HIRE WRITER

Issue of Liberalism in American Politics

This is FREE sample
This text is free, available online and used for guidance and inspiration. Need a 100% unique paper? Order a custom essay.
  • Any subject
  • Within the deadline
  • Without paying in advance
Get custom essay

Within America, there have been many issues over time when dealing with politics. There are so many people who want to make their way into politics and talk as much change as possible with not only on what the people want but what they actually want because they feel that since they’re in the position they’re in now they can go and change the world. People today are all so self-centered and will never understand that it’s not just about their opinion’s, but only it’s about the society around them that really matters. Having liberals working within a Democracy is never going to get anything done especially if more are leaning towards being liberal than actually conservative because they’re all going to want to just change everything that they possibly could without even thinking about it.

There are so many important factors that we need to take into consideration when dealing with our democratic system and allowing liberals to get in and work for it is only going to bring the society down with them around and they’ll be able to take what they feel could be necessary and manage to have everyone on their sides with whatever choices that they try to make. The tension between both Liberals and Democracy is highly strong. As I have stated, there are some things that need a major looking at and then there are others that really were thought well about and were even talked about for years.

There are many instances where change is not always better. I look at it this way if you’re just looking to pick out on everything and try and cause as much change as possible with everything that you feel needs to be changed when it doesn’t even need to change, basically if it’s not broken, then no need to fix it. Liberal democracy is defined as a democratic system of government in which individual rights and freedoms are officially recognized and protected with added on also the exercise of the political power and is limited by the rule of law.

While there are most people today who see liberalism and democracy as virtually compatible. If we were to dig deeper, we could then see clearly the tensions between both of two. I would more generally refer to the three major tensions which would form a nice plan. First, with liberalism, it contradicts democracy due to the nature of how democracies are run. Liberalism is centered on the idea of the individual and that the state should not be able to intervene in the affairs of men. As John Stuart Mill says, “the individuals are not accountable to society for such behavior and actions that affect only them”. Therefore, within a democracy, it is dangerous as it is as a form of collectivism where it readily sacrifices the individual rights to the majority. This idea has been referred to as the “tyranny of the majority” by Alexis De Tocqueville and endangers what John Locke has described as the “cares of men’s souls”.

Second, the conflict will continue to occur over tolerance with a key component of it being liberalism that Mill has described within his statement. This shows that being tolerable is definitely beneficial to society within the terms of human progress as well as an important pedestal in being able to guarantee individualism. The right of others to say and believe in what they want. The third conflict between liberalism and democracy is the democratic pressure for increased economic intervention which is considered to be a fragile balance within the economy. It is a belief that is rooted in the economist Wager and his theory that within democracies people will tend to vote for welfare and social reform to make their standard of living better.

This is occurring because due to the democratic focus on popular participation, economic liberalism is believed to be egotistical where individuals are at their utility maximizers and there they should make the greatest number of economic decisions as possible. The market should then operate within the interests of the people and the price instrument will then be able to ration off of the welfare in order to be able to boost the utility within society. The whole reason behind the democratic principle is the fact that it is considered to be unpredictable but with certain individuals in it, sometimes strings will get pulled in order for it to go the way that they would want it to get done.

The reasons behind having a democracy are to ensure that we’re getting done what is the right policies and who is the right candidate to be able to fiercely contest it. Liberals have official restraints placed on an individual’s liberty that has to be both justified and minimal. Liberals, however, also fear the masses, worrying about “mob rule” and the “tyranny of the majority” as threats to the liberty of the individual. For all the distaste for state restraints, many liberals have increasingly looked to state institutions as means of checking the power of the many. This has inevitably led to ambivalence about the virtues of democracy.

With the end of the Cold War, many liberals expected the tension between liberalism and democracy to be resolved. Liberal institutions, they imagined, could concentrate on governance and the enactment of the “right” policies while, free from dreams of socialism, the masses could simply become the electorate, exercising their democratic right at elections and enjoying the benefits of technocratically shaped governments.

References

Cite this paper

Issue of Liberalism in American Politics. (2021, Aug 13). Retrieved from https://samploon.com/issue-of-liberalism-in-american-politics/

We use cookies to give you the best experience possible. By continuing we’ll assume you’re on board with our cookie policy

Hi!
Peter is on the line!

Don't settle for a cookie-cutter essay. Receive a tailored piece that meets your specific needs and requirements.

Check it out