The Role of Ideas (Heywood, p1-5)

(Andrew Heywood, Political Ideologies: An Introduction, 2003, p1-5)

Not all political thinkers have accepted that ideas and ideologies are of much importance.

Politics has sometimes been thought to be little more than a naked struggle for power. If this is true, political ideas are mere propaganda, a form of words or slogans designed to win votes or attract popular support. Ideas and ideologies are therefore simply ‘window dressing’, used to conceal the deeper realities of political life. This is certainly a position supported by behaviourism, the school of psychology associated with John B. Watson (1878–1958) and B. F. Skinner (1904–90). From the perspective of behaviourism, human beings are little more than biological machines, conditioned to act (or, more correctly, react) to external stimuli. The thinking subject, together with their ideas, values, feelings and intentions, is simply an irrelevance. A very similar view also informed ‘dialectical materialism’, the crude form of Marxism that dominated intellectual enquiry in the Soviet Union and other orthodox communist states. This held that political ideas can only be understood in the light of the economic or class interests of those who express them. Ideas have a ‘material basis’, they have no meaning or significance on their own. Orthodox Marxists therefore analyse politics strictly in terms of social class and treat political ideologies as nothing more than an expression of the interests of particular classes.

The opposite argument has also been put. John Maynard Keynes (see p. 61), for example, argued that the world is ruled by little other than the ideas of economists and political philosophers. As he put it in the closing pages of his General Theory:

Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, 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.

(Keynes [1936] 1963, p. 383)

Far from dismissing ideas as being conditioned responses to practical circumstances, this position highlights the degree to which beliefs and theories provide the wellspring of human action. The world is ultimately ruled by ‘academic scribblers’. Such a view suggests, for instance, that modern capitalism, in important respects, developed out of the classical economics of Adam Smith and David Ricardo (1772–1823), that Soviet communism was significantly shaped by the writing of Karl Marx (see p. 126) and V. I. Lenin, and that the history of Nazi Germany can only be understood by reference to the doctrines advanced in Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

In reality, both these accounts of political life are one-sided and inadequate. Political ideas are not merely a passive reflection of vested interests or personal ambition, but have the capacity to inspire and guide political action itself and so can shape material life. At the same time, politicalideas do not emerge in a vacuum: they do not drop from the sky like rain. All political ideas are moulded by the social and historical circumstances in which they develop and by the political ambitions they serve. Quite simply, political theory and political practice are inseparably linked. Any balanced and persuasive account of political life must therefore acknowledge the constant interplay between ideas and ideologies on the one hand, and historical and material forces on the other.

Ideas and ideologies influence political life in a number of ways. In the first place, they provide a perspective through which the world is understood and explained. People do not see the world as it is, but only as they expect it to be; in other words, they see it through a veil of ingrained beliefs, opinions and assumptions. Whether consciously or unconsciously, everyone subscribes to a set of political beliefs and values that guide their behaviour and influence their conduct. Political ideas and ideologies thus set goals that inspire political activity. In this respect politicians are subject to two very different influences. Without doubt, all politicians want power. This forces them to be pragmatic, to adopt those policies and ideas that are electorally popular or win favour with powerful groups such as business or the army. However, politicians seldom seek power simply for its own sake. They also possess beliefs, values and convictions about what to do with power when it is achieved.

The balance between pragmatic and ideological considerations clearly varies from politician to politician, and also at different stages in a politician’s career. Some, for example Adolf Hitler have been fiercely, even fanatically, committed to a clear set of ideological goals. Hitler’s writings are shot through with virulent anti-Semitism (see p. 233) and openly discuss his desire to found a German-dominated, racial empire in eastern Europe. Marxist revolutionaries such as Lenin have been dedicated to the goal of building a classless, communist society. However, no politician can afford to be blinded by ideological conviction: at the very least, strategic compromises have to be made if power is to won and retained. Anti-Semitic attacks undoubtedly increased in Germany after Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor in 1933, but it was not until the war years that Hitler embarked upon the policy of racial extermination that some have believed was always his goal. In Lenin’s case, despite a distaste for capitalism, in 1921 he introduced the New Economic Policy, which permitted the re-emergence of limited private enterprise in Russia. Other politicians, notably but by no means exclusively those in the USA, have come to be regarded as little more than political commodities. They have been packaged and have sold themselves on the basis of image and personality, paying little or no attention to ideas or policies. Nevertheless, US politicians are not simply power-seeking pragmatists. The importance of ideas and values in US politics is concealed by the fact that the two major parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, share the same broad ideological goals. Most US politicians subscribe to what has been called the ‘American ideology’, a set of liberal-capitalist values about the virtues of a free market economy and respect for the principles embodied in the US Constitution.

Political ideas also help to shape the nature of political systems. Systems of government vary considerably throughout the world and are always associated with particular values or principles.

Absolute monarchies are based upon deeply established religious ideas, notably the divine right of kings. The political systems in most contemporary western countries are founded upon a set of liberal-democratic principles. Western states typically respect the ideas of limited and constitutional government, and also believe that government should be representative, based upon regular and competitive elections. In the same way, traditional communist political systems conformed to the principles of Marxism–Leninism. Communist states were dominated by a single party, a ruling Communist Party, whose authority rested upon Lenin’s belief that the Communist Party alone represents the interests of the working class. Even the fact that the world is divided into a collection of nation-states and that government power is usually located at the national level reflects the impact of political ideas, in this case of nationalism and, more specifically, the principle of national self-determination.

Finally, political ideas and ideologies can act as a form of social cement, providing social groups, and indeed whole societies, with a set of unifying beliefs and values. Political ideologies have commonly been associated with particular social classes – for example, liberalism with the middle classes, conservatism with the landed aristocracy, socialism with the working class and so forth. These ideas reflect the life experiences, interests and aspirations of a social class, and therefore help to foster a sense of belonging and solidarity. However, ideas and ideologies can also succeed in binding together divergent groups and classes within a society. For instance, there is unifying bedrock of liberal-democratic values in most western states, while in Muslim countries Islam has established a common set of moral principles and beliefs. In providing society with a unified political culture, political ideas help to promote order and social stability. A unifying set of political ideas and values can develop naturally within a society. However, it can also be enforced from above in an attempt to manufacture obedience and thereby operates as a form of social control. The values of elite groups such as political and military leaders, government officials, landowners or industrialists may diverge significantly from those of the masses. Ruling elites may use political ideas to contain opposition and restrict debate through a process of ideological manipulation. This was most obvious in regimes that possessed ‘official’ ideologies such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. In both cases official or politically ‘reliable’ beliefs, those of national socialism and Marxism–Leninism respectively, dominated political life and indeed all social institutions, art, culture, education, the media and so on. Opposing views and beliefs were simply censored or suppressed. Some argue that a more subtle form of ideological manipulation occurs in all societies. This can be seen in the Marxist belief, examined in the next section, that the culture of capitalist societies is dominated by ideas that serve the interests of the economically dominant class.