… Marx and deTocquiville To understand what Marx and deTocquiville; two of the great social thinkers of all time, believed, you have to understand what was going on at the time. They were living in the peak of the Industrial Revolution. The cities that housed this revolution were overflowing with factories and people. People who were once country folk decided to come out to the cities in search for a better life. These “” people were also known as proletariat’s.
Another aspect was what were these people thinking? They had there minds set on the right thing, a better life, but what made them think they would live a fair life? Liberalism was what made them think this. The bourgeoisie, or higher class believed in this ideology, and it rubbed off on the working class. Liberals believed in a constitutional government, equality of opportunity, and laissez faire economics. They believed in self interest, freedom, and privacy. So why then were the working class people poorer than when they were in the country, lived in slums and shacks, and worked terrible hard hours? This is where Karl Marx comes in. Marx saw that the proletariat’s had no rights.
He thought that they lacked political power and government protection. He felt that it wasn’t fair for the upper class to control the means of production and business in general, when the working class was doing all the hard work. He said that the working class was the class that had to bear all the burdens of society without enjoying its advantages. Materialism was also a factor in this class struggle. It proved that the class struggle could not be evaded. DeTocquiville thought differently.
After studying the social classes in America, he came to believe that classes were not bad at all. He was impressed by the general equality of conditions among the people. He thought that the democracy that was in America at the time seemed to be coming to power in Europe. Where though? Proletariats sure didn’t feel equal to the bourgeoisie. He believed the nobles were coming down the social ladder and commoners were moving up the social ladder. Destined to meet and live in social harmony with no real class boundaries keeping them apart.
To this day, it hasn’t happened. Sure there is working class and there is still rich people and they both are equally protected by the government, but there is still a separation of wealth. I mean there will always be rich and poor. Middle class and high-middle class. There is just no way to get away from social boundaries.
Even though there ideas varied a bit, Marx and deTocquiville had good insights to the way society should be. I don’t really agree that the working class should ” ve controlled all of business but they should ” ve had better pay, better working conditions and maybe a cut in the company. That just wasn’t done back then. It was the time of robber-barons. Marx was a little too sour about the whole thing anyway. He didn’t realize that a lot of those industrialized nations expanded suffrage and provided social benefits to help to settle the working class discontent.
DeTocquiville on the other hand was too na ” ive about it. He saw the social classes as coming together and being equal, I don’t know how or where he saw this, but he did. It must ” ve been the fresh American air he was breathing when he was here studying the classes. The bottom line is that as long as money and wealth is the number one priority, true equality will never be. Marx and deTocquiville To understand what Marx and deTocquiville; two of the great social thinkers of all time, believed, you have to understand what was going on at the time.
They were living in the peak of the Industrial Revolution. The cities that housed this revolution were overflowing with factories and people. People who were once country folk decided to come out to the cities in search for a better life. These “working class” people were also known as proletariat’s. Another aspect was what were these people thinking? They had there minds set on the right thing, a better life, but what made them think they would live a fair life? Liberalism was what made them think this.
The bourgeoisie, or higher class believed in this ideology, and it rubbed off on the working class. Liberals believed in a constitutional government, equality of opportunity, and laissez faire economics. They believed in self interest, freedom, and privacy. So why then were the working class people poorer than when they were in the country, lived in slums and shacks, and worked terrible hard hours? This is where Karl Marx comes in.
Marx saw that the proletariat’s had no rights. He thought that they lacked political power and government protection. He felt that it wasn’t fair for the upper class to control the means of production and business in general, when the working class was doing all the hard work. He said that the working class was the class that had to bear all the burdens of society without enjoying its advantages. Materialism was also a factor in this class struggle. It proved that the class struggle could not be evaded.
DeTocquiville thought differently. After studying the social classes in America, he came to believe that classes were not bad at all. He was impressed by the general equality of conditions among the people. He thought that the democracy that was in America at the time seemed to be coming to power in Europe. Where though? Proletariats sure didn’t feel equal to the bourgeoisie.
He believed the nobles were coming down the social ladder and commoners were moving up the social ladder. Destined to meet and live in social harmony with no real class boundaries keeping them apart. To this day, it hasn’t happened. Sure there is working class and there is still rich people and they both are equally protected by the government, but there is still a separation of wealth. I mean there will always be rich and poor. Middle class and high-middle class.
There is just no way to get away from social boundaries. Even though there ideas varied a bit, Marx and deTocquiville had good insights to the way society should be. I don’t really agree that the working class should ” ve controlled all of business but they should ” ve had better pay, better working conditions and maybe a cut in the company. That just wasn’t done back then.
It was the time of robber-barons. Marx was a little too sour about the whole thing anyway. He didn’t realize that a lot of those industrialized nations expanded suffrage and provided social benefits to help to settle the working class discontent. DeTocquiville on the other hand was too na ” ive about it.
He saw the social classes as coming together and being equal, I don’t know how or where he saw this, but he did. It must ” ve been the fresh American air he was breathing when he was here studying the classes. The bottom line is that as long as money and wealth is the number one priority, true equality will never be.