Reflection Two - Ideology & Politics

Ideology and Politics

Ideology is the ideas and way of thinking by an individual, group of people or social class.  “The mental frameworks - the languages, the concepts, categories, imageries of thought and systems of representation - which different classes and social groups deploy in order to make sense of, define, figure out and render intelligible the way society works” (Hall 1996: 26). A prevalent example of ideology in our society is the political system we live in. Our political system shows how competing ideologies shape and effect our lives. It is the ideologies of the governing parties that shape our laws and social welfare and is evident in everyday life from public schools to health care and social assistance. 

Political ideology is defined as a set of ideas shared by a large group of people that explains how a society should work. Typically a political ideology contains a form of government and an economic system. Forms of governments include; “democracies” which rely on elected officials to govern the people and promotes individualism and libertinism. On the other the end of the spectrum there is “authoritarianism” which relies on a highly centralised group of leaders who achieve their authority through repression and fear. A political ideology also considers the best economic system and normally flows from the ideas of the sitting government. Examples of a economic systems include “Capitalism” and “Economic Socialism”. Capitalism is based on the private ownership and the creation of goods and services for profit.^Mark In contrast, economic socialism is based on creation of goods and services for direct consumption. In other words everything that is created in the economy is created to directly satisfy economic demands and human needs (Kotz, 2006). These forms of government and economics systems are the basis for the political spectrum. If you listen to the media coverage on politics you hear terms like “left wing” and “right wing” these describe a persons political ideology; whether they are more socialist (left wing) or conservative (right wing). In Canada we take a centrist approach with mixtures of different ideologies rather then extreme positions on either end of the spectrum. This does not preclude the existence of these fringe groups they are just not the populous. 

Political ideologies dominate our society. Every aspect of our life is effected by it from health care to public education, infrastructure to social assistance, it impacts our lives daily. Our political ideologies help form the social framework of our society which is why it is useful to understand exactly what Ideology is.

References

Hall, S. (1996) 'The problem of ideology: Marxism without guarantees', in D. Morley and

K.H. Chen (eds), Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies. London: Routledge. pp. 25-46. 

Kotz, David M. (2006). Socialism and capitalism: Are they qualitatively different socioeconomic systems?. Department of Economics and Political Economy Research Institute, Retrieved from http://people.umass.edu/dmkotz/Soc_and_Cap_Diff_Syst_06_12.pdf

Tormey, Simon. (2004). Anti-Capitalism. One World Publications, p. 10