It is clear that when it comes to property there is a distinct difference between the concepts of private property and freedom regarding John Locke and Karl Marx.
The eradication of ownership of private property is one the central aspects to the theories of Marx. He focuses on the concept of private property but the main focus the labor. Or the means of production. The balance of the feudal landholder and the workers is in balance that has occurred throughout history. Because there are no uprising the inequalities that stem from this will only grow and remain unregulated.
According to Marx, private property is the ownership of value producing assets that are also productive. Marx believes that the concept of private property is by nature exploitative. It allows owner of private property to use workers labor power resulting in unpaid labor because the worker produce more then what they are paid for which creates the profit which in turn funds the bourgeoisies interests. This is based on Marx conception of freedom. Marx believes that the one is truly free when one can control the direction of their own life. In order for this to work there must be a knowledge and understanding of the varying life conditions and realizations of the condition one really lives in. When this happens you can develop your own freedom and find out what your open abilities are and then use those to do what you want to do with your life. Private property does the opposite of this by having people spilt and forcing them to do activities not based on their wants and freedom but the need to stay economically stable.
In addition to this Marx states that our concept of freedom around B principle so when the people think they are pursuing actual freedom they ar...
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...t. The ownership of property is fundamental to a good government. This property would be private. All citizens had the right to poerty ( if they had the means to afford it). God gave man earth to hold in common but when man adds labour to the earth it becomes his private poeerty. By working the land the land the “fruits of that labour” belong to the man. Even more so if the man add anything to the land that he worked that becomes his as well. It as the government job to help you protect your private property because there is no way for you to keep it safe on your own. They do this by employing a social contract this causes people to come together to form an agreement that then protect this private property. Before private protery men where equal but because of private porteyr hierarchy was form as men are forced to make an agreement between them and the government.
Marx believes there is a true human nature, that of a free species being, but our social environment can alienate us from it. To describe this nature, he first describes the class conflict between the bourgeois and the proletariats. Coined by Marx, the bourgeois are “the exploiting and ruling class.”, and the proletariats are “the exploited and oppressed class” (Marx, 207). These two classes are separated because of the machine we call capitalism. Capitalism arises from private property, specialization of labor, wage labor, and inevitably causes competition.
...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.
First, Locke believes that everyone has the opportunity to cultivate the land that they own, which ideally is a proportionate share of the surrounding environment, and nothing more (Locke, Sec. 36). Locke’s theory of property is not just relative to physical entities, it can be an intellectual entity as well. An individual may have certain experiences and knowledge, develop theories and come to their own conclusions. Publishing said works are seen as property in the eyes of Locke as well. Another strength would be the logic of Locke’s argument, if you input your labour, that commodity becomes your own. Truth of this can be seen in section 33 of Locke’s Second Treatise of Civil Government, when Locke suggests that labour increases the value of land exponentially because when people own land themselves, they are more likely to increase the productivity of that land. According to Locke, the true value of land does not stem from the land, rather the labour invested in it. Locke’s theory however, does not take into account the processes in which someone becomes an owner. One of the main stances Locke outlines in his theory of property is that he equates property to being a natural right. Locke deems the right to private property to be equally important as life and liberty, however they cannot be
In order to examine either philosopher’s views on property and its origins, it is necessary to go back to the beginning of human development, as it were, and discuss their different conceptions of the state of nature. As opposed to Hobbes whose vision of the state of nature was a state of war, Locke’s state of nature is a time of peace and stability. “We must consider what State all Men are naturally in, and that is, a State of perfect Freedom…A State also of Equality, wherein all the Power and Jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another.” (Locke, Second Tre...
Communism has been regarded as the opposite to capitalism; however it was capitalism that gave rise to communism. During the Gilded Age capitalism influenced the growth of the industrial revolution in Europe and in the United States. The Gilded Age was the period of 1870-1910, where there was great economic growth in the United States. People like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller were entrepreneurs who made their fortunes in this age of industrialization. Although this period brought technological advances and economic growth, it also was a period of disparity and poverty.
According to the humanities based themes, autonomy and responsibility are defined as “the individual person has the ability to make choices; with those choices comes a responsibility for the consequences of those choices.” [i] This can be related to the Communist Manifesto, which was written by Karl Marx in the 1800’s. Even deeper though, it correlates the class struggles that were apparent in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Marx knew there was a division of classes; the bourgeoisie was the wealthy upper class and they proletariats were the lower working classes of Europe. This is where the theme of autonomy and responsibility steps in and plays a role in the changes that were made in society. The proletariats recognized that they were treated unfairly, which led them to the decision of stepping up and taking a stand. Through the Communist Manifesto, they took responsibility and attained the equality they felt they deserved.
Political philosophers Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Karl Marx dreamt up and developed unique theories of total revolution. Although similar in their intention to dissolve dividing institutions such as religion and class structure, as well as their shared reluctance to accept the rather less hopeful conclusions of government and man that had been drawn by their predecessors Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, the blueprints Rousseau and Marx had printed were cited to two very different sources. Rousseau approached the problem of oppression from a political standpoint, focusing on the flawed foundation of liberal individualism that has been continually adopted by democracies. Marx, on the other hand, took an unconventional route of concentrating on economics. By completely eliminating the economic class system, Marx believed there could be a society of which would transcend the realm of politics.
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.
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...
...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.
Karl Marx’s article titled Estranged Labor as found in his 1844 Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts pays significant attention to the political economic system, which is commonly referred to capitalism. He further delves into nature of the political economy with a keen focus on how it has negatively impacted the worker or laborer. Therefore, the laborer forms the subject of his critical and detailed analysis as tries demonstrates the ill nature of the political economy. To start with Karl Marx portrays how the political economy as presented by its proponents has led to emergence of two distinct classes in society; the class of property owners and on the other hand, the class of property less workers. According to Karl Marx (2004), proponents of the political economy have introduced concepts such as private property and competition indicating without providing any form of analytical explanation but rather just expecting the society to embrace and apply such concepts. In particular, political economists have failed to provide a comprehensive explanation for division that has been established between capital and labor. Estranged Labor clearly depicts Marx’s dissatisfaction as well as disapproval towards the political economy indicating that proponents of such a system want the masses to blindly follow it without any form of intellectual or practical explanation. One area that Karl Marx demonstrates his distaste and disappointment in the article is worker or the laborer and how the worker sinks to not just a commodity but rather a wretched commodity (Marx, 2004). This is critical analysis of Karl Marx concept or phenomenon on the alienation of the worker as predicted in Estranged Labor in several aspects and how these concepts are ...
... 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.
When considering the differences between Rousseau’s and Locke’s perspective on property, the origins of social contracts, and equality and inequality within civil society, we must first look at how they approach this topic. Locke approaches this from an ahistorical perspective, meaning that the state of nature Locke describes never actually existed. Locke’s idea that natural rights were bestowed upon men by God is theoretically true. (quote or one more Locke sentence would be nice). Rousseau, however, approaches the issue from a historical context and claims that things have changed over time and therefore can change again. Locke naturalizes the process and makes it appear to be of necessity, while Rousseau analyzes the histori...
A: According to Marx, historical materialism has been controversial and is a part of the evil that has caused class struggle. Ruling and lower were two classes that were struggling against each other till one finally wins and becomes the new ruling power. Marx and Eagle clearly highlighted the importance of both classes in Communist Manifesto, “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles” (pg. 344). Marx, who began his argument by stating his belief that all humans should be able to live equivalent lives under self-governing rule, and materialism, is a system that stops such equality from being achieved. A great example is that Marx connects the existence of classes through the ownership of private property and the desire to gain more property. According to Marx those who own their own property (bourgeoisie) force others who do not have their own property (Proletariat) to work for them. For Marx, materialism is the desire to accrue more possessions and belongings therefore forms an unequal society and if the society is unequal in nature some people will gain more than others and will be in position of power over others. According to Marx, materialism is a key factor of the class struggle and inequality.
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...