ABSTRACT
This chapter considers three enduring political theories, namely: liberalism, socialism, and conservatism. All three enduring political theories are complex families of doctrines; it draws attention to important differences within each. Nevertheless, these families do have their internal resemblances that distinguish them from the others. The chapter argues that each has a distinctive conceptual structure; liberalism puts individual liberty in the pride of place, limiting the importance of equality and tying justice closely to the protection of liberty. Socialists, in contrast, almost always insist that liberty and equality are consistent and mutually reinforcing; justice is tied very closely to equality, and democracy is close to the heart of most socialisms. The chapter explores the three crucial issues on which liberals, socialists, and conservatives have long disagreed and that are crucial to understanding their disagreements about political concepts, such as: rationalism/antirationalism, theories of human nature, and individualism/collectivism.
