Rate each of the following statements as L = Liberal or C = Conservative—no quibbles or qualifications allowed.
Imagine yourself as reading the statements just after World War I before any of them had become law (as many soon did) but were then being advocated by one group or another in several countries:
L C A large tax on capital that would be a one-time expropriation of all riches L C A minimum wage L C End the draft L C Extend the vote to women L C Government bodies run by workers’ representatives L C Lower the voting age to 18 L C Repeal titles of nobility L C Confiscate 85% of all war profits of military contractors L C All newspapers to be in the national language and all employees to be citizens L C Land for the sustenance of our people and colonies for our surplus population L C Only a member of the race can be a citizen L C Division of profits of heavy industries among workers L C Expansion on a large scale of old age welfare L C Income from interest to be abolished L C Industries associated with war profits to be nationalized L C Reconstruction of national education to enable all to obtain higher education L C The common good must come before self-interest L C The plans of instruction are to conform with the experiences of practical life L C The State is to elevate national health by encouragement of physical fitness L C The State is to care for elevating national health by outlawing child-labor
Ideas are a major source of human conflict. How can people organize a society without sacrificing individual rights to collective order? What is the source of the state’s authority? How complete should that authority be? Such questions can excite great passion, sometimes lead to bloodshed, often prove intractable, and shape our conceptions of the world and ourselves.
In the West, they have their main sources in Hebrew morality, Greek rationalism, Roman law, medieval theology, Renaissance sensibilities, and Enlightenment questioning. These evolved to give us the main characteristics of the Western heritage: free markets and consumerism, freedom of conscience, individual rights and responsibility and thus limited government, rule of law, democracy and the work ethic, science and medicine, and separation of church and state. This chapter focuses on ideas about Man, History, Society, Nature, and God that have been at the heart of intellectual conflict through much of western history.