I.
LIBERALISM THEORISTS
LIBERALISM
- from Latin liberalis, it is a brand of political
ideology or worldview originated from the
ideas of liberty and equality.
- a group of political, social, and economic
theories that centers on the values of
individual liberty, equality, economic
freedom, limited and democratic
government and the rule of law.
As a political principle, liberalism did not emerge
until the early nineteenth century. However, liberal
thoughts and values had been developed through
enormous social changes from the sixteenth
century, and can even be traced back to as early as
ancient Greece and Rome, although there are some
distinctions in the main elements. (Vincent
Geoghegan, Rick Wilford, 2014).
CLASSICAL LIBERALISM
- is a political and economic ideology that
advocates the protection of civil liberties
and laissez-faire economic freedom by
limiting the power of the central
government.
- developed in the early 19th century, the
term is often used in contrast to the
philosophy of modern social liberalism.
a. interested in promoting the interests
of individuals
b. maximum rights and freedoms for
individuals
c. free government rules and
regulations
MODERN LIBERALISM
- as an ideology, modern liberalism combines
ideas of civil liberty (freedom) and equality
with support for social justice and a mixed
economy.
- historians consider the emergence of
socialism, and in turn modern liberalism, as
a response to some of the appalling
conditions present in classical liberal
societies of the Industrial Revolution.
Modern liberalism was preceded by classical
liberalism and both are part of liberalism as
an ideology.
a. government laws to guarantee a
minimum standard of living for all
citizens
b. collective rights and freedoms are as
important as individual rights and
freedom
c. government regulations to manage
the market economy
1. JOHN LOCKE
- born on August 29, 1632 in
Wrington, United Kingdom
- died on October 28, 1704 in High
Laver, United Kingdom
● English Philosopher and Physician
● Classical Liberal
● Father of Liberalism
- John Locke is recognized for
establishing liberalism as a discrete
philosophical tradition.
- Each man has a natural right to life,
liberty and property, and
governments must not violate these
rights.
- Locke’s Two Treatises on
Government established two
fundamental liberal ideas:
a. economic liberty (meaning
the right to have and use the
property); and
b. intellectual liberty (including
freedom of conscience)
- Locke’s liberalism philosophy is
driven by humanity.
- His true objective was to allow
humans to live happier and fuller
lives, engaging their spiritual or
religious natures.
- His philosophy accepts diversity,
provides citizens the freedom to
pursue diverse goals, and supports
peaceful cooperation throughout the
world.
B. ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
- born on: July 29, 1808 at Paris.
France
- died on: April 16, 1859 on Cannes,
France
● Political scientist, Historian, and Politician.
● Comes from an aristocratic family.
● A classical liberal and favored a democratic,
parliamentary government.
- Some Notable Works: “Democracy in
America”, “The Old Regime and the
Revolution”
- Liberalism tends to be marinated in
optimism to such an extent that it
sometimes shades into naivety. Tocqueville
believed that liberal optimism needs to be
served with a side-order of pessimism. Far
from being automatic, progress depends on
wise government and sensible policy.
- Tocqueville understood the importance of
ensuring that the collective business of
society is done as much as possible by the
people themselves, through voluntary effort,
rather than by the government.
- Tocqueville’s liberalism was driven by two
forces:
a. his fierce commitment to the
sanctity of the individual
b. his unshakable belief that the future
lay with “democracy”
- Tocqueville was certain that it was
impossible to have liberty without
democracy, but he worried that it was
possible to have democracy without liberty.
- Tocqueville’s contribution to liberalism was
to identify a structural flaw in democratic
societies.
- Tocqueville worried that states might use
the principle of equality to accumulate
power and ride roughshod over local
traditions and local communities.
- Tocqueville believed that a liberal society
depended ultimately on Christian morality.
- He was not blind to the faults of American
democracy.
- Democracy tends to eliminate the authority
of established pastoral and hierarchic
institutions, thereby producing a new état
social [social state] wherein each individual
is treated as being by nature equal to every
other.
- In the absence of liberty, democracy would
deteriorate into new despotism, which
would destroy or weaken human dignity.
C. JOHN STUART MILL
- born on: May 20, 1806 at London,
England
- died on: May 8, 1873 at Avignon,
France
● He was an English philosopher, economist,
and exponent of utilitarianism.
● He was prominent as a publicist in the
reforming age of the 19th century, and
remains of lasting interest as a logician and
an ethical theorist.
● He is a unique example of the man who
incarnated the liberal movement in
19th-century England in all its phases:
Utilitarianism, Classical Economy,
Philosophic Radicalism, and in its later
democratic phase, universal suffrage,
including women, proportional
representation, and social reform.
● He favored a democratic, representative
government.
- Notable Works: “System of Logi”,
“On Liberty”, “Utilitarianism”, and
“An Examination of Sir William
Hamilton’s Philosophy”.
- John Stuart Mill dominated liberal thought
during the nineteenth century with insights
offered into the harm principle, free will, the
despotism of custom, experiments in living,
utilitarianism, and electoral reform.
a. HARM PRINCIPLE: John Stuart Mill begins
with the proposition that we are sovereign
entities capable of exercising free will. We
should be free to pursue actions that in no
way constrain the liberty of others.
b. DESPOTISM OF CUSTOM: Mill warns us
against the mediocrity of public opinion. He
believes there is a tendency to tell everyone
to act in the same manner.
c. EXPERIMENTS IN LIVING: We need to
facilitate “experiments in living” in order
that freedom is experienced to the very full.
A liberal society is one that tolerates the full
diversity of lifestyles.
d. UTILITARIANISM: Mill believed that “actions
are right in proportion as they tend to
promote happiness, wrong as they tend to
produce the reverse of happiness.
e. ELECTORAL REFORM: Mill favored
democratic suffrage. He favored it not
because he regarded suffrage as a “natural
right” given to anyone just because they
were born, but because he was convinced
that democracy was the most essential of
securities for good government.
- From the liberalism identified with a proper
suffrage and laissez-faire policies, Mill
passed to the new liberalism of universal
suffrage and social reform without entirely
abandoning his fundamental Utilitarian
principles.
D. IMMANUEL KANT
- born on: April 22, 1724 at
Königsberg, Prussia (now known as
Kaliningrad, Russia)
- died on: February 12, 1804 at
Königsberg.
● German philosopher whose comprehensive
and systematic work in epistemology (the
theory of knowledge), ethics, and aesthetics
greatly influenced all subsequent
philosophy, especially the various schools of
Kantianism and idealism.
● Kant was one of the foremost thinkers of
the Enlightenment and arguably one of the
greatest philosophers of all time. In him
were new trends that had begun with the
rationalism (stressing reason) of René
Descartes and the empiricism (stressing
experience) of Francis Bacon. He thus
inaugurated a new era in the development
of philosophical thought.
 - Notable Works: “Critique of
Judgment”, “Critique of Practical
Reason”, and “Critique of Pure
Reason”
- Kant’s practical philosophy lends itself to a
type of liberalism that recognizes the
importance of individual freedom and
self-determination, but takes the promotion
of these values to provide the justification
of coercion within only a fairly narrow range
of circumstances, both from state and
non-state entities.
- “Freedom (independence from being
constrained by another’s choice), insofar as
it can coexist with the freedom of every
other in accordance with a universal law, is
the only original right belonging to every
man by virtue of his humanity”
- In his moral philosophy, individual freedom
or autonomy is the “supreme principle of
morality”. For Kant, an individual is
autonomous when he adopts principles for
action consistent with the categorical
imperative.
● CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE - commands or
moral laws all persons must follow,
regardless of their desires or extenuating
circumstances.
- Kant claims that individuals are under a
moral obligation to enter civil society, and,
further, that individuals are justified in
coercing others to enter this condition with
them if they refuse to do so willingly.
Although coercion violates individual
freedom and is wrong as a general rule, if
an individual’s use of freedom “is itself a
hindrance to freedom in accordance with
universal laws (i.e., wrong), coercion that is
opposed to this (as a hindering of a
hindrance to freedom) is consistent with
freedom in accordance with universal laws,
that is, it is right”.
- Immanuel Kant developed the idea in the
late eighteenth century that states that
shared liberal values should have no reason
for going to war against one another.
E. JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU
- born on June 28, 1712 in Geneva,
Switzerland
- died on July 2, 1778 in Ermenonville,
France
● Swiss-born philosopher, writer, and political
theorist whose treatises and novels inspired
the leaders of the French Revolution and
the Romantic generation.
● His thought marked the end of the
European Enlightenment.
- Rousseau cared passionately for both liberty
and equality.
- For him true liberty is “moral liberty.”
- In response to the following query posed by
the Academy of Dijon: “What is the origin of
the inequality among men and is it justified
by natural law?” He produced a masterpiece
of speculative anthropology.
- The argument follows that of the First
Discourse (Discourse on the Arts and
Sciences) by developing the proposition
that people are naturally good and then
tracing the successive stages by which they
have descended from primitive innocence to
corrupt sophistication.
- Beginning the Second Discourse
(Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of
Inequality Among Men), Rousseau
separates inequality into two categories:
natural and artificial, the first arising from
differences in strength, intelligence, and so
forth, the second from the conventions that
govern societies.
- He argued against Thomas Hobbes that
human life before the formation of societies
was healthy, happy, and free and that vice
arose as the result of social organization
and especially the introduction of private
property.
- He said that civil society primarily exists to
maintain peace and defend property, which
not everyone owns; as a result, it
constitutes a false social contract that only
serves to further inequality.
- Rousseau regards inequality not as a
separate problem but as one of the features
of the long process by which human beings
become alienated from nature and from
innocence.
- Rousseau makes the case in The Social
Contract that a civil society based on a
genuine social contract, as opposed to a
false one, would give people a better kind
of freedom in exchange for their inherent
independence, namely, political liberty,
which he understands as obedience to a
self-imposed law created by the "general
will."
F. ROBERT NOZICK
- born on November 16, 1938 in
Brooklyn, New York
- died on January 23, 2002 in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, United
States
● A libertarian philosopher
● He became widely known through his 1974
book, Anarchy, State, and Utopia.
 - Nozick was a right-libertarian; he believed
that people own themselves and have a
right to private property.
- He described individual human beings as
"self-owners"
- He said that individuals have certain rights;
a. rights to their lives
b. liberty
c. fruit of their labor
● Libertarianism "distributive justice"
- The concern for Nozick is to make
sure that resources are distributed in
a just way.
● Entitlement Theory
- Its argument is that a system is just
if everyone is entitled to the holdings
they possess.
2 Kinds of Holdings:
a. Original acquisition of owning
- claim ownership over an
"unowned property" that has
no history of being owned.
b. Transfer of owning
- acquiring property through a
just transfer of ownership
● There are conditions for a transfer of
owning to be just:
1. can't be stolen
2. can't involve fraud
3. there can't be enslavement
4. has to be open competition
History is crucial to know if the acquisition is just or
unjust.
II. MARXISM
MARXISM
- is a social, political, and economic
philosophy named after Karl Marx. It was
first publicly formulated in 1848 in the
pamphlet “The Communist Manifesto” by
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels which lays
out the theory of class struggle and
revolution.
- It inspects the effects of capitalism on labor,
productivity, and economic development
and argues for a worker revolution to
overturn capitalism in favor of communism.
- It hypothesizes that the struggle between
social classes specifically between the
bourgeoisie or capitalists and the proletariat
or workers defines economic relations in a
capitalist economy and will inevitably lead
to revolutionary communism.
THEORISTS
1. KARL MARX
- Karl Marx was a German philosopher,
economist, historian, sociologist,
political theorist, journalist, critic of
political economy, and socialist
revolutionary.
- He was born in Germany in 1818
and died in London in 1883.
● He was interested in exploring the
relationship between the economy and the
people working within the economic system.
● Marx’s theory was strongly based on the
struggles of the working class during the
Industrial Revolution in Europe. He
explained how there are power relationships
between the capitalists and the workers,
which are exploitative and would eventually
cause class conflict.
● According to Marx, the workers are those
from a low social class, which he termed the
proletariat, whereas those few in charge,
the wealthy bosses, owners, and managers,
are what he termed the bourgeoisie.
● The proletariat are the individuals who
perform the labor, while the bourgeoisie
obtains the profits from this labor.
- Noteworthy writings of Marx include
"Capital" and "The Communist
Manifesto" (together with Friedrich
Engels). These writings describe the
features of Marxist ideology,
including the struggle of the working
class, capitalism, and how a
classless society is needed to end
the class conflict.
CLASS STRUGGLE
- Marx argued that there is a struggle
between the social classes. While the
bourgeoisie is concerned with the means of
producing via the laborers, those who
conduct the labor, the proletariat, want to
end this exploitation.
DESTRUCTION OF CAPITALISM
- Marx believed that capitalism inherently
contained the seeds of its own destruction.
The separation and exploitation of the
proletariat that are fundamental to capitalist
relations would inevitably drive the working
class to rebel against the bourgeoisie and
seize control of the means of production.
- As a result of the revolution, Marx predicted
that private ownership of the means of
production would be replaced by collective
ownership; first under socialism and under
communism. In the final stage of human
 development, social classes and class
struggle would no longer exist.
2. VLADIMIR ILYICH LENIN
- A Russian revolutionary, politician,
and political theorist.
- He was born on April 22, 1870
(Simbirsk, Russia) and died on
January 21, 1924 (Gorki near
Moscow).
- He served as the first and founding
head of government of Soviet Russia
(1917 to 1924) and of the Soviet
Union (1922 to 1924).
- Ideologically a Marxist, his
development of the ideology is
known as Leninism.
LENINISM
- Leninism is a political ideology and set of
theories developed by Vladimir Lenin, who
led the Bolshevik party and the October
Russian revolution in 1917.
- It is considered to be a development or
variation of Marxism and it is often referred
to as Marxism-Leninism.
- It emphasizes the need for a revolutionary
vanguard party, composed of professional
revolutionaries, to lead the working class in
the overthrow of capitalism and the
establishment of a socialist state.
- Lenin believed that the working class alone
could not achieve socialism without the
guidance of a highly organized and
disciplined political party. He also believed
that socialism could not be established in
one country alone but needed to spread
internationally.
IMPORTANT CHARACTERISTICS OF
LENINISM
a. The importance of a revolutionary
vanguard party: a professional
revolutionary party is necessary to lead the
working class in the overthrow of capitalism
and the establishment of a socialist state.
b. The dictatorship of the proletariat:
dictatorship of the proletariat was necessary
during the transition from capitalism to
socialism.
c. Proletarian internationalism: socialism
could not be established in one country
alone but needed to spread internationally.
d. The theory of imperialism: imperialism is
the highest stage of capitalism, and it would
lead to the collapse of the capitalist system.
e. The concept of “revolutionary
defeatism”: socialists should not support
their capitalist government but rather work
to bring about the defeat of their
government to hasten the revolution.
f. Centralized and planned economy:
centralizing and planning the economy will
achieve the goal of socialism and eliminate
exploitation of the working class.
3. LEON TROTSKY
- Leon Trotsky was born on November
7, 1879 in Yanovka, Ukraine (Russian
Empire). Died on August 21,1940.
- Leon Trotsky was a Communist
theorist and Agitator, and the leader
of Russia's October revolution in
1927.
- Trotsky remained the leader of an
anti-stalinist opposition abroad until
his assassination by a stalinist agent.
● Trotsky's contribution to historical
materialism has been subject to two broadly
defined critical assessments. Detractors
have tended to dismiss his interpretation of
Marxism as a form of productive force
determinism, while admirers have tended to
defend his Marxism as a voluntarist
negation of the same.
● Trotsky's Marxism can best be understood
as a powerful application and deepening of
the strongest elements of Second
International methodology to a novel set of
problems. Thus, against Trotsky's admirers,
I locate his Marxism as both emerging out
of, in addition to breaking with Second
International Marxism; while, against his
critics, argue that it was precisely the
strengths of this earlier interpretation of
Marxism that informed Trotsky's powerful
contributions to historical materialism: his
concept of combined and uneven
development and his discussion of the role
of individual agents within the Marxist
interpretation of history.
● Trotsky’s theory of Trotskyism or
“permanent revolution” held that,
historically, an economic system had to be
seen as a world system rather than a
national one. All national economic
development was affected by the laws of
the world market, even though such
regional factors as location, population,
available resources, and pressure from
surrounding countries made the rate of
development different in each country.
Thus, in Trotsky’s view, the Russian
Revolution, to be permanently successful,
would have to depend on revolutions in
other countries, particularly in western
Europe. His theory also emphasized the
hegemony of the working class over the
revolutionary class because of their strategic
 position in industry and other advanced
sectors of the economy.
4. ANTONIO GRAMSCI
- Antonio Gramsci was born in 1891
and died in 1937.
- Gramsci was an influential Marxist
theorist of cultural and political
domination in "developed
capitalism". However, his career was
of a radica; journalist and
revolutionary organizer, not a
professional philosopher.
- Gramsci was also a social activist,
cultural commentator and later, the
communist party leader in Italy.
● Like the early Marx, Gramsci was an
emphatic proponent of historicism. In
Gramsci's view, all meaning derives from
the relation between human practical
activity (or praxis) and the objective
historical and social processes of which it is
a part.
● Ideas cannot be understood outside their
social and historical context, apart from
their function and origin. The concepts by
which we organise our knowledge of the
world do not derive primarily from our
relation to objects, but rather from the
social relations between the users of those
concepts. As a result, there is no such thing
as an unchanging human nature, but only
historically variable social relationships.
● For Gramsci, the ruling class individuals in
positions of power and influence use
hegemonic ideas to gain domination over
the subjugated classes.
● Hegemony prevails by getting consent from
the masses of ordinary people through
common sense.
- common sense means the way that
individuals look to common sense to
guide them in their immediate
private concerns.
- where it does not challenge the
status quo but embraces it by
common sense.
● Gramsci understood that the educational
task belonged to intellectuals—not merely
to advance a superior and abstract
philosophy but to work on common sense,
thereby “renovating and making ‘critical’ an
already existing activity” .
● A hegemonic (hegemony) worldview had to
connect to the “simple” to become
embedded in everyday life. The past
success of traditional intellectuals in this
regard explained the ongoing influence of
the Catholic Church in Italy.
5. MAO ZEDONG
- 1893-1976
- The son of a peasant farmer, Mao
Tse-tung was born in the village of
Shao Shan, Hunan province in
China. At age 27, Mao attended the
First Congress of the Chinese
Communist Party in Shanghai, in
July 1921. Two years later he was
elected to the Central Committee of
the party at the Third Congress.
- From 1931 to 1934, Mao helped
establish the Chinese Soviet Republic
in SE China, and was elected as the
chairman.
- Zedong served as the Chairman until
his death in 1976
● Maoism, officially called Mao Zedong
Thought by the Chinese Communist Party, is
a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao
Zedong developed to realise a socialist
revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial
society of the Republic of China and later
the People's Republic of China. The
philosophical difference between Maoism
and traditional Marxism–Leninism is that the
peasantry is the revolutionary vanguard in
pre-industrial societies rather than the
proletariat.
● Maoism is a form of communism developed
by Mao Tse Tung. It is a doctrine to capture
State power through a combination of
armed insurgency, mass mobilization and
strategic alliances. The Maoists also use
propaganda and disinformation against
State institutions as other components of
their insurgency doctrine. Mao called this
process, the ‘Protracted People's War’ ,
where the emphasis is on ‘military line’ to
capture power.
Central theme of Maoist ideology:
The central theme of Maoist ideology is the
use of violence and armed insurrection as a means
to capture State power. ‘Bearing of arms is
non-negotiable’ as per the Maoist insurgency
doctrine. The maoist ideology glorifies violence and
the ‘People's Liberation Guerrilla Army’ (PLGA)
cadres are trained specifically in the worst forms of
violence to evoke terror among the population
under their domination. However, they also use the
subterfuge of mobilizing people over issues of
purported inadequacies of the existing system, so
that they can be indoctrinated to take recourse to
violence as the only means of redressal.
 III. SOCIALISM
ORIGIN OF SOCIALISM
- Socialism became a political ideology in the
nineteenth century. It came to exist as a
response against the emergence of the
industrial revolution. Socialism aimed
primarily to wrestle the faith of ordinary
artisans and craftsmen who were
threatened by the onset of industrial
capacity or the ability of the factories to
flood the market of maximum production.
SOCIALISM
- Socialism is a social and economic doctrine
that calls for public rather than private
ownership or control of property and natural
resources. It is a movement encompassing
a wide range of economic and social
systems, which are characterized by social
ownership of the means of production, as
opposed to private ownership.
CHARACTERISTICS OF SOCIALISM
a. Economics
b. Common Ownership
c. Social Class
d. Social Equality
THEORISTS
1. THOMAS PAINE
- February 9, 1737- June 8, 1809
- An English-born American Founding
Father, political activist, philosopher,
political theorist, and revolutionary.
- He authored Common Sense (1776)
and The American Crisis
(1776–1783), two of the most
influential pamphlets at the start of
the American Revolution, and he
helped to inspire the Patriots in 1776
to declare independence from Great
Britain.
- His ideas reflected
Enlightenment-era ideals of human
rights.
PAINE ON SOCIALISM
- Thomas Paine did not explicitly endorse
socialism as a political and economic
system, as the term did not exist during his
lifetime.
- Paine was a prominent figure of democratic
governance, equality, and social justice,
which are principles that many socialist
ideologies share.
LITERARY WORKS OF THOMAS PAINE
a. Rights of Man
- A book by Thomas Paine, consisting
of 31 articles
- Made in defense of the French
Revolution and a critique of the
British Political system
- Paine explored the idea that
government based on true justice
should support not only mankind's
natural rights but also its civil rights
● Critique of Monarchy
● Advocacy for Democracy
● Critique for Private Property
● Advocacy for Public
Education
b. Agrarian Justice
- A pamphlet written by Thomas Paine
and published in 1797
- Proposed that those who possess
cultivated land owe the community a
ground rent, which justifies an
estate tax to fund universal old-age
and disability pensions and a fixed
sum to be paid to all citizens upon
reaching maturity.
A republican government and equality among
citizens.
2. JOHN RAWLS
- February 21, 1921 – November 24,
2002
- Born on February 21, 1921, in
Maryland, John Rawls attended
school in Baltimore.
- Rawls pursued a Bachelor of Arts
degree at Princeton University,
where he graduated summa cum
laude in 1943. Immediately after
graduating from Princeton University,
he served in the military between
1943 and 1946. After his military
service, Rawls returned to Princeton
in 1946 for his doctorate in Moral
Philosophy.
- Rawls is best known for his book "A
Theory of Justice," which was
published in 1971.
RAWLS' POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY ON
SOCIALISM (Early Views on Socialism)
1. It would need to ensure that everyone had
equal access to the basic goods and
services necessary for a decent standard of
living, such as food, shelter, and healthcare.
2. It would need to ensure that the distribution
of income and wealth was arranged so as to
benefit the least advantaged members of
society.
John Rawls is widely known for his work on political
philosophy and justice, particularly his influential
book "A Theory of Justice" published in 1971.
Rawls was a proponent of social justice and
believed that a just society must be based on a set
of principles that are fair and reasonable to all
members, regardless of their social status, race, or
economic class.
● ORIGINAL POSITION
- It is a hypothetical situation in which
individuals are placed behind a veil
of ignorance, meaning that they are
not aware of their social class, race,
gender, abilities, beliefs, or any other
personal characteristics that could
give them an advantage or
disadvantage in society.
● VEIL OF IGNORANCE
- Rawls proposed that in order to
determine principles of justice that
are fair and impartial, we should
imagine ourselves in a hypothetical
situation known as the "original
position," where we are placed
behind a veil of ignorance that
prevents us from knowing our own
personal characteristics, such as our
gender, race, social class, abilities,
and preferences.
THE TWO PRINCIPLES OF JUSTICE
1. Principle of Equal Liberty
- The principle of equal liberty is the
first principle of justice to be derived
from the original position. It states
that all citizens have an equal right
to basic liberties, which, according to
Rawls, entails freedom of
conscience, expression, association,
and democratic rights.
2. Principle of Equality
- The principle of equality holds that
economic principles should be
arranged in a way that they meet
two requirements.
- First, the least advantaged in
society should receive a
greater number of benefits.
- Second, the economic
inequalities should be
arranged in a way that no
individual is blocked from
occupying any position or
office, regardless of their
ethnicity, sex, or social
background.
RAWLS POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY ON
SOCIALISM (Later Views on Socialism)
- In the 1990s, Rawls became more
sympathetic to the idea of socialism and
began to explore the possibility of a socialist
society that was consistent with his
principles of justice.
- One of the key factors that led to Rawls's
shift in thinking was his growing concern
about the growing economic inequality in
modern societies.
- Rawls also became increasingly interested in
the idea of democratic socialism, which he
saw as a way to reconcile the competing
values of freedom and equality.
In his later work, Rawls began to explore the idea
of a socialist society that was based on his
principles of justice. He argued that a socialist
society could be just if it met certain conditions,
such as:
a. It must ensure that everyone has equal
access to the basic goods and services
necessary for a decent life, including
healthcare, education, and housing.
b. It must provide everyone with meaningful
opportunities to participate in the political
and economic life of society.
c. It must promote social solidarity and a
sense of community among its citizens.
d. It must respect individual freedoms and
protect the rights of minorities.
Rawls believed in a just and fair society that
prioritizes the needs of the least advantaged
members, but he also recognized the importance of
a balance between socialism and capitalism to
ensure prosperity and innovation.
3. JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU
- June 28, 1712 – July 2, 1778
- Rousseau was a philosopher, writer,
and composer of the 18th century
Enlightenment.
- His political philosophy had
influenced the French revolution and
had the seeds of the development of
many modern thoughts.
- Although Rousseau is often
considered as a "proto-socialist"
political thinker whose ideas would
influence Karl Marx's socialist
theories, Rousseau would spend the
rest of his life advocating for direct,
non-representative democracy rather
than socialism.
ROUSSEAU'S GENERAL WILL
- General will, in political theory, a collectively
held will that aims at the common good or
common interest. The general will is central
to the political philosophy of Jean-Jacques
Rousseau.
ROUSSEAU'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
CONTAINING THE SEEDS OF SOCIALISM
1. In his essay, Discourse on the Origin of
Inequality (1755), he showed how greed
had corrupted man, how strong man had
captured the land and property and had
forced the weak to obey them.
2. He says that there are two types of
inequality:
 a. Natural Inequality - some are lazy,
some are intelligent. It can be
tolerated as it is beyond control.
b. Inequality created by society - the
privileged section of society has the
right to get a job but the weaker
section does not. He said that this
type of inequality must be removed.
3. He claims that the absence of private
property was the most ideal state for
humans. Property has given rise to violence,
corruption, and greed.
4. In his vision of a perfect world, Rousseau
wanted people to be at their most natural
state. His frequent denouncements of
inequality and the ownership of private
property even bore an early suggestion of
communism.
5. His ‘General Will’ also contained elements of
socialism as it gave more importance to
common good over the interest of
individuals.