In his Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, Rousseau states that the origin of inequality was the foundation of a political system that gave “new forces to the rich,” and thus, “destroyed natural liberty, [and] established forever the law of property and of inequality” (Rousseau 70). According to Rousseau, the moment at which his ironically-termed “civil society” of inequality began to form was the moment his romanticized natural man claimed a plot of land for his exclusive use or possession (Rousseau 60). Consequently, civil man
John Locke was a great philosopher and the father of Classical Liberalism. In his work “Second Treatise of Civil Government” many of his values. His ideas had the intention of making all men free and equal, the foundation of the law in Virginia Declaration of Rights, Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The Constitution of the United States was directly influenced by Locke’s work in that he believed that when people give up complete freedom and some rights to form a government and elect people in authority to act in this government. Whoever refuses to follow these laws will be punished accordingly.
After-Shock and Social Conflict Theory Social Conflict theory, or approach, is a framework for building theory that sees society as an arena of inequality that generates conflict and change. (Macionis J., 2011) Just as Macionis describes this social conflict in the book Society, The Basics—11th Edition, that this approach highlights how factors such as class, race, ethnicity, gender and age are linked to inequality in terms of money, power, education and social prestige, there are many examples of this in Robert B. Reich’s After-Shock, The Next Economy and America’s Future. In chapters two and three of Reich’s After-Shock, he describes situations and compares both the great depression of the late 1920’s and early 1930’s with the recession of the late 2000’s and the years prior to each describing what the economy was like and the situation the people of America were in at these times. During these 2 chapters, Reich points out several elements of social conflict theory between the people of different classes and the money and wealth that separates them. During this essay I will point out a couple examples of these elements of social conflict theory in Reich’s analysis and I will also point out some of the data that he draws upon to make this argument.
The writings by Marx and Engels which composed the main tenets in the Communist Manifesto influenced revolutions not by just mere agitation through writing; rather they fueled revolutionary groups by confronting the capitalist forces through the forces of the proletariats. They discovered the special role of the proletariats, who they believed were capable of overthrowing the capitalist class (“The Communist Manifesto,” n.p). The Communist Manifesto is centered on the idea of class struggle and continuing antagonisms in the society. This according to the Manifesto, class struggle revolves between the bourgeoisie and the proletarians – the oppressor and the oppressed; the few and many. Hence, the Manifesto predicts the probable ways of eliminating oppression by abolishing the basic factors that instigate oppression – example: private property – which shall eventually lead towards overthrowing the bourgeosie (“The Communist Manifesto,” n.p).
Locke vs. Hobbes During the Enlightenment, there were several philosophers that have influenced the world in many ways; including the two opposing philosophers, John Locke and Thomas Hobbes. Although they believed that government was an necessity, Locke and Hobbes had different views on the social contract, which describes the relationship between the government and the people. Out of the two competing theories regarding the social contract that emerged during the Enlightenment, I believe that John Locke’s ideas would create a political system that would provide the population with the most ideal balance between security and liberty. In the book, The Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes explained his views of the social contract. First of all, he claimed that human beings in their state of nature are always in a “war [because] [everybody] is against [each] [other].
4 Pg. 1) It is clear the writers of the constitution used views on natural law when they put in, “governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” The makers of the constitution wrote this because they believed the people of the colonies were not being treated fairly by British government and they were not happy. They believed this gave the citizens of the colony every right to overthrow the government based on natural law when they said, “it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government,
John Locke, an Enlightenment thinker, highly influenced the Declaration of Independence. He mentioned that he believed there were natural rights that all people had life, liberty and property. The Founding Fathers added that in the Declaration of Independence (Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness). Another idea Locke had was that if a ruler was oppressing his people, the people had the right to rebel. For Jefferson to write the Declaration it was considered treason, but he wrote in the
It was Marx who coined this term ‘classical economics’ to refer to the economics of Smith, Ricardo and Mill. These three classical economists argued that free markets regulate themselves confining their labour theory of value. On the contrary, Marx considered capitalism to be a historically specific mode of production that would eventually be replaced by communism. In his writing on the communist Manifesto, Marx criticises capitalism and believes that labour exploitation will be the driving force behind a revolution for a socialist economic system. Adam Smith’s writing is structured around his economic metaphor of the ‘invisible hand’ which perceives the marketplace to be self-regulated.
Galton influenced his successors and was influenced by many of his predecessors, namely his half-cousin, Charles Darwin and Darwin’s work entitled The Origin of Species. Galton drew from what others had established and extended those findings. He desired to improve the human race with his findings in eugenics but lacked some crucial pieces to the puzzle he developed. He asked all the “right” questions but drew the wrong conclusions. Although the modern day public may dismiss some of his ideas as backward or non-progressive, Galton was a genius among men; Galton published many works that introduced the scientific world to never-before conceived ideas and concepts.
To analyze the similarities and differences of Socialism and Anarchism, we will look at four different aspects of these ideologies – their economic systems, type of government, approach to personal property and understanding of freedom and religion. Socialism took shape as a political belief in the early nineteenth century, as it developed as a reaction against the emergence of industrial capitalism. Socialism in its early forms tended to have fundamentalist, utopian and revolutionary character. Their goals was to abolish a capitalist economy based on market exchange, and replace it with a qualitatively different socialist society, usually to be constructed on the principle of common ownership. Anarchism on the other hand was powerful in countries like Spain, France, Russia, and Mexico in the early twentieth century.