The Cold War Origins of the “Crisis of Democracy”

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-61
Author(s):  
Kyong-Min Son
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Free Market ◽  
World War ◽  
Social Coordination ◽  
Free Market Capitalism ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Market Capitalism ◽  
The Welfare State

This article suggests that a “crisis of democracy” can be understood not simply as a deterioration of specific representative institutions but as a repositioning of democratic politics vis-à-vis other principles of social coordination, most notably the capitalist market, and the attendant decline of democratic subjectivity—people’s attunement to claims appealing to the common good. I trace this process to the post–World War II era. I show that the crisis of democracy was shaped by the substantive imperative of fusing democracy with free-market capitalism. Many postwar democratic theorists believed that the welfare state could manage the tension latent in this fusion. But an analysis of Friedrich Hayek’s theory of neoliberal democracy, which recognizes that tension more acutely, reveals that the incorporation of free-market capitalism creates tendencies that undermine democracy from within.

scholarly journals Palingenetic Ultra-Nationalist Christianity: History, Identity, and the Falsity of Peripeteic Dialectics

2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 39-64
Author(s):  
Dustin J. Byrd
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Christian Identity ◽  
World War ◽  
End Of History ◽  
Western Modernity ◽  
Free Market Capitalism ◽  
The End Of History ◽  
Market Capitalism

The recent upsurge of European nationalism is partially an attempt to address the ongoing identity crisis that began with the Bourgeois revolution, which expressed itself through positivistic scientism and aggressive secularization, and culminated in the post-World War II “liberal consensus”: representative democracy and free-market capitalism as the “end of history.” Due to the needs of capitalism after World War II, coupled with the liberalization and Americanization of European societies, there has been a growing presence of “non-identical” elements within Europe, which itself is reexamining the very geography of what it means to be European. In this essay, I explore the historical context of the current identity struggles that are facing Europeans. From a Critical Theory perspective, I challenge the idea that Christianity or a Christian age can be resurrected by ultra-nationalists in their attempt to combat the cosmopolitanism of Western modernity. Moreover, I demonstrate how such attempts to return to an idealized Christian identity are rooted in a false possibility: Peripeteic Dialectics, or “dialectics in reverse.”

Geopolitics and the Cold War

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Warner
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Free Market ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
World War 2 ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Free Market Capitalism ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Market Capitalism

This chapter examines the geopolitical aspect of the Cold War. It discusses the origin of the term “geopolitics,” and investigates how and why relations between the United States and the Soviet Union deteriorated so rapidly after the World War 2. The chapter highlights the incompatibilities between the ideologies of the two superpowers, and explains that communism and free-market capitalism are polar opposites. It also argues against the claims about the extent to which the Cold War was based on ideological as opposed to geopolitical factors that persisted throughout the conflict.

‘Communism Is a Religion That Is Inspired, Directed and Motivated by the Devil Himself’: Billy Graham’s Apologetics and the Cold War West

2021 ◽  
pp. 141-159
Author(s):  
Uta Andrea Balbier
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Billy Graham ◽  
Free Market Capitalism ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
End Times ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Second World

Anti-Communism constituted a core feature of Billy Graham’s preaching in the 1950s. In Graham’s sermons Communism did not just stand for the anti-religious thread of an atheistic ideology, as it was traditionally used in Protestant Fundamentalist circles, but also for its opposition to American freedom and Free Market Capitalism. This article argues that the term Communism took on significantly new meaning in the evangelical milieu after the Second World War, indicating the new evangelicals’ ambition to restore, defend, and strengthen Christianity by linking it into the discourse on American Cold War patriotism. This article will contrast the anti-Communist rhetoric of Billy Graham and other leading evangelical figures of the 1950s, such as Harold Ockenga, with the anti-Communist rhetoric used by early Fundamentalists in the 1910s and 1920s. Back then, Communism was predominantly interpreted as a genuine threat to Christianity. The term also made appearances in eschatological interpretations regarding the imminent end-times. The more secular interpretation of Communism as a political and economic counter-offer by evangelical preachers such as Billy Graham will be discussed as an important indicator of the politicization and implied secularization of the evangelical milieu after the Second World War.

“Your Grandchildren Will Grow Up Under Communism!”

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria M. Grieve
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Democratic Capitalism ◽  
The World ◽  
Free Market Capitalism ◽  
Soviet Communism ◽  
Advertising Council ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Market Capitalism

A potent weapon in the Cold War, advertising relied on the notion of childhood innocence to promote Cold War containment at home and to advance a crucial pillar of US Cold War ideology abroad—the superiority of free market capitalism over communism. This chapter analyzes how images of children and ideas about childhood informed several major Advertising Council public service campaigns as well as consumer advertising during the 1950s. The distinction between domestic advertising and foreign propaganda during the Cold War was often a fine one, as both routinely used images of children to represent the nation to Americans and to potential allies around the world. In the hands of government propagandists and corporate advertisers, children simultaneously functioned as symbols of the happiness and security that could be achieved through a commitment to democratic capitalism and as symbols illustrating the nation’s vulnerability to the spread of Soviet communism.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colleen Doody
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Grassroots Activism ◽  
Conservative Movement ◽  
Free Market Capitalism ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
American Society ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Market Capitalism

This chapter summarizes key themes and presents some final thoughts. This study of Cold War Detroit showed the roots of contemporary conservatism, which combined support for free-market capitalism, small domestic government, anti-Communism, and traditionalism. All of these core ideas had been present in American society before the Cold War. The anti-Communism of the early Cold War helped bring together these previously disparate forces. Although the proponents of what became the new conservative movement did not always see eye-to-eye, they perceived that they shared common enemies. It would take many years and a great deal of both elite and grassroots activism before a powerful conservative movement formed nationally. However, the components of that ideology were well developed long before the late 1960s and 1970s.

Problems of ‘Socialist Planning’: Evan Durbin and the Labour Government of 1945

1991 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 687-702 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Brooke
Keyword(s):  
Free Market ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Labour Government ◽  
Free Market Capitalism ◽  
National Investment ◽  
Market Capitalism ◽  
Second World ◽  
National Control ◽  
Central Economic

‘Socialist planning’ was a notable, if unlikely casualty of Labour government after the Second World War. Between 1931 and the election victory of 1945, central economic planning was, in the words of G.D.H. Cole, the ‘professed creed of the Labour Party’. Depression and war demonstrated that the anarchy of free-market capitalism had to ‘give way to ordered planning under national control’. Labour won the election of 1945 with a commitment to ‘plan from the ground up’ through the socialization of industry, the establishment of a national investment board and the use of wide-ranging economic controls. Planning was the defining characteristic of Labour's socialism in this period and it could indeed be argued that the party did not find so effective a political rhetoric until ‘Labour and the scientific revolution’ in 1963.

Europe's Cold War

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jussi M. Hanhimäki
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
World War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Cold War

In 1945, much of Europe was in rubble, following an orgy of violence and genocide unprecedented in recorded history. This alone provides one explanation for the phenomenal rise of Soviet and American power in Europe after World War II. And given the ideological differences, material capabilities, security interests, and contrasting personalities of those in power, it was no wonder that any possibility of cooperation between the Soviet Union and the United States vanished after the common objective of defeating the Axis powers had been achieved. While the Cold War may not have been inevitable, it would have been difficult to avoid. This article explores the evolution of transatlantic relations during the Cold War, with particular emphasis on Geir Lundestad's thesis about ‘empire by invitation’. It then turns to the other side of the Cold War divide and evaluates the supposed omnipotence of the Soviet Union over its client states. The article also examines the cracks in the Iron Curtain – the evolution of relations between, beneath, and beyond the two blocs in Europe.

AYN RAND AND AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN THE COLD WAR ERA

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 253-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
PATRICK ALLITT
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Ronald Reagan ◽  
Conservative Movement ◽  
Ayn Rand ◽  
American Conservatism ◽  
Free Market Capitalism ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The New Deal

An American conservative movement developed rapidly after World War II. It brought together intellectuals and politicians opposed to the New Deal in domestic policy and Soviet communism in foreign policy. The movement's first presidential candidate, Barry Goldwater, lost the election of 1964 but its second, Ronald Reagan, won the election of 1980. It has remained an influential force in American life up to the present, despite strong internal contradictions, which include disagreements about centralized power, about religion, about tradition, about elites, and about the free market. To some of the movement's early luminaries, such as Russell Kirk, free-market capitalism was the antithesis of conservatism since it required perpetual innovation and the sweeping away of traditional forms. To others, such as Ayn Rand, capitalism was the heart and soul of conservatism because it alone preserved the dignity and freedom of the individual.

The Legacy of Iraq

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Iraq War ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Sequence Of Events ◽  
The World ◽  
Free Market Capitalism ◽  
Market Capitalism

This book critically reflects on the failure of the 2003 intervention to turn Iraq into a liberal democracy, underpinned by free-market capitalism, its citizens free to live in peace and prosperity. The book argues that mistakes made by the coalition and the Iraqi political elite set a sequence of events in motion that have had devastating consequences for Iraq, the Middle East and for the rest of the world. Today, as the nation faces perhaps its greatest challenge in the wake of the devastating advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and another US-led coalition undertakes renewed military action in Iraq, understanding the complex and difficult legacies of the 2003 war could not be more urgent. Ignoring the legacies of the Iraq War and denying their connection to contemporary events could mean that vital lessons are ignored and the same mistakes made again.

The Unassailable Self: Freud's Image Among Post-war American Intellectuals

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Jenness
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
External Force ◽  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Human Being ◽  
World War ◽  
The Us ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Way

This paper explores the way American intellectuals depicted Sigmund Freud during the peak of popularity and prestige of psychoanalysis in the US, roughly the decade and a half following World War II. These intellectuals insisted upon the unassailability of Freud's mind and personality. He was depicted as unsusceptible to any external force or influence, a trait which was thought to account for Freud's admirable comportment as a scientist, colleague and human being. This post-war image of Freud was shaped in part by the Cold War anxiety that modern individuality was imperilled by totalitarian forces, which could only be resisted by the most rugged of selves. It was also shaped by the unique situation of the intellectuals themselves, who were eager to position themselves, like the Freud they imagined, as steadfastly independent and critical thinkers who would, through the very clarity of their thought, lead America to a more robust democracy.

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