Liberalism can be summed up as the postulate of the free use by each individual or member of a society of his property (the fact that some have only one property: their workforce while others own the means of production is not denied, only omitted). In this sense, all men are equal, a fact enshrined in the fundamental principle of the bourgeois constitution: all are equal before the law, the concrete basis of formal equality between the members of a society. In an extension of this, a second idea proposes the commonwealth, according to which property and freedom-based social organization serves the good of all. (Incidentally, if there is no antagonism between social classes, action can be driven by reason, hence rationalism.) This is the crux of the ideological proposition, which seeks the consented domination of workers through the operation of identifying the interest of the ruling class (maintaining the prevailing social order) with the interest of society as a whole - the nation.
- Post-War Soviet Union & Eastern Europe: The Descent of the Iron Curtain ... Fall of the Soviet Union and End of the Cold War: Causes & Timeline .... In this lesson, we explore the post-World War II settlement of Eastern Europe, and the ... rolled across Czechoslovakia, swiftly taking control of major cities.
