Individuality Essay Research Paper IndividualityKarl Marx and

Individuality Essay, Research Paper

Individuality

Karl Marx and John Locke both analyzed individuality using different concepts. Marx s ideas concerned species being, alienation, and private property. Whereas, Locke s ideas dealt with human nature, state of war, and property. Both Marx and Locke only looked at men as individual. Women were not classified in either theory. Karl Marx published his individualistic views in Estranged Labor and The Communist Manifesto . John Locke spoke about his views in Second Treatise of Government .

Dealing with species being, Marx adopted species as an object , in which you become one when you can imitate the idea. To Marx, men are universal and free , aesthetic beings who can produce and evaluate. (Marx 442). However, we must first prepare the inorganic nature we are able to produce. …the more universal man is compared with an animal, the more universal is the sphere of inorganic nature on which he lives…man lives on nature, means that nature is his body. (Marx 443). Humans must prepare the spiritual inorganic nature, spiritual nourishment to make it digestible for our systems. (Marx 442). Therefore, we take ourselves as objects of our activity and work to form our species. Humans also reshape themselves from their own judgment, and reshape the whole group by socializing each other (education, etc.).

The object which labor produces is alien, which is independent of the producer. Alienation is expressed as a function of capitalism. The workers perform labor to produce objects for the capitalist, who owns the technology. Workers have lower wages, longer hours, and poorer work conditions than the capitalists. However, the capitalist gives the worker wages, but receives profit from consumers on the objects that the worker produced. And the more the worker produces, the more profit the capitalist receives. Therefore, the more the worker labors, the less he is himself and the more power he gives to the capitalist. This increases overall productivity. The reason it has to be like this is because there is always someone wanting to take your job if you are not willing to work, which creates competition among workers. …Free competition accompanied by a social and political constitution adapted to it, and by the economical and political sway of the bourgeois class. (Marx 451)

Alienation creates a loss of reality for workers, even to the point of starving to death. The more powerful the alien objective becomes, the less powerful, or poorer, he himself becomes. And the less belongs to him as his own. Marx claims In the estrangement of the object of labour is merely summarized the estrangement, the alienation, in the activity of labour itself. (Marx 441). One gets alienation from the object of labor, from self, and from species being. Alienation from self occurs when one performs labor that adds value to some other and less to yourself. Private property, then, results from the alienated labor. Alienation from species being results when we employ species to imply physical characteristics. The whole species being is going toward maintaining physical existence.

However, to Marx, one is individual only if they succeed in overthrowing capitalism. But that theory is impossible in today s world because we live in a capitalist society and they have an influence on everything we do. They also put limits on what we can and cannot do when laws are enforced. Domination and exploitation are therefore inevitable, making it impossible to overthrow the capitalist. In Marx s theory, the impossibility of overthrowing the capitalist is the whole point behind the basis of his theory. Therefore, one can never be truly an individual.

John Locke s theory of our individuality is not as specific as Marx s, but is logical. He claims that men are individuals because they are created by God and are like other men. He doesn t explain how we can really be individual if we are like other men, but he does say that we should treat others as we treat ourselves and are obligated to them because they are like us. This theory deals with the state of nature that Locke talks about. We are born outside of society by God and separate from any social or political relation. No one dominates because we are naturally equal. …Being equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions. (Locke 244).

According to Locke, we should execute the natural law by the state of war. We should take criminal action as a state of war and exercise the right to punish another man if we are harmed. However, we only get the right to punish others if they deny us the right to live by the natural law or threaten our safety because in Locke, human safety is above all the most important. But as long as we treat others fairly, we are forced to treat others like we expect to be treated and to not harm others. Locke says …I should have the right to destroy that which threatens me with destruction: for, by the fundamental law of nature, man being preserved as much as possible, when all cannot be preserved, the safety of the innocent is to be preferred… (Locke 248). Punishments for criminal acts include penalties of death, compensation, and deterrence. For Locke, revenge is the natural law that reestablishes natural order.

For Locke, the Earth is given to all that are common. Then, private property is assessed indi