Liberalism and Marxism in Regard to Freedom and Equality - Essay Example

? Liberalism and Marxism in Regard to Freedom and Equality Liberalism is a term used to refer to the political and economical doctrine that gives emphases on freedoms and rights of individuals and the need to limit the powers of the state. Basing on the economic perspective, liberals in 19th century said that, the state should not interfere with the economic life of the society. To support this argument one of the liberals Adam Smith said that, economic states which are based on free markets are more prosperous than those which are controlled by the state. That means that, the liberals advocated for limited state intervention on matters regarding the economic system of a country. Marxism is an ideology developed by Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx. In this ideology, the two historians claim that every person is entitled to enjoy the fruits of his or her labor, but this does not happen especially in capitalist economic systems thus leading to the formation of classes in the society. With this, the essay gives a comparison and contrast on liberalism and Marxism in regard to the theme of freedom and equality. As stated above, liberalism is a political and economic doctrine, which gives emphases on the freedom of individuals and the need to limit the powers of the state. Liberals in the late 19th and 20th century advocated for limited state intervention on matters regarding the economic system of the state. They also emphasized on creation of free health care and free public education. After World War II, a classical liberal position came in resulting in the creation of free markets especially among conservatives in the United States of America and Britain. The liberalism social reforms focused on expanding individual rights and reducing inequality (Tucker, 2008). Liberalism is founded on ideas of equality and liberty. Liberalism supports different ideas and views such as freedom of trade, freedom of religion, civil rights, ownership of private property and freedom of the press. Liberalism rejected aspects of divine rights of the Kings and absolute monarchy. That means that they rejected the aspect of the state enforcing absolute power to the citizens. A great philosopher John Locke founded the liberalism as a distinct philosophical ideology. According to his ideology John said that, each citizen has a right to life, to own property and to liberty. He further said that, the government should not violate such rights for their citizens, which is according to the social contract. Liberalism advocated for democracy and the rule of the law. Democracy regarding the matters such as freedom of expression that is why they advocated for the freedom of the press. Liberalism aimed at overthrowing the tyrannical rule of the government thus making sure that, democracy is practiced in all the respective states (Sayer, 2009). Although classical conservative ideology opposed liberalism, liberalism found themselves on the winning side most of the time in most of the states. This shows that most people advocated for democracy and disregarded the tyrannical rule. Most of the states adopted John’s ideology. For instance in the United States of America, their declaration of independence stated that, all men were created equally and endowed by their creator with different rights which are pursuit of happiness, life and liberty thus echoing John’s ideology of liberty, life and individual ownership of property. In addition, history records that, with John’s ideology on liberty, the French revolution overthrew the hereditary form of governance and advocated for fraternity, equality and liberty (Friedman, 2008). By doing so and adopting John’s slogan of equality and liberty, they were granted universal male suffrage whereby any man could stand as an election candidate during the elections and the hereditary form of governance was done away with which resulted to dictatorship. In the 19th century, liberalism focused on a world free from government intervention especially in the economic sector. Liberals argued that, the government should stay away from personal lives of individuals. They further pushed the government to expand free market, free trade and expand on the civil rights of the members of the society (Tucker, 2008). They echoed Adam Smith a great historian and very influential in the field of economics who argued that, the market has a self-regulating mechanism by this he meant that, for the economics of a country to be productive there must be no economic interference on part of the government. That means that the economic system did not depend on external interference thus needed no government interference. Politically most of the states adopted liberalism as a form of freedom fighting tool by incorporating it in their constitution. A good example of this is Spain, which overthrew the monarchical form of governance and advocated for liberalism in the year 1812 in the implementation of their constitution. Influence of Liberalism was also evident in France where the liberals especially politicians and journalist replaced the Bourbon monarchical form of governance with liberalism. By so doing, they influenced other parts of Europe, which also fought for liberalism form of governance where liberty and individual ownership of property was advocated. The liberals in the different states demanded for the inclusion of liberalism in their constitution, freedom of the press and greater suffrage rights. The liberals carried out reforms, which laid the groundwork for the future of different states. The reforms included reforming education for all the citizens, introduction of the secret ballots for both parliamentary and local elections, pensions for the elderly workers, unemployment, and health insurance (Sayer, 2009). On the other hand, Marxism is an ideology mostly focused on the communism. As earlier stated they argue that, everyone is entitled to enjoy what he or she has labored for, which does not happen in capitalist economic states. The great historian Marx argued that, laborers should be rewarded for the fruits of their labor so that alienation and class division ceases in the society. To explain his perspective on class struggle he came up with a theory known as “Marxist theory of history”. In this theory, Marxist says that class struggle is the driving false in many societies (Shipside, 2009). In his theory, “Marxism theory of history” Karl Marx says that, economic system forms the superstructure in any given society. In his theory, he shows how at a certain level the production forces in the society come into conflict with the existing means of production. This forms what is referred to as class struggle especially in capitalist mode of production (Friedman, 2008). The struggle results from the minority who are the bourgeoisie who are the owners of the means of production. The majority that is the population that offered their labor for the production of goods and services to the bourgeoisie. By this, Marxist brings out that class struggle exists as a result of contradicting differences between different classes within the society especially on the aspect of ownership of the means of production. According to Marxist theory, he states that capitalist can no longer sustain the economy of a state because there is a great need to compensate the falling rates of profits. This will only be done by reducing social benefits especially of the bourgeoisies and driving down wages. According to Marx, socialism is necessary in any given state. He further states that, socialism mostly emphases on satisfying the needs of the members of the society that means in this mode of production, production directly benefits the members of the society. Engels observed that capitalist mode of production enslaves the producer (Shipside, 2009). Marx stated that, exploitation has been an issue of concern in many capitalist countries. This is because one class owns the means of production thus resulting in the exploitation of the other classes. Thus for the people who do not own the means of production to benefit they have to give their labor voluntarily to the class which owns the means of production thus resulting to exploitation (Hayek, 2013). This means that the workers must work to survive thus exploitation is inevitable. As a result of exploitation, the result is alienation which in turn results in the creation of different social classes in the society. Marx was against this and clearly stated that every member of the society should be respected. The different classes in a capitalist society are bourgeoisie, proletariat, landlords and lastly peasantry and farmers. As stated earlier, the classes resulted from the differences in the ownership of the means of production. Bourgeoisies owned the means of production. They exploited the proletariat who provided them with the labor to facilitate the means of production. Proletariat was a group, which provided labor to the bourgeoisie. The capitalist mode of production provided a way in which the bourgeoisie exploited the proletariat because they provided labor, which resulted to production of surplus goods, which were higher than the workers’ wages (Shipside, 2009). The other class is of the landlords who retained wealth and power in the society. Peasantry and farmers were the scattered members of the society who do not bring either economic or social change in the society because of their incapability to organize themselves for socio-economic change in a given society. Due to this, they either joined the landlords’ social group or the proletariat social group. To provide a solution to the underlying problem of exploitation of the proletariat group Marx came up with another ideology. In this ideology, Marx and Lenin focused on a revolutionary to overthrow capitalism through a communist revolution. They further stated that, the proletariats group should take an upper hand for the overthrowing of the capitalism as a mode of production. For this to happen, the proletariats had to take revolutionary actions. the proletariats had to be educated for them to become revolutionaries (Hayek, 2013). This education was geared towards removing the false perception that the bourgeois have installed in them for them to be easier to exploit. Once they were educated, they gained class-consciousness thus gaining the might to overthrow the capitalist. As a result of these proletariat revolutionary actions, they developed and constructed a revolutionary state. This means that the working class had absolute power resulting to direct democracy. In direct democracy, workers held political power mostly through the local councils. With this information above on liberalism and Marxism, we see that the two of them are different ideologies but they are closely related. Marx’s ideology is mostly based on socialism ideology giving emphases on doing away with capitalist, which is an exploitive form of governance. On the other hand, liberalism focused on doing away with hereditary forms of governance and the emphases of liberty and free ownership of property (James, 2013). The two forms of ideology emerged because the people were not happy with the form of governance. For instance, in Marxism ideology people were not happy because the bourgeois who owned the means of production exploited the other groups in the society. As a result of this, Marx came up with an ideology which emphasized on overthrowing the bourgeois. The two forms of ideology made people understand their place in the society and work towards achieving that. Marx and Liberal ideologies have different similarities. For instance, they advocated for free market and benefits gained from the competition of the free market. They both said that, the government should not interfere with the economic system of the government. A research done indicated that a state with less government interference on the economic aspect did well than a state which the government interfered with its economic life. This does not mean that the government should not totally interfere with the government but it should less interfere with its economic aspect. The two ideologies emphasized on freedom of the people and doing away with power of the state mostly based on doctoral power of the state (James, 2013). Concisely, the essay above gives detailed accounts on two ideologies Marxism and Liberalism. The essay compares and contrasts the two ideologies in regard to the theme of freedom and inequality. In Marxism, Marx advocates for freedom of the proletariats group due to the exploitation of the bourgeoisie who own the means of production. He emphases that, they have to take revolutionary actions to overthrow the bourgeoisie who exploit them. On the other hand, the liberals advocate for freedom of the people from the monarchical form of governance. They implement different reforms to make sure that liberty and individual ownership of property takes root in different states. The reforms are discussed in the essay above. References Friedman, J. (2008). Marxism and Liberalism. A Journal of Politics and Society, 2(4). Retrieved on Nov. 27, 2013 from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08913818808459536#.UpWmJycm2EU Hayek G. & Lachmann L. (2013). Thorstein Veblen on Marx, Marxism and Historical Materialism. Retrieved on Nov. 27, 2013 from http://curiousleftist.wordpress.com/2013/10/14/thorstein-veblen-on-marxism-and-historical-materialism/ James .L. J. (2013). Liberalism vs. Marxism. How the drive for a more efficient economic model influenced the European powers decisions to decolonize, 9 ( 1-7). Retrieved on Nov. 27, 2013 from http://www.cpssa.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/James.pdf Sayer, A. (2009). Liberalism, Marxism and Urban and Regional Studies. International Journal of Urban and Regional Reasearch, 19(1) , 79-95. Retrieved on Nov. 27, 2013 from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-2427.1995.tb00491.x/abstract Shipside, S. (2009). Karl Marx's Das kapital: A modern-day interpretation of a true classic. Oxford: Infinite Ideas Ltd. Tucker, D.F.B. (2008). Liberalism, Marxism and social democracy. A Journal of Politics and Society, 2(2-3). Retrieved on Nov. 27, 2013 from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08913818808459528#.UpWpuScm2EU Read More