I wrote these for my Poly Sci class last semester. I got a 92 on the Marx one and a 97.5 on the Locke/Founders one. I figured they could use some criticism and there a lot of people here who like to do that, so...
Thanks for reading if anyone cares.
Communism: A Non Sequitur
Karl Marx is seen as a staple of political ideology in the modern world. He is known for his radical re-interpretation of the cause and effects politics, religion, economics, and history itself. His analysis is a strikingly accurate version of the modern society as it relates to economics and politics. The economic system is literally responsible for all political and religious actions and beliefs. It gives rise to classes and instigates oppression as well as exploitation. Marx reconciles this with a new theory of labor, based loosely on prominent economic theorists up until his point in time. The state is seen as the main appropriator and facilitator of economic oppression and exploitation. This combination denigrates the liberty of man in thought and labor. Marx spent his life dedicated to a wildly optimistic vision of the proletariat rising up to dethrone the exploitative class of thebourgeois. Marx, today, is both taken seriously and is laughed at. His economic theory is, somehow, taken seriously while his political and religious beliefs tends to frighten and/or be looked at as an idealistic, if not wholly unrealistic, goal for the abstract of society to someday reconcile through democracy.
Marx had direct disagreements as to what are/were basic economic concepts such as the division and nature of labor and goods, of which he referred to all as “commodities.” He seeked to redefine the structure of production by a complete dismantling of the ‘bourgeois economy.’ He views all men as dependent, oppressed, alienated, and exploited who do not consume the fruits of their own labor. His famous quote from theGerman Ideology shows his view as the masses being dependent and the options that the Communist society has to offer,
“[The Communist]…can train himself in any branch he wishes…one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I like, without ever becoming a hunter, fisherman, a herdsman, or a critic.”[1]
To Marx, this is the epitome of freedom and independence. It allows the average Communist Joe to consume all of the fruits of his labor. Economic exchange is no longer necessary. There is no alienation from the labor to consumption. Oppression and exploitation are no longer in existence because there are no classes. One person is free to do anything they want at any time in any quality and any quantity.
Some, however, might see his Communist society to be nothing but work from dawn until dusk. One has the ability to do all that he describes, but surely not in any efficient manner and certainly nothing outside of subsistent level. One of the economists Marx pulled his economic understanding from was Adam Smith. Smith explained, in his Wealth of Nations, the specialization of the division of labor, saying on page one,
“The greatest improvements in the productive powers of labor…seem to have been the effects of the division of labor.”[2]
Smith gives the example of pin makers by saying that one person who is not specialized in the process of pin making would not produce as many as a team of people who work independently to provide small specialized additions to the final product. The problem is the people who spend all of their work time making one tenth of a pin will not have the know-how to do much of anything else. These are the two major views, one good and one bad, of the classical interpretation of the division of labor. Marx saw the ignorance and exploitation of specialization being all that is needed to condemn the division of labor in general. Marx calls this disconnect, in working for one’s own ends versus working for the product itself, alienation.
“…the relationship of the worker to the product of labor as an alien object dominating him…This relationship is that of the worker to his own activity as alien and not belonging to him, activity as passivity…for what is life but activity.”[3]
Marx’s theory of economics is still given credibility despite his vague and confusing explanations. He supported a, sort of, new version of the theory of value. Value is among the trickiest and most contested of economic concepts. He saw things in nature to be useful to people as his basic axiom. He then says that commodities have or gain value because, “it satisfies human needs or that it takes on these properties as the product of human labor.” Marx saw value as derived from the amount of labor or activity expended into creating or obtaining each ‘commodity’ or good.
“It is absolutely clear that, by his activity, man changes the forms of the materials of nature in such a way as to make them useful to him.”[4]
This implies an objective theory of value or utility. Labor and/or value can mean a slew of different things to different people, so if one is to say that two people of different merits, knowledge, capabilities, etc. were to create a widget, they would both, presumably, value each step of production differently and upon taking each of their completed widgets to market would charge different prices. This is also true on the consumption side as some people will find the prices too high or the utility to low what each other person gets out of the widgets. This is the difference between a labor based objective theory of value and a subjective theory of value based on the consumer’s marginal utility. This is stated clearly by Carl Menger in his Principles of Economics,
“Utility is the capacity of a thing to serve for the satisfaction of human needs…Of course the error underlying the confusion of utility and use value has had no influence on the practical activity of men. At no time has an economizing individual attributed value under ordinary circumstances to a cubic foot of air or, in regions abounding in springs, to a pint of water. The practical man distinguishes very well the capacity of an object to satisfy one of his needs from its value. But this confusion has become an enormous obstacle to the development of the more general theories of our science.”[5]
Marx cannot even claim as true the implication that labor is objectively valued. He admits in Das Kapital that there is only a, “semblance of objectivity possessed by the social characteristics of labour.”[6] Meaning that it is impossible to assume that all people would value the same object equally since they would both find its utility in their own lives different, although through the price mechanism there is common ground (price, utility, and value being independent of each other).
These ideas, of Marx, on the division of labor being an oppressive, exploitative concept were in direct contradiction to thousands of years of observance. From Plato and Xenophon to John Stuart Mill the division of labor had been seen as a natural beneficial aspect of society even if only to keep one in line. James Madison said that it was where the rights to private property originate in Federalist #10,
“The diversity in the faculties of man, from which the rights of property originate…From the protection of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different interests and parties.”[7]
These statements might as well have fallen on deaf ears because to Marx the whole concept of private property is exploitative and merely an extension of the ego.
Marx was modifying a theory of the class struggle that was began by French economists/philosophers, J.B. Say, Comte, and Dunoyer and carried on and further theorized by James Mill, David Ricardo, and John Stuart Mill. The basic principle that they all understood and took into account was that, as Professor Rothbard puts it,
“…the inherent class struggle to focus on which classes managed to gain control of the state apparatus. The ruling class is whichever group has managed to seize state power; the ruled are those groups who are taxed and regulated by those in command.”[8]
This concept is really at the heart of both anarchistic philosophy as well as Marxian communism. The difference is that Marx simplified the class struggle down to the proletariats and the bourgeois. The bourgeois were the ruling class, in his eyes, they ‘owned’ the means of production and since they are the primary benefactors of exchange then exchange must be a tool for their oppression of the proletariat. The proletariat is the average man who is forced to work for only subsistence and never bears the fruit of his own labors because he is paid in money, while money is the ‘universal whore’ that facilitates this exploitative oppression. This analysis of economic production is at ends with virtually all economic theory before him. He refused to accept the definitions of terms and implications of processes so that he could make his emotionally charged case for doing away with all that man has come to consider a “natural” about society.
Political power was in Marx view was, “merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another.”[9] This is also very similar to anarchists or libertarians such as, Lysander Spooner, Frederic Bastiat, and Murray Rothbard, only they come to the conclusion that monopoly, false or coerced exchange, and aggression limit people’s liberty and these encroachments are initiated by the state not by economic exchange. To Marx this is unacceptable for he views the state as the vehicle for overthrowing the bourgeois society. The state is the tool for which the communists need in order to further the ‘evolution’ of history. In The Communist Manifesto Marx makes clear a few things,
“The first step in the revolution by the working class is…to win the battle of democracy. The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State...and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible.”[10]
In order to complete this titanic task the communists must do away with the ability for individuals to support themselves by monopolizing the means of production. From here we can infer that Marx’s hatred of the State and politics stems from his own subjective prejudice of who is currently at the helm of it. The state itself is surely not the enemy of the proletariat, but the enemy of liberty and thus, a great friend to the revolutionary proletariat. The state must be seen as a neutral being even though it was brought into existence by the bourgeoisie in order to protect their private property, and egos, from the alienated, oppressed, exploited proletariat. Here it comes forward that once the revolution has taken place, through the negation of a negation, there is yet another negation waiting to be negated. The proletariats seize control not of the means of production, but of the state and use the state to smash the property and potential production of the bourgeois, but once this process has completed there will now be a new proletariat class, the former bourgeois or their children, and a new bourgeoisie, the former proletariat or their children. In the traditional Hegelian interpretation this might make sense, but leads, in reality, to a scene of endless generational usurpation of state power in the name of ending oppression by carrying out oppression. Even if the state is abolished along with private property it will only allow for the division of labor to spring up again over time and necessitate the process over again. Marx seems to not want to let this happen, hence the goals of ‘increasing productive forces’ and providing ‘free education to all’ ensuring that there will be many communists to continue to take advantage of the vague rule of democracy in whatever form it takes.
Contradiction based on fallacy built on contradiction after fallacy, Marx was not a revolutionary thinker at all, but a mere statist wrapping himself in the ideals and hopes of the working class in order to deceive or, rather, manipulate them into a ‘democratic’ overthrow of the current rulers all as a mask for his own ego. He was a slave to his own time and self with the intent of obfuscating economic language to his own ends. An idealist with his own interpretations of history, economics, and politics, Karl Marx, and his so called ‘scientific’ or ‘materialist’ version of history is largely accurate in that it identifies economic forces as the cause of virtually all political and religious action. The economic structure gives rise to a particular strain of material production and societal influence that disassociate the ‘act’ from the ‘object’ yet force society’s participation in their production and consumption as a means of subsistence. The more ‘crass’ the materialism becomes, it can be presumed, the more complicated industry has gotten and therefore more specialized, larger, and ignorant the people have become. This leads one to realize that he cannot, with any reasonable amount of time or effort, produce a microprocessor or a combustion engine on his own, independent of the system. At this point, in contemporary economic exchange and through Marx’s eyes, it becomes exploitative as one would be beholden to a ‘bourgeois capitalist’ for something that he wants, not considering the sheer amount of resources one needs to have, and have malleable, to create complex modern goods. Nature would solve this problem and provide people with complex goods through the division of labor and voluntary human cooperation, but, unsatisfied, Marx would turn the ‘problem’ of employment over to an amaranthine double-helix of non sequitur known as Communism.
[1] Marx, Karl. The German Ideology. P. 783 in Modern Political Thought: Readings from Machiavelli to Nietzsche, ed. David Wooton (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 2008), 9.
[2] Smith, Adam. An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. P. 1-3. The pinmaker example follows and is one of the reasons Smith is renowned.
[3] Marx, Karl. Alienated Labor. P. 768 in Modern Political Thought: Readings from Machiavelli to Nietzsche, ed. David Wooton (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 2008), 9.
[4] Marx, Karl. Das Kapital. P. 832 in Modern Political Thought: Readings from Machiavelli to Nietzsche, ed. David Wooton (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 2008), 9. This definition of value, or what brings value about, is almost exactly parallel to John Locke’s definition of what makes a part of nature someone’s ‘property.’ That is,as a result of “mixing labour with nature.”
[5]Menger, Carl. Principles of Economics P. 119 (Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute 2007) This was not theorized until shorty after Marx’s Kapital was published in 1867, but well before the two later publications. In 1871 both, William Stanley Jevons (The Theory of Political Economy) and Carl Menger (Principles of Economics) came to the theory of marginal utility independent of one anothers work (there were others as well). They argued, against Marx, that value and utility were separate concepts and that value is only derived from utility, allowing for individual judgements of utility to vary, hence subjectivity in valuation. On page 239 of Principles,Menger explains the two definitions of commodites that floated around in the German Historical School at that time, one for the scientific definition and one for the general defintion. Marx describes the scientific version, that is, labor ending up as diverse commodities, when he refers to the’metaphysical subtleties’ and ‘social relations’ of the commodity in Das Kapital.
[6] Marx, Karl. Das Kapital. P. 834 in Modern Political Thought: Readings from Machiavelli to Nietzsche, ed. David Wooton (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 2008), 9.
[7]Madison, Federalist #10 P. 55 (Edited by Robert Scigliano, Random House 2000)
[8]Rothbard, Murray N. Classical Economics. P. 75-76 in An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought Vol. II. (Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute with Edward Elgar Publishing, Ltd. 2008)Rothbard is giving an overview of the thought of David Ricardo and John Stuart Mill, two of the forerunners in Marxian value theory. All of those mentioned are contributors
[9]Marx, Karl. The Communist Manifesto. P. 809 in Modern Political Thought: Readings from Machiavelli to Nietzsche, ed. David Wooton (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 2008), 9.
[10] Ibid, P. 808
Locke & Montesquieu’s Contribution to the Ideology of the American Revolution
The American Revolution was born of several, at the time, radical interpretations of the structure of government power. The foundation of these was simply justification of government power as it related to the individual and the rights of property. This considered the inevitable diversity of conditions of man in a state of nature and the balance of powers in government being proportionate. John Locke and Charles-Louis […] Montesquieu were two prominent forerunners of philosophy in these areas of consideration and the Framers were very heavily influenced by them. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson all played crucial roles in the application of different aspects of these ideas and making an effective constitutionally divided and balanced distribution of powers.
John Locke wrote some very influential works in philosophy and lived through revolution and in England in the 17th century. His Two Treatises on Government were written as attacks on the monarchical system of government in England at the time. He believed fully in the overthrow of King James II and made the case for it in his Second Treatise on Civil Government. In it he wrote about the natural rights of man giving rise to justification for governmental power. The “State of Nature,” was seen as a place of, “perfect freedom.” Just as Adam had no natural given right of authority over anyone else, Patriarchal Monarchy had no position of authority in a state of nature. What government needed was a defined purpose somewhere along the lines of that state of nature.
Locke identifies political power as,
“…the right of making laws and penalties of death, and consequently all less penalties for the regulating and preserving of property, and of employing the force of the community, in the execution of such laws, and in the defence of the commonwealth from foreign injury; and all this only for the public good.”[1]
Making laws, claiming monopoly decision over who the state requires is put to death, protecting property and employing the will of the public in defense of all from foreign hostilities is what Locke considers to be the object of the power of politics. He distinguishes the jurisdiction of power of government from that of a father or husband or lord. All of these had different justifications and jurisdictions for power. All of which were different under specific innumerable circumstances; government is no different.
Locke starts off his theory of government by his analysis of the state of nature. This could be summed up in the word anarchy. A word that in the past had only meant chaos and irrationality was hereconnoting liberty, equality, and nature.[2]He makes a distinguishment that the state of anarchical nature is, “not a state of license,” and while it allows one to squander one’s self and possessions, it does not allow one to squanders others equally. Reason, he argues, is the only guiding Law of Nature. It,
“…teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.”[3]
He limits the harm one can, hypothetically, in the state of nature do to another, to self-defense of someone deemed to be living in accordance to something other than natural law of “reason and common equity.”[4] This is looked at as a right of man to defend one’s self from harm and to prevent it. Locke proceeds to claim that reason would be the tempering guide in the individual’s right of punishment for another’s unwarranted transgression. This creates an unresolvable moral hazard as to what is an equitable punishment for whatever crime. There is much subjective interpretation involved at that point and with an innumerable amount of circumstances this leads to continued ‘states of war.’ In which, people would have malevolent mindsets to all others based on the fear of being swindled in a transaction, robbed, killed, etc.
These problems come up in cases of property mischief and a proper definition of property is required. Anarchy provides no one any claim to anything in the state of nature so Locke supposes that property,
“…is the taking any part of which is common, and removing it out of the state nature leaves it in…The labor that was mine, removing them out of that common state they were in, hath fixed my property in them.”[5]
While this may seem like just taking things, Locke gives the example of Indian’s who killed a deer having a claim to it as theirs. He concedes that since no man has any natural right to property and it is only derived based on his utility, that anything beyond “his share” belong to others. This limit was to be set, again, by reason.
Locke suggests these problems beavoided by exiting the state of nature by means of a mutual agreement. Nature “drives man into society.”[6]By means of people’s perception of jurisdiction and property rights people require an arbiter to decide issues between citizens. By one entering into this social contract, as Locke put it,
“…he authorizes the society…to make laws for him, as the public good of the society shall require…this puts men out of a state of nature into that of a commonwealth, by setting up one judge…with authorities to determine all controversies, and redress the injuries that may happen to any member of the commonwealth.”[7]
This is the negation of the natural right to decide subjectively what punishment fits what crime and what exactly can be construed as ‘self-defense.’ Men agree to protect each other’s property in order to live together safely and properly defend from abroad. Once considered, the malevolent mindset that the state of nature would put some individuals in; this is required to temper those without reason.
Thomas Jefferson authored the United States of America’s social contract, known as the Declaration of Independence. He makes numerous direct quotes from Lockein his ‘rough’ draft of the declaration, some of which were edited out completely by Benjamin Franklin or later by the Congress at large and some were modified in rhetoric.
In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson begins at the end,
“…it becomes necessary for a people to advance from that subordination in which they have hitherto remained, & to assume among the powers of the earth the equal and independent station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s god entitle them…”[8]
This small section of the original preamble contains a handful of references to the logic used by John Locke to warrant the dissolution of the British authority. Jefferson views the people as, “a” people, i.e. one body, and is therefore drawing a necessary distinguishment between society and government Locke calls for in Book II, Chapter XIX.[9] He recognizes that in a state of nature the earth places people equally (or equally unequal) and independently and rests the premise of ‘advancing from that subordination’ in the laws of nature, or man’s reason. Jefferson describes these as, “truths to be sacred and undeniable,” and are inherent from creation.
Later, Jefferson touches on another crucial aspect of Lockean political philosophy,
“…but when a long train of abuses & usurpations pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them to arbitrary power, it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such government, & to provide for their future security…”[10][11]
Jefferson had not been a fan of the British for decades and knew via his role as a Virginian legislator that the Crown had frequently denied opportunities for Virginia to make her own laws and govern on her own accord regarding issues of, money issuance, slavery, taxation, and trade. This leads him to the mention ofthe exercise of arbitrary power. Arbitrary power is derived from nothing and its exercise implies tyranny.[12] This is Jefferson’s basic justification for redress and dissolution and, again, he stresses the need to organize for the common protection from the future. All of the colonies supported the message that this embodied.
After the Declaration and the war there was a similarly difficult task of writing a constitution that allowed for the civil affairs that the Declaration implied. The creation of a new government was not necessarily the intention of the Framers. They wanted a system of government that could stay afloat against the powers of Europe while at the same time respecting the individual’s right to govern himself as well as the rights of the state governments. This required a delicate and coordinated balance of powers. John Locke and Montesquieu are both evident in the opinions of Madison and Hamilton in the Federalist Papers speaking of these issues.
The first main problem tackled is the problem with self-interested parties creating factions in the society, economy, and ultimately government. Madison makes the case for a Union to help diminish the influence of majority factions. Large republics allow for a broader range of variation factions to diminish each factions influence over the others. He takes into account the variation, inequality, and independent nature of man when considering the reason for factions,
“The diversity in the faculties of man, from which the rights of property originate…From the protection of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different interests and parties.”
He continues, “The latent causes of faction are thus sewn into the nature of man.”[13] It is natural for people to have different interests, this gives rise to division in society (or of labor); it is not natural for one group to force circumstance on another. Therefore, it is not necessarily expedient to curb liberty, which gives rise to the causes of faction, but to curb the effects of it through Federalism.[14] This involves balancing the powers of the government in the constitution. Montesquieu reflects on these problems in Chapter 4 of the Spirit of the Laws,
“To prevent the abuse of power, things must be so ordered that power checks power. A Constitution be so framed that no one is compelled to do what is not obligatory by law, nor forced to abstain from where the law permits.”[15]
These checks on power are numerous and are meant to diffuse the power from body to body. The executive would be given certain roles, as well as the legislature and judiciary. Montesquieu envisioned the legislature being split in two. One group, the nobility, and the other, the nation in general, would have political power proportionate to their role in society. The nobility are born with the same variation as everyone else and to reduce their luck and prestige by pure democracy would destroy their incentive to strive for the common liberty. Their proportionate amount of power would temper the general population, but allow for the general population to check the nobility as well.[16] It is evident in Article I, sections II and III of the U.S. Constitution that this balance of powers was attempted by the Framers (less the hereditary lineage of nobility serving in the legislature). Article I, Sec. II declares that the House shall be elected, “by the People of the several States,” while Article I, Sec. III says that,“The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the legislature thereof,” So in this way the people elected their federal representative and their state representatives and senators, however their state representatives elected the federal senators. This was the intentional conflict of interest setup to prevent one from usurping the constitutional prerogatives of the other.
The Judiciary, according to Montesquieu, would play a passive role. Judges were,
“…nothing more than the mouth which pronounces the words of the law. As such, they are inert and can moderate neither the force nor the rigor of the law.”[17]
The enforcement and creation of laws are handled by the executive and legislature, respectively, while the judiciary mediates between the two. The way the Supreme Court functions in the United States exists a grey area where the dormant possibility that it could legislate from the bench or where disorder could arise from the different State courts and systems. Hamilton addresses thisin Federalist #80,
“The mere necessity of uniformity in the interpretation of the national laws, decides the question. Thirteen independent courts…is a hydra in government from which nothing but contradiction and confusion can proceed.”[18]
This reasoning was employed in defense of Union over factions and for protection of ‘maritime’ interests, where threats in commerce piracy existed. Also, the economic concerns of the nation could be thrown into chaos by irresponsible actions possibly taken by rouge states. Hamilton gives two examples in Federalist #80 that Madison gives in #10, interstate tariffs and emission of paper money.[19] But these things need an impartial judge to avoid discrepancy between States. Who should be judges is effected, again, by the factions involved, which would require their independence from the legislative body. Justice cannot be served in a court where the judge and defendant have either the same or competing interests nor can the judge fairly balance the power of a group with converging interests as his. Judges are still people, after all.
The executive power, for Montesquieu, was the Monarch and needed to be distinct from the interest of the legislature. It was to be the arm of government to enforce the laws. It is seen as better to have the issues of military leadership be in the executive as well as the concerns of foreign policy. While, the legislature should be the one to organize the army, the executive should be the one to give it orders, but only within the laws set by the legislature.[20] The executive, also, would be required to participate in the legislature, but only in a passive way. Montesquieu called this method the right torefuse consent, or veto. The drawback is that it prohibits its ability to participate in debates and introduce proposals.[21] Hamilton says,
“The propensity of the legislative department to intrude upon the rights, and to absorb the powers, of the other departments, has been already suggested and repeated; the insufficiency of a mere parchment delineation of the boundaries of each, has also been remarked upon; and the necessity of furnishing each with constitutional arms for its own defense, has been inferred and proved.”[22]
The ‘right to refuse consent’ is the hallmark of executive power against the legislature. This is the formula used by the Framers for the U.S. Constitution.
The Founding Fathers of the United States took these ideas very seriously and tried hard to incorporate them into the circumstance of the American Colonies and their new Constitution. They knew that while they wanted distinct separation of powers, that complete independence was not necessary while complete dependence was despotism. James Madison, when speaking of Montesquieu’s opinion of the union of legislative powers and the executive,
“…he did not mean that these departments ought to have no agency in, or no control over, the acts of each other.”[23]
He says this in regards to the executive making treaties with foreign governments that they, “have, under certain limitations, the force of legislative acts.”Alexander Hamilton, on the same subject said,
“…the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachment of the others.”[24]
Hamilton admits to this concept being built into the axiom ofself-motivation and interest. He thinks that, essentially, the mentality of the different bodies of government must be power versus power, ”ambition…to counteract ambition.” Here he also considers upon John Locke and the social contract saying of this method it is, “necessary to control the abuses of government,”and that, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”[25]
The founders were influenced by several contemporary philosophers which had concepts of nature never theorized before.[26] The primary purpose of the constitution was to set up a government that was justified in defense of the rights of individuals. This required a careful distribution of authority and a meaningful process of law. These are not things that are to be considered in passing, but with the context of any relevant circumstances. John Locke and Montesquieu helped to develop that context using justifiable logic based axioms of human nature combined with historical occurrence. The Founders of The United States brilliantly applied many of these concepts in a very radical manner in an attempt to justify government in accordance with the state of nature.
[1] Locke, John. Second Treatise on Civil Government, Book II, Chapter II P.287 in Modern Political Thought: Readings from Machiavelli to Nietzsche, ed. David Wooton (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 2008), 9.
[2] The followers of Pythagoras thought, “…there was no greater sin than anarchy; since human reverence is not naturally adapted to salvation without some guidance.” See, “The Life of Pythagoras” written by Iamblichus. Edited & Translated by Guthrie, Kenneth Sylvan. P 82(The Platonist Press, Yonkers, NY. 1919). This concept made its way with great success through Plato and the Greeks and later into the Catholic Church.
[3] Locke, John. Second Treatise on Civil Government, Book II, Chapter II P.287 in Modern Political Thought: Readings from Machiavelli to Nietzsche, ed. David Wooton (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 2008), 9.
[4] Ibid. P 287
[5] Ibid. P 293
[6] Ibid. P 306-307
[7] Ibid. P 309-310.
[8] Jefferson’s rough draft and the edits made on it can be seen at, http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/rough.htm.
[9] Locke, John. Second Treatise on Civil Government, Book II, Chapter XIX P.343-344 in Modern Political Thought: Readings from Machiavelli to Nietzsche, ed. David Wooton (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 2008), 9.
[10] Jefferson’s Rough Draft of the Declaration of Independence http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/rough.htm.
[11]This also touches on Montesquieu’s insight to usurpation of power as well as David Hume’s observations on the ends of that power, if unchecked.
[12] Locke, John. Second Treatise on Civil Government, Book II, Chapter XI P.322-323 in Modern Political Thought: Readings from Machiavelli to Nietzsche, ed. David Wooton (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 2008), 9.
[13] Madison, Federalist #10 P. 55 (Edited by Robert Scigliano, Random House 2000)
[14] Ibid, P. 57
[15]Montesquieu. “The Spirit of the Laws,”Chapter VI, P. 536 in Modern Political Thought: Readings from Machiavelli to Nietzsche, ed. David Wooton (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 2008), 9.
[16] Ibid P. 538
[17] Ibid, P. 540
[18] Hamilton, Federalist #80 P. 508 (Edited by Robert Scigliano, Random House 2000)
[19]Ibid. P 508-509
[20] Ibid, P. 541
[21]Montesquieu. “The Spirit of the Laws,”Chapter VI, P. 540 in Modern Political Thought: Readings from Machiavelli to Nietzsche, ed. David Wooton (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 2008), 9.
[22] Hamilton, Federalist #73 P. 469-470 (Edited by Robert Scigliano, Random House 2000)
[23] Madison, Federalist #47 P. 309 (Edited by Robert Scigliano, Random House 2000)
[24] Hamilton, Federalist #51 P. 331-332 (Edited by Robert Scigliano, Random House 2000)
[25] Ibid. P 331
[26] This was a very brief account of the overall philosophy governing the Framers’ thoughts on the nature of government and the execution of a just and balanced constitution.
I haven't the time to go through it all, but it needs to be edited. Here are some passages, and I'll mostly leave it to you to find and correct the errors.
"He is known for his radical re-interpretation of the cause and effects (of?) politics, religion, economics, and history itself."
"His analysis is a strikingly accurate version of the (remove the) modern society as it relates to economics and politics."
"Marx spent his life dedicated to a wildly optimistic vision of the proletariat rising up to dethrone the exploitative class of the (space) bourgeois.
"Marx, today, is both taken seriously and is laughed at." If you're going to keep this sentence--which I don't think is great stylistically--remove the second 'is' before 'laughed at'.
"He supported a, sort of, new version of the theory of value." Remove 'sort of'--it's too informal.
"The bourgeois were the ruling class, in his eyes, they ‘owned’..." A comma does not connect two indepndent clauses. If they really are very connected, you should use a semi-colon.
"From here we can infer that Marx’s hatred of the State and politics stems from his own subjective prejudice of who is currently at the helm of it. " If you're going to capitalize State here, then you'll have to do it elsewhere, or it just seems arbitrary.
You also have to double check your verb tenses. Sometimes you'll say "Marx views", but then say "Marx viewed". Keep it consistent.
"He admits in Das Kapital that there is only a, “semblance of objectivity possessed by the social characteristics of labour." Meaning that it is impossible to assume that all people" You have to connect the quote to your explanation of it using a comma, otherwise it's a sentence fragment.
"Political power was in Marx view was," --doesn't make sense.
This is just a sample. I haven't looked at the second essay, but the first needs a lot of work with editing and style. I'll leave it to the others to correct the essays it in terms of actual content, e.g., the economics, politics, and philosophy.
Thanks for those corrections. These are probably not the ones that I turned in. These are likely my rough drafts, some of those were corrections I remember making. I posted them because I was going through my old school papers. I'm probably going to take these down though, as it could get way more embarrassing down the line.