Political Theory II: Political Traditions — Liberalism, Conservatism, Socialism, Marxism, Feminism, Ecologism, Multiculturalism and Postmodernism

Unit 1's second half is a tour of eight traditions, each with its own view of the concepts chapter 1 just laid out — a different weighting of liberty against equality, a different theory of the state, a different reading of history. NET asks for the founding or defining thinker of each tradition, its central claim, and the distinction that separates it from its neighbour (classical liberalism from neoliberalism, deep from shallow ecology, liberal from radical feminism) — exactly the organisation this chapter follows.

1. Liberalism and Conservatism

Liberalism's three moments
StrandThinkers and claim
Classical liberalismLocke, Adam Smith, early Mill — natural rights, a minimal 'night-watchman' state, laissez-faire markets, liberty as non-interference.
Social/welfare liberalismT.H. Green, L.T. Hobhouse, Keynes, later Rawls — the state must actively remove obstacles (poverty, ignorance) to real freedom; positive liberty enters liberalism itself.
NeoliberalismFriedrich Hayek ('The Road to Serfdom', 1944), Milton Friedman, Nozick — a return to and radicalisation of the minimal state, hostile to welfare-state 'planning' as a path to unfreedom.

Conservatism's founding statement is Edmund Burke's 'Reflections on the Revolution in France' (1790): society is an organic, inherited partnership between the living, the dead and those yet to be born, and inherited institutions (church, monarchy, aristocracy, custom) embody accumulated practical wisdom that abstract revolutionary reason cannot match — change, where necessary, must be gradual and organic, never a wholesale rational re-design. One-nation conservatism (Disraeli) softens this into a paternalist duty of the privileged toward the poor to preserve social unity; the New Right/neoconservatism of the Thatcher-Reagan era fused this traditionalist strand with neoliberal free-market economics, a combination often described as the 'free economy, strong state'.

⚠️ Do not confuse conservatism's gradualism with liberalism's minimal state
Burke's conservatism is defended on the ground that inherited institutions carry practical wisdom, not on classical liberalism's ground of individual natural rights against the state — a conservative can support a strong, traditional state (monarchy, church) that a classical liberal would reject as an infringement of liberty.

2. Socialism and Marxism

  • Utopian socialism (Robert Owen, Charles Fourier, Saint-Simon) — pre-Marxist experiments in cooperative communities, appealing to moral persuasion rather than class struggle; Marx and Engels's own label ('utopian', in contrast to their 'scientific' socialism) is itself an exam-testable dismissal.
  • Democratic socialism / social democracy (Eduard Bernstein's revisionism, the Fabians in Britain) — socialism achieved through gradual, parliamentary, constitutional reform of capitalism rather than revolution, accepting a mixed economy with a strong welfare state.

Marx and Engels's historical materialism holds that the mode of production (the economic base) determines a society's legal, political and ideological superstructure, and that history moves through class struggle between an owning class and a labouring class (in capitalism, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat), driven toward crisis by capitalism's own internal contradictions and ending in proletarian revolution and, eventually, a classless communist society. Antonio Gramsci's 'Prison Notebooks' add hegemony: the ruling class secures consent, not only coercion, by making its own worldview appear as simple common sense across civil society (schools, churches, media) — which is why revolution in the advanced West requires a prior 'war of position' contesting this cultural hegemony, not only a direct seizure of state power ('war of manoeuvre').

3. Feminism and Ecologism

Feminism's strands
StrandDiagnosis and remedy
Liberal feminismMary Wollstonecraft, Betty Friedan — women are excluded from existing liberal rights and opportunities; the remedy is legal and political equality within the existing system (suffrage, equal pay, education).
Radical feminismShulamith Firestone, Kate Millett — patriarchy itself, as a system of male power over women rooted in the family and sexuality, is the fundamental oppression, deeper than class or law; 'the personal is political'.
Socialist/Marxist feminismPatriarchy and capitalism are intertwined systems — women's unpaid domestic labour reproduces the workforce for capital, so women's liberation requires ending both together.
Black / intersectional feminismbell hooks, Kimberlé Crenshaw (coined 'intersectionality') — mainstream feminism's 'woman' assumed a white, middle-class experience; race, class and gender oppression intersect and cannot be analysed as separate, additive systems.
🎯 Deep ecology versus shallow ecology (Arne Naess)
Arne Naess's 1973 distinction is ecologism's own core test question: shallow ecology fights pollution and resource depletion for the sake of human health and prosperity — nature still valued instrumentally, for human ends. Deep ecology rejects this anthropocentrism outright, insisting nature has intrinsic value independent of its usefulness to humans, and calls for a radical shift in consciousness (biocentric or ecocentric equality) rather than mere technical fixes within an unchanged human-centred economy. Ecofeminism (Vandana Shiva, Maria Mies) links the two traditions further, arguing that the same patriarchal logic that dominates women also dominates and exploits nature.

4. Multiculturalism and Postmodernism

Multiculturalism, beyond Kymlicka's group-differentiated rights already met in chapter 1, is developed further by Bhikhu Parekh's dialogic multiculturalism: no single culture, including the liberal culture of the majority, holds a monopoly on truth, so genuine accommodation requires an open, cross-cultural dialogue in which each culture's practices are questioned and may themselves be revised, rather than either the majority imposing uniform norms or minorities being granted uncritical group autonomy.

  • Jean-François Lyotard — 'The Postmodern Condition' (1979) defines postmodernism precisely as 'incredulity toward metanarratives': grand, totalising stories that claim to explain and legitimate the whole of history and society (the Enlightenment's story of progress through reason, Marxism's story of history moving toward communism) have lost their credibility, replaced by local, plural, contested 'small narratives'.
  • Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida — Foucault's genealogical method shows how concepts taken as timeless (madness, sexuality, criminality) are historically constructed through shifting discourses and power relations; Derrida's deconstruction shows how texts undermine their own claimed, stable meanings and binary oppositions (reason/madness, speech/writing) — both refuse any single, foundational vantage point from which political truth could be authoritatively settled, which is postmodernism's political implication: scepticism toward any tradition's own claim to be the final, universal one.
🧠 Match the label to the thinker
'Nonsense upon stilts' → Bentham (chapter 1). 'Incredulity toward metanarratives' → Lyotard. 'War of position' / hegemony → Gramsci. 'Deep ecology' → Naess. 'Intersectionality' → Crenshaw. 'The personal is political' → radical feminism (Millett/Firestone). 'One-nation conservatism' → Disraeli. 'The Road to Serfdom' → Hayek.

Key takeaways

  • Liberalism runs from Locke's classical minimal-state version through Green's/Hobhouse's welfare-liberalism to Hayek's/Nozick's neoliberal revival; conservatism (Burke) defends organic, inherited institutions against abstract revolutionary reason, later fused with neoliberal economics as the New Right.
  • Marx's historical materialism (base determines superstructure, class struggle) is extended by Gramsci's hegemony (consent through cultural common sense, requiring a 'war of position'); democratic socialism (Bernstein, Fabians) sought the same ends through gradual reform.
  • Feminism's strands — liberal, radical, socialist and black/intersectional — differ over whether the root oppression is legal exclusion, patriarchy, capitalism, or their intersection with race and class.
  • Naess's deep ecology (intrinsic value of nature, anti-anthropocentric) is distinct from shallow ecology (protecting nature for human benefit); ecofeminism links patriarchy's domination of women to the domination of nature.
  • Kymlicka's and Parekh's multiculturalism defend group-differentiated rights and cross-cultural dialogue respectively; Lyotard's postmodernism rejects grand metanarratives, and Foucault's genealogy and Derrida's deconstruction refuse any single foundational vantage point for political truth.

Practice questions (10)

Attempt each one before opening the answer. Every explanation names the tempting wrong option as well as the right one, because that is where marks are lost.

  1. Friedrich Hayek's 'The Road to Serfdom' (1944) is a founding text of:

    1. Neoliberalism
    2. Social/welfare liberalism
    3. One-nation conservatism
    4. Democratic socialism
    Show answer

    Answer: A — Neoliberalism

    Hayek warns that state economic planning leads toward totalitarian unfreedom, the founding neoliberal argument later joined by Friedman and Nozick — the opposite of welfare-liberalism's case for state provision.

  2. Edmund Burke's 'Reflections on the Revolution in France' (1790) defends inherited institutions on the ground that they:

    1. Embody accumulated practical wisdom abstract reason cannot match
    2. Secure individual natural rights against the state
    3. Maximise aggregate utility
    4. Express the general will of the people
    Show answer

    Answer: A — Embody accumulated practical wisdom abstract reason cannot match

    This is Burke's conservative case, distinct from classical liberalism's natural-rights ground, utilitarianism's aggregate-utility ground, and Rousseau's general-will ground.

  3. Marx and Engels used the term 'utopian socialism' to distinguish their own 'scientific socialism' from thinkers such as:

    1. Robert Owen and Charles Fourier
    2. Eduard Bernstein and the Fabians
    3. Antonio Gramsci
    4. Friedrich Hayek
    Show answer

    Answer: A — Robert Owen and Charles Fourier

    Owen and Fourier's cooperative-community experiments predate and are dismissed by Marx and Engels as 'utopian'; Bernstein and the Fabians are later revisionist/democratic socialists, not the target of this label.

  4. Antonio Gramsci's concept of hegemony explains ruling-class dominance chiefly through:

    1. Consent secured through civil society making its worldview appear as common sense
    2. Direct coercive seizure of the state
    3. The lexical priority of the liberty principle
    4. Deconstruction of stable textual meaning
    Show answer

    Answer: A — Consent secured through civil society making its worldview appear as common sense

    Hegemony is precisely consent through cultural/ideological means, which is why Gramsci calls for a prior 'war of position'; the other options belong to Rawls and Derrida respectively.

  5. Kimberlé Crenshaw's term for the way race, class and gender oppression combine rather than merely add up is:

    1. Intersectionality
    2. Hegemony
    3. Deep ecology
    4. Non-domination
    Show answer

    Answer: A — Intersectionality

    Intersectionality is Crenshaw's coinage for exactly this compounding; the others are Gramsci's, Naess's and Pettit's concepts.

  6. Arne Naess's 'deep ecology', unlike 'shallow ecology', insists that:

    1. Nature has intrinsic value independent of human usefulness
    2. Pollution should be fought for the sake of human health
    3. Patriarchy and capitalism are the same system
    4. Grand historical metanarratives should be trusted
    Show answer

    Answer: A — Nature has intrinsic value independent of human usefulness

    Deep ecology's defining move is exactly this rejection of anthropocentrism; 'for human health' describes shallow ecology, which deep ecology is defined against.

  7. Bhikhu Parekh's version of multiculturalism holds that:

    1. No culture, including the majority's, holds a monopoly on truth, so open cross-cultural dialogue is required
    2. Minorities should receive uncritical group autonomy
    3. Group-differentiated rights are the only accommodation needed
    4. The majority culture's norms should simply be imposed uniformly
    Show answer

    Answer: A — No culture, including the majority's, holds a monopoly on truth, so open cross-cultural dialogue is required

    Parekh's dialogic multiculturalism is distinct from Kymlicka's group-rights emphasis, and explicitly opposed to both uncritical group autonomy and uniform imposition.

  8. Jean-François Lyotard defines the postmodern condition as:

    1. Incredulity toward metanarratives
    2. The war of position within civil society
    3. The intrinsic value of nature
    4. Freedom as non-domination
    Show answer

    Answer: A — Incredulity toward metanarratives

    This is Lyotard's own phrase from 'The Postmodern Condition' (1979); the others belong to Gramsci, deep ecology, and Pettit respectively.

  9. Jacques Derrida's method of showing how texts undermine their own claimed stable meanings and binary oppositions is called:

    1. Deconstruction
    2. Genealogy
    3. Dialectical materialism
    4. Entitlement theory
    Show answer

    Answer: A — Deconstruction

    Deconstruction is Derrida's term; genealogy is Foucault's related but distinct method, and the other two options belong to Marx and Nozick.

  10. Which feminist strand holds that women's unpaid domestic labour reproduces the workforce for capital, requiring patriarchy and capitalism to be ended together?

    1. Socialist/Marxist feminism
    2. Liberal feminism
    3. Radical feminism
    4. Ecofeminism
    Show answer

    Answer: A — Socialist/Marxist feminism

    This is socialist/Marxist feminism's specific claim; liberal feminism seeks legal equality within the system, radical feminism locates the root oppression in patriarchy alone, and ecofeminism links patriarchy to nature's domination rather than to unpaid labour specifically.