Marx, Rousseau, and Wollstonecraft: Political Philosophy

Rousseau, Wollstonecraft, and the Foundations of Revolutionary Thought

In A Vindication of the Rights of Men, Mary Wollstonecraft outlines several political ideas in direct response to Edmund Burke's critique of Rousseau. The basic ideas behind the French Revolution — put forth by Rousseau largely before the Revolution's commencement — and by Wollstonecraft were distinctly and explicitly modern in their rejection of traditional modes of government, especially hereditary monarchy and the concept of the divine right to rule being placed in the hands of a single monarch. Though these ideas may seem somewhat tame today, they bucked over a thousand years of governing philosophy and practice. The idea that the common masses should have an equal say in the government to which they were subjected was completely antithetical to all established doctrine.

Rousseau first expounded these ideas most clearly in a tract called The Social Contract. Like Locke before him, Rousseau believed that government arose out of a contract with all of the people concerned; a common will to subject themselves to a common authority was, Rousseau theorized, the only reason a group of people would accept any authority other than natural law. Rousseau claimed that such a government provided more freedom than the laws of nature, since natural law subjected every individual to whatever another individual wished to do to or around them. Common agreement — that is, government — provided rules for everyone to follow that everyone had a say in shaping. This was contrary to the traditional forms of monarchy and aristocracy that had existed in Europe for centuries.

Wollstonecraft soon found herself compelled to write her Vindication of the Rights of Women when the Revolution failed to extend its new freedoms equally to all people.

Political thought took many new and radical turns in the eighteenth century. The changing political attitudes of the era culminated late in the century in the American and French Revolutions, both of which denied the power of a hereditary monarch with divine right to rule and established republics or quasi-democracies that gave the people — or, more accurately, more of the people — a say in their government. These revolutions were made possible, in part, by the advent and growth of liberal thought during the century. Many political philosophers and statesmen were opposed to this rise in liberalism, though for different reasons.

Liberalism, the Social Contract, and Burke's Conservative Opposition

Rousseau is often associated with liberal political thinking, but he was actually opposed to the notion of liberalism as unchecked freedom. His opposition stemmed from the belief that total freedom from government resulted in the law of nature, which meant that anyone could do as they pleased to anyone else. This state of affairs cannot truly be considered free, because every individual would be subjected to everyone else's will at one time or another. This is why Rousseau opposed true liberalism and instead proposed his social contract theory — similar to Locke's — whereby government derived from a common will, so that ideally every individual had a hand in shaping the laws that governed them, allowing for the truest form of freedom by inhibiting individual will in deference to the common will of the masses.

Edmund Burke was also strongly opposed to liberalism, and to Rousseau. He denied the existence of a divine right for the monarchy but believed that strong government by the ruling class was more efficient and practical than a true democracy or republic. He believed government should serve the same basic purpose as Rousseau envisioned, but by very different means.

When Marx wrote that "the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles," he was summing up his perspective that social interactions and political history have consisted of people of different classes — different economic backgrounds and levels of access to education and other social institutions — attempting to obtain the same rights and access as those in the upper strata of society. Though this is not the only perspective from which history can be viewed, it is by no means an inaccurate one. Every major political or social shift can be seen in one way or another as the outcome of class differences and struggles. Even major religious movements not generally seen as political — such as the establishment of Christianity in Rome — grew out of differences in access to government and social institutions.

Marx and the History of Class Struggle

The bourgeoisie, the middle class of merchants with more privilege than the common peasants but less than the aristocrats, emerged in the Middle Ages and were instrumental in societal shifts during the modern era. Marx recognized this as a seizing of power by a previously underprivileged class that also resulted in a new form of subjugation of the peasant class, or proletariat. In this way, though the bourgeoisie were instrumental in many of the political revolutions and reorganizations that took place up to the nineteenth century, Marx saw the increasing reliance on the capitalist system as creating a new power structure that produced a new underclass — or transformed an old one — almost purely through differences in financial wealth which, though still marked by heredity, was no longer wholly controlled by it.

For Marx, the proletariat would eventually rise up to gain control of the means of production — the means of generating wealth. Collective ownership would mean collective wealth and the end of capitalism.