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Ideas for 'Causation', 'The Individual, the State, and the Common Good' and 'Selections from Prison Notebooks'

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2 ideas

24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 6. Liberalism / g. Liberalism critique
Liberalism's weakness is its powerful rigid bureaucracy [Gramsci]
     Full Idea: Liberalism's weakness is the bureacracy - the crystallisation of the leading personnel - which exercises power, and at a certain point it becomes a caste.
     From: Antonio Gramsci (Selections from Prison Notebooks [1971], 2 'Hegemony')
     A reaction: This sounds more like what is called 'the Establishment' in Britain, which is the hidden controllers of power, rather than the administrators (whose role is only despised by right-wingers).
Liberalism may fail because it neglects the shared nature of what we pursue and protect [Haldane]
     Full Idea: I am interested in the claim that liberalism fails inasmuch as it neglects, and cannot accommodate, the fact that some or all of the goods we pursue, and which a system of rights is concerned to protect, are goods possessed in common.
     From: John Haldane (The Individual, the State, and the Common Good [1996], III)
     A reaction: It depends how individualistic we take liberalism to be. Extreme individualism (Nozick) strikes me as crazy. If 'we' erect a statue to some dubious politicians, it might be presented as a common good, but actually be despised by many.