Marx And Tocqueville Essay, Research Paper

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 proletariats.

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 proletariats 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 nadve 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.