The capitalist, in Marx's view, merely accumulated wealth and used that wealth to unjustly make more wealth, like an aristocrat of old. The capitalist's exploitation of the worker was no progress at all. It was merely the latest manifestation of the age-old dialectic of the haves vs. The have-nots. The have-nots inevitably overthrew the haves, came to power, and exploited the lower orders once again, as had occurred in the new economic system. Likewise, Nietzsche questioned the idea that Christianity had made human beings more moral and civilized, he felt it had merely made them less creative and more complacent. Progress should not be measured through the creation of more social controls. Nietzsche advocated a return to a Dionysian worship of the body, not a containment of the body.

However radical these critiques, however, both Marx and Nietzsche in their own ways created visions of progress that were fundamentally utopian and Progressive in spirit. Marx believed the workers would collectively unite, give up personal notions of success and private property, and create a new economic future for the world....

Today, Marx and Nietzsche's prescriptions for societal ills have been discounted by both philosophers' taints with communism and fascism, respectively, however their critiques remain trenchant, and highlight the collective cultural discontent of their times.
Some of their impulses still remain valuable. Marx demands we reject the worship of privacy. Nietzsche demands keep in touch with our elemental, animal desires. The 'real' for Marx lay in an end to history. For Marx this means an end of 'class.' He calls for readers to break the chains of the historical dialectic of class conflict, just as Nietzsche cries out for the reader to break the chains of institutionalized faith and structured thought, to reconnect with the reality of the body and one's animal nature. Although the reader may reject their utopian prescriptions as palliatives that will heal all social ills, their refusal to automatically assume the system of wealth accumulation is fair, and that religious belief is 'good' makes both of these thinkers still important to read today.