Political Ideologies

Ideologies refers to body of concepts or a set of beliefs or principles, especially those of a particular group or political party. Hence, political ideology is the allocation of power and to what purpose or ends it should be used. Accordingly, political ideologies have two dimensions; (1) Goals –how the society should be organized and (2) Methods - the most appropriate way to achieve the goal.

Aristotle’s Ideology

Aristotle known as the father of political science. He believed that the study is a powerful branch of science which held authority over other branches, such as military science. Moreover, he believed that fundamental achievement happiness derived from state, how it is organized and how the people pursue its ends.
He argued that there are six forms of government, categorize into ruled by one, ruled by few and ruled by many, each where further divided it into “defective or bad and “true forms or good.”

Aristotle classification of government	Defective or perfected for the interest of the ruler(s)	Good or “True forms” For the common interest
Ruled by One	Tyranny	Monarchy
Ruled by Few	Oligarchy	Aristocracy
Ruled by Many	Democracy	Polity

He described that tyrant is a usurper of power or acquired his power by force and rules over unwilling subjects. Based on his book politics: “Any sole ruler, who is not required to give an account of himself, and who rules over subjects all equal or superior to himself to suit his own interest and not theirs, can only be exercising a tyranny.”                                                                                                                         
Monarchy is ruled by one person whose authority derived not from election but through heredity. A form of government where the head of state is called often called king, queen, emperor or tsar. A monarch holds his position until death or abdication. Monarchy is classified into two; firstly, absolute monarchy and secondly, limited monarchy. In an absolute monarchy, the power of the king originated from divine right. The doctrine that king source of authority is from God, not from their subjects. Therefore, rebellion is the worst of political crime, for the reason, defying the order of the king is disobeying God. The monarch holds absolute power without constitution limiting it. All the properties of the nation is under complete control of the king.

Limited Monarchy also known as Constitutional Monarchy. The monarch must act in accordance with a written or unwritten constitution.  He is bound to exercise the powers or authorities within the limits prescribed by law. The country under this form delegates its power to promulgate laws to the parliament and holds the judicial and executive power. However, most of the country today, the monarch is just mere ceremonial leader with a limited executive power and influence, compare to the prime minister.

Oligarchy derived from the Greek words oligarkhia which means few and arkho meaning to rule or command.  This form of government is ruled by the few, to Aristotle it is ruled by rich, for which another term commonly used today is plutocracy. These few people claim that the most essential things to rule are wealth, social status and education. They are motivated by their self-interest to protect wealth. People are not given the rights to participate in the government. In contrary, the term Aristocracy derives from the Greek word aristokratia, meaning “rule of the best.” The few people that were chosen are endowed with the attributes to rule. “
Aristotle observes that the dominant class in oligarchy (literally rule of the oligoi, i.e., few) is typically the wealthy, whereas in democracy (literally rule of the dêmos, i.e., people) it is the poor, so that these economic classes should be included. He argued that the propriety constitution or government is represented by polity of middle class citizens.

In the democratic form of government, the state function through the law created by the politician which they create for their self-interest, to Aristotle “there are two parts of good government; one is the actual obedience of citizens to the laws, the other part is the goodness of the laws which they obey.”

Karl Marx’s Ideology

According to Marx society is divided into social classes: (1) Bourgeoisie, the Capitalist or Business owner who is the owner of the properties and control the production and (2) Proletariat, the workers who transform raw materials into economic goods. The capitalist controls the business, to maximize the profits he pays the laborers the lowest wage and employ social institutions as tools, like government to enforce law to maintain ownership of properties, church and education for propaganda. Laborers view the employment as a means of survival. This circumstance would eventually lead to revolution and end of capitalism.

Economic Determinism

It is a theory that economic relationships are the foundation upon which all other societal and political arrangement is based. This means every social institutions such as religion institution and political institution are determine by economic institution.

Dialectic Materialism

The Marxist theory (adopted as the official philosophy of the Soviet communists) that political and historical events result from the conflict of social forces and are interpretable as a series of contradictions and their solutions. The conflict is seen as caused by material needs.

The haves (the rich or bourgeoisie) refer to the thesis or idea in conflict with the have-nots (the poor or proletariat) refer to the anthesis or counter idea. He founded that this would lead to Synthesis or New Idea. It is very evident to his theory that revolution would bring desire change.

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