mill and marx
PLSC 115 Study Guide for John Stuart Mill
Civil liberty - is defined as the limit that must be set on society’s power over everyone.
According to Mill liberty can be divided into three types, each of which must be recognized and respected by any free society:
1. There is the liberty of thought and opinion.
2. The liberty of tastes and pursuits, or the freedom to plan our own lives.
3. There is the liberty to join other like-minded individuals for a common purpose that does not hurt anyone.
Each of these freedoms takes away society’s need to force compliance.
According to Mill – humanity is hurt by silencing opinions. The suppressed opinion may be true. Human beings are not infallible, they have no authority to decide an issue for all people, and to keep others from coming up with their own judgments. The reason why liberty of opinion is often in danger is that in practice people tend to be confident in their own rightness, such confidence is not justified, and all people are hurt by silencing potentially true ideas.
Mill uses 4 points to support his claim as to why humanity is hurt by silencing opinions:
1. The only way that a person can be confident that he is right is if there is complete liberty to contradict and disprove his beliefs. Humans have the capacity to correct their mistakes, but only through experience and discussion. The only time a person can be sure he is right is if he is constantly open to differing opinions; there must be a standing invitation to try to disprove his beliefs.
2. Stifling dissenting opinions in the name of the social good has been the cause of some of the most horrible mistakes made by humans. Mill writes about Socrates and Jesus Christ, two illustrious figures in history, who were put to death for blasphemy because their beliefs were radical for their times. Mill argues that what is good today may be rejected tomorrow.
3. Truth may be justifiably persecuted. Persecution is something that truth should have to face, and it will always survive. Mill also contends that it is wrong to assume that "truth always triumphs over persecution." It may take centuries for truth to reemerge after it is suppressed.
4. Since we do not actually put dissenters to death anymore, no true opinion will ever be extinguished. There is also no guarantee, given public opinion, that more extreme forms of legal persecution will not reemerge. There continues to be social intolerance of dissent. Mill argues that societal intolerance causes people to hide their views, and stifles intellectualism and independent thought. Stifling free thinking hurts truth, no matter whether a particular instance of free thinking leads to false conclusions.
According to Mill - actions should not be as free as opinions - both must be limited when they would cause harm to others and be "a nuisance to other people." However, many of the reasons for respecting different opinions also apply to respecting actions. The expression of individuality is essential for individual and social progress.
It is through a free and dynamic development of oneself and the interaction with people with different ways of life that an individual perfects himself, and, that it is through discussion and dissent that "truth" is kept alive in society, conformity leads to social stagnation. There may be such a thing as too much individuality. Conformity, however, the opposite of too much individuality, is similarly problematic, and leads to a lack of vitality.
Mill argues that there is a universal tendency of people to extend the bounds of "moral police" unjustly. He writes, “If people want to be able to impose their morality, they must be willing to accept the imposition by others.” People can preach against such activities, and try to change people's minds, but they should not be coercive.
On Liberty can be broken down into two basic principles (The Harm Principle):
1. People are not accountable to society for actions that only concern themselves. The only means society must express disapproval of such actions is through "advice, instruction, persuasion, and avoidance by other people if thought necessary by them for their own good." Secondly,
2. The individual is accountable for actions that hurt others, and society can punish a person socially or legally as is deemed necessary for such actions. Mill observes, though, that sometimes when an action causes harm to others, such as when a person succeeds in a competitive job market, the general social good is positive, and there is no right to punish people for the harm caused. Similarly, free trade is allowed because of its socially beneficial effects.
The State should be allowed to legislate compulsory education for children (while allowing for different modes of education), regardless of the desires of the parent. To leave children uneducated is a crime against society and the child, and the state should be able to test those children to have general knowledge of facts. Mill also contends that the State should be allowed to restrict marriage to those people capable of supporting a family, given the dangers of over-population and the duty to give children a chance of a normal existence.
Mill gives three objections to the government intervening to help people, rather than letting them do things for themselves.
The person most qualified to perform an action is usually the person with a direct interest in it.
It is useful that people do things themselves for their personal development.
It is bad to add to the government's power. A powerful bureaucracy will stifle reform to preserve its own interests and goes against the interests of free people. Drawing the line where big government becomes dangerous is one of the most important political questions. Decentralize government power as much as possible but centralize the dissemination of information. He warns about the evils of giving the state so much power that it stifles human development, because ultimately this lack of development will stifle the state itself.
PLSC 115 Study Guide for Karl Marx
In the Communist Manifesto Marx addressed human suffering and its relationship with politics and economics
Politically, Marx detected close cooperation between business and government in the development of the industrial revolution
The social consequences of the industrial revolution were, according to Marx, horrible. Oppression, exploitation, and injustice were widespread
The people who were the first to move from rural to city were able to see what they lost but the new generations born in the cities are not aware of any alternatives
The relationship between the workers and their employers was more distant than the one between peasants and landowners
Capitalism makes socialism and eventually communism possible but by no means inevitable.
Such a society can be created only if the old society is first destroyed, and such destruction will only happen under the right conditions.
The working class or proletariat as Marx called them must realize that their class interests are incompatible with and opposed to those of the dominant class of capitalist or bourgeoisie
The workers must be enlightened as to their real condition and how it might conceivably be changed
To change society to bring about significant social change requires changing the material condition – the social, economic, and institutional structures and the process that underlie the dominant ideas. This is the main theme of the theory.
According to Marx Human history is a two-fold struggle.
1. The struggle to master nature for human aims and ends
2. The struggle between different social classes
In a capitalist society with its class division of labor between the ruling bourgeoisie and subservient proletariat people learn that the laws of economics dictate this as the only rational and workable arrangement.
For those who remain unconvinced there is always religion (the opiate of the people) which dulls their minds to the possibility that such a system is made by human beings and can be changed by human beings
The ruling classes make the rules and have made their views the dominant views and the only views worth taking seriously.
Alternative ideas especially socialist ideas are either ignored or are portrayed in the classroom, the curriculum, and the mass media as self-evidently silly, unworkable, absurd, and un-American.
Therefore, the members of the working class are kept from forming a true picture of their situation and the system under which they live and by which they are exploited.
In short, they suffer from false consciousness.
Marx wanted his theory to do two things:
1. Help workers overcome their false consciousness by supplying them with the means of cutting through the misinformation to which they are exposed.
2. To point to the possibility of another more just and equitable society - which would be a classless, communist society?
Marx did not believe capitalism to be totally evil. He thought it had been beneficial in helping to break down feudal society and puncture the illusions that had governed the medieval mindset.
It had enormously increased humanity’s power over nature, it had greatly expanded the productive capacity of human beings, and it had as a result created enormous wealth.
But capitalism, like feudalism, had outlived its usefulness and caused more problems than it solved.
1. The capitalist system is alienating in four respects:
A. it separates or alienates workers from the product of their labor.
B. it kills the spirit of creativity by making the worker serve the machine.
C. it dulls or destroys the workers’ capacity to create and enjoy beauty.
D. it alienates workers from each other by making them into competitors rather than friends.
Marx argues that the capitalists (although rich and comfortable) are also alienated. It makes the capitalist into an appendage of capital. That is the capitalist must do what the market tells him or her to do even if it means ignoring his or her conscience or casting morality aside.
In a capitalist society, according to Marx the only thing that is free is the market. All others, including capitalists, are slaves.
For Marx this is a perverted or topsy turvy kind of society for human beings to inhabit. The only kind of society fitting for human habitation is one in which human beings are free and in full control of their fate.
To be duly free the proletariat and ultimately everyone must be free of the constraints and restrictions imposed by class divisions, economic inequalities, and unequal life chances that may result. They must be free of the false consciousness that makes them mistake their own real interests. Only then can workers fulfill the basic human need to have rewarding work and the respect of their fellows.
This can’t happen in a capitalist society.
So, what are the prospects for change? What constructive alternative does Marx claim offer?
The capitalist class has given.
The proletariat tremendous collective power
The common enemy is the bourgeoisie.
The common interest is to overthrow the bourgeoisie.
The common aim is the replacement of capitalism with a just and equitable system of production and distribution
The self-subverting ways of capitalism will lead in the final analysis to the proletarian revolution:
The following are the steps in the revolutionary sequence.
1. Periodic and worsening economic crisis bring about
2. The immiseration of the proletariat which in turn leads them to develop
3. Revolutionary class consciousness thereby giving them the will and motivation to
4. Overthrow the bourgeoisie and seize state power for themselves in the form of
5. The dictatorship of the proletariat when it is no longer needed
6. The dictatorship or transitional state will wither away, thereby making it possible the creation of
7. A classless communist society.
He didn’t say much about 7. He believed that society should decide for themselves and not by Marx or anyone else. What did he say about the communist society?
1. It would almost certainly be democratic
2. The major means of production will be publicly owned and democratically controlled
3. There will be free public education for all
4. All able-bodied people will work
5. The rule regarding production and distribution will be from each according to his a
ability, each according to his need
What is Just?
Injustice is economic exploitation
The key to human history is class struggle. (we want to sustain our life) Every society has an ideology, or a set of values, beliefs, and attitudes that justifies existing class relations
The ruling class always decrees an unequal division of property, compensating itself more highly from the common store and economically exploiting those who work with their hands.
Religion serves rulers as a peaceful way to control any resulting lower-class protest, justifying exploitation by picturing a heavenly reward to make people indifferent to earthly injustice. This is why he called religion “the opium (opiate) of the masses
Marx believed he differed from other socialists because he identified the real, material, social change agent: the proletariat
Marx draws the conclusion that the emancipation of the workers contains ‘universal human
emancipation’ because the whole of human servitude is involved in the process of production
Marx insists that the individual is always a social being