Rousseau's Influence on the Critical Theory of Karl Marx - Essay Example

Rousseau's Influence on the Critical Theory of Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx is known as a champion of the socialist cause. He was a scholar and political activist, who always stood for the cause of the people and stood against the hegemony of capitalists and wealthy people. At the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century, rapid changes started taking place across the globe. With urbanization and industrialization there were many changes in the lifestyles and world polity. In this race for supremacy, some of the nation states started ignoring the lower rungs of the society, which resulted in their alienation from the mainstream. This led to the movement of some sociologists. Theory of Karl Marx is an important milestone in this fightback for the poor and lesser privileges sections of the society. The critical theory of Karl Marx was another fine example in the series of thought provoking ideas of how the sociologists desired the world to be. It was in June 1844 that the critical theory emerged with the Economical and Philosophical Manuscripts of Karl Marx. He continued to work towards symbolizing the class struggle with the Hegelian philosophy as a guiding principle and came out with the first volume of his critical analysis of capitalism, Das Capital in 1867, which was a treatise of the economy and politics prevailing in the the 20th century1. Born on 5th May 1818 in Trier, Prussia (now Germany) Karl Marx was a highly influential thinker and revolutionary who started following the philosophical tradition of G. W. F. Hegel, but turned develop his system of thought mainly on the political aspects of economy (Jones, 2001). While working on the critical theory, Karl Marx took inspiration from a number of contemporary and earlier social thinkers. Jean Jacques Rousseau, a Swiss born political theorist was one such writer which finds an influence in the propounding of the critical theory. Though, Karl Marx has not widely admitted the influence, yet the lineage appears while an analysis is made of the thoughts and ideas through their works. Karl Marx argued that the central dynamic in a capitalist society is the class struggle between the bourgeoisie (the class that own the means of production) and the proletariat (the class that has to sell its labor-power in order to survive). In the critical theory it was suggested that the class conflict would end up destroying the capitalism and lead to socialist society in which the resources would be equitably distributed instead of benefiting a selected few (Griffiths, 2005). Rousseau was a leading writer who is often considered as one of the earliest torchbearer of the modern socialism and communism. This very thought is echoed in the works of Karl Marx as well. Rousseau too criticized the tendency amongst the individuals towards amassing wealth at the cost of further impoverishing a large section of our society. He postulated man in a 'state of nature', in which he depicted how the man is divested of his social and cultural aspects (Zeitlin, 2000). In his 'Discourse on the Origin of Inequality' Rousseau argued that human beings by nature do not indulge in irrational behavior, but the social inequality becomes the root cause of injustice and moral corruption (Adams and Dyson, 2003). In fact, it has been argued by many sociologists that failings of social structure result in alienation. The failings can be pinpointed as weaknesses in the moral fiber of the social organs or as a deliberate manipulation of social relations. Thinkers like Rousseau and Marx suggested adopting ways and means so that the effects of alienation can be minimized on the masses and the social fabric can be reconstructed for creating a better world. Rousseau suggested that in order to harmonize the social equality concept, the natural man need to be discovered. He stated that conducting experiments for such discoveries might prove to be difficult and therefore he suggested some alternatives to approach the problem. These alternatives included (Zeitlin, 2000); Observing the animals to gain an insight into their natural behavior uninfluenced by the society. Studying and analyzing primitive people - savages having acquired socio-cultural attributes. Deductions from the factors implied by man's subsequent social development like language. This is quite apparent that Rousseau sought to come out with an objective, non-ideological yardstick for evaluating the society. His reasoning for this type of study was to know about the suitability of certain historical societies to nature. And if some particular social order was found to be unsuitable and a need is felt for changing it, then we can do so by making use of certain guiding principles. Karl Marx too strived for a change towards equi-distribution of wealth and natural resources by not letting the human beings at the mercy of those with the power. Rousseau insisted that it is not possible for men to return to the freedom of the state of nature, but it is possible, on the other hand, to exchange that freedom for the freedom of the citizen. This can be done with the help of mutual understand and through an act of association which helps in creating a social entity having equal rights and privileges. Such a 'social contract', could be carried out depending upon the laws of the respective sovereign governments and constitution-making process. This thought took leaf from the fact that 'so long as each person is both a subject and a participating citizen, there can be freedom' (Adam and Dyson, 2003). These thoughts gain more relevance in modern day society where we are headed towards an era of globalization where the economy and the world polity are left at the hands of market forces. The proponents of Liberalization and globalization claim that globalization has opened up newer vistas of trade and business all around the globe. It is widely believed that opening up of economies has now tilted the balance in favor of market forces, which is propagated to be 'helping the consumer' by way of providing quality at reasonable prices. But, in view of Karl Marx, this is another form of corrupting the society, as it leads to the rich becoming richer while the condition of the poorer sections of the society further deteriorates. Increasing emphasis towards consumerism is certainly against the basic principles of Marxism. As a result of globalization, market forces have started the policies with the role of respective governments becoming limited in determining the nature of imports and exports. It is now the MNCs who are effectively dictating the policies to the governments. With globalisation, MNCs began to explore the markets outside there domestic grounds and in order to leverage the economies of scale at different locations such companies try to set up some of their operations at these locations. Though, the local populace is invited to join such campaign with promises of a better future, quite often such promises prove to be false ones. A number of cases of suicides by farmers and poor people in many parts of the world, on not being able to payback the loans that they had taken from MNC banks, grab the newspaper headlines from time to time, which are nothing but the glaring examples of inequality and denied basic rights. From the vantage points of the classical sociologists, alienation is an objective condition into which people are catapulted because of social categories that take over the control of human beings. While presenting his conceptualization of alienation, Marx underlined the basis for a view for bringing about a change which could be possible only when worker-producers took control of the economy and of the polity. This would ensure that the worker community is not enslaved and the capitalistic forces are stopped from imposing capitalism in totality. Democracies do provide answers to such problems, but according to Rousseau direct democracy alone does not solve the problem, since that could imply, running the government with majority decisions, which in turn could mean that minorities would not live according to their own laws. Marx came out with the suggestion that one of the central tasks of critical theory was to engage in the critique of ideology. Such a critique will help in showing how the societies legitimated their arrangements were in tension with actual social conditions. This would in turn help in analyzing the various ways in which revolutionary social forces emerged from the tension between ideology and practice. The critical theory further emphasizes that it would help in understanding and supporting the efforts of the underprivileged classes to create a society in which the ideology of freedom and equality would no longer be contradicted by forms of exploitation and subordination. While analyzing the capitalist theory, Marx came out with the doctrine that private property, the division of labour and the free market were natural phenomena rather than socially constructed and changeable features of human life. The capitalist society in his opinion comprised of a members with freedom and equality for all to justify their practices while empowering the suffering victims with a language with which he can criticize labor exploitation and envisage of a world having fullest freedom and equality. For Marx one of the central tasks of critical theory was to engage in the critique of ideology; it was to show how the terms in which societies legitimated their arrangements were in tension with actual social conditions; it was to analyze the ways in which revolutionary social forces emerged from the tension between ideology and practice; and it was to understand and support their efforts to create a society in which the ideology of freedom and equality would no longer be contradicted by forms of exploitation and subordination (Griffiths, 2005). The influence of Rousseau's General Will is quite apparent in Marxism which calls upon the mankind and the privileged classes in particular, not to be oblivious of the needs and requirements of the lowest rungs of the society. Rousseau in introduced the famous doctrine of General Will which propagated the idea that 'each one of us wills or desires a variety of things, but among the things that each of us desires is the good of the community in which we live'. It is the aggregate of this desire for the communal good that Rousseau calls the General Will. It follows from this that if a law is passed that is in accord with the General Will, then in obeying this law we are in a sense obeying ourselves (Adams and Dyson, 2003). Rousseau also called upon to subtract all the qualities of socio-cultural origin until only the 'natural foundation' remained in place. In his 'state of nature' Rousseau proposed a methodological device which could help in segregating the components of man's basic psychological makeup. Marx, in later years, also based his theory on the conception of the natural man. Rousseau postulated that the basic needs of a human being are extremely simple and purely physical. He named food, a mate and rest as the three basic requirements for a decent living. Rousseau states that there would have been a harmonious balance in the society, if something in the physical environment had not upset it. He called upon the humanity to unite and coordinate their efforts in order to safeguard the interests of large sections of the society. Rousseau makes a fine comparison between the cultivation of plants, the domestication of animals and the division of labor as the root cause of inequality in the society. He opined that some men begin to prosper more than others, accumulate wealth and pass it on to their children. Once such inequalities creep in, it leads to further widening the gap between the rich and poor (Griffiths, 2003). Rousseau emphasizes that such a situation leads to greater opportunities for rich than the poor, which translates into the rich dominating the poor, which in turn might lead to the poor becoming more and more resentful and envious of the surroundings. This aspect has been well carved out by Marx in his critical theory when the practical aspect of helping out the fellow human beings has been emphasized instead of criticizing the abstract imposition of external and ineffective categories like moral values or imperatives. While the stamp of the critical theory of Karl Marx together with the Leninism was quite apparent in the movement against the oppressive policies of the Russian czars, it is equally true that Rousseau too believed that governments in general end up being protectors of property, which in effect results in protection of rich. Rousseau emphasizes that the rights, obligations and rules of property are the products of the society which gain importance as men learn to fight against each other. In his opinion war is not a conflict of individual men in a state of nature; instead it is a social phenomenon. Rousseau further argues that man makes a war as a organized community against another. Man becomes a warrior only after he becomes a citizen. For Rousseau peace and tranquility occur in natural habitat where plenty, not the scarcity happen to be the rule and allows for a perfect equilibrium between man and environment. A situation of war occurs when the equilibrium is disturbed. A chain reaction sets in from a situation of inequality leading to war and the war in turn leading to civil state. Failings of social structure are the main sources of alienations, inequality and deprivation. These failings weaken the moral fiber of the society in general and the individual in particular. In the critical theory Marx suggests that a responsible society must try to reconstruct the society so as to limit the effects of such failures. On account of the prevailing conditions and shaping of a new world order the Critical theory lay dormant after 1848 until 1917. The term 'critical theory' itself came into being in 1930s when Max Horkheimer used it while attempting to have a systematic philosophy of history or social theory. The critical theory and Marxist principles seem more relevant today as the world polity is inundated with the globalization policies. Globalisation has been in existence for quite a while now. In the early ages it was essentially limited to business and trade. But with the beginning of the new form of market driven governments, globalisation has filtered down to almost all walks of life like, media, culture, and of course the trade and business practices. During the early ages, these trading companies, once in a foreign land, used to try influencing the ruling class in order to strengthen their business goals. Gradually these companies also succeeded in capturing power in those countries, thus giving rise to the practice of imperialism. British companies were in the forefront of such practices in those early days leading to a situation when most parts of the world were ruled by Britain. In modern times, situation is very different, now the world is a vastly different society with modern means of communication and technology, ideologies, international treaties etc. But the growing influence of Multi National Corporations (MNCs) in almost all walks of life is being termed as a cause of worry by some analysts. What provides fuel to such concerns is the fact that these MNCs come from those very nations who were involved in such practices in those early days. Bodies like United Nations (UN) and World Trade Organisation (WTO) have been trying to implement a code of conduct for business practices, but at times these international organisations appear openly dependent on the so-called developed nations. Such international organisations have been asking for the reduction in cross border tariffs, international movements of people, global circulation of ideas, exchange of cultural values, increasing activities of Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) or voluntary organisations etc. But, the indications thus far have been pointing towards encouragement to the capitalist culture and richer section of the society. References: 1. Adams, Ian and Dyson, R.W. (2003) 'Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78).' Fifty Major Political Thinkers. First Edition. Routledge Reference Resources online. Taylor & Francis Publishing Group. 2. Griffiths, Martins (2005). "Critical theory." Encyclopedia of International Relations and Global Politics. 3. Jones, R. J. Barry (2001). "Marx, Karl Heinrich (1818-83)". Encyclopedia of International Political Economy. Routledge Encyclopedia of International Political Economy. First Edition. . Routledge Reference Resources online. 4. The Literature Network (2007). Karl Marx. available online at http://www.online-literature.com/karl-marx/ (October 28, 2007) 5. Zeitlin, Irving M. (2000). Ideology and the Development of Sociological Theory. Prentice Hall; 7th edition. Karl Marx (1818-83) and Friedrich Engels (1820-95) argued that the struggle between the bourgeoisie (the class that own the means of production) and the proletariat (the class that has to sell its labour-power in order to survive) is the central dynamic in capitalist societies. They believed that class conflict would destroy capitalism and lead to a socialist system in which the forces of production would be used to benefit the whole of society rather than to maximize bourgeois profit (see socialism). They also had a vision of global political progress in which the whole of humanity is eventually linked in a socialist world order. Crucially, Marx and Engels thought that the purpose of social inquiry was to promote the emancipation of exploited members of the proletariat. Marx maintained that 'philosophers have only interpreted the world: the point is to change it'. This, in a nutshell, is the commitment to emancipatory social science that is defended by the Frankfurt School. A 'critical theory' of society emerged in June 1844 with the Economical and Philosophical Manuscripts of Karl Marx. Marx had been working on his Manuscripts in the months before and after the Bab's declaration to Mulla Husayn in May 1844. Critical theory lay dormant after 1848 until 1917. The term 'critical theory' was not coined, though, until 1930 by Max Horkheimer. The first systematic philosophy of history or social theory, the precursor to Marx's critical theory, was Hegel's. Put another way, "the methodological basis of the critical theory of society" is to be found in "the dialectical logic of George F. Hegel."1 Hegel's first major works in philosophy were composed after Shaykh Ahmad had arrived in Iran to continue his work as a precursor of the Bab. Hegel died in 1831, five years after Shaykh Ahmad's passing. The moral underpinning of sociology is legendary. At the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, a period of rapid change, philosophers sought ways to confront the challenge of how to describe what was happening and how to give a favorable overall direction to events. Processes covered by terms such as "urbanization," "industrialization," "formation of nation-states" marked human experience in Europe as an upheaval. Although each of the processes could be translated into specifics of demography, economy or politics, what was salient to the people involved were the patent changes in modes of behavior, shifts in beliefs, and the visible transformation of the quality of human relationships to the point of disorientation. The fathers of sociology responded to the changes and to the disorientation with remarkable insight. From the first, proposals for a positivistic study of the social were buttressed by arguments for improving the lot of members of society who suffered from excessive deprivation. Rousseau was one of the first modern writers to seriously attack the institution of private property, and therefore is sometimes considered a forebear of modern socialism and communism, though Marx rarely mentions Rousseau in his writings. He argued that the goal of government should be to secure freedom, equality, and justice for all within the state, regardless of the will of the majority. From Jean-Jacques Rousseau came the idea of egalitarian democracy. This article is a discussion of critical theory as the phrase is used by the Frankfurt School. For the more general use of the term, see: critical theory Critical theory, in sociology and philosophy, is shorthand for critical theory of society or critical social theory, a label used by the Frankfurt School, i.e., members of the Institute for Social Research of the University of Frankfurt, their intellectual and social network, and those influenced by them intellectually, to describe their own work, oriented toward radical social change, in contradistinction to "traditional theory," i.e. theory in the positivistic, scientistic, or purely observational mode. In literature and literary criticism and cultural studies, by contrast, "critical theory" means something quite different, namely theory used in criticism. The original critical social theorists were Marxists, and there is some evidence that in their choice of the phrase "critical theory of society" they were in part influenced by its sounding less politically controversial than "Marxism". Nevertheless there were other substantive reasons for this choice. First, they were explicitly linking up with the critical philosophy of Immanuel Kant, where the term critique meant philosophical reflection on the limits of claims made for certain kinds of knowledge and a direct connection between such critique and the emphasis on moral autonomy. In an intellectual context defined by dogmatic positivism and scientism on the one hand and dogmatic "scientific socialism" on the other, critical theory meant to rehabilitate through its philosophically critical approach an orientation toward revolutionary agency, or at least its possibility, at a time when it seemed in decline. Second, in the context of both Marxist-Leninist and Social-Democratic orthodoxy, which emphasized Marxism as a new kind of positive science, they were linking up with the implicit epistemology of Karl Marx's work, which presented itself as critique, as in Marx's "Capital: A Critique of Political Economy". That is, they emphasized that Marx was attempting to create a new kind of critical analysis oriented toward the unity of theory and revolutionary practice rather than a new kind of positive science. Critique in this Marxian sense meant taking the ideology of a society (e.g. "freedom of the individual" or "equality" under capitalism) and critiquing it by comparing it with the social reality of that very society (e.g. subordination of the individual to the class structure or real social inequality under capitalism). It also, especially in the Frankfurt School version, meant critiquing the existing social reality in terms of the potential for human freedom and happiness that existed within that same reality (e.g. using technologies for the exploitation of nature that could be used for the conservation of nature). In the 1960's, Jrgen Habermas raised the epistemological discussion to a new level in his Knowledge and Human Interests, by identifying critical knowledge as based on principles that differentiated it either from the natural sciences or the humanities, through its orientation to self-reflection and emancipation. The term critical theory, in the sociological or philosophical and non-literary sense, now loosely groups all sorts of work, e.g. that of the Frankfurt School, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, and feminist theory, that has in common the critique of domination, an emancipatory interest, and the fusion of social/cultural analysis, explanation, and interpretation with social/cultural critique. Read More