Marx and Nietzsche's Theories

Marx and Nietzsche's Theories

Society is flawed. There are critical imbalances in it that cause much of humanity to suffer. In, the most interesting work from this past half-semester, The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx is reacting to this fact by describing his vision of a perfectly balanced society, a communist society. Simply put, a communist society is one where all property is held in common. No one person has more than the other, but rather everyone shares in the fruits of their labors. Marx is writing of this society because, he believes it to be the best form of society possible. He states that communism creates the correct balance between the needs of the individual and the needs of society. And furthermore thinks that sometimes violence is necessary to reach the state of communism. This paper will reflect upon these two topics: the relationship of the individual and society, and the issue of violence, as each is portrayed in the manifesto.

Before expounding upon these ideas, it is necessary to establish a baseline from which to view these topics. It is important to realize that we as humans view everything from our own cultural perspective. Marx speaks of this saying, "Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of the conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property, just as your jurisprudence is but the will of your class made into a law for all, a will, whose essential character and direction are determined by the economical conditions of existence of your class."

With this in mind, some perspective on the society of that time is vital. During this time the industrial revolution is taking place, a massive movement away from small farms, businesses operated out of homes, small shops on the corner, and so on. Instead, machines are mass-producing products in giant factories, with underpaid workers. No longer do people need to have individual skills. Now, it is only necessary that they can keep the machines going, and do small, repetitive work. The lower working class can no longer live a normal life following their own pursuits, but are lowered to working inhumane hours in these factories. This widens the gap between the upper and lower class-called bourgeois and proletariat-until they are essentially two different worlds. The bourgeois, a tiny portion of the population, has the majority of the wealth while the proletariat, t...

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...che's theories seem firmly embedded in history. The concepts that he proposed allowed a number of great movements to follow. His theories on the Dionysian and Apollonian instincts opened up the deep psycho-analysis field to Freud, in addition to inspiring the existentialist movement. Unfortunately, his work was adopted and used to support the Third Reich when it was attempting to take over the world, and for a while no one would give his work any credit. Justly his work has recently been given the credit it is due, as well as all of his theories becoming again highly discussed, debated, and lamented over.

The theory behind The Will to Power is incredibly well supported despite the fact that it is simply a collection of notes from Nietzsche's later years. It is a wonderful compilation of the premise behind all of his other works and the summary of their individual points. The most amazing aspect of the book and the philosophy is the incredible validity of it even now, over a hundred years after it was written. The social order of his new world needed to be addressed more, but the principles proposed stand sturdily on their own two feet confident in their own will to power.