Wallerstein’s Liberal Ideological Critical Theory Study

Wallerstein is the founder of the world system theory,because liberal ideology is an important tool for capitalist countries to build the center-peripheral world system,which runs through the whole process of the establishment and consolidation of the world’s economy,politics and civilizational systems,so Wallerstein’s liberal ideological critical theory is essentially one of Wallerstein’s achievements in analyzing the modern world system.In the 1970 s,under the background of globalization,widening gap between the rich and the poor in the north and the south,internal and external difficulties of liberal countries,and the inability of classical modernization theory and traditional dependency theory to give a reasonable explanation to the actual social changes and the development path of newly independent countries and developing countries,wallerstein changed its traditional social analysis methods.Taking the whole world system as a unit,combining with dependency theory,Braudel’s long-term theory and Marx’s capital accumulation theory,on the basis of explaining the basic connotation of liberal ideology,and further analyzing its role in building and consolidating capitalist economic system,hierarchical state system and imperialist civilization system,it further reveals the falsity,dominance and inequality of liberal ideology.Wallerstein believes that liberal ideology is the cultural heritage of the French Revolution,with modernity as its inner core and political planning as its manifestation.In the ideological struggle,the liberal ideology successfully defeated the conservative ideology and the socialist ideology by using its unique advantages of "moderation" and "moderation" and became the dominant geopolitical culture in the world system.Liberal ideology is always under the banner of freedom,democracy and equality in practice,but it has a distinct class nature in essence.Under the guidance of liberal ideology,developed capitalist countries not only build a "center-periphery" capitalist economic system in the economic field,but also to further consolidate and develop this economic system.On the one hand,the central government actively promotes liberal social improvement in China,and creates a stable social environment for the development of capitalist economy by easing the contradiction between socialization of production and private ownership of means of production.On the other hand,in foreign countries,more and more countries are integrated into the capitalist economic system by means of "strong market",and the division of labor is reorganized according to the development of each country.As a result,more and more marginal countries become raw material producing areas and product dumping markets of developed countries.The more liberal market develops,the more stable the economic hegemony of central countries is,and the more serious the dependence of marginal countries on central countries is.Eventually,many marginal countries lose their independent development.In the political field,in order to meet people’s strong demand for equal enjoyment of political rights after the French Revolution and prevent the outbreak of the revolutionary movement,bourgeois rulers distributed civil rights in the whole society in the name of democracy at home,forming a strict social stratification system,making democracy truly a minority democracy.Abroad,developed capitalist countries,on the one hand,promote the construction and expansion of liberal countries by promoting their own political models to other countries,and on the other hand,use various means to curb the anti-system movements around the world,so as to effectively safeguard the hegemonic leadership position of developed capitalist countries in the world political system.In the cultural field,liberal ideology has not only defeated conservative ideology and socialist ideology to become the dominant geo-culture in the world system,but also used social science to provide so-called "professional and objective" defense for the implementation of policies under its guidance.Liberal ideology permeates the world in various ways as a "universal value" image,and realizing the "homogenization" of various civilizations is the unremitting pursuit of liberal ideology.In short,liberal ideology has been a kind of cultural weapon for the bourgeoisie to maintain its own rule since its emergence,and its development has an unshirkable responsibility for the emergence and aggravation of current social problems.Wallerstein’s critical theory of liberal ideology has aroused widespread concern and discussion in the international community since it was put forward,and its evaluation by academic circles is also mixed.On the whole,though wallerstein’s critical theory of liberal ideology has some ideological limitations,such as "Eurocentrism",a rough definition of liberalism,and a lack of constructive ideas to deal with challenges,it is undeniable that wallerstein injected the blood of the times into Marxism by taking liberal ideology as one of the directions of analyzing the modern world system.He not only took the whole world as the basic unit of analysis,but also took the history of liberal terminology as the breakthrough point to realize the innovation of research perspective,and also took social science as the starting point.At present,China has entered a new journey of building a socialist modernized country in an all-round way.Facing the new problems and challenges in the ideological field,an in-depth study of wallerstein’s critical theory of liberal ideology will not only help us to form a correct understanding of liberal ideology and promote the close unity of all people in ideals,beliefs,values and moral concepts,but also be of great significance for us to continue to adhere to and develop Marxism and innovate in scientific research under the new historical conditions.