1. Lecture #5: Conservatism and Socialism
POLI 101: June 16th, 2016
Lecture #5: Conservatism and Socialism

2. Edmund Burke & Conservatism
Irish Statesman and Philosopher
Conservative Liberal
Reflections on the French Revolution (1790)
Worried that in the quest to knock down barriers to human freedom we risked disaster.

3. Reflections on the Revolution in France
Nickel Summary: Better the Devil you know, than the Devil you don’t know
Burke argued that the French Revolution was likely to be a disaster, because:
Abstractions are dangerous and liable to end badly
Practical solutions tend to be better
In government, this means preserving the institutions that work pretty well, even if they are not perfect.
They exist for a reason, and the wisdom of the ages should not be discarded lightly.
Parable of the corn husks

4. Conservative Values Cultures are more important than rules
Traditions tend to be wiser than you think
We should respect the wisdom of the ages – change often leads to worse outcomes despite our intentions.
Authority, properly vested, tempers human selfishness and teaches responsibility.
Order is important and knowing ones place in that order tends to guide ordinary people towards a better life, even when that order is not based on “reason”.
I am not simply a human, I am:
A man
A husband
A father
A brother
A teacher
A friend
A member of my Church

5. Reason and Reform

6. Industrial Revolution
Produced lives of abundance
Produced a new consumer culture
Produced wonders
But:
Produced poverty amidst plenty
Produced ugliness
Reduced humans to parts in a machine
Their economic value determined their life
Left humans without moral guidance?

7. Critics of Liberalism
“What is the object of human society? Is it to dazzle the eye with an immense production of useful and elegant things? Is it to cover the sea with ships and the earth with railways? Is it, finally, to give two or three individuals out of each 100,000 the power to dispose of wealth that would suffice to maintain in comfort those 100,000?
-Sismondi

8. The Factory System
“It is, in fact, the constant aim and tendency of every improvement in machinery to supersede human labour altogether, or to diminish its cost, by substituting the industry of women and children for that of men; or that of ordinary labourers for trained artisans.”

9. Child Labor

10. Satanic Mills

11. Coketown

12. Progress?

13. The Jungle

14. Friedrich Engels
The Conditions of the Working Class in England (1845)
The Communist Manifesto (1848)

15. Manchester

16. The Proletariat

17. Karl Marx 1818-1883 Middle Class family
Lives & works from London w/ Friedrich Engels
The Communist Manifesto (1848)

18. Historical Materialism
Reality is made by things rather than ideas
things precede ideas
There is no “human nature”
Our nature is created by social relations
Society determines the individual
Different than Mill
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles”
The current age pits bourgeoisie vs. proletariat

19. Dialectic, Hegel, and Marx
Hegel ( ) revived the idea of dialectic in modern philosophy.
Marx picked up the idea of dialectic from Hegel and argued that history unfolds through dialectic.
Thesis -> antithesis -> synthesis
owners -> workers -> communist utopia
This is dialectical materialism

20. Marx’s Conflict Theory
Society is divided into two groups
Owners = bourgeoisie
Workers = proletariat
“The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones.”
-Marx and Engels

21. Conflict Theory
The Bourgeoisie = owners, industrialists, “middle-class”, capitalists
i.e. the folks with the assets
The Proletariat = workers, urban poor, lower classes, dispossessed
i.e. the folks with only their labor to sell

22. Surplus Value Workers create more than they are paid
i.e. You work at a factory and create $300 worth of stuff in a day, but your wage is $100
Where does the extra value go?
To the owner of the factory; the owner of the “means of production”

23. Owners and Workers
Owners exploit workers and live off the money (surplus-value) which workers create
Workers put up with this inequality because:
They are oppressed wage slaves and cannot fight the system.
They are indoctrinated by ideology and religion into believing what they are told by the powerful.

24. Base & Superstructure Base  Superstructure
The modern state was established by the bourgeoisie
The bourgeoisie made the rules for their own benefit
Strong property rights
Law & Order
Individualism
Representative democracy
Nationalism

25. Capitalism & Crisis
“Modern bourgeois society, with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells.”
-Marx and Engels

26. Capitalism & Crisis
Capitalism requires constant revolution in its means and product
Constant Instability
Cycles of boom and bust
Overproduction leads to crises and quest for new markets
Requires constant expansion
The crises keep getting worse
Links capitalists globally in common interest (cosmopolitan elites separate from ordinary people)
Commodifies everything, including people
Individuals become “labor”

27. Communism Abolition of property in land Progressive income tax
Abolition of inheritance rights
Nationalization of banking
Nationalization of transport and communication
Common planning for industry
Free education in public schools
A proletarian system

28. Summary Situates capitalism historically
Old “progress” is replaced by new “progress”
Material things drive society
Workers share a common interest everywhere
International Communism to change the world

29. Fanfare for the Working Man

30. Marx & Inequality

31. Marx & Modern Times