Illiberal Instituions Essay Example For Students

Illiberal Instituions Essay MOST OF THE INSTITUTIONS WITHIN WHICH WE LIVE OUR LIVES ARE MANIFESTLY ILLIBERALWe all lives are governed by the institutions like law, government, religion, education, family, employment market and others. All these institutions tends to look towards the formation of a society. They do not say that society is made up of aggregated individuals but that individuals are the product of society. This is a conservative notion which is in conflict with the ideology of liberalism. To look at all the institutions within which we live our lives and focus on their characteristics is beyond the scope of this essay. In this some of these institutions would be reviewed and their political approach would be examined. Where possible I would try and look at the whole institution on its own, but where the discussions about the whole institution is too broad, the focus would be on specific examples of the attitude of the institution. In case of law, I would emphasise would be on the laws treatment of women and how that shows the law approach to be illiberal. In religion I would be focusing on one kind of religion, Islam to show how all religions are conservative. In the same way focus in education would be on boarding schools. The rest of the institutions: family, employment, government and market economics are covered in singularity as institutions. As I mentioned earlier the focus in respect to religion would be Islam. I intend to look all some of the basic rules and principles of Islam and examine their attitudes. Islam believes in the authority higher then humans. It believes in the sovereign power of God which is called Allah in the religion. He is suppose to be higher than all the other beings in the world. He is referred in Quran (Muslims holy book) as the Creator and Sustainer of lives. This means that all the human are dependent on Him for their living. This is against the liberal theory, which believes in all beings, being equal. Thus, this concept of higher authority brings out the conservative attitude of the religion. Allah is the ultimate authority in an Islamic society and all the rules and regulations emerge from him. There are two kinds of duties that a Muslim owes one to Allah and the others to his fellow beings. The duties owed to Allah are Tauheed (believe in oneness of God), Salat (five time prayers), Fasting and Haj (the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.) Those owed to his fellow human beings are numerous, as individuals have certain duties to fulfil in different relationships for the building of a society; but each individual has the basic duty to pay Zakat (a portion of their income to help the poor.) This goes towards the building of a homogenous society, where Muslim society as a group has to be supported so those individuals arising from that society are on as much of an equal scale as possible. In this way Islam realises the hierarchy in a society, where some individuals are more powerful than the rest. They have more resources and the others in the society, and the religion promotes the use of those extra resources for the use of the weaker ones in the society. This is completely against the liberal idea, which says that all individuals are equal and have the same governing power. Islam does not believe in formal equality, which strips the individuals of their difference and puts them in the situations that are more adverse to their situations then the illiberal ideas. It recognises the difference that exists in the society and tries to help individuals those bases by making a stronger society, which would support them. Zakat is an obligation, which every earning Muslim has to fulfil, but there are other duties, which are specific to the position one occupies in the society. A ruler is responsible for his subjects well being, he has the responsibility of making sure that all his empire have food and everyone is being treated fairly and justly. In the same way, people have the responsibility to choose the ruler who would abide by the Islamic principles. Parents have duty to take care of their children, and in return of this duties children owe complete obedience to their parents. There is Prophet Mohammed (P.B It's amazing how you feel you can trust someone with your life, and then they just turn against you and make your life living hell EssayAll these developments in the martial relationship has led to the liberal view that marriage is purely contractual agreement, where both the parties have equal opportunity to negotiate. However, this is not the view that common law tends to take. Common law ten ds to bend towards the idea that there is just one standard contract of marriage. If individuals want they may make the amendments in their own marriage and negotiate the terms but as far as the law is considered those terms will not apply. The contract that common law hold to be binding is same for everyone, and there is no place for negotiations there. The only choice that an individual has in this case is whether to enter the contract or not. What liberals have done is that they have confused the private relations of the couples with the institution itself. The marriage itself is very patriarchal, and still very much about the domination of male over the female. This is because the law presumes that both are in equal free to make choices, of whether to work or to stay home, to own property individually or jointly, and to acquire assets. However, that is not the case as women earn only 70% of male income. Thus, males still remains the dominant wage earner and ultimately the decisi on-maker, whereas, wife is still responsible for taking care of husband, children and home. In a modern society like England, the relationship between parent and child is non-contractual as well irrespective of what liberals would like to believe. A child does not choose his own parents in a market where he can bargain the best terms. He is brought into the world without any say of what type of parents he will have. There is no liberal idea of freedom and equality involved here, and if the society treated both the parents and children as individuals, it would be the most obscure thing to do. Children are dependent on parents in any society, and so is the case in Britain. Parents are the dominant partners in this relationship and this is even recognised by the law. Parents have legal rights over children because of the financial support they provide them. This defies the liberal idea of individuality, which says that all the individuals are equal and have same bargaining powers. The result of treating the Parent-child relationship as purely contractual would result in complete commotion and anarchy. The third power relationship described by Aristotle in a family was that of master and servant. He puts this relationship in this category because of the economic set-up of his time. With the industrial revolution, the master-servant relationship has been replaced by employment contract. This contract is the strongest key to the liberal ideas which dictates that each individuals will make the best deal in the market and the ultimate result would be a better society. This liberal thought is the surface appearance of the capitalistic approach that believes people are like commodities sold in the open market and all have equal opportunity to negotiate the best bargains. The liberal ideology, which finds it origin in capitalism, is very superficial, as on the surface we are just exchanging commodities for money. However, this is not what happens in reality; reality is b ased on the elements of master-servant relationship of early 17th and 18th century. To actually believe that all individuals have equal probability is to diminish from the reality. It is an obscure belief that a single individual would be in anyway equivalent to the big co-operate multinationals or that an employee in any organisation would have same bargaining power as the employer. An individual in the market has the choice of finding the best party available to make the contract; but that does not imply, that the party he has chosen is the best one for him. There is no chance for him to negotiate the terms if all the employers are offering the terms that are in their favour. An individual looking for an employment, only one choice and that is whether to accept the job on the terms offered or to have no job at all. Beyond that it all goes in the favour of employer. The irony of the fact is that the line between an opportunity to choose ones contract and to negotiates one contract is in favour of the powerful. This shows the liberal idea of freedom of contract is manipulated to the benefit of the dominant class, which swings it back into the domains of 17th century master-servant relationship. This is a relationship of subordinate and the dominant, which has more conservative element than liberal. Open market is an institution, which has an adverse on our lives, we are mostly acting as consumers in one form or another in most of contracts. Liberal tends to view that individuals should be allowed to negotiate their own contracts and law should not interfere with the contracts all. They believe that each individual is formally equal and has the equal opportunity to negotiate the best bargain for himself / herself. However, this is not true, as each of us do not have equal resources and knowledge. This unbalance in power will automatically lead to contracts, which are one-sided; again with the rich and powerful taking advantage of the underprivileged. Looking at the inflation in the market, the graph is positively skewed towards the big multinational companies rather than the individuals. There is a very limited scope for liberalism in the market; it can only give individuals theoretical equality, which is deprived of any factual reality. The liberal surface appearance has an und erlying conservative ideology, which governs the market. Even the common law recognises this underlying conservative ideology. This is evident from the decisions made in cases where the judges have held implied obligations and dismiss exclusion clauses which may be of deficient to a particular party in contract. The legislation also recognises this and has passed Acts and Regulations, which protect consumer rights. UCTA and UTCCR are the two important legal codes, which protect the individuals against the unfair contract terms. This completes forgoes the liberal idea of freedom of contract. thus, rendering another important institution to be illiberal. Education is another hierarchic society which ignores the liberal ideas, the best way to view the hierarchy in the education is to look at the system that operates within the boarding schools. The strong chains of traditions in a school regulate this system, where there is a patriarchal relationship between the students and the academic staff, student and the administration and among the students themselves. In boarding schools, the relationship between teachers and students is based on more authority than in a regular school. This is because if the atmosphere is relaxed the students would loose the respect required for the functioning of the school. The administrative staffs like the housemasters and housemistresses have an enormous amount of power to detain the students, if they are found to be breaking rules. The rules on the whole are a lot stricter than at a normal school. In a boarding school students are refrain from eating chewing gums, from spending excess money, from keepin g more than specified amount of objects on their dressing tables and eating mid-night meals. These rules are usually non-existent on the students living home, because they are not required to maintain the authority if the superiors. The other reason for these rules is to make sure that there is no supremacy between the students of the same standard. This is a development towards a homogenous society, where individuals are put under shadow for the benefit of the society. The extra privileges come from the position one holds in the boarding school. If one is senior student there are extra privileges awarded to him. The rules relaxed as one climbs the stairs of the boarding school hierarchy, and if one ends up in the position of prefect or head students. The privileges awarded are far greater compared to other students. This hierarchic build up in the boarding system is the reflection of a society which awards rights and powers in accordance with the position one holds. This is complete antithesis of the liberal ideas of individual before the society and formal equality. These are all very conservative ideas, which maintain the patriarchal society. This shows that even though most of the institutions which govern are lives appear to be liberal in their view, are extremely conservative. All of them tend to put the good of society before the good of individuals. The liberal ideas of equality and freedom seem very attractive when viewed under the dust of idealism, but when looked through the prism of realities they seem shatter into pieces. All the institutions viewed seem to suggest that liberal ideas cannot exist without the underlying conservative theory.