Brenden Carone POLS 1002 People Soft: 2075538 Professor Lee Prompt: Compare Marx’s understanding of the relationship between laborers and capitalists and Wollstonecraft’s understanding of the relationship between women and men. Come up with your own terms of comparison. Wollstonecraft and Marx’s Sociological View Through Oppression Both Wollstonecraft and Marx have a very distinct view on their topics. Both of their passionate topics relate to the oppression of one figure over the other. There is oppression which both believe a revolution should occur in order to achieve a social change. Marx has his own theories on laborers and capitalists. Laborers are the workers who continuously work to live and make a wage. Capitalists are much …show more content…
The more the worker spends himself, the more powerful the alien objective world becomes which he creates over-against himself, the poorer he himself-his inner world- becomes, the less belongs to him as his own. Being a laborer during this time is demeaning and corrupt. The worker is not content but unhappy and is forced to work.” Their oppression gives a clear view on their exploitation. Women have experienced a similar degrading to that of the laborers and capitalists. Metaphorically, the women are the laborers and the men are the capitalists. They look down upon women. Wollstonecraft (2004, 12) states “it is observable that the female in point of strength is, in general, inferior to the male” but “men endeavor to sink us still lower, merely to render us alluring objects for a moment.” Wollstonecraft understands the physical difference between men and women. Wollstonecraft (2004, 16) rebuttals when she says, “some women govern their husbands without degrading themselves, because intellect will always govern”. A person who is intellectually gifted should not be looked down upon. A physical appearance does not mean inferiority. A person is a body that is being inhabited by a soul and a soul is believed to be genderless. But women did not have a say in government or could not pursue professional careers. Just like the laborers with the capitalists, women are being
Marx was a big proponent for the working-class movement and the equality in terms of property. To him, the issue that is most important to conquer is the issue of the estrangement and alienation of man, where man himself is the alien power over man – more specifically, it is workers who are being estranged (Marx 1988, 79). Consequences of this estrangement can be seen with private property, because although it seems to be the root of the problem, private property is actually the consequence of “alienated labor”, explaining why capitalism is a horror to him (Marx 1988, 81). It may be thought that an easy way to give workers equality would be to pay them equal wages, but this is yet another estrangement of labor (Marx 1988, 82). Progress, to Marx, would need to consist of a way to diminish the root of the problem – estrangement of the worker. This would consist of “emancipation of the workers” because the emancipation of the workers would have a large ripple effect, and result in the universal human emancipation (Marx 1988, 82). As it has been addressed multiple times, the estrangement of the worker is the root of the problem, and a step towards progress would need to consist of the workers being emancipated so they are no longer alienated and forced to labor while getting nothing but monetary payment for their labor. The alienation of workers furthers the issue by leading a society towards private
Wollstonecraft seems to agree with Rousseau when she says, “that the female in point of strength is, in general, inferior to the male” (Wollstonecraft, 8). She does not say that all women are inferior in strength to men, nor does she conclude from this that women, being physically inferior, should be dependent on men. Yet, she twists the argument when she says, “in order to preserve their innocence, as ignorance is courteously termed, truth is hidden from them, and they are made to assume an artificial character before their faculties have acquired any strength” (44). This is near contradiction to her previous admission of women’s natural physical inferiority. Her use of the word “faculties” is ambiguous as to whether she means physical or mental faculties, so perhaps, she is arguing that physical inequality could be part of the oppression of women, instead of it all belonging to nature’s fault.
So essentially the increase in production and specifically the power of mans product of his labour suppresses him further into an alienated state at the cost of his humanity. His fulfillment at work is minimal; on the contrary he is miserable and survives only as a means to produce capital. The worker remains detached from the product of his labour and produces only wages in an attempt to prosper in the same way as the capitalist seeks to prosper – only the prosperity of the capitalist ascends at a higher level through the exploitation of the worker . (ibid).
Wollstonecraft transcended the notion that she is simply expressing grievances over the unjust treatment of women establishing herself as an articulate, intellectual thinker with innovative ideas and solutions for progressing society. Through voicing her opinions, Wollstonecraft created a small revolution for women’s rights that would encourage others to begin seeking equal treatment from the men of society.
In Wollstonecraft’s work, she addresses the differences between men and women as being something that should be considered negligible, but instead is used to practically enslave one half of the population. The work details how women are akin to playthings when they lack an education, and that for her to truly be herself and practice her own free will, she must be knowledgeable. However, there are many different kinds of education, Wollstonecraft points out. Men received a formal education, consisting of a proper teaching of many subjects, while also aiding the young men in personal growth. Women, on the other hand, received a much less formal education. In their day to day lives, women observed, they leeched off
Neither Mary Wollstonecraft nor Karl Marx were content with the society in which they were living in during their time, and they both had different ideas and how to change it. They both agreed that our species is unique in that all humans have the ability and potential to control their lives and make what they want out of it. They have the ability to feel good about themselves and have a sense of self-fulfillment. However, each of these philosophers had a different opinion in mind on which obstacle was preventing humans from making full use of their potential to succeed and be happy. Wollstonecraft, in particular, was referring to how women do not get the same opportunities as men due to the fact that they are not looked at as equal to men. This was due to a few reasons. Men were being biased towards females, they could not get a good education, and most women themselves did not see a need to change. Wollstonecraft felt that the way to combat all this was to start allowing women to get the same education as men do, which would also allow them to be independent. Only then will they realize that women are just as intelligent and rational as men themselves are. Marx, on the other hand,
Compare and contrast Wollstonecraft’s and Marx’s thoughts on inequality. (a) What for each author is the primary form of social inequality? (b) Why, according to each author, do many consider this form of inequality to be legitimate? (c) Why does each author think this form of inequality is illegitimate?
Throughout Cultural Perspectives, many influential texts have been read, analyzed, and discussed. One text, Life in the Iron Mills by Rebecca Harding Davis, integrates the thoughts of quite a few authors that have been discussed this semester. Through employing a Marxist view of history—there are always the “haves” and the “have-nots”—one can see that Life in the Iron Mills exemplifies the struggles that face many “have-not” citizens throughout history. One can then see the clear connections to various authors such as Mary Wollstonecraft, W.E.B. DuBois, Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels, and Adam Smith.
Marx's ideas on labor value are very much alive for many organizations working for social change. In addition, it is apparent that the gap between the rich and poor is widening on a consistent basis. According to Marx, the course of human history takes a very specific form which is class struggle. The engine of change in history is class opposition. Historical epochs are defined by the relationship between different classes at different points in time. It is this model that Marx fleshes out in his account of feudalism's passing in favor of bourgeois capitalism and his prognostication of bourgeois capitalism's passing in favor of proletarian rule. These changes are not the reliant results of random social, economic, and political events; each follows the other in predictable succession. Marx responds to a lot of criticism from an imagined bourgeois interlocutor. He considers the charge that by wishing to abolish private property, the communist is destroying the "ground work of all personal freedom, activity, and independence". Marx responds by saying that wage labor does not properly create any property for the laborer. It only creates capital, a property which works only to augment the exploitation of the worker. This property, this capital, is based on class antagonism. Having linked private property to class hostility, Marx
It is in my opinion that Mary Wollstonecraft was influenced not only by the overall treatment in society upon woman but how they were portrayed in literature and on paper; she referenced the works of a Dr. Gregory and Jean- Jacques Rousseau and how she thought their thoughts were superficial and silly. In comparison to Thomas Paine and his work of the Rights of Man, I would say him and Mary Wollstonecraft shared the same views on equality and removal of despotic hereditary based regime. Paine focused more on the overall power structure in society and Wollstonecraft focused more on its citizens and affects equality, or lack thereof, has on society. In the argument of her case, Wollstonecraft made strong arguments for fair and equal treatment of woman and men alike and even left us with a blueprint of what has become our modern public school
Wollstonecraft is not advocating for physical equality because in terms of nature, men are built in a more superior manner. However, one’s mind was not built to be superior or inferior depending on one’s sex. Wollstonecraft states that men have caused women’s minds to be, “rendered weak and wretched” due to the stereotypes that became embedded in minds and cultures for hundreds of years.
All these consequences are implied in the statement that the worker is related to the product of labor as to an alien object. For on this premise it is clear that the more the worker spends himself, the more powerful becomes the alien world of objects which he creates over and against himself, the poorer he himself – his inner world – becomes, the less belongs to him as his own. (Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844)
“We are not supposed to be all equal. Let's just forget that. We are supposed to have equal rights under law. If we do that, we have done enough.” said Ben Stein, an iconic commentator on political and economic issues. But is it enough? Of course everyone is not born equal but if we were to be alike under the law, does that mean inequalities are to disappear in households and in governments? If we’re not supposed to be equal according to Ben, then where does inequality come from and what are the consequences of it? Jean-Jacques Rousseau in The Basic Political Writings and Mary Wollstonecraft in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman serves to answers those questions. The two authors offer a very different assessment from each other on the matter but for me personally, I can relate to both sides of the argument. Rousseau’s claim that nearly all inequalities result from social institutions is very appealing because it’s essentially claiming to be the origin of inequality and Wollstonecraft on the other hand dives deeper into the subject matter to discuss a very specific inequality, the lack of gender equality and the consequences of it.
Marx’s theory of alienated labour is structured around a class-based system. It is vital to acknowledge that Marx’s evaluation of the capitalist system is based focused the Industrial Revolution a century and a half ago, and therefore must be kept somewhat in that context. Within Marx’s simplified capitalist society model, one class of people own and control the raw materials and their means of production. They are referred to as capital, bourgeoisie, or the owning class. The capitalist does not just own the means of production, but also all the items produced. By virtue of their ownership of production property they receive an income and earn a living from the operations of their factories and shops. The owning class owns the productive resources, though they do not usually operate the production means themselves.
Wollstonecraft also praised the concept of reason over passions. This is an instance in which political or philosophical timing is important. Wollstonecraft (1999, chap. 1) described reason as a chief component of women’s improvement in direct opposition to the then-popular temperance movement and claimed that the popular adherents of temperance and their “use of soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste” were contributing to their own oppression, similar to the Marx worker contributing to his own alienation.