Michael Furgiuele

HIST 616 – Third Examination

March 15, 2005

Dr. R. Luehrs, Instructor

 

Compare and contrast the views of Karl Marx and John Stuart Mill concerning the definition of liberty, the conditions needed for the realization of liberty, and the obstacles standing in the way of that realization.  In the case of Marx, discuss also his theory about the evolution of history toward socialism and communism.  Include in your essay references to specific passages in “The Communist Manifesto” and “On Liberty”.

 

 

Through our lectures, readings, and study materials, we are able to synthesize the definitions of liberty attributed to the ideals of Karl Marx and John Stuart Mill.  Both men utilized the various social, political, and economic theories of the nineteenth-century to provide their interpretations of liberty and the human evolution of rights. 

 

Karl Marx “brought together various themes from nineteenth-century German, French and English social theory” (Kramer, 2001, p.3) and developed a social philosophy where economics was seen as the greatest threat and liberator of humanity.  From Germany, Marx embraced the ideas associated with George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel who “viewed history as the unfolding expression of a transcendent spirit” (Kramer, 2001, p.69). Marx would start with this “vision of history as the progression of “rationality” through dialectical negation and transcendence to “absolute” self-consciousness, a culmination which also signifies human freedom” (Malia, 1998, viii).  However, by the middle of the nineteenth-century, Marx had become more closely associated with the “Left Hegelians” who saw “history should be seen as an unfolding process” (Kramer, 2001, p.5) ever changing and with those changes, dramatic steps forward were derived in human evolution.  Marx’s view then followed that in order to affect change, more dramatic, even revolutionary steps were required to progress reason and freedom (lecture 13).  With his new interpretation, Marx abandoned Hegel’s ideas of a “transcendent spirit shaping the world” (Kramer, 2001, p.5) in favor of a more worldly expression of change through conflict – primarily between social classes.  In this theory, human beings were continually evolving and changing based on their economic status.  Therefore, not only governments, but also every strata of society produced this new human-centered reality (lecture 13).  Society creates the classifications, which empower the minority and disfranchise the majority.  With this division, struggle begins when the disfranchised, subjugated and defeated, rise up against the oppression, which has created their plight.

 

From France and England, Marx incorporated the ideas of recent revolutions (lecture 14) – the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution started in England.  When combined with his German theories, “Marxism” was created.  The Marxist theory combines his theory of class struggle against the changing world of capitalism and how political revolutions were used in contrasting political and social life toward a new form of socialism where the workers became empowered over the middle-class bourgeoisie. In defense of this argument, Marx looked toward Hegel and the understanding of history in which one class of people is subjugated to a higher power who will, through “stages of economic production” (Kramer, 2001, p.11) will rise up against their oppressors only to become the oppressors, themselves.

 

Marx’s “economic stages include the movement from feudal to capitalist to socialist modes of production” (Kramer, 2001, p.11).  At this time, production becomes a key element in Marxist theory.  As the key to production, the working class proletariat is no longer associated with the ideas of Englishman, David Ricardo. Ricardo developed the “Iron Law of Wages” (lecture 11) which maintained that workers should be kept at a subsistence level of pay “because an increase beyond this point results in too many children, and ultimately, an imbalance in the food supply” (Kramer, 2001, p.55).  Marx believed that this theory was developed to keep the working class subjugated and violated his argument that class struggle was based on historical ideas past from feudal society into capitalism eventually evolving into a new socialism in which the balance of power is placed equally.  To achieve liberty, Marx believed that “history showed the alienated spirit moving toward ultimate reconciliation with itself in the growth of reason and freedom” (Kramer, 2001, p.11). 

 

As the working class become more of an anonymous tool of the capitalist system, one of the millions of nameless workers engaged as a component of the industrial machine, liberty will only be achieved through “the complete restoration of man to himself as a social being” (Kramer, 2001, p.11).  However, Marx believed that the struggle of workers was historically sound and required for their own freedom. The workers “must suffer the degradations of ancient slavery, feudal serfdom, and bourgeois wage-labor exploitation to build the productive capacity to free itself” (Malia, 1998, p. xiii).

 

The freedom of the working class was only one component of Marxist thought.  Within the dialectic change there was a period where “nature and its resources belonged equally to all” (Luehrs, 2005, p.13) to when feudalism coveted land and possessions above the needs of others.  Accordingly, “the result has been a corrupt, brutal society where a rich few tyrannize the impoverished many” (Luehrs, 2005, p.14). Marx’s ideas of property were two-fold.  He did not intend to centralize personal belongings or small, independent shops, only the property of “large corporations, operations which employ masses of people, and impact on all of society” (Luehrs, 2005, p.18).  Attacking the industrial machine that enslaved the working class, would eventually lead to freedom, liberty, and that “true human emancipation…could be achieved only through some measure of equalization of wealth – if necessary, forced” (Malia, 1998, p.xi).

 

According to Marx, the journey toward a socialist society capable of handling their own freedom passes from capitalism into socialism by the temporary assignment of a “dictatorship of the proletariat” in which the working class would structure a viable government with the core aimed at the survival of the proletariat régime.  During this phase, capitalistic property would be placed under the State’s control, religion would no longer be a controlling part of life, and the old structure of states and nationalities would be replaced with mutually-beneficial communes and eventually evolve into communism (Luehrs, 2005). With everyone being equal – production, property, and sufficiency will all be unregulated and unnecessary.  Surpluses from one end of industry would provide for those without.  Everyone would work, and combined into a global family, rejecting the hierarchy of the family in favor of a new sense of oneness with society.  Advancements will be heralded as successes and equally implemented for the greater good – rather than maintained in the hands of the select few for profit or gain at the expense of the workers.

 

The Communist Manifesto was written in response to a request from the Communist League to provide a platform for their organization.  The Manifesto was a collaborative effort of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels – and reflected the culmination of Marx’s synthesis of German, French and English thought.  In the first chapter, Bourgeois and Proletarians, Marx identifies the historical dialectical struggle that had to be endured in order to embrace the present and future.  With the colonization of America and other parts of the world by European nations, economies of trade and the accumulation of wealth developed all geared toward, “that single unconscionable freedom – Free Trade” (Marx and Engels, 1998, p.53). The bourgeois middle-class became defenders of free trade and conspired to develop political, religious and social methods to ensure their ability to accumulate wealth, regardless of the impact on resources – primarily the working class.  According to Marx, even the family unit was seen as a subversive method of protecting the classification of capitalism with its patriarchal society, banishing women and exploiting their children in the name of progress (Marx 1998). 

With the increasing advancements in production, the bourgeois capitalist will reject their heritage and “all old-establish national industries have been destroyed” (Marx and Engels, 1998, p.54) in favor of new methods.  This continual cycle of advancement and enhancement requires other nations to adopt other advancements and enhancements in order to survive.  As the dynamics of industry evolved, “the proletarians has lost all individual character” (Marx and Engels, 1998, p.58).  Eventually, the proletariat was not only be subjugated by the bourgeoisie capitalist, but every aspect of daily life was developed to hold the worker at a subsistence level “including the landlord, the shopkeeper, the pawnbroker, etc.” (Marx and Engels, 1998, p.59).

 

 With the growing economic power of the capitalist society in the hands of the few, the majority of citizens, the proletariat, caused the creation of centralized governments no longer responsible to the majority of its citizens, but in effect, working for the minority. Elections were based on candidates chosen from within the middle-class; laws were developed to embrace and expand trade and therefore benefited the middle-class.   However, “the bourgeoisie itself, therefore, supplies the proletariat with its own elements of political and general education, in other words, it furnished the proletariat with weapons for fighting the bourgeoisie” (Marx and Engels, 1998, p.62).   As his life becomes more intolerable at the hands of the middle-class, the worker organized unions in an attempt to reject their plight.  Although unions fail, their impact is felt and understood and “became stronger, firmer, mightier” (Marx and Engels, 1998, p.62).  As the transformation of the worker into the hunter for equality and freedom from oppression is completed, the middle-class is no longer able to live within the political and social setting they established and forced to cave.

In the subsequent chapters of The Communist Manifesto, Marx in collaboration with Engels, address the role and responsibilities of the working class and their method of implementing a social equality.  The bases for the communist method are to overthrow the middle-class and release the workers to a new freedom through struggle. This new empowerment of the working class would be combined with ten measures aimed at securing total equality and freedom.  These methods include: abolition of private property and land and centralize the profits with the State; institution of income tax; abolition of inheritable rights; centralized credit, banking, transportation, and communication within the State; open education for all; a demand for all citizens to work to their own capacity, and advancing commercial, industrial and agricultural production to provide equal distribution to all citizens (Marx and Engels 1998).           When completed, the application of communism would provide reinforce the theory that everyone is equal and would lead to individual freedom.

In contrast to Marx’s ideas, John Stuart Mill concentrated his ideas based on the individual – and a “strong, nineteenth-century liberal belief in individual rights and freedom” (Kramer, 2001, p.21).  His theory embraced freedom of expression and opinion, rejecting the theory of government interference in favor of a government sponsored by the people.

In his treatise, On Liberty, Mill, like Marx understood the role of despotism on denying individual liberties.  However, unlike Marx, Mill addressed the need for “a social and political system in which individual rights and liberties would be strongly protected” (Kramer, 2001, p.24) and did not direct his ideas toward a single group but to all humanity.  Mill’s concept of freedom then lie within the details of obtaining these individual freedoms away from government intervention or interference and that “law and authority have no business with restraining either, while opinion ought, in every instance, to determine its verdict by the circumstances of the individual case” (Mill, 1974, p.118).

In his essay, Mill outlines the need for extensive freedom of thought and opinion.  Mill’s theory identifies the innate need for humans to express their opinions and the need to do them openly without interference – whether from other individuals, religions, politicians, or society in general.  To Mill, “silencing the expression of an opinion is that it is robbing the human race, posterity as well as the existing generation – those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it” (Mill, 1974, p.76). To deny a dissenting opinion damages the freedom of the individual and in the larger scope, society as a whole.  In addition, Mill cautioned that public or general opinion should be monitored and contradicted as necessary to ensure that this form of opinion does not impose on the liberty of a single individual’s rights to his own.  Mill, like Marx, claimed that the church, specifically the Roman Catholic Church, was seen as means of despotism against the individual.  Marx believed that religion reinforced the middle-class morality against the workers while Mill believed that the individual was restricted from voicing his opinion primarily by the influence of non-political agencies like the church. Mill stated the church “even at the canonization of a saint admits, and listed patiently to, a devil’s advocate” (Mill, 1974, p.81).  Mill’s argument included a reference to the fact that Christ was accused of blasphemy by stating his opinion in contradiction to the religious beliefs of the period (Mill 1974).  Like Marx who believed in a historical evolution of ideology, Mill believed that opinion, whether popular or contrary, would at one point in time be reviewed and even changed.  A popular opinion can become an ill-conceived notion against the individual, government or society as a whole – while an opinion against the common “there will generally be found persons to rediscover it, until some one of its reappearances it escapes persecution unit it has made such head as to withstand all subsequent attempts to suppress it” (Mill, 1974, p.90).  In this case, Mill is clear that opinion of any form must be freely expressed and allowed to be questioned, criticized, or accepted freely by another.

While Marx’s Manifesto demanded public education for all children tied to production, he called for the execution of curriculum at a centralized level.  Mill rejected the idea that comprehensive education should be centralized within the teacher, state, or single interpretation of the rudimentary elements of education.  Mill believed “A person who derives all his instruction from teachers or books…is under no compulsion to hear both sides” (Mill, 1974, p.107).  To be truly free, Mill instructed education through open debate like the Socratic method, and includes personal experience.

 

In glaring contrast to the idea of Marx, Mill rejects the interference of government on the will of the people.  Where Marx demanded the nationalization of all industries and capital properties within the government, Mill believed that the individual had the means of exercising control of their socio-economic conditions without the intervention or restriction of government.  Mill accepted the idea that “the general tendency of things throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among mankind” (Mill, 1974, p.131).  This idea, like Marx, reinforced the historical evolution of the oppressed against their oppressor arguing that a government working only for a specific group of people (or opinions) would fail; he insisted that the government should have no hand in restricting the freedoms of the individual by setting the social status for all subjects. 

Another contrasting opinion is held with Mill’s idea of private property.  While Mill emphatically reinforces the ability for an individual to share an opinion on whether “private property is robbery, ought to be unmolested when simply circulated through the press, but may justly incur punishment when delivered orally to an excited mob” (Mill, 1974, p.119).  Marx demanded the end of private property as one of the basic elements of his Manifesto. 

The spirit of the individual is the basis for Mill’s essay.  Individual liberty and freedom achieved through open discourse and impeded by blockage from individuals and society.  Marx also believed in freedom for the individual, but only one stratum of society – the worker.  He believed in freedom from the routine and subsistence living conditions of life forced upon them by the middle class.  Mill also believed that the individual was above the rudimentary in life.  He believed “human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides” (Mill, 1974, p.123).  In this instance, like Marx, individuals must be able to remove themselves from their current existence and to form a new way of living.

When reviewing the ideas of Marx and Mill, liberty is associated with the empowerment of the people.  To Marx, the empowerment of the working-class, proletariat required industrialization and class struggle to take place.  He also believed that this class struggle was part of a historical, continuous cycle of the oppressed against the oppressor in favor of a new level of equality that lead from feudalism into communism.  Mill, on the other hand, believed that liberty was based on the ability for individuals to openly discuss and debate their opinions and to conduct themselves, as they wanted without interference from government, religion or society.  In order to achieve this, all humanity would have to embrace their own frailty of understanding and acknowledge the views and knowledge of others.  While Mill formulated that government interference would stifle man’s ability to experience and enrich him, Marx believed that until the masses were capable of understanding the need for change, they would not be able to enjoy the basis of a society of equality and liberty.