ADM 1122, Ders Notları: Neo-Liberalism (Lecture: 13.04.2010)

New Right is an ideology that can best be summarized as a synthesis of neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism which are revived versions of their older counterparts.

Neo-liberalism especially supports this claim by having several concepts and notions that underline its connection with liberalism. Economic individualism is one of these notions, advocating an increase of individual freedom by eliminating government oppression, pushing individuals to be self-reliant; for example taxes should be kept minimal in accordance to this concept.

Another notion included in neo-liberalism is libertarianism, which was best summarized by Nozick’s beliefs, who pushed for extremely minimal government which would only be involved in the provision of security and life; if it is involved, that is. So libertarians see tax as coercion, forced labour, oppression.

But a key concept within the neo-liberal ideology is the revival of Austrian economics which consisted of Hayek’s beliefs that liberal-capitalist economy was made up out of a trial and error system, which was considerably better than market socialism in Hayek’s mind. This underlined the nature of New Right as a reaction towards Democratic Socialism.

The last important element of neo-liberalism consists of the ideas of Milton Friedman who believed that the only economic responsibility of the state should be the problem of inflation; in other words, monetarism. Monetarist concepts dictate that the government should only puruse a policy of sound money and sound regulations. So inflation would mean that the state is exceeding is limitations and assuming illegitimate roles which in turn means limiting the capacity of the state economically is necessary.

So neo-liberalism does not specifically differ from liberalism, it is actually a revival of it, including slightly different ideologies and concepts in this turn.

ADM 1122, Ders Notları: The Notions Key to Social Democracy (Lecture: 06.04.2010)

there are several notions of various concepts quite elementary to social democracy; the first of which being justice. social democracy aims for social justice, and what they understand from this is -unlike the liberal understanding of it, which involes the equality of opportunities- the equality of condition. however, social democracy does not actually push for absolute equality. they understand and accept that there might be inequalities stemming from individuals and their choices, and all it aims is the minimization of these inequalities and avoidance of them being permanent through various social concepts such as inheritance.

another notion is the notion of rulers. although democratic socialism clearly is in support of democracy, it opposes its represantative nature, instead vouching populist democracies in forms of workplace, grass roots or direct democracies, linking democracy directly to the people.

human nature is another notion in social democracy; in opposition to conservatist, liberal and fascist ideas which presupposes certain facts about the nature of human beings, social democracy believes that society shapes individuals and individuals are thusly impossible to be the target of assumptions. with that said however, social democracy still believes that individuals can and will be unique.

IR 110, Mid-Term Çalışması: St. Augustine

the conditions that gave birth to augustine's thinking involve, at the very core, the death of christ. we see this in two parts, first, he was born into a world which was growing more and more disappointed each day by the fact that christ did not come back and bring the rule of god to the world. and this resulted in the second reason why the death of christ is so significant to augustine's way of thinking; he firmly believed that nothing else in this world would bring people to or away from salvation except the reappearance of christ and no event other than the death of him was significant. he believed that the world, as god created, was complete with everything in its right place, however, human beings had the capability of disobedience. to augustine, god had two attitudes towards his creations when such disobedience took place; disappointment, and forgiveness. if we do obey him however, we will live in the city of god, if we don't, if we act on our pride, in other words, if we commit the original sin, we will live in the city of earth. in this life; god has created two intermediaries to counteract the two effects of sin: church to mitigate the alienation of man to god, the civil government to negate the alienation of man to man. and what's even more shocking is that... augustine thinks this is it. vast majority of the people will never get to live in the city of god, they will continue to wallow in their sinful and wicked lives and nothing can be done to remedy that in a short period of time and the civil order had to remain here. but why did augustine think like this? what was the difference that made plato think that a hierarchical civil order was in the nature of human beings, that made aristotle think that belonging to a civil order, a poltical body was the core of humanity while causing augustine to think that the civil order was a divine concept instigated to remedy the sins of the irrevocably wicked human beings? the answer is simple; augustine thought that the original sin had caused the human beings to lose their nature. he believed that this city might achieve order, but it will never be like the order in the city of god.