Marxist View Of What Law Is The Foundation Of Society And Law

Philosophical thought provides the infrastructure that allows society to author moral laws. While morality may be the aim, other variables can cause these laws to become corrupt. The urge for power is one of many, recurring, variables that infect morality. During these times of ‘infection,’ society must contest those who oppose just laws. In order to shine a light on unjust laws, laws are bound to be broken. It is not only lawful to break unjust laws, but the duty of the people to speak up and be a voice for change. It is critical, during these times, to work towards equilibrium with the goal to change the law. Regardless of the circumstances, it is lawful to break unjust laws with the goal to make them just again.

Marxism is a political and social system based on the ideas of Karl Marx (1818-83). Marxist criminology theories began in the 1970’s. According to Marxists, society is controlled by the ruling capitalist class. They believe that in a capitalist society, a small group of wealthy people (the bourgeoisie), own the means of production, such as; factories, businesses, land, etc and that they exploit the working class people (the proletariat), so that they can enjoy a huge profit and personal gain, either legally or illegally. Marxists believe that the ruling class therefore decide

Emile Durkheim and Karl Marx’s perspectives on the law are significantly different. Durkheim’s view is based upon the belief that a society’s legal system reflects the values of society as a whole, while Marx’s view is based upon the belief that laws reflect a continuing conflict between the classes. An examanation of how these two perspectives perceive

"We see, therefore, how the modern bourgeoisie is itself the product of a long course of development, of a series of revolutions in the modes of production and of exchange." (Marx, 424). In this sense, the bourgeoisie have the ability to change since they themselves are products of revolutions. In other terms, the bourgeoisie are an always changing class that has found ways to stay in power through political hegemony over the proletariat class. Marx conjures the proper preconditions for a successful rebellion but again contradicts himself through his own ideologies. Although Marx believes that capitalism will be responsible for the proletariat rebellion it is the same system that will estrange man from each other and thus prevent a successful revolt.

While the law may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it insures the survival of the fittest in every department. We welcome, therefore, as conditions to which we must accommodate ourselves, great inequality of envi- ronment, the concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of a few; and the law of competition between these, as being not only beneficial, but essential for the future progress of the race.

“The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property” (The Communist Manifesto , p. 10).

Marx’s primarily aims to explain how communism will free men, end the class struggle. The work argues that class struggles, and the exploitation of one class by another is the source of all inequality. Marx’s theories become one the motivating force behind all historical developments. The work strongly advocates the freedom of the proletariats which Marx’s claims can only be achieved when property and other goods cease to be privately owned. He see’s that private property has been a problem through out history, capital that aids the ruling class to maintain control. Marx argues that the lower class come together in a revolution and gain power and eventually take the power away from the upper class.

Political philosopher John Locke ideas and theories serve as a foundation in our democratic world. In the Second Treatise of Government sovereignty is placed in the hands of the people. Locke argues that everyone is born equal and has natural rights in the state of nature. He also argues that men have inalienable rights to life, liberty and property. The central argument around the creation of a civil society was with the protection of property. In this essay I will explain Locke's theory of property and how it is not anything other than a "thinly disguised defense of bourgeois commercial capitalism." This statement is defended through Locke's personal background and his justifications for the inequalities of wealth.

     Quite clearly, Marx is concerned with the organization of society. He sees that the majority of society, more specifically, the proletariat, are living in sub-human conditions. Marx also sees that the bourgeoisie have a disproportionate amount of property and power, and because of that, they abuse it. He writes of how the current situation with the bourgeoisie and proletariat developed. "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." There has always been struggles the between two classes, an upper and lower class. However, Marx speaks of the current order saying,

Those who control means of production have power over the rest of the society (Morrison, 2006). Marx saw two very different social classes.

Marx believes that society is a system created by the powerful for the powerful through material goods. In “The German Ideology,” Marx and Engles write “the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society is at the same time its intellectual force” (Marx and Engles 1845:144). The mode of production determines who has power and who does not. Those in charge of the material goods have the power to make the rules of society as well. Those who do not own any material goods but use their labor instead have to follow through with the rules of those in power.

Marx’s belief of modernity lies in the idea that society is a contradictory system. In his text, Marx demonstrates this view on modernity by highlighting the conflictual relationship between the bourgeoisie and proletariat. “A spectre is haunting Europe” (1888:473), Marx writes. This spectre is that of the capitalist class system, a haunting, dehumanizing system of classist beliefs between two social divisions - the ruling bourgeoisie and working proletariat. Marx’s Communist Manifesto is an approach to encourage the reshaping of the functions and beliefs of the social classes in Europe. In a communist system, all means of production would become equally owned by all members of the

“There is no liberty… where judicial power is not separated from both legislative and executive power. If judicial and legislative power is not separated, power over the life and liberty of citizens would be arbitrary, because the judge would also be the legislator.”

John Locke’s views on property and liberty, as outlined in his Second Treatise of Government (1690), have had varying interpretations and treatments by subsequent generations of authors. At one extreme, Locke has been claimed as one of the early originators of Western liberalism, who had sought to lay the foundations for civil government, based on universal consent and the natural rights of individuals. [1] Others have charged that what Locke had really done, whether intentionally or unintentionally, was to provide a justification for the entrenched inequality and privileges of the bourgeoisie, in the emerging capitalist society of seventeenth

‘Every form of society has been on the antagonism of oppressing and oppressed classes…The modern labourer instead of rising with the process of industry, he becomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than population and wealth. Here it becomes evident that thy bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in society…Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie, and it’s existence is no longer compatible with society…’ (Marx, Manifesto of the Communist Party 1847)