Immigration Theories

Despite on all complexity of political life in the modern world, the variety of political parties and public organizations has already been defined for couple of centuries by authority of liberal and conservative doctrines. Both liberalism and conservatism represents the complex of political principles, which have experienced crucial historical changes. These contrast ideologies not only will be defined in the essay, but also the origin of them will be explained. Some state that "all modern mainstream political ideologies, including Marxism, may be regarded as variants of liberalism" (Leach, 1996, p.66), so in the essay we will try to find out if this statement can be related to conservatism.

"Conservatism is one of a number of political philosophies supporting traditional values or an established social order" (wikipedia UK). If we call someone 'conservative' we generally mean that he prefers things as they are and is reluctant to change them. Conservatives typically limit innovation out of risk aversion. Change is by nature risky; it can potentially disrupt or even ruin the social order, which is the only existing guarantee that conservative values will survive. Maintaining the status quo at least preserves these values, so "conservatives favour heritage over innovation, incremental change over utopian projects, and unity over discord" (wikipedia UK) . Ussualy french Revolution symbolizes the origin of conservative idea, which was the reaction on impetuous political, social and economic changes. Since that time the conservatism has started its fomation, even though the term itself came about significantly later. As a term liberalism is much older then conservatism. It has been used since 14th century, however "as a systemetic political creed, liberalism may not have existed before the 19th century"(Heywood, 2003, p. 25). Its genesis coincided with feudal relations collapse and the emergence of modern capitalist society. Liberalism was linked with capitalism evolution. While conservatives were figthing against revolutional changes, liberals were supporting French Revolution. Liberalism is an ideology, or current of political thought, which strives to maximize liberty. Liberalism seeks a society characterized by "freedom of thought for individuals, limitations on the power of government and religion, the rule of law, the free exchange of ideas, a free market economy that supports private enterprise, and a system of government that is transparent. This form of government favors liberal democracy with open and fair elections, where all citizens have equal rights by law, and an equal opportunity to succeed" (wikipedia, UK).

"The moral and ideological stance of liberalism is embodied in a comitment of following values: the individual, freedom, reason, justice, toleration and diversity" (Heywood, 2003, p.28). While conservatives have got fallowing beliefs: organic society, tradition, property, hierarchy and authority, human imperfection (Heywood, 2003). Belief in society, freedom and property are caracteristic themes of both ideologies, but it has influenced liberal and conservative thought in different ways.

Individual is a central theme in a liberal view. Liberalism believe

in the primecy of individual and his or her natural rights. Liberals are aimed to create a society where "each person is capable of developing and flourishing to the fulness of his or her potential" (Heywood, 2003, p. 29). Liberalism develops egoistic society in which individual care only about yourslef and as less as it possible about another society's member, while conservatism see society as a living system or organism, where 'heart', 'lungs', 'liver' works together and without one another it would never work and can led to 'organism's' death. The conservative view of society is very different from that of liberalism. Liberals see society as a union of individuals, where each pursuit self-interest, while traditional conservatives believe in "society, based upon pretence that individuals can be or want to be self-reliant" (Heywood, 2003, p.78). From conservative point of view individual and a society can not be separated. Conservatives believe in family as a base of any society. Roger Scruton agrued that "our personal love for our family is transferred to society at large. Our initial feeling for things outside the family is one of love and dependency. In fact our relationship to society and state is very much like our relationship to the family" (Roger Scruton, UK). According to him "the true conservative is the person who recognizes that his or her life is derived from and dependent on society and whose first priority will be to defend society, not the individual. As modern societies are structured round the nation state, the conservative bias is to defend the state against the individual" (Roger Scruton, UK), while liberalism considers the other way round. For liberals the individual is central to any political theory or social explanation - "all statements about society should be made in terms of the individuals who compose it" (Heywood, 2003, p.30)

Together with an individual primacy, liberals believe in freedom of the individual. Liberalism believes that freedom, given to individual, helps him or her to "develop skills and talents, broaden his or her understanding, and gain fulfillment" (Heywood, 2003, p.32). Liberty for liberals is a natural right, defined by John Locke, while Roger Scruton argues that we do not have natural abstract rights. He says that all the rights we have are given to us by the society we belong to. Nevertheless liberalism does not accept individual's absolute freedom. "John Stuart Mill argued that the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others". (Heywood, 2003, p.30). Early classical liberals believed in negative freedom 'individual is free until it is not interfering somebody else's freedom'. However conservatives argue that such negative freedom is acceptable