Unit 4.1 Overview and List of Activities and Assignments

In Canada, one can see modern liberalism at work every day. In most places in Canada, adult residents of an area are able to vote in local, provincial, and federal elections. This is because Canadians have individual political freedoms, such as the right to vote for their political leaders.

Other individual freedoms include the economic rights to own private property and run a business while making a profit. At the same time, any Canadian can be treated by a doctor or have surgery in a hospital without paying for the service. This is because Canadians have various social programs such as public health care. Canadians have political and economic systems that are a mixture of collectivism and individualism.

Not all countries have the same political and economic systems that Canada has. Various political and economic systems develop because of differing beliefs about the goals of the individual and the goals of society. Various perspectives exist in various systems, but each system attempts to resolve specific problems in society.

Some countries have completely rejected the individualism of liberalism and have embraced other ideologies. Examples are communism in the Soviet Union and fascism in Nazi Germany.

Ideological differences between countries with liberal views and those with other ideologies have resulted in conflicts, sometimes on a global scale. The Cold War developed from the ideological differences between the United States and the Soviet Union.

As well, dissent from liberal systems have produced forms of alternative thought. Examples are Aboriginal collective thought and environmentalism.