Karl Marx And John Locke's View Of Individual Liberty

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Karl Marx and John Locke each provide a different view of what individual liberty is and how such liberty should be implemented in society. Although the two thinkers agree on certain issues regarding individual liberty, they each have very different ideas as to what liberty is and how people should get it. Marx’s communistic way of looking at liberty contradicts Locke’s libertarian views significantly. Marx believes that the inequality between classes is outrageous and needs to be eliminated through his communist regime. John Locke also believes in fairness across classes, but he understands that there will always be inequalities, he just wants to ensure that the inequalities are just. Even though Marx has many interesting ideas how to eliminate the inequality between classes, John Locke’s theories are much better at accounting for liberty …show more content…

First, Karl Marx thinks of liberty collectively, meaning that everyone should have the exact same amount of liberty. Marx passionately writes about what he believes liberty should be, because he does not see the world giving equal opportunities to all types of people. He divides society into two classes, the bourgeoisie (those who own means of production) and the proletariat (the working class). According to Marx, the proletariats do not receive the individual liberties they deserve when they are born and that the bourgeoisie are given excess opportunity for simply being born into the higher class: “The modern bourgeoisie society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class

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