marx and tocqueville essays

marx and tocqueville essays 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 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 wasnt 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. 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 ...