Introduction to political science Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Introduction to political science - Essay Example Therefore it is the relation of production that helps in shaping the different political systems that exist in the world. (Bottomore, 1991). Democracy means an effective consent of the governed. Liberalism means respect for the individual being. Again democracy means â€Å"location of a state’s power, that is, in the hands of the people, whereas ‘liberal’ refers to the limitation of the state’s power†. A â€Å"liberal democracy is a political system in which the people make the basic political decisions, but in which there are limitations on what decisions they can make†. (Watson, 1999, p.3). It can thus be said that liberalism in its modern form is basically a system in which an individual can use the state power according to the wish of the majority. It can also be said that liberalism tends to take the form of tyranny which involves the rule of one for his or her personal interest. And here lies the paradox of liberal democracy. It becomes very difficult to fit Marx among the nineteenth century democrats. It has also been found that democracy gained comparatively little from Ma rxism; instead it suffered a great deal from Marx and his followers. Democracy may mean a lot of things. It may mean belief in a particular form of government, that is a government formed by the majority and a government which constitutes representative institutions. It may also mean a certain idea about the particular forms of the government. But neither of these definitions allows Marxism to penetrate through Democracy. As belief in government by consent is not in line with the view of historical progress which states that the progress was a product of the class war which had taken place influenced by Marxism. Therefore it is natural that Marxist theories have been used as an argument to negate the theories of liberal democracy. But it cannot be said that Marx was completely anti-democratic. Yet democracy can acquire yet a