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The Justice of Private Property: analysis of Locke, Smith, and Marx Private property and in a sense distribution of wealth have been key topics of social justice debate for centuries. John Locke, Adam Smith, and Karl Marx had differing and sometimes overlapping ideologies when it comes to property acquisition, economics, and property ownership. I assert though, that though it has not be put into practice in way matching the theory, Marx had the greatest ideas towards the creation and sustainment of harmony between men in his economic theory. Probably some of Locke's greatest contributions were his ideas regarding property. In the time of Locke it was believed that the Bible declared the earth was made for humanity in common. Locke argued that though the earth is for all people, this does not imply one giant communal use but instead permits the acquisition of private property. Locke believed that God, being the creator had control over creation in the sense that he could work to create and manipulate/own/improve creation. Since we are made in the image of God we share (to a lesser extent) that power. Even though creation was possibly made for the common in the beginning we as humans inherently own our bodies. This ownership of our bodies includes our actions/works. This is similar with Marxist thought regarding the interrelationship between man, labor, and products we create. 1)"Whatsoever then he removes out of the state of nature… he hath mixed his labour with, and joined it with something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property." Assuming we do truly own our work/efforts, Locke believed that when we applied our work (ourselves) to the rest of creation, we in a way put ourselves into creation and more or less... ... middle of paper ... ...ray, John. Religion, art, and science; a study of the reflective activities in man.. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1961. Marx, Karl. Reflections of a Young Man on the Choice of a Profession . : , 1835. Marx, Karl. The Grundrisse. [1st U.S. ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1971. Rader, Melvin. Marx's interpretation of history. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979. Rousseau, Jean, and Maurice Cranston. A discourse on inequality. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1984. Scruton, Roger. A short history of modern philosophy from Descartes to Wittgenstein. 2nd, rev. and enl. ed. London: Routledge, 1995. Smith, Adam. Wealth of nations. Hoboken, N.J.: BiblioBytes, 1776 Tonnies, Ferdinand, and Charles Price Loomis. Community & society (Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft). East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1957.
Socialism as defined by the parameters of the post revolution into the pre industrial period was the nearly universally marked by the race to empower the working class. Yet, within this broad definition of socialism, Karl Marx, Gracchus Babeuf, and Robert Owen differ in their views of a utopian society and how it should be formed. It was to be their difference in tradition that caused their break from it to manifest in different forms. Although they had their differences in procedure and motive, these three thinkers formed a paradigm shift that would ignite class struggle and set in motion historical revolutions into the present. Within their views of a utopian community, these men grappled with the very virtues of humanity: greed versus optimism.
conrad Henry Moehlman The Journal of Religion , Vol. 18, No. 2 (Apr., 1938), pp. 174-182
John Locke, one of the most influential philosophers of his time, was born on August 29, 1632 in Wrington, a small village in England. His father, also named John, had been a lawyer as well as a military man who once served as a captain in the parliamentary army during the English civil war. Locke’s parents were both very devout Puritans and so to no surprise, Locke himself was raised with heavily Puritan beliefs. Because Locke’s father had many connections to the English government at the time of his growing up, John was given a rare gift at that time, an outstanding education.
What John Locke was concerned about was the lack of limitations on the sovereign authority. During Locke’s time the world was surrounded by the monarch’s constitutional violations of liberty toward the end of the seventeenth century. He believed that people in their natural state enjoy certain natural, inalienable rights, particularly those to life, liberty and property. Locke described a kind of social contract whereby any number of people, who are able to abide by the majority rule, unanimously unite to affect their common purposes. The...
John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau, following their predecessor Thomas Hobbes, both attempt to explain the development and dissolution of society and government. They begin, as Hobbes did, by defining the “state of nature”—a time before man found rational thought. In the Second Treatise[1] and the Discourse on Inequality[2], Locke and Rousseau, respectively, put forward very interesting and different accounts of the state of nature and the evolution of man, but the most astonishing difference between the two is their conceptions of property. Both correctly recognize the origin of property to be grounded in man’s natural desire to improve his life, but they differ in their description of the result of such a desire. Locke sees the need and purpose of society to protect property as something sacred to mankind, while Rousseau sees property as the cause of the corruption and eventual downfall of society. Although Rousseau raises interesting and applicable observations, Locke’s argument triumphs because he successfully shows the positive and essential effect of property on man.
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, and G.D.H. Cole. Discourse on Inequality. Nutley, New Jersey: Nutley School District, 1755. PDF.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig; G. E. M. Anscombe, P.M.S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte (eds. and trans.). Philosophical Investigations. 4th edition, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. Print.
Descartes, Rene. The Philosophical Writings, tr. John Cottingham and Dugald Murdoch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
In Rousseau’s book “A Discourse On Inequality”, he looks into the question of where the general inequality amongst men came from. Inequality exists economically, structurally, amongst different generations, genders, races, and in almost all other areas of society. However, Rousseau considers that there are really two categories of inequality. The first is called Natural/Physical, it occurs as an affect of nature. It includes inequalities of age,, health, bodily strength, and the qualities of the mind and soul. The second may be called Moral/Political inequality, this basically occurs through the consent of men. This consists of the privileges one group may have over another, such as the rich over the poor.
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
Descartes, Rene. Meditations on First Philosophy. Translated by John Cottingham. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. 1996.
"SOCY 151 - Lecture 12 - Marx's Theory of History." Open Yale Courses. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2014.
Karl Marx noted that society was highly stratified in that most of the individuals in society, those who worked the hardest, were also the ones who received the least from the benefits of their labor. In reaction to this observation, Karl Marx wrote The Communist Manifesto where he described a new society, a more perfect society, a communist society. Marx envisioned a society, in which all property is held in common, that is a society in which one individual did not receive more than another, but in which all individuals shared in the benefits of collective labor (Marx #11, p. 262). In order to accomplish such a task Marx needed to find a relationship between the individual and society that accounted for social change. For Marx such relationship was from the historical mode of production, through the exploits of wage labor, and thus the individual’s relationship to the mode of production (Marx #11, p. 256).
... 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 right to property, also known as the right to protection of property, is a human right and is understood to institute an entitlement to private property. The right of property is one of the most debated human rights, both in terms of its existence and interpretation. However, according to Karl Marx private property is the inevitable result of alienated labor or the product of the worker who is estranged from himself. It is reputed that the working class labors to produce products that belong to someone else, and that the reimbursement the working class receives is always less than the value of the product they create. The past readings in class have shown the theories in which Marx imposes the disadvantages of private property, and the rent of land in which the proletarian suffers and the bourgeois gains. One of the results of private property that Marx argues that it is the cause of the existence of estranged men, monopolies and alienated labor. The abolition of private property can be a summation of Communism theory, however the nature of this opposition is a controversial subject.