differentiate between liberals and radicals
Answers
Answer:
Radicals: Radicals were a group of people who wanted a nation in which the government was based on majority of country's population. Conservatives: They were a group of people who opposed the radicals and the liberals and believed that the past had to be respected and a change had to be brought through a slow process.
Answer:
Radicalism and liberalism, unfortunately, are often used as interchangeable terms; so used, indeed, by whole myriads who, if a free public school system is half what it is cracked up to be, ought to know better. Really, one is sometimes reminded of the man who told his little boy that ensilage is a kind of mucilage. For present purposes there is no need of contrasting academic and philosophical definitions of the two terms; the dictionary will do that in half the time, and save trouble all round. Some practical distinctions, however — such, for instance, as differentiate a radical from a liberal paper — are perhaps worth mentioning.
In the philosophy of public affairs, the liberal gets at his working theory of the State by the "high prior road"; that is to say, by pure conjecture. Confronted with the phenomenon of the State, and required to say where it came from and why it is here, the liberal constructs his answer by the a prior method; thus Carey, for example, derived the State from the action of a gang of marauders, Rousseau from a social contract, Sir Robert Filmer from the will of God, and so on. All these solutions of the problem are ingenious and interesting speculations, but nothing more than speculations. The radical gets at his theory of the State by the historical method; by tracing back and examining every appearance of the State, to the most remote examples that history can furnish; segregating the sole invariable factor which he finds to be common throughout, and testing it both positively and negatively as a determining cause.
The result carries the radical to the extreme point of difference from the liberal in his practical attitude towards the State. The liberal believes that the State is essentially social and is all for improving it by political methods so that it may function accordingly to what he believes to be its original intention. Hence, he is interested in politics, takes them seriously, goes at them hopefully, and believes in them as an instrument of social welfare and progress. He is politically minded, with an incurable interest in reform, putting good men in office, independent administrations, and quite frequently in third-party movements. The liberal forces of the country, for instance, rallied quite conspicuously to Mr. Roosevelt in the good old days of the Progressive party. The liberal believes in the reality and power of political leadership; thus, again, he eagerly took Mr. Wilson on his hands at the last two elections.
The radical, on the other hand, believes that the State is fundamentally antisocial and is all for improving it off the face of the earth; not by blowing up officeholders, as Mr. Palmer appears to suppose, but by the historical process of strengthening, consolidating and enlightening economic organization. The radical has no substantial interest in politics, and regards all projects of political reform as visionary. He sees, or thinks he sees, quite clearly that the routine of partisan politics is only a more or less elaborate and expensive byplay indulged in for the sake of diverting notice from the primary object of all politics and political government, namely, the economic exploitation of one class by another; and hence all candidates look about alike to him, and their function looks to him only like that of Dupin's pretended lunatic in "The Purloined Letter."
On the side of economics, the practical difference between the radical and the liberal is quite as spacious. The liberal looks with increasing favor upon the socialization of industry, or as it is sometimes called, the democratization of industry. The radical keeps pointing out that while this is all very well in its way, monopoly values will as inevitably devour socialized industry as they now devour what the liberals call capitalistic industry.
Thus the fundamental differences between the radical and the liberal may be seen, even from this brief sketch, to be considerable; too considerable by far to permit this paper to go under false colors into the hands of any readers of the Nation. It has been very distasteful to make the Nation's courtesy a text for the drawing out of these differences; but the dishonorable acceptance, even for a moment, of an honorable distinction, would be much more distasteful.
Three main differences between 'liberals' and 'radicals'thinkers
(i) while the liberals favoured the idea of privileges the radicals were opposed to privileges of landowners and wealthy factory owners.
(ii) The liberals wanted voting rights for propertied classes only, while the radicals believed in universal franchise.
(iii)Though both were in favour of private property, the radicals were opposed to concentration of wealth in few hands.
(iv) While liberals were against giving women the right to vote, radicals were for women suffragette.