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Foundations of Modern Political and Economic Thought

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Liberalism

Importance

  1. It ends with the Ancien Régime (AR).
  2. It starts the Contemporary Era.

Contemporary Aspects

  • Economic changes (Rise of Industrial Capitalism).
  • Sociopolitical changes (Class Struggle, Emergence of liberal-bourgeois nationalism).

Philosophical-Political Theory

  1. Base: Enlightenment thinkers (Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau).
  2. Principles: National sovereignty (with restricted suffrage), division of powers, rights and liberties, legal equality, but economic social inequality. These principles were enshrined in the Constitution of 1812.
  3. Actions: Revolutionary waves of 1820, 1830, and 1848, and Pronunciamientos (military uprisings).

Economic Aspects

Theory: Laissez-faire economic theory, associated with Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations.

Key Technical Elements

  1. Division of labor.
  2. Freedom of price (supply and demand).
  3. Free competition (worker-employer).
  4. The role of the State as a "gendarme" (minimal intervention).

Opposition

  • The Ancien Régime (return of Ferdinand VII).
  • Democratic and socialist movements.

Social Class

The middle class.

Nationalism

Importance

The great engine of contemporary liberalism, capitalism, and the Industrial Revolution.

Causes

  • Economic: Need for a domestic market and development of communications (e.g., railway).
  • Sociopolitical: Bourgeois Revolutions and the concept of the freedom of peoples.
  • Romantic Spirit: Exaltation of national feelings (Herder, Müller, Fichte).
  • Key Events: Napoleonic Empire led to a nationalist backlash in Spain.

Consequences/Relocations

Influenced Liberalism, Colonialism (leading later to decolonization), and Fascism.

Classification

  • Conservative Nationalism: Seen in Germany and Italy; associated with colonialism, racism, fascism, and xenophobia.
  • Progressive Nationalism: Associated with the revolutionary waves of 1820-30-48 and decolonization after World War II.

Ambiguity

  1. Meaning:
    • Vulgar Sense: A sense of belonging to a community (based on race, language, territory, culture, or Volksgeist).
    • Intellectual Sense: The building of Nation-States, which could be centrifugal (e.g., Greece, Belgium, USSR, Yugoslavia) or centripetal (e.g., Italy, Germany).
  2. Chronology: Before 1848, it was often associated with revolutionary conservatives.
  3. Space:
    • Germanic: Focused on the Volksgeist.
    • Latin: More democratic (e.g., Mazzini).

Capitalism

The dominant mode of production in contemporary societies.

Mode of Production

Refers to the organization of economic activity within a society.

Factors of Development

  1. Accumulation of primitive capital through trade.
  2. Adoption of economic liberalism principles against the strict rules of the Ancien Régime (RA).

Structural Features

  • New Means of Production (MP): Capital, raw materials, energy sources.
  • New Factors of Production (FP): Employers and employees.
  • New Production Techniques: Machines.
  • New Social Relations of Production: Workers receive a salary, while the employer obtains capital gain.

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