Exclusivity Of The Liberal Order example essay topic

So what differences are we truly parsing here? The categorical difference between the soul of classical liberalism and that of socialism is that one idealizes the individual, the other the collective. The individual is really at the center of the liberal idea: he or she strives to reach goals that are mutually attainable by all participants in society. Specifically because these goals are internal to the awareness of those who make choices and take actions, the outcomes they produce are neither assessable nor significant, as "social" results. Yet most collective numbers that we use are created with the "social" in mind: think of the distribution tables that American tax analysts use to depict the nation's tax burden, or the standard unemployment figure that governments issue from time to time. As soon as we lay down a "social" purpose, even as goal, we contradict the opinion of liberalism itself.

So far classical liberals succumbed. They themselves have confused the discussion by promoting the claim that the put on a pedestal and extended market order produces a larger "bundle" of valued goods than any socialist alternative. To fulfill the efficiency norm in so crude a fashion as this, even theoretically, is to lose the whole game. Everyone is guilty of this charge, since we know, of course, that the extended market does really produce the comparatively larger bundle, on any measure. But attention to any aggregative assessment scale conceals the exclusivity of the liberal order in achieving the purpose of individual liberty. Liberalism favour regulation while socialism, in that order, favour growing degrees of individual freedom.

The first thing to note is that the term "liberal political thought" can be used to cover an tremendously broad range of philosophers, from Mill to Rousseau, from Wollstonecraft to Hegel. Speaking about liberalism we can't but mention Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1799) who was an English writer and feminist, and created The Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), one of the first prominent feminist documents. She lived in France at the time of the French Revolution and was mother of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, who created Frankenstein. Wollstonecraft took over the liberal model of the rational, self-determining individual from Locke. She did not consider women to be different than men by nature, attributing the practical differences to publicly constructed gender roles. She put strong stress on motive and stated that women are wise beings, and just like men, must be allowed an equal chance to develop their rational and moral abilities.

Women must receive the same education as men, in order to expand virtues such as courage, self-control, justice, and strength, the features that men should build up. If women develop these features, they will be able to turn into better wives and mothers, and this will also let them develop economic autonomy from men. In stating in this way, she takes the liberal idea of the rational and independent man and extends this to women. That is, she adopts the liberal ideas of freedom and individuality and develops them extending to all people.

As Locke animadvert upon the divine right of kings, so Wollstonecraft animadverts on the divine right of husbands. "Given the general account of social and political justice offered by this strand of liberal theory, are there reasons for feminists to be committed to liberalism? Four reasons come to mind. The first combines a historically grounded pragmatism with a basic philosophical concern.

The notion of individual rights has been a politically powerful tool in the fight against sexual subordination. The history of the struggle against women's oppression has shown that women need to be able to make decisions for and about their lives as individuals. The right to make decisions that determine the course of one's life, in fact, has been a central right in the fight for women's liberation". (Groenhout 2002) Wollstonecraft does not see women as inferior to men in any way, and states that "when women are ruled by reason... they will be able to share in the equality of opportunities in society". Because of this, it is essential for women to develop reason, obtain power of body and mind, see through the language of womanliness, and get educational parity with men. Acting this way, women would turn out to be independent decision makers and will be treated as persons.

"Wollstonecraft's arguments are relatively straightforward. No new interpretation of the notion of a right is needed to recognize that if rational agents deserve the rights intrinsic to autonomy, women must deserve those rights. The problem in Wollstonecraft's case is to convince others to act and reason in a manner consistent with their own stated principles. In the case of the Islamic or Biblical feminist, one must change others' reading of sacred texts, that is, others must be convinced first to change their principles and then to act consistently with those changes". (Groenhout 2002).