425a425c).
6. In a just human being, reason rules, spirit is reason’s ally, and appetite is
held in check. In this way, the three parts of the soul are organized in such a
way that action is in accordance with knowledge of what the good life is. This
knowledge belongs to reason. In this part of the soul, there is the knowledge
that existence in the body is temporary, that the body and its needs are
distractions, and that the good life is one of “contemplation”. (Henry George
Liddell)
8. The virtues are then sought in the individual soul. Socrates creates an
analogy between the parts of the city and the soul (the city-soul analogy).
He argues that a completely unified soul could not behave in opposite ways
towards the same object, at the same time, and in the same respect (436b).
The guardians, both females and males, should be educated in wisdom,
temperance, justice and courage, gymnastics and physical training. Physical
training is aimed at maintaining good health and physical fitness in order for
them to live preventing illness and weakness and without needing medical
attention to focus their energies in serving the people.
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Proper education safeguards lawful behaviour while poor education causes
lawlessness. It is pointless to worry about laws when leaders’ behaviour is
corrupt.
10. Guardians are of three classes – guardian rulers must have the wisdom,
guardian warriors must possess courage and temperance should be found
among classes in the city agreeing who should rule and be ruled. For Socrates,
justice means each class performs only its own work and not meddling on the
work of others. Moreover, Socrates also discovered virtues in the city from
the individual soul, the city-soul analogy.
11. He argues that a completely unified soul could not behave in opposite ways
– meaning the city and the individual must possess the same behaviour
toward same objective. A person is wise if he is ruled by the part of the soul
that understands what is good for the part and for the whole. A person is
courageous if his soul preserves pleasures and pains and that the decision
is reached by the rational part; and a person is temperate if the three parts
agree that the rational part should lead. One person cannot be just if he does
not have the other virtues.
12. The ideal city will have harmonious cooperation of all the citizens of the city.
The philosopher-King must be intelligent, reliable and willing to lead a simple
life. Education‘s curriculum is designed to teach learners THE GOOD. Just
as visible objects need to be studied in order to be seen, so must also the
objects of KNOWLDEGE kings need in order to properly lead. A would be
philosopher – king must study arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy.
14. The four unjust constitutions are timocracy, oligarchy, democracy and tyranny
being aristocracy as the best. Aristocracy is the just government, dominated
by wisdom loving system of government, ruled by the philosopher-king. When
the social structure breaks down and civil war is created, timocracy is formed.
Warrior generals, who are the ruling class of property owners, dominate
timocracy. When wealth accumulation replaces honour, the government
formed is oligarchy, where the rich are the ruling class.
15. When the number of poor widens and starts a revolt, democracy is established.
Democracy emphasizes maximum freedom and power is distributed evenly.
This form of government is dominated by desire in an undisciplined and
unrestrained ways. Populism of the democratic government leads to mob
rule, fuelled by fear of oligarchy, which can be exploited by tyrants to take
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power and establish tyranny.
16. In a tyrannical government, the city is enslaved to the tyrant, who uses his
guards to remove the best social elements and individuals from the city to
retain power (since they pose a threat), while leaving the worst. He will also
provoke warfare to consolidate his position as leader. In this way, tyranny is
the most unjust regime of all.
Technical Terms
1. City-soul analogy – Justice is the right order of the soul. The city-soul analogy
refers to Plato‘s argument saying that the just person is happier than the
unjust person and that if the city is composed of just persons, then the just
city is happier than the unjust cities. The city cannot go opposite to what is
good for the soul. (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
5. Oligarchy is the rule of the few. There are numerous kinds of oligarchy rule and
Timocracy and Aristrocacy fall under it. One very attractive rule of government
is Geniocracy which is exclusively ruled by the geniuses. The criteria to govern
include excellence in problem solving and creative intelligence. A geniocratic
government usually has faster economic growth and better welfare. Germany
and Canada are two famous countries practising geniocracy. (Buddy Mantra)
Technocracy, a quite similarly defined form is a rule where the leaders are
technical experts as practiced by Peoples Republic of China and of Russia.
6. Tyranny comes from a Greek word tyrannos meaning an absolute ruler who
is unrestrained by law.
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Summary
Socrates and his companions figure out what an ideal city and healthy
state should be and how it evolve. The importance of education and inner values
determines the happy life of a just man who also lives with a community of just
men. The just person is happier than the unjust person is.
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Name: Score:
Curriculum and Section:
Subject:
Unit No.: Date:
Let’s Do This!
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4. One possible drawback of democracy is its tendency toward
(a) populism
(b) oligarchy
(c) tyranny
(d) technocracy
(e) aristocracy
6.
(a) Justice is the right order of the soul
(b) the just person is happier than the unjust person
(c) if the city is composed of just persons, then the just city
is happier than the unjust cities
(d) The city cannot go opposite to what is good for the soul
(e) all of those mentioned earlier, define the city-soul analogy.
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(c) designed to focus on military skills and tactics for war
and invasion
(d) designed to teach the good infusing arithmetic geometry,
astronomy and music
(e) designed to teach trading, diplomacy and political values
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Lesson 3: Great Political Theories
Lesson Outcome:
At the end of this lesson, learners must have:
1. differentiated great political theories established as alternative standards
of operations in a society and polity and explained the subtle meanings
underlying the thought.
I will present four political theories only for you to carry as you go through
life. These are the ideas on The Social Contract, Romanticism and Idealism,
Utilitarianism and Marxism. I hope these concepts will make you more equipped in
facing deals and ordeals in the societies you circulate now and in years ahead.
1. The Social Contract presents the reconciliation of the freedom of the individual
with the authority of the state. It appears to be like the constitution of the land.
In particular, it says.
Each of us puts his person and all his power in common, under
the supreme direction of the general will and in our corporate
capacity; we receive each member as an indivisible part of
the whole.
2. Lastly, each man, in giving himself to all, gives himself to nobody, and as
there is no associate over whom he does not acquire the same rights as he
yields others over himself, he gains an equivalent for everything he loses
and an increase of force for the preservation of what he has. in simple words,
social contract is an agreement between the individual and the society and or
the government about upholding certain rights and abiding on certain laws in
order to ensure smooth relationship dynamics of citizens in a city or a country.
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of the main characteristics of Romantic literature include a focus on the writer
or narrator’s emotions and inner world; celebration of nature, beauty, and
imagination; rejection of industrialization, organized religion, rationalism, and
social convention; idealization of women, children, and rural life. Imagination,
emotion and freedom are the focal points of romanticism.
Democracy Republic
Vote for
Majority Based change Constitution
decisions based decisions
Economic
National System Individual
Sovereignty Sovereignty
Social
No constraint on Structure Constraints the
the Government Government
Figure 1
6. Another key theme is the Sublime and the Transcendence. Many had
become fascinated with the ideal of sublime in physical, moral, intellectual,
metaphysical, aesthetic, spiritual greatness. Such greatness is beyond
measure and sublimity is on the perception of the perceiver, mind and
imagination. The briefest definition of sublimity is the presence of exquisite
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and admirable quality of beauty. Edmund Burke disputes such. He says there
are sublime experiences that bring terror, like seeing tsunami, or walking in
the edge of a cliff etc.
7. Absorbed by the personal genius of man, it was believed that this man got
the inspiration from tutelary spirits teaching him to work in certain set of
acceptable and admirable behaviour. This concept of some experiences of
inspiration symbolizes the truth of external realm called the transcendence.
The power of the imagination, genius, and the source of inspiration is real.
9. Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that states that the best action is the
one that maximizes utility. Jeremy Bentham, the founder of utilitarianism,
described utility as the sum of all pleasure that results from an action, minus
the suffering of anyone involved in the action. Jeremy Bentham (1748—
1832) Jeremy Bentham was an English philosopher and political radical. He
is primarily known today for his moral philosophy, especially his principle of
utilitarianism, which evaluates actions based upon their consequences.
10. Utilitarianism is one of the best known and most influential moral theories.
Utilitarians believe that the purpose of morality is to make life better by
increasing the amount of good things (such as pleasure and happiness)
in the world and decreasing the amount of bad things (such as pain and
unhappiness). The goal of utilitarian ethics is to promote the greatest happiness
for the greatest number. Jeremy Bentham, an English philosopher, was the
founder of utilitarianism; John Stuart Mill was its best-known defender.
11. Utilitarianism is based on the Greatest Happiness Principle, which states that
actions are considered moral when they promote utility and immoral when
they promote the reverse. Utility, itself, is, defined by Mill as happiness with
the absence of pain.
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12. There are three principles that served as the basic axioms of utilitarianism.
a. Pleasure or happiness Is the only thing that truly has intrinsic value.
b. Actions are right insofar as they promote happiness, wrong insofar
as they produce unhappiness.
c. Everyone’s Happiness Counts Equally.
14. Marxist social and political thought encompasses the Marxist class conflict
and Marxian economics. Together with Friedrich Engels, he wrote The
Communist Manifesto that lays the theory of class struggle and revolution.
Marx presented the flaws of capitalism in his book Das Kapital and argued
that capitalism shall naturally vanish because of the chaotic nature of free
market and surplus of labour.
15. Marx portrayed capitalist society as composing of the bourgeoisie and
the proletariat, i.e. the ones controlling the means of production and the
workers that transform raw commodities to valuable economic goods. The
bourgeoisie‘s power to control capital allows them to limit workers‘ ability
to produce and obtain what they need to survive. Capitalism is all about
commodities bought and sold, reducing the value of labour as another kind
of commodity for sale, like cars, wine, cloth and the like making labourers
weak in the capitalist economic system.
16. One very influential concept introduced in Marxist political and economic
thought is the labour surplus theory. This measures the difference between
wages paid to the workers and the price of goods sold, which the workers
previously manufactured. For example, if a worker who is making wall clocks
is given a daily wage of $300 and his productivity rate is 8 clocks per day,
which clock is sold for $300 each and that the market absorbs all 8 clocks
daily, then the value of labour of the worker is reduced to only one clock and
the revenue from the remaining clocks sold belongs to the capitalists. The
$2100 difference is called the surplus value of labour that is not enjoyed by
the workers.
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17. To maintain their position of power and privilege, the bourgeoisie employ social
institutions as tools and weapons against the proletariat. The government
enforces the will of the bourgeoisie by physical coercion to enforce the
laws and private property rights to the means of production. The media and
academics, or intelligentsia, produce propaganda to suppress awareness of
class relations among the proletariat and rationalize the capitalist system.
Organized religion provides a similar function to convince the proletariat to
accept and submit to their own exploitation based on fictional divine sanction,
which Marx called “the opium of the masses.” The banking and financial
system facilitates the consolidation of capitalist ownership of the means of
production, ensnares the workers with predatory debt, and engineers regular
financial crises and recessions to ensure a sufficient supply of unemployed
labour in order to undermine workers‘ bargaining power. (Investopedia)
a. Surround yourself with people who make you happy, people who
make you laugh, who help you when you‘re in need, people who
genuinely care. They are the ones worth keeping in your life.
Everyone else is just passing through.
b. The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways.
The point, however, is to change it.
c. Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of
real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the
sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and
the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
d. The less you eat, drink and read books; the less you go to the
theatre, the dance hall, the public house; the less you think, love,
theorize, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you save-the greater
becomes your treasure which neither moths nor dust will devour-
your capital. The less you are, the more you have; the less you
express your own life, the greater is your alienated life-the greater
is the store of your estranged being.
e. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The
proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a
world to win. Workingmen of all countries unite!
f. I am nothing but I must be everything.
g. If anything is certain, it is that I myself am not a Marxist.
h. If money is the bond binding me to human life, binding society to
me, connecting me with nature and man, is not money the bond of
all bonds? Can it not dissolve and bind all ties? Is it not, therefore,
also the universal agent of separation?
i. In proportion therefore, as the repulsiveness of the work increases,
the wage decreases
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Summary
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Name: Score:
Curriculum and Section:
Subject:
Unit No.: Date:
Let’s Do This!
Answer in five lines only for five full points each number.
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Lesson 4. Global Governance and Interstate System
Lesson Outcome:
At the end of this lesson, the learners must have:
1. explained how the world operates in a highly differentiated sovereignties
of countries.
1. World Government is an idea where every country unites under one political
authority, but this has not happened yet. Proponents reasoned that such
political organization will solve problems on war, production of weapon for
mass destruction, poverty and inequality as well as environmental decay. The
more modern objective is to design global institutions that move humanity
world federalism or cosmopolitan democracy. (Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy). Opposing this move suggests that this is infeasible, undesirable
and totally unnecessary.
3. If global world sounds infeasible, global economy is far from different. When
governments control their own specific economies, big banks and large
companies fund these governments. In effect, these large financial institutions
and corporations dominate and control global economies (Burrows). Less
than one per cent of the companies 40% of the entire business ownership
network in the global economy. This organization controls the financial flows
going in and coming out the economies.
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prostitution, and burglary. Police matters become one of the hit news in
each morning headlines and some dirty politicians may take advantage of
the poor by hiring them as internet trolls against their opponents. Another
social could come out from this trolling game. It could create social upheavals
and collective disruptions making the ordinary citizen and less informed
individuals confused.
Summary
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Name: Score:
Curriculum and Section:
Subject:
Unit No.: Date:
Let’s Do This!
I hope I have helped a little. Thank you for this opportunity. I am glad
to have connected with you.
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