The liberal and Marxist theories of politics compared

Introduction

NCERT and IGNOU both rank liberalism and Marxism among the leading ideologies of the present day. They differ in their view of the individual, of property, of equality, and of the state.

The liberal tradition

Liberalism rests on a commitment to the individual, freedom, toleration and consent. It began as a protest against privileged, hierarchical authority and absolute monarchy, and it treats the person as the end and the state as the means, a necessary evil with no absolute authority. NCERT describes the same outlook from the individual's side. Liberals distrust political authority and generally rank individual liberty above other values, equality included; and they hold that groups such as the family, society or community matter only because, and only so far as, individuals value them. A young woman's choice to study fine arts rather than the medicine her family wants is, for a liberal, hers to make.

Key features. Rule of law, secure private property, freedom of contract and limited government make up the classical core. Civil liberties, such as free thought, expression, association and movement, are protected, and tolerance means defending a person's right to hold and voice opinions even when one disagrees with them. Mill's harm principle states when liberty may be limited: only to prevent harm to others. Liberals look for fair procedures more than for a fixed end result, and they see open competition, held on free and fair terms, as the most just and efficient way of allocating rewards. In politics the tradition supports democracy and in economics capitalism. IGNOU names Locke, Kant and Mill as the thinkers who shaped it most, and Rawls as its leading twentieth-century voice.

Strands. Classical liberalism (Locke, Adam Smith, Bentham, James Mill, Spencer) wanted a minimal state and freedom from government interference in the economy, on the ground that each person best judges his or her own interest; Locke added the natural rights to life, liberty and property. By the late nineteenth century industrial profit had gathered in a few hands while many stayed poor, and this exposed the strand's weakness. Modern or welfare liberalism answered that poverty, disease, discrimination and ignorance are themselves obstacles to freedom, which only state action can remove. J. S. Mill began the shift by separating self-regarding from other-regarding actions; Green, Hobhouse and Laski carried it further; and Keynes's case for active government spending lay behind the growth of welfare programmes in the liberal democracies after 1945. NCERT notes the same change: historically liberalism favoured the free market and a minimal state, but present-day liberalism accepts the welfare state and measures to reduce social and economic inequality. Rawls joined liberty with equality in his justice as fairness, written to meet the needs of the liberal democratic welfare state. Neo-liberalism (Hayek, Friedman, Nozick) is classical liberalism brought back. Its objection to the welfare state is moral: compelling the more able to support the less able is a forced transfer that violates individual liberty, so the state should again be minimal and the market free. Its opportunity came when Western growth stalled in the 1970s and governments, still paying for welfare, were left with high taxes and heavy debt.

Criticisms. Events have raised doubts of their own: welfare policies have failed in places, and recent economic crises have shaken confidence in the tradition's future. Communitarians, writing against Rawls above all, object that it sets the individual before society and imagines persons as if they stood apart from it. Feminists object that the individual at its centre is modelled on men, so that its individualism ends up legitimising gender inequality. For Marxists its promise of civic rights and equality is hollow while class power stays unequal, and IGNOU itself says the tradition has never lost its bourgeois character.

The Marxist view of politics

Politics rooted in economics. For Marxism politics cannot be read apart from the economy. The base, made up of the forces and relations of production, shapes a superstructure that includes the polity, religion, morals and values; people's social existence fixes their consciousness, not the other way round. Every society except primitive communism has been marked by conflict between those who own the means of production and those who work them, and NCERT records the key point: private ownership of important resources makes the owning class wealthy and also gives it social and political power.

Politics as class rule. The state is a coercive class instrument, set up by the owners to put down dissent, so a minority has always ruled a majority through it. Marxists therefore say that the liberal promise of civic rights and equality overlooks unequal class power. NCERT notes that much inequality can persist where all citizens hold equal rights, and Marxists and socialists conclude that equal opportunity is not enough: essential resources need public control.

Ideas and consent. Marx held that the ruling class produces an ideology that legitimates its exploitation. In Marxist language, consent moulded in this way ends in false consciousness. Later Marxists such as Gramsci accepted that the superstructure has an important role.

Goal. Politics in this sense aims to end class society. A revolution of the workers leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat, and then to a communist society with no classes, no state and no private ownership of the means of production.

Criticisms. Its prediction about the state has failed in practice: where its followers took power, the state became all-powerful instead of fading away. Lohia, for one, held that caste, gender and other inequalities have roots of their own and must be fought separately. Its map of society, with two classes only, is too simple and leaves out a growing middle class. And causation does not run one way only: the economy is itself shaped by politics, culture and religion, which is why later Marxists gave the superstructure more weight. Still, IGNOU holds that it remains useful as a method of social analysis and as a voice of the oppressed, and NCERT accepts that its views, though debatable, raise issues that need an answer.

Liberal and Marxist theories of politics compared

Evaluation. Liberalism has been stronger on political freedoms and weaker on class inequality; Marxism stronger on class inequality and weaker in its record on the state. The gap has narrowed in places: present-day liberalism accepts welfare measures, while socialists are not entirely opposed to the market and evolutionary socialists trust parliamentary democracy.

Conclusion

The two theories give opposed answers to what makes politics what it is. For liberals it is the protection of individual rights and choices under law; for Marxists it is the struggle of classes shaped by economic power. IGNOU sees Marxism as a lasting alternative to liberalism and a check on its excesses, while liberalism itself has moved to accept welfare measures.