SDS131R Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Ascribed Status, Labour Power, Meritocracy
9 Dec 2016
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Gives us constitutionalism (governmental powers and limitations, laws and representative government) liberalism = linked to democracy. Assumes: humans are rational, self-interested, competitive actors. Move from ascribed status to achieved status, resembles meritocracy (working to get to a status) the rights of the individual are the rights to life, liberty and property. The origin of the state is the social contract ideal state: democratic, subject to the rule of law, night watchman state. Not worry about how production works, intervene only when something goes wrong, laissez faire (let it be) violence: rejected except in the case of rebellion. People give up sovereignty to a government or other authority in order to receive or maintain social order through the rule of law. 3 key social contract theorists: hobbes, locke and rousseau (only locke is a classical. Thomas hobbes foundational to liberal thought, not a classical liberalist.
