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Locke Karl Marx, a German author, and John Locke, a British educator, are both very well known philosophers. Both have written essays on the ideal government: Marx created Marxism and Locke defined democracy. Both forms of government have been tried throughout the course of time. Both, however, came from two different types of men, from two different periods in history, and in reaction to two different types of government. Though Marx and Locke would have agreed that power would be given to the people in the ideal government, when put into practice, their theories fall apart.
Both philosophies, Marxism and Democracy, have evolved through time. While it is true that Marx and Locke wanted the people to have the power in the ideal government, it is also true that, based on their theories, that this is not possible. Democracy, Locke's theoretical government, is a system of placing power with the government, but, at the same time, making sure that power is not abused. The democratic government is split into three parts, the Legislative branch, for making laws, the Executive branch, for enforcing the laws, and the Judicial branch, for judging those who have broken the law. The government is divided in this way to ensure a system of checks and balances and to ensure that there will not be one single supreme power making all decisions. While there is a structure of checks and balances, as Locke wanted, the people do not have the direct control of the country, as is Democracy.
Locke also had specialized roles for both the government and the people. He thought that the government should exist only to keep the country organized, to protect the natural rights of the people, including life and liberty, and to safeguard the property of the people. The role of the people according to Locke was simply that they labor and produce capital. People should also trust their government on that basis that government should be established only to serve peoples interests. Because Locke gave the people the right to vote in democracy, he also gave them the power to control the government. The working class is empowered because they all have equal say in government.
When they vote, their opinions drive the country in certain directions. The common people will always have the power because they will always outnumber the upper class. Locke also felt that we were born with certain unalienable rights, and if the government violated those rights, the duty of people was to revolt and to create new government. This, too, was also a major source of power for the people. Locke attempts to devise an argument that will define the limits of political power while establishing the rights of resistance. Locke has many points that come together to create his argument.
These are primarily based on the basic principles that natural equality when combined with legitimate authority will lead people and their property. This should lead out of a state of nature and into a better, stronger, and more stable society, unless it be to do justice on an offender, take away, or impair the life, or what tends to the preservation of the life, the liberty, health, limb, or goods of another (p. 9). In a more detailed account, Locke states the direct problems with the state of nature are that there are no standings laws, indifferent judges, or reliable executive powers. All these problems encompass one main issue. This issue is that property, physical and material needs to be protected in a more secure way. The way to obtain this higher security is to move out of the state of nature and into a society.
Locke first moves out of the state of nature and into society through the introduction of consent. Consent is the necessary condition that makes obedience legitimate. To explain what he means by consent he first explains how humans can give consent and why they can give consent. He states that the idea of consent of all is the origin of society.
He states, For when any number of men have, by the consent of every individual, made a community, they have thereby made that community one body, with a power to act as one body, which is only by the will and determination of the majority (p. 52). This clearly shows how crucial consent is to the membership of society, and not only consent, but the consent of every member in that society. Their joint consent then makes for a majority type of rule. He believes to be part of a society and to be obligated to follow the rules of that society an individual must first consent to being a part of that society. There are two different forms of consent.
The first one is express consent while the second is tacit consent. Express consent is explicit consent while tacit is a silent consent. Locke's main premises are that to be legitimate government must have the consent of all people in a society and preserve those individual properties. He concludes from these premises that if the government does not do anything that violates the original consent or attempt to deny a member of society property of any sort without consent then obedience will be legitimate.
In return, if the government does violate the consent of the people or deny them of any property without consent then the people have the right to rebel, resume their original liberty, and establish a new legislative law. The conclusions do indeed follow from the premises. If the individual must consent to get into society once in it does follow that as long as what they consented to has not been abused or changed obedience will be legitimate. Following, if an individual consents to a society then an arbitrary power takes it a pond themselves to change the ideas originally consented to, the society would in return have no obligation to obey a law they never agreed to in establishment.
Capitalism is the separation of the economy and the state. It is a social system based upon private ownership of the means of production, which entails a completely uncontrolled and unregulated economy where all land is privately owned. Capitalism has been described as the a social harmony through the pursuit of self-interest. This is because those who promote capitalism, believe in that by leaving the state of the economy unregulated, and by each individual left in pursuit of his own self-interests, the economy will automatically adjust itself so that is runs with maximum efficiency.
Today in the United States, we live in a capitalist society (our economy is not purely capitalistic because it is not completely unregulated). Under this system, a large and growing section of the population survives based on the condition that it works for the owners of the means of production. Bibliography: Landry, Peter. John Locke (1632 - 1704): "The Philosopher of Freedom. " 1997 web Cassetta, Richard.
The Rape of the Lock in the 1980 s: An Annotated Bibliography, New Orleans Review 15. 4, 1988 Neuville, James. Locke and His Theories of Government, Penguin, 1995 Marx Marxism was a classless form of government. Actually, there was no government in Marxism, the people ruled themselves. In theory, people were all at a common level; the only person that was to be higher than others was an administrator, whose only role was to make sure that the will of the people was carried out.
It became the job of the people to regulate the country, to maintain equality and make sure that all of the capital that was produced was dispersed evenly among all of the people. Production became a key component of this new way of life. Marx defines social class as relations to means of production. Society class structure changed.
Instead of society being divided into the landowners and non-landowners, it was divided into those the capitalist and the worker. Capitalists built huge factories instead of small workshops and began to employee hundred of workers at a time. The capitalist owned the factory, the land, and the raw materials and instructed the worker on what to do. Then the goods produced were sold and the capitalist paid the worker a wage and kept the profits. At a time when 90 % of England was poor, former serfs, capitalists found plenty of people willing to work for almost nothing. Although, a select few of the workers who were skilled earned a slightly higher wage, the majority worked to just enough money to sustain themselves.
The capitalist paid as low a wage as possible and tried to sell their products for as high a price as possible. Most capitalists were very successful. They reinvested their money into new ventures and their wealth grew. Marx recognized that Capitalism divides society into classes, whose interests are not only different, but are opposed to each other. According to Marx, the relationship between the capitalist and the worker is inherently antagonistic.
What one gains is lost to the other. Because of this, he felt that it was inevitable that the worker would have to rise up against the capitalist. It is important to note that despite the common misperception, Marx did not feel that Capitalism is all-bad. He recognized that it ended feudalism, which was far worse. In many ways, he looked at Capitalism as on the way to something better. He believed that Capitalism was dynamic and constantly changing and this leads to the promotion of technology and spurs advances in science.
He also knew that Capitalism was an efficient way of creating material wealth. However, despite capitalism's advantages, Marx could not overlook its disadvantages. It divides people into classes, which in and of itself, Marx believed, creates problems. It produces wealth for few and unhappiness for many. He believed that a worker is not just selling his labor is selling his humanness. He believed that a Capitalist economy will grow for decades (although their will be periods of recession and depression), but the capitalist system can not flourish indefinitely because by isolating the worker and creating the tension that must exist between the capitalist and the worker, capitalism must fall.
The workers will eventually organize themselves and overthrow capitalism and then capitalism will be regarded as feudalism is now, as a stepping-stone to something better. The growth of the business under capitalism will logically benefit a select number of capitalists. The few who are fortunate enough to have wealth have the opportunity for their wealth to grow. However, the worker is not as fortunate.
Marx knew that a growth in profits for a firm did not help the worker as one might suspect. In fact, a growth in profits would imprison the worker. If profits increase, wages might also increase, but not at the same proportion to profit. An increase in profits for a firm of 30 percent could translate roughly to an increase in wages of 5 percent. Even though wages rose, they rose proportionately less than profits. Therefore, the relative wage has not increased, but in fact, it has gotten smaller.
As the few capitalists increase their wealth, the gap between the rich and the poor must widen. The size of the working class (Marx refers to them as proletariat's) grows in number, but their individual wealth is stagnant. The relationship between the two classes is a control relationship of the capitalist over the worker. This is not a great improvement over the relationship between the feudal lords and the serfs. In the best-case scenario, a capitalist economy prospers to the point that wages are driven up.
Even in this case, however, the gap that would develop between the rich and the poor is not proportional that it would be impossible for the laborer to increase his standard of living in a pure capitalist economy. We can see that even the best possible situation for the working class does not improve their situation. The material position of the worker may rise slightly, but his social position continues to decline. Marx viewed communism as the fairest distribution of wealth and capital. However, in order to establish the communism in the society there should be first capitalism, which will create working class and will drive working class to overthrow the unfair distribution of wealth and capital. The capitalism is a prerequisite to communism.
There is no opportunity to establish communism in the society that has no working class. The working class is the major force that is possible of establishing communism and overthrowing capitalism. For this reason, capitalism is essential in development of communist society. Bibliography: Landry, Peter.
John Locke (1632 - 1704): "The Philosopher of Freedom. " 1997 web Champlin, Jessica. Karl MarxSocioRealm. 2000 web Jaritz, Andre. Marx. 2000 web Cassetta, Richard. The Rape of the Lock in the 1980 s: An Annotated Bibliography, New Orleans Review 15. 4, 1988 Neuville, James. Locke and His Theories of Government, Penguin, 1995
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