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Applied International Relations – Essay
Liberalism in the 20th Century
Introduction
The essay focuses on the progress of liberalization in the 20th century as the century proved to be very important in the history of liberalization. Liberalism is an old political philosophy which began after a massive civil war in the 1640s. Liberalism has been an important political philosophy for more than two centuries now. The liberalism basically focuses on two aspects, which are liberty and equality for all individuals in the society. The liberalism before the 20th century is known as the classical liberalism whereas it is known as social liberalism since the start of the 20th century. The principles of liberalism vary around different corners of the world; some primary principles include democratic elections, freedom of religion, justice and equality for everyone in the society. The liberalism became a distinct political movement in the age of enlightenment and shaped the political environment of various countries especially in the west.
Progress in the 20th Century
At the end of 19th century, many questions arose regarding classical liberalism and the downturn of classical liberalism started from there. In the late 19th century, the classical liberalism was initially challenged by downturns in economic growth worldwide, unemployment, increasing poverty and the feeling of deprivation in the industrial cities of that time. The major challenge to liberalism was due to the rise of socialism around the world; socialism was a conservative political philosophy which was based on the change in society and reforms in the society. The socialism is totally opposite to liberalism as one believes in industrialization and the other believes that industrialization and capitalism must be there (Riker, 1982). Since the start of the 20th century, the liberalism changed from classical liberalism to social liberalism. Social liberalism was initiated by two liberals named David George and Winston Churchill in 1909 when they introduced the people’s budget in the UK; this budget introduced higher taxes for higher income groups and also focused on implementing different social programs for the poor people in the society (Sandel, 1998).
According to Riker (1982), In the 1920s, the liberalism was on its peak due to the downfall of Russian Czar in the liberal revolution of 1917 and the allied countries, who were liberal, won the world war – 1 against Germany which was purely socialist. Apart from these events, the downfall of four big empires of the world also contributed to the rise of liberalization in the 1920s. After these events, the liberalism grew rapidly in the west; it did not grow in the four victorious allies only but it also got importance in the countries like German who was always ruled by the military. The militarism was defeated and defamed worldwide as the founder of militarism i.e. Germany started looking towards liberal values to survive in the environment. The liberal values namely free trade, democracy, and unionism and free – market theory got importance after the 1920s and were dominant throughout the world (Skinner, 1998).
In the view of Ruggie (1982), the liberalism kept growing but there were some events which stopped the progress of liberalism in the 1920s. Firstly, the communism was imposed in Russia when Vladimir Lenin, a communist, came in power in Russia and weakened the basis of liberalism in Russia as a whole. He preached Communism values in Russia which focused on equality for all in the society; there is no room for money and social classes. These values contradict the liberal values as liberalism focuses on the accumulation of wealth and it also believes that the social classes must exist in the society (Skinner, 1998). In the view of Ruggie (1982), the growth of liberalism was further stopped when Mussolini imposed the dictator rule in Italy; the liberalism believes in the democracy so martial law in Italy was another blow to progress of liberalism all over the world. Another martial law was imposed in Poland under the military general Józef Piłsudski in 1926; this also impacted the progress of liberalism in the 1920s significantly. There was another shock for liberalism in 1930s when the liberalism withered away from Japan due to pressure from the army and other militant forces; it must be noted that Japan was liberal in 1920s.
As discussed by Sandel (1998), after the First World War, liberals decided to make an international organization to ensure that there is no other World War again. The idea of League of Nations was initiated by the leaders from United Kingdom and United States of America. The main purpose of League of Nations was to promote peace throughout the world but its other purposes included the promotion of liberalism in the entire world. The League of Nations was formed and promoted liberalism to a certain extent as most of the members of League of Nations were liberals so it proved to be an important tool for the union of liberals and promoting them in the rest of the world. Later, the League of Nations proved to be a failure which was also a blow to the progress of liberalism alongside other damages discussed earlier (Kymlicka, 1989).
Then the great economic depression started all around the world which defamed the capitalism and liberal economics and called for institutional interference to improve the economic position of the countries; it basically called for state control on all the economic matters. The economic depression weakened the position of liberal leaders in Europe and the people started thinking about communism and fascism which were the alternatives of liberalism available at that time (Doyle, 1986). He further argues that after this downfall of liberalization, it rose again when the liberals won the Second World War against Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and militarist Japan. The winners of this war were the communist Russia and the allies who were liberal; since the values of two sides were quite different so the alliance between these two sides could not last any longer and it lead to cold war between the communist Russia and the allies (Doyle, 1986).
In the view of Kymlicka (1989), after the World War 2, the liberal democracy was also established in the countries who lost the war; those countries include West Germany, Italy and Japan. None of them was liberal initially but their political dynamics were changed after the course of World War 2. Japan, West Germany and other liberal states realized steady growth after the War and their enormous economic growth lead to prosperity in those countries. The attention was then diverted to institutional factors which were hindering these economies from realizing their full potential especially in the time of great economic depression which started in 1929. The liberal nations namely United Kingdom and United States of America instructed their national institutions to promote full employment, realize and implement full industrial capacity and reach at the maximum purchasing power for the common people.
Since there was focus on sharing the wealth all around the world so the liberal governments decided to follow the Keynesian economics model; this model focused on borrowing, taxation and spending back in the economy. The Keynesian model was introduced by John Maynard Keynes in 1936 as soon as the great depression was over. The model believes that additional employment and income can be generated using these steps because when the money is circulated well, it generates additional resources in the economy (Sandel, 1998). The government aimed to share the wealth with the poor people by implementing this strategy; one of the primary rules was progressive taxation in the liberal economies which means that families with higher income pay higher amount of taxes to the government who then use those funds to improve the conditions of the poor in the economy. The liberalism was now trying to share the wealth with the poor in appropriate manner; initially it used to take wealth from rich people and then it was distributed among the poor people. The Keynesian economic model is primarily used to expand the economy without any external financing. This model was promoted by liberalism after the Second World War as they were competing with the Communism and Fascism (Kymlicka, 1989).
The cold war initiated after the Second World War was mainly fought between the allies of War and the Soviet Union. This war was not physically fought but it was an ideological war where Soviet Union wanted to promote communism and allies of World War 2 wanted to promote liberalism (Moravcsik, 1997). Several proxy wars were fought as a result of this cold war between these countries and another World War was feared; it was expected that the Third World War can be initiated between United States and Soviet Union any time which never happened actually. The cold war and proxy wards led the world to another crisis in 1970, many economies moved away from the Keynesian economic model especially in the UK and the US (Skinner, 1998).
Jessop (2002) states that in the 1980s the social liberalism was then changed to Neoliberalism, which was actually the renewal of classic liberalism. In the neoliberalism, the powers of public sectors are transferred to private sector and private sector drives the economy up or down. The neoliberalism is not poor friendly because it focuses on higher taxation and lower subsidies for the economy as a whole. This view also focuses on the floating exchange rate, openness to global trade and deregulation in the economy. The neoliberalism was based on the classical liberal principles despite the failure of the same principles earlier in the form of great economic depression in 1929. After the introduction of neoliberalism in the 1980s Eastern Europe collapsed as a whole; which was non – democratic and non – liberal. After the collapse of Eastern Europe, liberalism rose as the only major political philosophy in the entire west (Jessop, 2002).
Though the liberalism was growing after the First World War but it was not able to convert much countries into democratic and the values of countries were not changing as a whole. It affected the mentality of people only and the growth was stopped in 1920s as discussed earlier. According to Jessop (2002), the number of liberal / democratic societies in 1945 was same as 40 years before; this shows that no additional country accepted the dynamics of liberalism. The other possibility is that some countries accepted liberalism and some liberal countries changed their philosophy from liberalism to some other political philosophy. But after 1945, the number of liberal countries increased very quickly and the democracy became famous all around the world. It was still believed by many nations such as Soviet Union that the democracy was not right for most of the countries; it was also argued that most of the countries did not select their governments through free and fair elections (Riker’s, 1982). The freedom and equality which are two main principles of liberalism were also promoted after the Second World War along with the increasing democracy in the west especially. The reasons which stopped liberalism from further progress include the inability to bring equality for women around the world as liberalism was not able to bring the justice and equality for women. Also, the USA had different laws for black people which shows that there cannot be equality in the society with these laws; this indicated to other countries that liberalism will not be able to bring justice and equality in any society as the founders of philosophy was not able to implement it properly in their own societies (Skinner, 1998).
In the 1990s, the neoliberalism further gained popularity and authenticity as most of the world became democratic by the end of the 20th century. Apart from the democracy, international trade, freedom and equality were promoted heavily by the United Nations and most of the economies are now using flexible exchange rate which is promoted by liberalism. The liberalism became very popular in the 1990s as conservative countries also started becoming liberal and mentality of people changed during this period even if their government was not liberal. It is argued that the principles of liberalism in the 1990s are associated…
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