system, it was in fact dependent on political support for established power
relations. Nevertheless, advocates of laissez-faire economic policies are still
occasionally influential in policy-making in modern societies, and there are
certain connections between this doctrine and other conservative economic
policies, especiallymonetarism.
Rather weak and modified versions of laissez-faire economic philosophy
have been behind the policies of recent conservative governments, notably the
Thatcher governments in the United Kingdom and the administrations of
Reagan and the elder and younger Bush in the USA. Essentially identical
policies were followed by ‘New Labour’ after its election in 1997, including
their granting independence to the Bank of England. One reason why these
and similar governments cannot return entirely to laissez-faire is that the old
theories relied on the external control of the gold standard to regulate currency
values, which was abandoned by most countries in the early 1930s. Modern
versions of automatic currency control, the process culminating in theEur-
opean Union’s Economic and Monetary Union, have perhaps nudged
European economies a little further back to this economic theoretical ideal.
Language Groups
Language groups are often of vital importance in politics. It is not just that
which language one speaks, or is forced to speak for social advancement, is of
great practical significance, but, even more, that the recognition of a language
is a major aspect of the legitimization of a culture and history. Very frequently,
where language is politically relevant, one language group is an ethnic
minority suppressed by what they see as an alien conqueror or oppressing
e ́lite. In such places having to speak the language of the rulers is not just a
practical difficulty, but a violently-charged symbol of unfreedom. In many
cases languages will turn out to be correlated with other social symbols, of
which religion andethnicityare the most potent. Asa result, language groups
can become important centres for the focusing of revolutionary, or at least
protest, politics in modern societies, often keeping alivecleavageswhich
might otherwise have died away. After class and religion (with which they are,
in any case, often interdefined), linguistic cleavages are the most important
source of conflict in modern politics. Belgium, Romania, Spain, the United
Kingdom and the former Soviet and Yugoslav republics are particular exam-
ples, among European nations alone, where political movements or conflicts
are based mainly on language groups. In theThird Worldthe situation is even
more complex because language may be a vital element in the attempt to
construct a national unity out of a political system that is really only the result of
imperialist map-makers. Unity can, indeed, sometimes only be hoped for by
getting agreement to common use of a foreign, formerly imperialist, language,
Language Groups