Lecture 9: Politics and Social Movements

• Keynes: '"The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back"'
• Your lifestyle and opportunities are politically determined
• Higher education


  • Your tuition with government funding: $10,000.00
  • Your tuition without government funding: $30,000
• "Private" Transportation


  • Your drive to school with government funding
  • Your drive to school with less government funding
  • Your drive to school with no government funding
• "Public" Transportation


  • Your trip with government funding
  • Your trip with less government funding
  • Your trip with no government funding
• Environment


  • The air you breathe with government regulation
  • The air your breathe without government regulation
• Personal success


  Chances of any person living a full and successful life and being able to achieve a higher standard of living than their parents (social mobility) is higher in countries whose governments spend on social programs such as education, health care, unemployment insurance, social welfare, small business development
• Of course, this corresponds with higher tax rates for wealthier members
• Micropolitics


  We are constantly engaged in personal micropolitics to get what we want in life by investing in our own financial capital, social capital, and cultural capital
• The personal is political
• Roadblocks to political involvement

  • Consumerism
  • Enlightenment as Mass Deception
  • Society of the Spectacle
  • Opium of the Masses
• Although there are roadblocks, entrenched power, and elite control, politics never really dies
• The State


  A human community that claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory
• The State


  The set of procedures and organizations concerned with creating, administering, and enforcing rules or decisions for conduct within a given territory
• Nation


  A cultural community, an "Imagined community"
• Some groups are marginalized in the cultural construction of the "Nation"
• Nation-State


  The modern notion in which the idea of "nation" (cultural community) is used to justify a "state", and the "state" in turn protects the "nation"
• Some nations, however, do not have states (Palestinians, Quebecois)
• With global media and global markets, do states have nations anymore?
• WWII Total Deaths: 60-78 million
• WWII Total Financial Cost: $11 Trillion
• Social Movements


  Large, informal groupings of individuals or organizations which work to carry-out, resist, or undo a social, economic, political, or cultural change
• Types of Social Movements

  • "Old" social movements
  • "New" social movements
• "Old" Social Movements (OSM)


  Based on economic depravation, goal is to take or substantially alter governing or corporate power
• "New" Social Movements (NSM)


  Based on identities, culture, and non-economic factors, goal is to challenge and change forms of governmentality - mostly through acquiring social, cultural, and financial capital
• Governmentality


  The ways in which those with more power manage and control the behaviours of others through the instillation of beliefs, habits, and laws which govern behaviour
• Perspectives on Democracy


  • Liberal-pluralism
  • Marxist
  • Neo-Marxist
  • Feminist
• Current Labels for Political Positioning

  • Conservative (Conservative Party)
  • Neoliberal (Conservative Party)
  • Liberal (NDP)
  • Socialist (Marxist-Leninist Party)
  • New Socialist (No party in Canada)
• New Socialist


  Radical decentralization of political power from central government to community groups, these groups work in concert with less politically powerful regional and federal governments, these groups regulate or utilize markets as required by the situation, markets are used more than with "old" socialism