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Marx and Mill Comparison Despite of fact that different philosophers have different idea of freedom, all of them agree that the concept of liberty is very important. Marx and Mill have different interpretations of liberty. The philosophers remind us the battle between the community and the individual. According to John Stuart Mill, the only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. In contrast to Mill, Marx adheres to position that the man is a member of civil society and writes in his Communist Manifesto about the ideas of communism. At the same time, Marx, as well as Mill remembers about the importance of a personal development of an individual.
Prima facie, it seems that Marx and Mill have completely opposite understandings of liberty. Yet, it is not the truth. Both of them place high emphasis on the ideal relationship between society and individual. Mill examines tolerance as one of the most important demonstrations of adherence to individual freedom. According to him, over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign (Mill, 69). it means that an individual is free when he is free to follow his concepts of good life that can drastically differ from concepts and beliefs of other people.
Individuals should be autonomous and independent. They should have an opportunity to control their live and life conditions. At the same time Mill considers that society and community cannot be of a secondary importance in relation to the individual. Mill lays stress on the fact that freedom is very important for civil society. When the law threatens with punishment for a certain behavior, it, by nature, restricts an individual, who realizes his right for freedom. However, people are obliged to obey the law.
What is the way out? Mill considers that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number is self-protection His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant (Mill, 68). Mill was afraid of possibility of tyranny of the majority. He claimed that if [the majority] practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the sole itself (Mill, 63). In order to eliminate threat of tyranny of the majority, an individual should have individual freedom. Individual freedom should be given a high priority.
According to Mill, truth can be achieved only through free and liberal competitions of ideas. A man can get to truth only when he observes and examines a wide circle of arguments and opinion. According to Mill, it is impossible to impose ones will. This thought is based on idea that knowledge about truth is never perfect and is the subject of consistent improvement.
Secondly, there is a vitally important difference between social and personal life. Mills considers that the man should be allowed believing in the most absurd ideas in case this belief meddles with no other peoples lives. Thirdly, personal and moral development of a person demands making choice both to better understand itself and to better understand the consequences of his actions. Speaking about freedom, Mill was especially afraid of dangers of conformism when traditional public opinion prohibits conducting any experiments with new ideas. Fourthly, economic and social progress depends on people, who propose original ideas and completely new way of thinking. Marx agrees with Mills position concerning the intermediary nature of the state and considers that by emancipating himself politically, an individual emancipates himself in a strange roundabout way through the intermediary.
According to Marx, an individual becomes unauthentic when he separates civil and political life. Marx claims that in the state an individual is the imaginary member of an imaginary sovereignty, divested of his real, individual life, and infused with an unreal universality (Marx, 1969), whereas in civil society an individual treats other men as means, degrades himself to the role of a mere means, and becomes the play thing of alien powers (Marx, 1969). According to Marx, political emancipation is a reduction of man, on the one hand to a member of civil society, an independent and egoistic individual, and on the other hand, to a citizen Human emancipation will only be complete when the real, individual manual become a species being (Marx, 1969). In his Communist Manifesto Marx tries to explain the idea of a new world where an individual will understand his true universality and where an individual will organize his own powers as social powers and so that he no longer separates this social power from himself as political power (Marx, 1969).
When Marx speaks about human emancipation, he is ready to refuse from all our history and to create something newer and better. He claims that political emancipation certainly represents a great progress, it is not, indeed, the final form of human emancipation, but it is the final form of human emancipation within the framework of the prevailing social order (Marx, 1969). Mills, in contrast to Marx, examines the concept of human emancipation within the limits of previous experience and looks for a possibility to change the society basing on previous human experience. Again, recurring to Marx's interpretation of relationship between an individual and society, Marx negatively speaks about private property despite his recognition of the importance of a man as individual. He claims that in communist society, nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes (Marx, 1969). At the same time Marx recognizes the adherent right for freedom but sees freedom only within the communist society and community because the power of society is of high priority, in contrast to Mill, who claimed that the general tendency of things throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among mankind (Mill 131).
Mills argument to freedom asserts that in case all mankind minus one individual adheres to the same opinion, the mankind will not be justified for attempt to force him keep silence. At the same time the individual will not be excused for attempt to force the mankind keeping silence. In the event that this opinion is correct, people will lose an opportunity to exchange a mistake for truth. In case the opinion is wrong, they will not, perhaps, make the most of this mistake by having clear and vivid impression of truth made by its collision with a mistake. Whereas Mill has such tolerant attitude, Marx is ready to eliminate an individual freedom and all attempts to expose individual liberty in order to rescue society. The main reason is that Marx understands civil society as a reality, whereas the elements of collective freedom are transparent and imaginary elements in the real state.
Marx acknowledged the freedom not as a possibility to achieve a definite voluntary and optional objective, but rather as unity of a concrete and abstract individual, when a real man is able to act corresponding to his entity. The achievement of freedom was directly related to overcoming self-alienation of an individual. The formula of freedom was as follows: The self = the self. The logics of his sophisticated reasoning can be presented as follows. Marx states that communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a mans own labor, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity and independence (Marx, 1969). However, under private property the product of labor is expropriated from manufacturer and is passed to the owner of means of production.
An individual works not for his own benefit but for the benefit of the owner. The labor is expropriated from manufacturer and, by its nature, becomes the coercive and compulsory action. During the process of labor the worker is not free. He is opposed to himself, his essence and his personality he is self-alienated. However, the generic essence is understood as something common that unites the subjects into one whole. Alienation from generic essence is similar not only to self-alienation but to alienation from generic subjects.
Human self-alienation makes an individual alien in relation to other people and results in social inequality. In such a way, private property is conductive to self-alienation of an individual, abolishes his freedom and, by doing that, - results in alienation between people a social inequality. As far as private property is the first cause of alienation (expropriation), in order to overcome it, we need to abolish private property. According to Marx, such vicious circle in economic sphere can be broken only from the outside by transferring solution to political sphere. Marx considers that political emancipation of workers - with its key component emancipation of mankind appears as necessary condition.
Marx's social ideal the communism in its final stage is non-political, non-state social order. It is a political emancipation in pure form, a freedom from politics, and, as a consequence, - economic freedom and self-conformity, self-adequacy of an individual. In such a way Marx overcomes social inequality. According to his opinion, in conditions of adequate existence the problem of equality will exist no more.
Marx's freedom in the form of The I = The I and equality in the form of The I = You correspond to ideas of absolute communism. Therefore, there is no way out than to sacrifice the freedom of individual for the sake of freedom within the community. The ideas of Marx and Mill ascend to two different approaches in understanding of concept of freedom. Whereas Mill clearly witnesses for freedom of individual that allows pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it, Marx asserts that despite of importance of personal development of an individual, the community and society should be given a high priority.
Bibliography Marx, K. (1969). Communist Manifesto. In Marx/Engels Selected Works (Vol. 1, pp. 98 - 137). Moscow: Progress Publishers. Mill, J. S. (1974).
On Liberty. London: engine Books Ltd.
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