Political Theory

A great book to read that helps explain the divide between liberals/left wingers and conservatives/right wingers over social justice is Thomas Sowell in his book A Conflict of Visions. Basically, he outlines what he terms the constrained and unconstrained visions (the former traditionally conservative, the latter traditionally liberal). The constrained vision is concerned with process, the unconstrained with results.

The pros of social justice by those advocating it (only those with the unconstrained vision) include the attempt to immediately address results, such as in creating welfare programs or redistributing wealth or creating affirmative action programs designed to level the playing field if it is felt that some groups are dominating too much power or wealth at the expense of others. A pro is that social justice is close to what psychologist Jonathan Haidt called the Care/Harm Moral Foundation (however the conservatives who are against social justice are higher in the other 5 moral foundations than are the liberals, and he maintains that we require all 6 to establish a stable society - hence social justice in a way expresses one moral foundation at the expense of the other 5).

However, Hayek has argued brilliantly that actually while compassion may appear to underpin the spirit of social justice, it is actually darker in intention than that, since it is NOT merely urging citizens to use compassion to help those in need. Rather, it usually involves a governmental body coercing citizens to mobilize the wealth produced by society to act to theoretically uplift one sectional group deemed in need of special representation. Hayek has also pointed out that injustice may not be measured as it is entirely subjective and relativistic what some consider unjust in the first place. As all justice is social, the very term is deemed meaningless by its critics.

The cons as articulated by the constrained vision is that the process itself, or social system as it evolved with its existing incentives, becomes thwarted, and that that is dangerous, as to circumvent existing traditions and laws by creating bigger government to act on the behalf of the underprivileged is to dismantle the process by which humans evolved to establishing the greatest freedoms possible, especially over the millenia it took to move beyond slavery and feudalism. To create a powerful government acting on behalf of the less fortunate is to remove the incentives by which the less fortunate may rise by themselves, and the incentives by which the more fortunate obtained their privilege, which it is hypothesized creates many benefits to those they employed or to those consuming their goods or services. Thus, those who oppose social justice may be closer to behavioral principles with which we may be most familiar as parents - we know what happens when we cater to every child's whims (not counting occasional treating and a required generous spirit and love) - we must work as parents to provide the incentives for our children to develop toward their own independence.

A book by McWhorter called Winning The Race is a conservative critique of welfarism, coming from an African-American concerned about how the post-Civil Rights well-intentioned social justice activists combined with the mid 1960s anti-system leftist rhetoric unintentionally led poor African-Americans to develop dependence upon the welfare check, cease looking for work, and become unhealthy models for their children who sought illegal means of making a living, leading eventually to the violent inner-cities we know so well. Those against social justice would say humans are inevitable flawed emotionally, intellectually and morally, a hypothesis psychologists who study cognitive biases and the role of emotion upon thinking would agree with, and so they would argue that social justice is dangerous because it tampers with long-evolved legal, economic, familial and spiritual traditions (the process) to reach certain ends that are actually impossible to reach given the complexity of human nature and human society.

Thus, the pros of social justice include the heartfelt intentions, which everyone can understand, but the unfortunate side effects of parents, lawyers, judges, psychologists, politicians, activists, governments, ceasing to do what they do best, but taking on an elitist "I know best" additional social justice role of speaking on behalf of others is that the structure of a potentially free society is weakened because the incentives, traditions and very often the laws themselves, that underpin the society are tampered with.

It ruled in favor of having a place where people can vote freely and effectively

yes in California - through the proposition system -- the latest was prop 8 which said a marriage is between one man and one women.

8x8x2

The communist party of the Peoples Republic of China saw the advantages of a free market economy. They created one that seems to operate on at least a semi-free market system, complete with a stock market and individual "millionaires". A shock to Marxists of the school of Marxism-Leninism. The Party leaders, however, still have the ultimate control of how the government should operate. There remains only one true political party in China, the revisionist communist party.

Communism is a form of authoritarian government which was used in the 20th century to implement communism, a system of economic relations where the means of production are given to the proletariat and class distinctions are broken-down.

Communist Party of Australia This article is about the historical Communist Party of Australia, dissolved in 1991. For the current party, see Communist Party of Australia (revived) The Communist Party of Australia was founded in Sydney on 30 October 1920 by a group of socialists inspired by reports of the Russian Revolution. Among the party's founders were a prominent Sydney trade unionist, Jock Garden, Adela Pankhurst (daughter of the British suffragist Emmeline Pankhurst) and most of the then illegal Australian section of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The IWW rapidly left the Communist Party, with its original members, over disagreements with the direction of the Soviet Union and Bolshevism. In its early years, mainly through Garden's efforts, the party achieved some influence in the trade union movement in New South Wales, but by the mid 1920s it had dwindled to an insignificant sect.

History In the later 1920s the party was rebuilt by Jack Kavanagh, a experienced Canadian Communist activist, and Esmonde Higgins, a talented Melbourne journalist who was the nephew of a High Court judge, H.B. Higgins. But in 1929 the party leadership fell into disfavour with the Comintern, which under orders from Stalin had taken a turn to extreme revolutionary rhetoric (the so-called "Third Period"), and an emissary, the American Communist Harry Wicks, was sent to sort the party out. Kavanagh was expelled and Higgins resigned.

A new party leadership, consisting of J B (Jack) Miles, Lance Sharkey and Richard Dixon, was imposed on the party by the Comintern, and remained in control for the next 30 years. During the 1930s the party experienced some growth, particularly after 1935 when the Comintern changed its policy in favour of a "united front against fascism." The party began to win positions in trade unions such as the Miners Federation and the Waterside Workers Federation, although its parliamentary candidates nearly always polled poorly at elections.

During the early stages of World War II the party was banned, but after the Soviet Union entered the war the party had a brief period of popularity. Its membership rose to 20,000, it won control of a number of important trade unions, and a Communist candidate, Fred Paterson, was elected to the Queensland parliament. But the party remained marginal to the Australian political mainstream. The Australian Labor Party remained the dominant party of the Australian working class, and always refused to enter alliances with the Communists.

After 1945 and the onset of the Cold War, the party entered a steady decline. Following the new line from Moscow, and believing that a new "imperialist war" and a new depression were imminent, and that the CPA should immediately contest for leadership of the working class with the Australian Labor Party, the CPA lauched an industrial offensive in 1947, culminating in a prolonged strike in the coalmines in 1949. The Chifley Labor government saw this as a Communist challenge to its position in the labour movement, and used the army to break the strike. The Communist Party never again held such a strong position in the union movement.

In 1951 the Menzies conservative government tried to ban the party, first by legislation that was declared invalid by the High Court, then by referendum to try to overcome the constitutional obstacles to that legislation, but the referendum was narrowly defeated. When Stalin died and Khrushchev revealed his crimes in the Secret Speech, members began to leave. More left after the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. In 1961 the split between the Soviet Union and China was mirrored in Australia, with a small pro-China party being formed.

By the 1960s the party's membership had fallen to around 5,000, but it continued to hold positions in a number of trade unions, and it was also influential in the various protest movements of the period, especially the movement against the Vietnam War. But the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 triggered another crisis. Sharkey's successor as party leader, Laurie Aarons, denounced the invasion, causing a group of pro-Soviet hardliners to leave and form a new party, the Socialist Party of Australia.

Through the 1970s and 1980s the party continued to decline, despite adopting the rhetoric of Eurocommunism and democratising its internal structures so that it became a looser radical party rather than a classic Marxist-Leninist one. By 1990 its membership had declined to less than a thousand, and in 1991 it was wound up. In 1996 the Socialist Party then took up the now-unused name of Communist Party of Australia (see Communist Party of Australia (revived)). This party, along with a number of small Trotskyist groups, maintains the Communist tradition in Australia, but none of these groups is of any political significance.

Legacy Despite its usually peripheral role in Australian politics and its ultimate failure, the Communist Party had an influence far beyond its numbers. From 1935 to the 1960s it occupied leadership positions in a number of important trade unions, and was at centre of many major industrial conflicts. Many of its members played leading roles in Australian cultural life, such as the novelists Katharine Pritchard, Judah Waten and Alan Marshall, the painter Noel Counihan and the poet David Martin.

In some ways the negative influence of the Communist Party was more important than anything the party itself did. Conservative politicians such as Stanley Bruce in the 1920s and Robert Menzies in the 1950s won elections by linking the Labor Party with Communism. In the early 1950s Catholics in the Labor Party were led by hatred of Communism to form "Industrial Groups" to combat Communist influence in the unions. This led in 1954 to a party split and the formation of the Democratic Labor Party, which used its second preferences at elections to keep the ALP out of power.

The Communist Party and its members campaigned for many years for causes such as improved conditions for industrial workers, opposition to fascist and other dictatorships, equal rights for women and civil rights for the Aboriginal people. It achieved some successes in these areas, and many of its positions were later taken up by the political mainstream. But the party never succeeded in persuading many people that Communism was the answer to these problems. Against these achievements must be set the party's long history as an apologist for Stalin's regime in the Soviet Union. It was revulsion against this which led most of the party's best members to leave sooner or later.

Youth movement The youth wing of CPA worked under several different names in different periods, Young Communists, Eureka Youth League, Young Socialist League and Young Communist Movement of Australia. The Eureka Youth had been a founding member of the World Federation of Democratic Youth, a membership later taken over by YCM.

O_O Did that come of Wikipedia?

Yes and No.

There is no proper Leninst Government in the Middle East in comparison to the governments of China and Vietnam which are true Leninst governments. A Leninist government is a government where the Single Party effectively rules and all people in the Party are interchangeable because they all represent the Will of the Party and not their own personal beliefs. The leaders of the Party all meet in a Chamber where they vote on policy and then perform it.

In the Middle East, you do have Single Party states such as Ba'athist Syria or formerly Ba'athist Iraq. However, the people of these parties are not interchangeable and may have different ideas about governance. Additionally, the leader of the country (the Assads in Syria and Saddam Hussein in Iraq) has his own unique perspective which the rest of the Party follows rather than having to come to consensus with other party members.

republic

The phrase 'de facto' means in ['de'] fact['facto']. A single-party political system may have two or more political parties that theoretically are allowed to name candidates for political office. But that system is 'de facto' when only one party gets its candidates elected.

referendum

this page is not helpful at all...you don't find anything you want :(

This is not a question. Do you mean: Is man by nature a political animal? What is man's natural response to the political process? Does politics turn man into an animal, against his nature as an independent being? ...something entirely different? Please rephrase.

The illusion of a minimum standard of living for all. There are still people who have to rely on charities and food banks.

On/In Soviet tanks, in 44-46! Officially, they won the general elections in March 1946, but they were rigged and won by a totally different party (a traditional and democratic one). One year later, they banished the king and that was that!

It means more opportunites for one's voice to be heard.

Military regimes are known for being incredibly well-organized and regimented. This leads to quicker developments in policy and coherence between the various implemented policy. Obstructionism, which occurs often in democratic or republican regimes, does not exist in military states. Finally, domestic security often rises since the military take an active role in maintaining civil security.

Of course, the negatives of military rule far outweigh these positives. The internal disputes in democratic and republican systems generally lead to a refining of policies and lessened security in these societies is usually a boon to human rights and personal freedom.

Pros: Creates a sort of Checks and Balancing system for the president

Keeps the president from going into war without Congress' permission unless America is under attack or there is a sever threat, but the troop cannot remain more than 60 days without authorization by Congress.

Con: goes against the Constitution's appointment of the President as Commander in Chief. Also, impinges upon Congress' sole power to declare war.

a group of former army officers

• The worth and dignity of the individual;
• The inviolability of human rights;
• The innate equality of all men and races;
• The necessity for constitutional government;
• Due process of law;
• Popular sovereignty as the basis of all political authority;
• Faith in human reason and enlightenment;
• The rights of the masses to public education; and
• Belief in social progress through freedom.

A representative form of government with a Sultan as the head of state.

dambel ndi ko alam mga boplogz ! paturo kayo sa mga teacher nio wag niyong itanong saken , hahahahahah :D

I first heard this phrase in John McMurty's: The Cancer Stage of Capitalism. He was quoting from a report commissioned by the Trilateral Commission in the mid-1970's (1973? 1975?). As I recall the argument was that the demands of citizens for participation in government was threatening to undermine the ability of the elite to rule effectively as they pleased. McMurty implied that, after the commission of this report, western governments and political parties attempted to discourage political involvement and that part of the result of their efforts was the increase in voter apathy. I read the book a few years ago so this is all from memory. Previously the term was used by David Herbert Donald, in his highly influencial essay "An Excess of Democracy" (1960). The essay was a partial revisionist explanation for the cause of the Civil War. He argued that the growth of Democracy in early 19th Century America, left the country unprepared to deal with difficult issues. This is because instead of having a ruling ellite capable of handling the subtlties of governance, politicians came to power on their ability to inflame public passions.