The ideology behind what private property represents and conveys through the theories of both Locke and Marx's results in contrasting views. Locke heavily stresses the blending of labor and common land to create private property to increase one’s wealth. Liberty and livelihood under Locke’s theory is tied to the ability of an individual to control the use of their private property. Marx’s theory strongly contends that the bourgeoisie has gained control of the profit making private properties leaving the working class in a stage of exploitation. Marx’s conclusion then is to set private property in the hands of the people in hopes of creating universal economic equality. Respectively each thesis places governments, labour and religion playing a center role regarding private property. While Locke, envisions private property as a means to increase the relative wealth of individuals the practical evidence in the US gives credence to Marx’s theory of exploitation and repression. How these two philosophers define what private property means to represent influences their work dramatically. Locke sees private property beginning as common land blended with labour that result in a transformation into the person’s private property. The private property is a means for humans to create their livelihood and gain liberty that no one or government should be able to confiscate. He does place some limitation such as spoilage one must not produce more goods than one can use, and leave enough of as good land for others. These limitations become surmounted by the creation of monetary currency that enables one person to amass a large amount of land. The advancement of labor in effect increases the total amount of land available to others. Locke’s the... ... middle of paper ... ...property has to man in the theories of Marx and Locke is the center of their divergence. How man perceives private property concerning how to manage it either individualistic or universal is the main variable in each theory. Locke views the access and development of land as an opportunity for man to gain wealth. While Marx's view is one where private property is used by the bourgeois to subjugate the proletariat. Works Cited USA. The Congress of the United States. Congressional Budget Office. Http://www.cbo.gov/. By Edward Harris and Frank Sammartino. Ed. Christine Bogusz. The Congress of the United States, 25 Oct. 2011. Web. 01 Dec. 2013. . Wootton, David. Modern Political Thought: Readings from Machiavelli to Nietzsche. 2nd ed. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Pub., 1996. Print.
Davidson, Roger H., Walter J. Oleszek, and Frances E. Lee. Congress and Its Members. Washington, D.C.: CQ, 2009. Print.
...s his argument by emphasizing the absolute reason on why property is solely for the use to produce goods and provide services by farming one’s land or building infrastructures; nevertheless the overuse of one’s land exhibits what Locke calls waste, whereas the consumption of goods for the use of trade can result in bartering and wealth. The introduction of wealth creates the motivation for people feel compelled to protect their wealth which leads us back to the concept of entering into a civil or political society for security. Locke believes that civil and political society can ensure the stability, security, and social structure of any given society; but he points out that if the government becomes a tyranny or corrupt only than shall the populace exercise their right to question the authority and overthrow if needed.
...ower by the proletariat.2 Marx then tries to eliminate the power of the Bourgeois by eliminating property. Without private property the Bourgeois cannot control business and create capital.
Much of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto discusses the relationship between how a capitalist society produces its’ goods and how this affects the social structure of the society. Throughout the manifesto, Marx used the term mode of production to refer to how a given society structures its’ economic production, it also refers to how a society produces and with what capital the society produces. Human capital plays a large part in Marx’s communist manifesto, concerning himself with the relations of production, which refers to the relationship between those who own the means of production (bourgeoisie) and those who do not own the fruit of their labor (proletariat). This is where Marx believes that one can find the causes of conflict, asserting history evolves through the mode of production. The constant evolution of the mode of production toward a realization of its’ full potential productivity capacity, creates dissensions between the classes of people, which in capitalism, are defined by the modes of production (owners and workers). Marx believes that one such dissension is that since Capitalism is a mode of production based on private ownership of the means of production, and entities within a capitalistic economy produce property to be exchanged to stay competitive, these entities are forced to drive the wage level for its’ labor as low as possible so as to stay competitive. In turn, the proletariat must create means with which they can keep the interests of the bourgeoisie in check, trying to avoid being exploited to the point of extirpation. Marx holds that this example shows the inherent conflicting nature of the social infrastructure of production, which will in turn give rise to a class struggle culminating in the overthrow ...
At the core of their theories, both Locke and Rousseau seek to explain the origin of civil society, and from there to critique it, and similarly both theorists begin with conceptions of a state of nature: a human existence predating civil society in which the individual does not find institutions or laws to guide or control one’s behaviour. Although both theorists begin with a state of nature, they do not both begin with the same one. The Lockean state of nature is populated by individuals with fully developed capacities for reason. Further, these individuals possess perfect freedom and equality, which Locke intends as granted by God. They go about their business rationally, acquiring possessions and appropriating property, but they soon realize the vulnerability of their person and property without any codified means to ensure their security...
Despite their different approaches, both theories conclude in universal equality, a real equality between humans that has never before been observed in any lasting civilization. While both theories operate on reason and seem to be sound, they remain unproven due to their contingency on various factors of time and place, but mainly on their prerequisite of incorruptibility. Now, while both theories may very well have the odds dramatically stacked against their favor, I believe they must be thoroughly dissected for their content before attempting to condemn them to utopianism. In his Manifesto of the Communist Party Karl Marx created a radical theory revolving not around the man-made institution of government itself, but around the ever present guiding vice of man that is materialism and the economic classes that stemmed from it. By unfolding the relationship between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, Marx is able to outline a repeating variable....
According to Marx class is determined by property associations not by revenue or status. It is determined by allocation and utilization, which represent the production and power relations of class. Marx’s differentiate one class from another rooted on two criteria: possession of the means of production and control of the labor power of others. The major class groups are the capitalist also known as bourgeoisie and the workers or proletariat. The capitalist own the means of production and purchase the labor power of others. Proletariat is the laboring lower class. They are the ones who sell their own labor power. Class conflict to possess power over the means of production is the powerful force behind social growth.
Locke believes that everyone is born as a blank slate. According to Locke there is no innate human nature but human nature is something we create. And because we are born as an equal blank slate all men have the opportunity to create human nature therefore Locke believed all men are created equal. Unlike Bentham Locke believed that government needed to take a step back and allow for each individual to have the right to three things: life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. The Governments role should not be in dictating people what to do but to allow individuals to their three
John Locke is a seventeenth century philosopher who believed that government should be based around the people rather than the power of one person. Equality and property were two factors that Locke considered to be the key to a great society. Locke begins his writings with a discussion on individual property and how each man body is his own property. This leads Locke into the argument that man can obtain property only by using his own labor. an example Locke gives is the picking of an apple. The apple is the property of the man who used his labor to pick it. He goes on to say “A person may only acquire as many things in this way as he or she can reasonably use to their advantage”. With the discussion of property Locke leads into the discussion of trade and monetary value stating that it is natural of man to w...
Locke theorizeds extensively on property, privatization, and the means an individual can use for increasing his property. Initially, in the state of nature, man did not own property in the form of resources or land. All fruits of the earth were for the use of all men,“and nobody has originally a private dominion, exclusive of the rest of mankind, in any of them, as they are thus in their natural state” (Locke 353). In this state, people could appropriate only what they could make use of. It was unfair for one person to take more than he could use because some of that natural commodity would go to waste unless another man might have made use of it for his own benefit (360). Locke felt that God gave the bounties of nature to the people of earth and they, by default, should treat these bounties rationally. This rationalistic theory discourages waste.
...believed it kept many in bonds or slavery. While Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed that freedom was attained by entering into a social contract with limits established by good will and community participation. Both theories would put restraints on personal property and capital creating ownership relinquished to the state. He believed that laws to protect citizens could not keep up with the changing economic environment. One could conclude that Marx and Rousseau’s theories were relatively close in the role that it plays between citizens and personal property ownership.
... in a way that lead to inequality. Marx similarly argues that private property has led to inequality, because it has put the means of production into the hands of the bourgeoisie, thereby subjugating the proletariat. Even though both men resided in different centuries, their theories are similar because they perceived the singular issue of inequality. As theorists they did differ on where equality would lie; Rousseau believed that man had lost equality as he evolved out of the natural state, whereas Marx believed equality had yet to be realized.
The economy is at the very center of Marx’s theories; economy is to Marx as peanut butter is to jelly. Some of his earliest developments in social and economic theories are in The German Ideology. In it, Marx contends that humans are distinguishable from animals by almost anything, but that they consider themselves distinguished from animals when they begin to produce their own means of subsistence; these resulting means of production determines the nature of individuals and their way of life. Economies form from these means of productions, and result in both the division of labor and forms of property.
Marx and Engels turn to history to understand the world and argue that "the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles" (Manifesto 65). These class struggles, based on who owns the capital, are the Marxists ' way of reading history. According to Marx and Engels, the current bourgeoisie, with their power and the growing industrial city, is "itself the product of a long course of development" and the final bourgeoisie to exist before the proletariat revolution (Manifesto 67). By stating this they illustrate the understanding that material possessions are what have driven history, ideas, and progress. They see the end result as a place where "class distinctions have disappeared" (Manifesto 84). By this the authors mean that private property, and any other type of personal material wealth will disappear, leading to the best society. The entire premise behind the ideas of the Marxists is that it is the wealth - the capital - that directs society and these class struggles. While these ideas describe the power wealth has on the ideas and history of a society, the impact that Marxist philosophy even further solidifies the relationship of the two seemingly separate
In definition, private property is the right of persons and firms to obtain, own, control, employ, dispose of, and bequeath land, capital, and other forms of property. Private property is different from public property in which public property are assets owned by state or government compared to a private business or individual. Yet, in Marx’s opinion, “private property is thus the product, the result, the necessary consequence of alienated labor, of the external relation of the worker to nature and to himself. Private property thus results by analysis from the concept of alienated labor, of alienated man, of estranged labor, of estranged life, o...