Liberal Democratic Theory and Its Critics

524 Pages·1983·86.053 MB·English

by  Norman Wintrop

liberal Ilemni:ratIi:_
Theory and Its l:rltII:s
Edited by
NORMAN WINTROP
. .
CROOM HELM
London Sydney Dover, New Hampshire
©1983 N, Wintrop
Choom Helm Ltd, Provident House, Burrell Row,
Beckenhaln, Kent BRO lAT
Croom Helm Australia Pty Ltd, Suite 4, 6th Floor ,
64-76 Kippax Street, Surry Hills, NSW 20] U, Australia
Choom Helm, 51 Washington Street ,
Dover, New Hampshire 03820, USA
Reprinted 1985
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Liberal democratic theory and its critics.
1- Liberalism
I. Wintrop, Norman
320.5'1 JC571
ISBN ()-7099_2'i66-5
Frighted in Great Britain by
Biddles Ltd, Guildford, Surrey
CONTENTS
Contributors vli
Acknowledgements 1x
INTRODUCTION
Norman Winthrop 1
T CLASSICAL BRITISH AND EUROPEAN LIBERALISM
AND DEMOCRACY
Bill Brugger 'FO
2 LIBERAL-DEMOCRATIC THEORY IN AMERICA
Don DeBats U9
3 LIBERAL-DEMOCRATIC THEORY! THE NEW
LIBERALISM
Norman Wlntrop 83
u VARIETIES OF CONSERVATIVE THEORY
Norman Wlntrop and David w. Lovell 133
5 CLASSICAL SOCIALIST THEORY: NINETEENTH
CENTURY MARXISM
Bill Bragger and Belinda Probert 190
6 CLASSICAL SOCIALIST THEORY: SOCIALIST
INDUSTHIALISM AND ANARCHISM
Bill Brugger 22u
7 MODERN COMMUNIST THEORY: LENIN AND
MAO ZEDONG
Steve Regular and Graham Young 252
8 MODERN CQMMUNIST THEORY : EUROCOMMUNISM
David W. Lovell 289
V
g SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC THEORY
Ron Slee and Geoff Stokes 305
1 0 CHRISTIAN POLITICAL THOUGHT
Rodney 330
1 'I THE TECHNOCRATIC CHALLENGE TO DEMOCRATIC
THEORY
Geof t Stokes and Bill Brugger 361
1 2 KEYNES AND HIS CRITICS
Steve Heglar 1406
13 THE NEW LEFT AND THE COUNTER CULTURE
nun
Geoff Stokes
1 u FEMINISM AND POLITICAL THEORY
Suzanne Brugger and Geoff Stokes P465
INDEX 502
vi
CONTRIBUTORS
Bill Brugger is the Professor of Politics at the
Flinders University of South Australia, He is the
author of Democracy and Organization in the Chinese
Industrial Enterprise, 19M5-1953, Cambridge
University Press, 19T6, China: Liberation and
Transformation, 1942-1962 and China: Radicalism and
Revisionism, 1962-1979, Croon Helm, London, and
Barnes and Noble, Totowa, New Jersey, 1981. He has
also edited two recent collections of articles on
China.
Suzanne Brugger is Director of the
Constitutional Museum, South Australia. She is the
author of Australians and Egypt 191u-1919, Melbourne
University Press, 1980.
Don DeBats is a Senior Lecturer in American
Studies and Politics at Flinders University.
Rodney Popp is a Lecturer in the Sociology of
Education at the South Australian College of Advanced
Education, Adelaide.
David Lovell is reading for a doctorate at the
History of Ideas Unit of the Australian National
University. He is a Former M.A. student and
part-tlme Tutor in Politics at Flinders University.
Belinda Probert is a Lecturer in Sociology at
Monash University, Melbourne, and a former Research
Fellow in the School of social Sciences at Flinders
University. She $s the author of Beyond. Orange and
Green, Zed Press, London, 1978.
Steve Regular is a Tutor in Politics at Flinders
University. He edits the Flinders Journal of History
and .polltics.
a
Ron see $s a Be sear Assistant with the
Flinders University Politics Discipline.
Geoff Stokes $s a Tutor § .n o Political
Theory at Murdoch University, Western Australia. He
was formerly a Tutor in Politics at Flinders
University. He is the editor of Guidelines for
Energy Management, Australian Commission for UNESCO,
Canberra, forthcoming, and a joint editor of Labor
Forum, Adelaide.
Norman Wirt row HQ purer in Political
Theory at Flinders is
Graham Young Fellow in the
Contemporary China of the qu stralian National
University, and a former in Politics at
Flinders University.
v11
ACKN0WLEDGEMENT3
in EP .a. . . . d. . . . . . d. . . itiwoornk to d tthhee maanuyt hopreso'p lec riticisms roobfe rs on:meie s
Flinders vepgit/y and Adelaide
who made helpful comments
chapters chard Dehngelis and An
. and copious comments on most of
:esisted with the Isa siting ,
Brugger's inexhaustible and ad-
vice were appreciated by the edit mofmi, some of
his suggestions and admonitions were not acted upon.
Marie Baker, Anne Garb, Linda Kelly and other members
of the Flinders University School of Social Sciences
secretarial staff typed the original drafi s. The
editor is par ticularly grateful ito' iKelly who
organised this typing under difficult
conditions. Jayne Allison 5
lion, to which Ron Slee also i major
lion. Rae Korotcoff also assisted.
ix
INTRODUCTION
Norman Winthrop
E
Political theory difficult to define, apart
"` general s as 8 branch of philosophy
generated dealing with politics. But whatever
given to it, it is usually seen
having reference to norms (principles, stan-
nm an-was
d a rd S . "regulating O F governmental
activity aNd pol-it-oal life. On the basis of the
distihotlon between facts and values, political
theory may be regarded as the attempt to confront, OI"
at least to clarif y, value rather than f actual ques-
sons. This is a distinction which in no way denies
that, in their enc~c""o*c@ r° with value n ueetlons, poli-
Q loc *1
tical theorists may confront f actual ones. Sometimes
political theory is seen as a direct confrontation
with normative issues. But it can also be seen as a
metatheory (a higher level of analysis) which criti-
cases and adjudicates between normative theories. In
this book the term political theory is being used to
mean both: 1) the attempt by political thinkers to
propose and justify y norms for the guidance of govern-
merits and states, politicians and citlzens, and 2)
the critical study, of ten conducted within un lversi-
ties, of such work.
Whether t h e S t u d y and criticism of normative and
evaluative theory is itself normative (prescriptive
and recommendato1"y} is a controversial question. One
answer is that it is hypocritical to claim the ab-
sence of political motivation and bias, or to maln~
thin that one's work has no implications for politi-
cal practice. An alternative proposition is that it
is possible to check one's biases and motivations,
and genuinely to seek clarification and understand
ding. Not to do so is to act irresponsibly. One re~
spouse m a y, his issue is that these two positions are
- _ toncilable as they first appear. At the
tfmie for the appropriate purpose, it is
necessary for teachers and students to be detached
and open-minded. This is of ten s necessary step to-
wards understanding the theories which compete for
our support. The stronger our initial bias for or
1
against them, the more we should *my to restrain it.
But teachers and students should not only be scholars
concerned with understanding theorists and their
theories, the validity of the empirical claims of the
theories, their logic and coherence, but also their
ethics and the political consequences which would he
likely to follow from their widespread adoption. The
problems of political theory are not abstract
puzzles. It is naive to think that the study of
major political thinkers can be restricted to appre-
ciating the finer nuances and subtleties of their
speculations. Political theory has, and has always
been intended to have, social implications of the
most serious klnd.
"'" activity I political theory should encode
empathy and sympathy towards the object
of study uli lity to detach and distance one
It _should encourage both critical
skills kind and an awareness of the in
object and work. A personal and
virtue oN political theory encourages
though which easily become a paralysis vice
criticism -I . No one is likely to understand
r thwhile features and the defi
henries, and to be able to over
problems and difficulties, who has not
own assumptions to a close seru
U'i ticism detachment and the
mudt ical +heory becomes mere pro
paganda ideology , in appeal to the emotions and
without a commitment o the discovery
political or our societies
including unders rises he best it
becomes pointless and sterile of aca
demic exercises
theory
poll
m.
propagandist nor impart
landing
in some other way ____
censure of the skills, players
- -vr
drama and as- timesl I tea et!i come,dy. ..":f.a.r,ce- 1.1
which we all play a p -
implementing of the e means which human
beings to live toge ideally mutual
benefit. Among other*
-
the princ_ iples publlc»splrited or exploitative and
corrupt which mould institutions and shape the
policies of governments. We may choose to be as in-
active and passive as we like, but our inactivity re-
mains a par t of politics, and we are affected by the
activity and inactivity of others. Whether we engage
in formal politics to achieve a corporal's chevrons,
2
the power and prestige of a field marshal, simply to
further our legitimate interests or, more altruisti-
cally, promote the welfare of others, or whether we
wish to be left alone to cultivate our gardens and
concentrate on what we regard as more enjoyable and
rewarding occupations, political theory is the key.
Political theory is the activity of judging the poli-
tics of our societies, of deciding which features to
promote and which to resist; and it is the activity
of doing all this rationally, that is to say $n a
self con-s cious manner and one for which defensible
reasons though not- necessarily certain and un-
challengeable proofs can be offered.
According to sceptics, however, so-called poli-
tical theory is nothing but personal oplnlons, be-
liefs, brasses and prejuduces dressed up as something
superior. Their argument is that in order to judge
governments, politicians and par ties, intelligent
people, with an intelligent understanding of their
interests and aspirations, do not require e knowledge
of normative theory but simply a knowledge of the
relevant political fa cts. One defense of normative
theory is that people who despise and who try to dis-
pense with it are frequently the victims and pur-
veyors of some long discredited one. A second answer
is that for anyone who wishes conscientiously to exa-
mine normative issues, it makes sense to begin with
the two millenia of systematic thinking about these
issues, or at least with some of the main contribu-
tors to the tradition, rather than try to begin
afresh. A third answer is that nations where pol1t1-
cal principles, institutions and processes are not
based on explicit traditions of political theorising,
but are the products of accident and compromises be-
tween interests, are likely to fall into the hands of
irresponsible and self-seeking coalitions of politi-
cians and social groups. A four th answer is that
university politics and related departments which lg-
nore normative theory are likely to become havens for
the most mindless and esoteric kinds of data collec-
tion and empirical research, and easy prey for either
vested interests or committed ideologues, These
pragmatic defences of normative theory, however, do
not directly confront what is for normative political
theory and political philosophy the crucial contem-
porary question: to what extent can reason, either
in the form of philosophy or science, arbitrate be-
tween ultimate norms, standards, principles and ends"
For their immediate purposes, the authors of this
hook have regarded the pragmatic defenee as suffi-
cient. The book does not attempt to provide a
philosophical (methodological) answer to this ques-
tion. Instead, it tries to introduce students to the
3