The ideology of social scientists: A complex balance

Business Standard     25th November 2020     Save    
QEP Pocket Notes

Context:  Social democracy defined in the trinity of social values - Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, provides balance to shifting in our complex world and influences the ideological positions of social scientists.

Inherent conflicts between various social values: A Panoply of ideological positions.

  • Liberty:
  • Based on political freedom:
    • Libertarians focus on negative liberty: which relates to freedom from undue intervention or restrictions;
    • Democratic Socialists focus on positive liberty: which relates to freedom to do things that enhance one’s self-realisation and well-being;
    • Social democrats or Left Libertarian: want both negative and positive liberty.
  • Based on economic freedom: Liberty on the economic scale has been divided into capitalism and communism
    • The paradox of the rise of China on the capitalist lines has left no other nation to be designated as a truly communist one.
    • While capitalism is under questioning due to its labour replacing development and combined with nationalism is threatening the global order.
  • Equality:
    • Liberals are against state action to redress inequality as it will hurt liberty. E.g. Progressive taxation will limit the economic freedom of private enterprises.
    • Social democrats believe in a welfare state which is good for productivity and profits.
  • Fraternity:
  • Conflict with liberty:
    • Traditional patriarchal families: or kinship groups can be quite authoritarian in their treatment, particularly of younger and female members.
    • Community-grown identity fanatics: following populist demagogues are denigrating liberals who display more openness to ethnic minorities and immigrants.
  • Conflict with equality: Liberals believe in the relative importance of ‘luck’ vs ‘effort’ in an individual’s doing financially well.
  • Conflict in Social coordination mechanisms: between the State, the market and the local community
  • Among Left: social democrats differ from socialists on the role of the market and private capital.
  • Liberals consider state officials may be inept or corrupt: and the political accountability mechanisms are often much too weak to discipline them.
  • Among Right: there are differences between market fundamentalists (favouring markets) and conservatives(fear the influence of the market on family ties).
  • Among Communitarian: there are differences between libertarian anarchists and those who think the State may be necessary to guard against inequality and loss of liberty.

Conclusion: Social democracy often seems like an imperfect but acceptable compromise to deal with the conflicts in values, but it will have to confront obstacles like nationalism and capitalism.

QEP Pocket Notes