Ideas Of Liberalism Into Britain example essay topic

To What Extent have the Key Political ideas Directly Influenced Change and Development 1740-1980? The Years between 1740 and 1980 heralded many new and revolutionary ideas in the political spectrum. This period shows the struggles of a new governing force and the development of the ideas behind it. Ideologies aimed to change, not only the governing force, but also the societies way of thinking and situation in their society. The way this happen was by putting an idea in people's head, something that would benefit them. This idea would spread around many people who agree with the idea and eventually these people would fight to implement it.

Ideologies are formed with reason, ideologies link together and nobody has got the right balance of ideas, so there is opposition and other ideologies are formed. This change is very similar to Hegel's economic theory of change, thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis. An idea, thesis, is formed, there is opposition, anti-thesis, and a new idea is formed, synthesis. To say this is correct is ill informed. There are many circumstances that also add to the stories of the ideologies.

An ideology is formed to help and shape society, the economic regime is there to support the society and maintain the ideology. This period of history has a huge change of ideas. One of the most important aspects of the early part of my period of study, for the European aspect at least, is the French Revolution. This was an important break for Europe, which had been stuck, in a feudal system. This introduced to, and provoked liberal thought, all around Europe, for this reason liberalism links to many ideologies and countries. The idea of liberalism seemed appealing to these countries as it showed that there could be a form of equality in society.

An example of inequality in society is the supremacy of a king. They are put in place because of the family they are bom into. An idea of liberal thought by John Milton is 'Men are created free and equal by God, and only their own consent and judgement could confer authority on power. ' These ideas go back to the 16 hundreds, but were not really considered in many parts of Europe until the French Revolution, because this showed them something could be physically done about it.

However, the French Revolution was not the first liberal revolution that happened in my period of study. The French Revolution did not happen till 1789. The idea came from a war between America and Britain were America fought for its independence. The American War of independence happened in 1776. In this war France took the side of America, as Britain and France had always been great rivals. The American had ideas of liberalism and France took them away with them.

The problem with the French Revolution was that it eventually became a contradiction. They created a situation like the one that could be described in the same way as communism in Russia was. 'All men are created equal, but some are more equal than others. ' This is because though they promoted an equal society they carried out the execution of the aristocracy and merely labelled them as traitors, this was named the terror. The problem with the terror was, the people that destroyed the upper part of society were replacing them. This inefficient handling of a liberal system eventually lead to the conclusion that it was a bad system, and in France a nationalist attitude started to take over.

These ideas came with the rise of people like Napoleon Bona part 6. The nationalist ideas of expansion and a 'Great' country, in this case France, and the leadership of Napoleon lead to the 'Napoleonic Wars', 1798 tol 815. Between the years 1776, American War of Independence, and 1815 also felt great liberal influence. The American War of Independence bought ideas of liberalism into Britain like they did in France, but they were less socially accepted as it seemed to represent the failure of Britain against America. It did however have its supporters. An avid supporter of liberalism and the ideas in Britain was Thomas Paine.

After the American War of Independence Thomas Paine wrote 'Common Sense' (1776). This was an attack on the governing system and more specifically George. The limited extent of these ideas was short lived. After the success of the French Revolution these ideas provoked reaction from many people.

Thomas Paine wrote 'The Rights of Man' as a response to the revolution and a pamphlet written by Burke. The ideas spread well through the working class, which felt the injustice in society. Even though many could not read 'The Rights of Man' was heard by many in public readings of it in places like public houses. The spread of liberalism in America, France and Britain, all have the common theme of oppression. Britain and France controlled America, and Britain both had very poor lower class that lived in squalor. These factors obviously influenced a shift in society.

In France the Revolution, in Britain protests. These protests were not enormous and started off peaceful. There was a force that tried to stop this shift, conservatism. One of the more important protests, not for its topic but the way that it was handled, was the Peterloo Massacre. In this some people who felt they were living in worse conditions than they should be in got together to sign a petition. There two accounts of what happened, the first that the crowd got violent and the horsemen trying to stop the, so called, protest gave them a warning and when they ignored it they attacked.

The other argument is that the horsemen killed several people while trying to arrest the person they thought was the ringleader. The clashes of the liberal and conservative forces were not just poor against wealthy. The government at the time was under great pressure from the people within it to pass more liberal measures. Among the liberal measures passed were the 'Poor Laws'. These laws meant less working hours, a minimum age for working in factories and better working conditions. Though these laws were passed they were near impossible to implement.

Other liberal laws passed were the rights of factory owners to vote, but this was after great protest from the workers who wanted the vote. The factory owners claimed to represent the workers. It was not only these people who wanted the vote. Liberalism bought up arguments that had been going on for a long time. An example of this would be the greatly unpopular issue of Catholic Emancipation, the rights of Catholics to vote and be represented in government. All the time these liberal ideas were being pushed forward the conservative forces of Britain were trying to hold them back, but it realised that to maintain order some concessions must be made.

In 1848 there were a series of revolutions across Europe. These were both Liberal and Nationalistic. However, there was also a socialist force behind them. Socialism arose from liberalism and movements such as the Chartists in Britain.

These revolutions in France, Germany, Italy and Austria were, like many liberal or socialist revolts, about poor conditions and money. In France by 1852 France's Republic had become more like a dictatorship under Louis-Napoleon, Napoleon. Over Europe many countries that had adopted liberal governments lost faith in them and got rid of them. The 'teething problems' of these governments were not really accepted because of the expectations of the people to be taken out of the poor conditions they were in.

Eventually a rise of nationalism took over in Germany and Italy, who unified in an implication of aggressive nationalism. The revolutions across Europe were not the only huge historical moments in 1848. In the same year the works of Karl Marx and Fredric Engels finally culminated to for the 'Communist manifesto'. They worked with the work of great economists such as Hegel. It was a manifesto, which was an extreme statement of human rights. It stated that society would evolve, over through the regime that is down treading it and form societies with out a government, a collective, a Utopian society.

The 'Communist Manifesto' was a political version of this dream that would be the topic much debate, and conflict, later in history. These vast changes meant a step back for many countries. Maintaining an economy when the governing force changes, it is difficult. The economy of Britain would change if the liberal measures of better working conditions and money.

This would change it because the factory owner would have to reduce production costs and charge more for his product. It was not liberalism that started these ideas, but it gave workers the confidence to protest on these issues. This development in the system shows a good example of a capitalist system. Capitalism sits well with liberalism as capitalism gives everyone the chance to make a profit or loose everything, everyone is 'equally' likely to win. The liberal ideas that link with this did not just form out of thin air.

They arose because of increasing pressures and hardship. For this reason it is not really possible to argue that an ideology is not true if it is just there because of the situation, because this is true of all ideologies. Ideologies come from, and are bought into the limelight, by unfortunate situations in society. The only critique can be that the ideology has been inefficiently implemented, an unfavourable ideology or misconstrued. Around the 1880's there was a rise of socialist ideas. Socialism is basically state ownership.

This is directly against capitalism, which is for private ownership. To many poorer people this seemed a much fairer way of doing thinks. This is because if you use state money you will use it properly, but if you use your own you are likely to cut comers. Like many of the movements around this time, it was mainly supported by the working class, but lead by middle class intellectuals. It came from many factors, one important one, for socialism in Britain, was the Chartist movement. The movement ran from around 1838 to 1858.

However, it was people before the Chartists who really laid the foundations. Socialist thinkers like Robert Owen developed around the 1820's-30's, not long after the Napoleonic wars. These people were middle class intellectuals and answered questions about the distribution of wealth, why the poor do lots of work but get little capital, but the rich do little work and get lots. The reason socialism became popular was the failure of the Liberalism laissez-faire, free market. These ill conditions were helped by, the first English addition of 'Das {Capital' by Karl Marx (1887), and 'Poverty and Progress' by Henry George. Though 'Poverty and Progress' was not an intentionally socialist book it did carry ideas like, better wages and conditions for workers raised by taxation of landownership.

These ideas helped make the socialist thinkers of the 1880's stand out. Many political organisations were formed on the basis of these ideas; a stockbroker, HM Hyn dam, formed one of the most important. He formed the 'Social Democratic Federation' (SDF). He got his ideas for this group on a business trip where he read 'Das Kapital'. This party had many important members such as William Morris, who left to form the 'Socialist League'. These parties eventually lead to a demonstration of 200 people in 1887, which was later given the name 'Bloody Sunday', as the demonstrations was stopped by excessive police force.

The socialist groups spread themselves around the country I small socialist clubs which laid the foundations of the Labour Party. From 1889 till 1902 Britain was at war with the Boers, the 'Boer War'. This was a culmination of over a century of hostility between Great Britain and the Boers, descendants of Dutch colonists in Southern Africa. In most cases of war the country unites in nationalistic spirit. This happened in Britain, but only to a limited extent.

Instead this time was dominated by 'Trade Unionism' which had come from the socialist movements of the 1880's. This went well with the 'Labour' movement at the time. The labour party finally got into parliament in 1902 when they won two by-elections. They worked with the liberals to defeat the conservative forces of the time.

This did not only mean concessions for the labour party, but it also made the liberal party realise it must pass socialist measures. This lead to a form of welfare set up between 1906 and 1914. Not only because of the pressures from within the country, but fit military countries like Germany. However, both socialist ideas and unions continued to grow in strength leading up to the First World War. The First World War started in August 1914. Again instead in nationalism like you would expect the socialist ideas and labour party continued to grow.

This growth was finally allowed to show itself in Parliament. In 1918 all men were allowed to vote and women over 30 who paid rent or husbands did. And in 1922 the labour party overtook the liberals in the popularity stakes becoming the second part. Following the First World War both Germany and Russia had, had huge political change. Germany had been left in ruins economically, politically and socially. Left with the burden of reparations and having spent most of its money on the war it did not have much to hold on to economically.

They also set up and parliament to replace the Kaiser, the 'Wiemar Republic'. This was a liberal government with a system of 'Proportional Representation'. This meant that more people got there say, but it also meant that over half the voting public would have to vote for one party for them to have a majority. Other problems included the terms set by the Treaty of Versailles. They had a restricted military and had to accept 'War Guilt'.

This lead to many parties aims being the reversal of the Treaty of Versailles. This topic dominated foreign policy all through the years of the 'Wiemar Republic'. Left wing groups like the Social Democratic Party (SPD) dominated the early years of the 'Wiemar Republic'. However, the weak nature of this system eventually led to a rise of revolutionary ideas. The to parties that offered strong dictatorial systems were, the NSAP (Nazis) and the KID (German Communist Party).

At this time the Nazis were more appealing as not only did they offer protection for the working class with economic plans, but they also would not, unlike the Communists, get rid of private ownership. They also got support from small business, which it promoted. Another factor in the rise of the Nazis was the growth in nationalist spirit as the German people united in anger the Treaty of Versailles, this was amplified by the terror of the depression. America had lifted some of the burden of the reparations with a series of loans. When the depression hit and America called in their loans an already struggling Germany were unable to pay the instalments to the allies and started to print off money in excess, this lead to hyperinflation.

These events left the German people in poverty and doubting the new form of government. The Nazis ideas were mainly Fascist. This was an extreme right-wing movement that is lead by a dictator. The Nazis formed there own ideas based on this and the ideas Hitler wrote in 'Mien Kampt'. The Nazis came to power in this way. The Nazis did well in the elections, but not well enough to get Hitler the Chancellors position.

The President, Hindenburg, of the Riechstag (the German Parliament) saw that Hitler was powerful and thought he could control him. Hitler was given the chancellors position in 1933. Hindenburg died on the 1st August 1934. Hitler used emergency powers to get rid of all other political parties and give himself the position of Fuhrer. These Fascist ideas lead to the rise of Hitler. In his time as Fuhrer he lowered unemployment to a minimal and kept a stable economy.

However, like many regimes like this the benefits did not out way the costs. Hitler tried to obliterate the Jews he took away the freedom of speech and thought in society, which was left scared. In Russia at the time they also had a huge change of regime and ideology. Russia also had problems with the economy and a failing governing force. Unlike Germany the Russian Revolution happened before the end of the war.

The governing force was a dictator much like the German Kaiser called the Tsar. The Tsar had troubles with the people before the revolution. They saw that the Tsar lived in absolute luxury while they lay starving. This forced him to set up a more democratic form of governing, he sent up a parliament. However, it became increasingly obvious that it was just his puppet. In 1917 the revolution happened, but this so called communist revolution was not entirely as it should have been.

Marx had set out that the revolution would happen when the working class became self aware. When they realised that they were being exploited by the upper classes. However, in Russia it was started by a communist party made up of middle class intellectuals. Another failing of the revolution was the fact that the countries economy was so poor. This was a problem because the ideology stated that the dictatorship that had to be formed at the start would dissolve, but it did not because the country could not support its self. This was made worse by the death of the person who started the revolution, Lenin.

Lenin started with good intentions, but, the economic problems meant that he often failed to do anything productive. When he died his succes or was Stalin. Stalin wanted to stay in government as long as he could and he did till he died by killing anyone who challenged him. For these reasons communism in Russia stayed a dictatorship till it ended. These ideologies and revolutions of this time period are reflected in todays modern society. The ideas of liberalism are fought for every day.

However there are still places in this, so called, evolved world where they might as well know nothing of these ideas, such as, Iraq. These ideas have made and created and destroyed lives. The ideas of nationalism and dictatorship always seem an easy way out, but, often cause much pain and hardship. Ideas of Communism, such as, in Russia where it was badly and wrongly implemented, have caused many economic and cultural problems in Russia.

For this reason i see that the key political ideologies have influenced change and developement, but not always for the better.