Political Ideologies

...explained as if we're at a coffee shop

Though I have nothing to do with politics and I like to sit down and chill in my own sphere, here are some brief descriptions of some of the political ideologies that exist.

Before starting, if you have no idea about what the topic is, imagine you and your friends decide to decorate your room for Halloween. Each of you will have your own idea of how the room should be decorated, right? Political ideologies are kind of like that, they are all different beliefs and ideas as to how a country or a group of people should run. Just like your room decoration scenario - not one ideology is always perfect. It’s always a combination of good ideas from different ideologies that make things work better for everyone.

1. Democracy

Easiest first, a government of the people, for the people bla bla. The core concept is, there is a majority vote of people which decides which party would govern the country.

So, say 2/3rd people voted for XYZ party, now think about the 1/3rd who didn’t want them and voted for some other group - they are obliged to live and follow the rules of people they didn’t want as their lead. See the flaw? hmm.

2. Fascism

Fascism promotes strict and strong dictatorship - single party with a single leader (yeah Mussolini and Hitler kinda guys) with the idea that the their goverment is the religion of their people. In dictatorship, there is no opposition or anything, people blindly follow their leader, a lot of individual freedom is compromised and this is why, whenever you think of Hitler - you see scenes of huge crowds applauding and welcoming him as if he’s their true god.

I don’t even wanna start how fascism can be bad, let’s just move to the next one.

3. Communism

Communism says that there should be a fair society, no private property and owning, everything is shared among people - no discrimination and no classes. All of this requires an organized plan and full control to the government (or community) to be able to get rid of individual ownership and promote equal share.

Although I find majority people liking this ideology over others, the shortcoming of it is that people will not be motivated to work hard or innovate new things - because it is not going to pay them extra as there’s equal share for whatever work you do, and even that isn’t owned by you - by everyone. wtf.

4. Capitalism

Capitalism on the other hand, revolves around the idea that people run their own business and make their own share of money out of it. This means that the economic control totally shifts from the government to private ownerships. It of course, promotes competition among businesses, which in turn, promotes innovation and growth of the country as a whole.

The downside of capitalism is that it creates big economic inequalities - while some companies accumulate huge amount of money, the smaller ones struggle to make their ends meet even.

5. Anarchism

Quite an extreme ideology which says there should be no government, no kind of societal hierarchy or authority at all - individuals have full control of their lives and decisions and that people can cooperate without the need of governments and rulers.

Dark side of anarchism is of course, since there is no form of governing body, there’s lawlessness, chaos, crimes and the basic services like healthcare, education and everything can be difficult as there’s no funding or management.

6. Liberalism

Another ideology that focuses more on individual freedom - Liberalism does believe in the necessity of a government though, but the government is limited to only protecting their individual rights and providing those services I mentioned above.

With liberalism limiting the government’s involvement in economic control, downside will be very similar to that of capitalism - economic unequality, plus individuals and business exploiting resources for their profit (as they are free to do it) leaving the future generation and environment in risk.

7. Socialism

I should have probably mentioned it after communism - socialism has a lot of things in common with communism - like everyone gets a fair share of resources, but there is individual ownership in socialism. Whatever you do with the resources - you own that, unlike in communism where it will be owned by everyone. So, people can still earn different incomes but however, there’s a limit to the wealth gap.

Drawbacks of socialism will also be very similar to communism as the economy is state managed - it can reduce people’s motivation to work hard or be innovative. Also, if all industries are getting equal resources and producing equal products - this might lead to surpluses and shortages as the market doesn’t need everything equally, right?

bye.