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ROMANTIC POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY Craig Vincent Mitchell, PhD Associate Professor of Philosophy, Politics and Economics Criswell College The French Revolution GWF Hegel Marx and Engels MAJOR DEVELOPMENTS IN ROMANTIC POLITICAL THOUGHT He wrote The Social Contract in 1762 His utopian vision included the people meeting regularly in assemblies The people would abjure individualism and would act in accordance with the General Will The General Will outlawed all privilege and inequality He wanted to transform all sphere of human relationships, including the social, personal and cultural His view of the state resembled Marxist ideals JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU THE FRENCH REVOLUTION: 1789-1799 The Jacobins were a left- wing, revolutionary political club The Jacobins were closely related to the sans- culottes (the common people of the lower class) They established a revolutionary dictatorship, led by Robespierre They also established a reign of terror, which targeted monarchists, traitors and agitators THE JACOBINS The old social order, known as the Ancien Regime included First estate- the clergy Second estate- the aristocracy Third estate- the rest of society The Ancien Regime collapsed and was replaced by the break with tradition All men were declared to be legally equal Christianity was replaced by the goddess “Reason” THE NEW SOCIAL ORDER Socialism Francois-Noel Babeuf Comte Henri de Saint Simon RADICAL THINKERS Charles Fourier Leader of the first communist movement He gathered around him a small circle of followers known as the Societé des égaux, soon merged with the rump of the Jacobin Club, who met at the Panthéon; and in November 1795 he was reported by the police to be openly preaching "insurrection, revolt and the Constitution of 1793". FRANCOIS-NOEL BABEUF He created a political and economic ideology known as industrialism that claimed that the needs of an industrial class that he also referred to as the working class needed to be recognized and fulfilled to have an effective society and an efficient economy. Saint-Simon's conception of this class included all people engaged in productive work that contributed to society, that included businesspeople, managers, scientists, bankers, along with manual labourers amongst others.[ COMTE HENRI DE SAINT SIMON Saint-Simon stressed the need for recognition of the merit of the individual and the need for hierarchy of merit in society and in the economy, such as society having hierarchical merit-based organizations of managers and scientists to be the decision-makers in government. He strongly criticized any expansion of government intervention into the economy beyond ensuring no hindrances to productive work and reducing idleness in society, regarding intervention beyond these as intruding into the economy. This ideology soon inspired and influenced utopian socialism Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels identifying Saint-Simon as an inspiration to their ideas and identifying him among the utopian socialists. COMTE HENRI DE SAINT SIMON He believed that a society that cooperated would see an immense improvement in their productivity levels. Workers would be recompensed for their labors according to their contribution. Fourier saw such cooperation occurring in communities he called "phalanxes," based around structures called Phalanstères or "grand hotels." CHARLES FOURIER French Revolution GWF Hegel PART II Marx and Engels a German philosopher who was a major figure in German idealism. His historicist and idealist account of reality revolutionized European philosophy and served as an important precursor to Continental philosophy, Marxism and historism. GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL Hegel's thinking can be understood as a constructive development within the broad tradition that includes Plato and Immanuel Kant. To this list one could add Meister Eckhart, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Plotinus,, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. What all these thinkers share, which distinguishes them from materialists like Epicurus, the Stoics, and Thomas Hobbes, and from empiricists like David Hume, is that they regard freedom or self-determination both as real and as having important ontological implications, for soul or mind or divinity. This focus on freedom is what generates Plato's view of the soul as having a higher or fuller kind of reality than inanimate objects possess. GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL Spirit (Geist)- Infinite life which unites all finite things from within Nature- a precondition of human consciousness, it provides the sphere of the objective. The Absolute expresses itself in objectivity through Nature. Absolute- necessarily expresses itself as Spirit, as selfconsciousness, in and through the human mind. It is the subject matter of philosophy, which is reality as a whole. It is self- thinking Thought GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL Hegel believes that philosophy stops short of religion and is subordinate to it. Christ is just a moral teacher God is self- thinking Thought which is the telos or end that draws the world as its final cause The whole process of reality is a teleological movement towards the actualization of self- thinking Thought, which is the telos or end of the universe HEGEL ON GOD Hegel wanted to show that the claim of sense certainty to be knowledge par excellence is a bogus claim Phenomenology has three parts Consciousness- of an object as a sensible thing Self- consciousness- involves social consciousness Reason- is the synthesis of objectivity and subjectivity GWF HEGEL THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE SPIRIT The Family-, the first moment in the ethical substance is the immediate natural ethical substance. It is one person whose will is expressed in the common property of the family. The members of the family are united by the bond of love Civil Society- The second moment in the ethical substance. It is a plurality of individuals united in a form of economic organization for the achievement of their own ends. It involves classes, specialization of labor and corporations The State- The third moment in the ethical substance, which involves the political constitution and government. GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL: ETHICS The family represents the moment of universality in the sense of undifferentiated unity. Civil Society represents the moment of particularity The State represents the unity of the universal and the particular. In the State self- consciousness has risen to the level of universal self- consciousness. The State is an organic unity. It is a concrete universal, existing in and through particulars which are distinct and one at the same time. It is the self- conscious ethical substance and is the actuality of the rational will. It is the highest expression of objective Spirit. Rights are established and maintained as the expression of the universal rational will. GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL: ETHICS Left Hegelians Hegelians did not believe that Hegelianism was compatible with Christianity. These eventually became more atheistic in their outlook The biblical scholar, David Friedrich Strauss was a left Hegelian Ludwig Feuerbach also fell into this group Right Hegelians The right Hegelians believed that Hegelianism was compatible with Christianity Johann Karl Friedrich Rosenkranz was a student of both Hegel and Schleiermacher Ludwig Michelet identified Hegel’s triad with the members of the Trinity THE YOUNG HEGELIANS Feuerbach was an atheist, materialist He was also a Left Hegelian He wrote The Essence of Christianity He also wrote, The Essence of Religion He believed that religion is an important stage in human development The primary object of religion is Nature He believed that politics must become our religion LUDWIG FEUERBACH French Revolution GWF Hegel PART III Marx and Engels Karl Marx Frederick Engels SCIENTIFIC COMMUNISM Goals of Communism 1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. 2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. 3. Abolition of all right of inheritance. 4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels. 5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly. ROMANTIC POLITICAL ECONOMY 6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state. 7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. 8. Equal liability of all to labor. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. 9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the population over the country. 10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc ROMANTIC POLITICAL ECONOMY: COMMUNIST GOALS CONTINUED Socialism Fascism Communism ROMANTIC POLITICAL PHILOSOPHIES Fascism Communism National socialism Fascism borrowed theories and terminology from socialism but replaced socialism's focus on class conflict with a focus on conflict between nations and races. Fascists advocate a mixed economy, with the principal goal of achieving autarky to secure national self-sufficiency and independence through protectionist and interventionist economic policies Worldwide socialism is a socioeconomic system structured upon the common ownership of the means of production and characterized by the absence of social classes, money, and the state; as well as a social, political and economic ideology and movement that aims to establish this social order. Communism includes a variety of schools of thought, which broadly include Marxism, anarchism and the political ideologies grouped around both. VARIETIES OF SOCIALISM The Frankfurt School is a school of social theory and philosophy at the Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany. The school initially formed during the interwar period in Germany and consisted of dissidents who were at home neither in the existent capitalist, fascist nor communist systems that had formed during the interwar period. Meanwhile, many of these theorists believed that traditional theory could not adequately explain the turbulent and unexpected development of capitalist societies in the twentieth century. Critical of both capitalism and Soviet socialism, their writings pointed to the possibility of an alternative path to social development THE FRANKFURT SCHOOL