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Comparing John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau
Compare John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau
Compare and contrast john locke & karl marx
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In 21st century, liberalism has been the centered political philosophy while Marxism has great influence as well in the political arena. This creates a question whether these ideas can be coexist or they stay on different pole, thus, it is necessary to compare the argument of John Locke and Karl Marx under the context of liberalism. This can be done through the reexamine their writing, such as “The Second Treatise of Government” and “Das Capital”, in addition with other scholars’ works. As a result, Locke and Marx shared a lot of similarities on the idea of liberalism, in fact, the argument of Marx can be said rooted from Locke. Their ideas are still applicable which they actually complementing each other, trying to justify
liberalism.
The fundamental contradiction of liberalism is that it produces inequality. In order to guarantee individual rights, in fact, a liberal government cannot force its citizens to promote equality. Furthermore, in a capitalist economy there is an incentive to produce on a mass scale, and the best way to increase productivity is to reduce the cost of labor; by reducing the cost of labor, the owners of the factories become richer, while the actual workers earn less money than they ought to. According to Karl Marx, this is the main problem of Liberalism: it somehow legalized inequality among people. So, in The Communist Manifesto, Marx explains why a total revolution of the society is inevitably going to happen.
Marxism is a method of analysis based around the concepts developed by the two German philosophers Karl Marx and Fredrich Engel, centered around the complexities of social-relations and a class-based society. Together, they collaborated their theories to produce such works as The German Ideology (1846) and The Communist Manifesto (1848), and developed the terms ‘’proletariat’ and ’bourgeois’ to describe the working-class and the wealthy, segmenting the difference between their respective social classes. As a result of the apparent differences, Marxism states that proletariats and bourgeoisie are in constant class struggle, working against each other to amount in a gain for themselves.
John Locke is considered one of the best political minds of his time. The modern conception of western democracy and government can be attributed to his writing the Second Treatise of Government. John Locke championed many political notions that both liberals and conservatives hold close to their ideologies. He argues that political power should not be concentrated to one specific branch, and that there should be multiple branches in government. In addition to, the need for the government to run by the majority of the population through choosing leaders, at a time where the popular thing was to be under the rule of a monarch. But despite all of his political idea, one thing was extremely evident in his writing. This was that he preferred limited
Compare John Locke, John Stuart Mill, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. John Locke, John Stuart Mill, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau all dealt with the issue of political freedom within a society. John Locke's “The Second Treatise of Government”, Mill's “On Liberty”, and Rousseau’s “Discourse On The Origins of Inequality” are influential and compelling literary works which, while outlining the conceptual framework of each thinker’s ideal state, present divergent visions of the very nature of man and his freedom. The three have somewhat different views regarding how much freedom man ought to have in political society because they have different views regarding man's basic potential for inherently good or evil behavior, as well as the ends or purpose of political societies. In order to examine how each thinker views man and the freedom he should have in a political society, it is necessary to define freedom or liberty from each philosopher’s perspective.
Thomas Hobbes and John Locke are two political philosophers who are famous for their theories about the formation of the society and discussing man in his natural state.
The political philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Karl Marx examined the role that the state played and its relationship to its citizen’s participation and access to the political economy during different struggles and tumultuous times. Rousseau was a believer of the concept of social contract with limits established by the good will and community participation of citizens while government receives its powers given to it. Karl Marx believed that power was to be taken by the people through the elimination of the upper class bourgeois’ personal property and capital. While both philosophers created a different approach to establishing the governing principles of their beliefs they do share a similar concept of eliminating ownership of capital and distributions from the government. Studying the different approaches will let us show the similarities of principles that eliminate abuse of power and concentration of wealth by few, and allow access for all. To further evaluate these similarities, we must first understand the primary principles of each of the philosophers’ concepts.
Notably, many philosophers and scholars believe that the past is a powerful stimulus that dictates a given country’s future. On the contrary, for some of them, the statement, “Do not allow yourself to be overawed by traditional beliefs and institutions. Slavish regard for the past prevents society from achieving a happier life,” seems very true. However, the past may not necessarily affect a society adversely. Indeed, philosophers such as Immanuel Kant, Karl Marx, and Edmund Burke have conflicted thoughts on the impact on traditions on a community’s future since Kant and Marx seemed to support the statement mentioned above while Burke was more conservative with this idea and believed that the
The ideology of Marxism, established by German philosopher Karl Marx, is a collectively known set of assumptions of a political ideology, which focuses especially on analysis of materialist interpretation of historical development, or on class struggle within the society. The primarily approach of Marxism, nonetheless, was the critique of capitalism. The strength of his inquiry lies in belief of inevitable shift from capitalism and he aims to advocate the new form of ideology and economy, the socialism. The title of this essay is provocative as in today´s world, there exist many proponents who claim, the core of Marx conception of ideology is still relevant in the 21st globalised world. However, Marxism is relevant to the extent to which is it important to examine every political and economic conception, moreover if we are able to perceive its outcomes after the concepts has been practically applied. This paper is intended to assess key ideas of Marxism with observations of positives and negatives it brought and the reasons why the concepts failed.
The turmoil of the 1600's and the desire for more fair forms of government combined to set the stage for new ideas about sovereignty. Locke wrote many influential political pieces, such as The Second Treatise of Government, which included the proposal for a legislative branch of government that would be selected by the people. Rousseau supported a direct form of democracy in which the people control the sovereignty. (how would the people control the sovereignty??) Sovereignty is the supremacy or authority of rule. Locke and Rousseau both bring up valid points about how a government should be divided and how sovereignty should be addressed.
In his Manifesto of the Communist Party Karl Marx created a radical theory revolving not around the man made institution of government itself, but around the ever present guiding vice of man that is materialism and the economic classes that stemmed from it. By unfolding the relat...
Philosophy is an ever-growing field of study due to the fact that people are constantly yearning to discover the underlying truth in all of life’s matters. Dating back all the way to before the life of Jesus Christ, a great Greek philosopher by the name of Plato, exemplified this nature. He earnestly sought to find the root of true knowledge by using the Divided Line. Plato laid a strong foundation for the future of philosophy and since his time other intelligent philosophers have arose. In the seventeenth century two of the most vital philosophers in all of history came on the scene, René Descartes and John Locke. In attempt to discover how one acquires true knowledge, these two philosophers developed extensive concepts and ideas that greatly
John Locke and Socrates both have two distinctive and compelling arguments about what the social contract is. While government’s today extract ideas from both theories of the social contract, it’s is hard to determine which is the just and appropriate. While there is little comparison between the two theories other than fact that there must be a relationship between the government and the people for a society to exist, there are several opposing ideas in these arguments. First, the Socrates idea of an implicit social contract versus Locke’s explicit social contract. Secondly, Socrates believes laws make the society and in contrast, Locke believes society makes the law. Finally, Socrates believes the very few educated persons or minority
Karl Marx, in the Capital, developed his critique of capitalism by analyzing its characteristics and its development throughout history. The critique contains Marx’s most developed economic analysis and philosophical insight. Although it was written in 1850s, its values still serve an important purpose in the globalized world and maintains extremely relevant in the twenty-first century.
He is known worldwide for his numerous theories and ideas in regards to society, economics and politics. His outlook on these subjects is known as Marxism. Marxism focuses on the imbalance and struggle between classes and society. Marx’s theories stem from the concept of materialism based society and the implications thereof. These concepts leads to the Marxist theory of the failure of capitalism. Marx had a number of specific reasons for the downfall of capitalism yet capitalism remains very real and successful. Marxism covers a wide range of topics and theories, but an in depth analysis of his criticism to capitalism and how it is not relevant to modern day will be explored.
Descartes and Locke both share similar views in their philosophies. They both provide strong evidence to help show what is most real and the secrets of our reality. Locke provides a stronger point of view than Descartes because the evidence in his philosophy goes so far out of his own understanding. Locke has reached deep in the meaning of reality and complexion that with more research we could unlock to true meaning of our ultimate reality. So in comparison between Descartes and Locke, Locke helps explain how we get knowledge, understanding reality, and what is most real.