Karl Marx is correct when he argues that rights in civil society---specifically the right of property---add nothing essential to the accomplishment of radical human equality. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whatever his ideals, believed that the rights of the people should be severely limited in order to assure an orderly society---except for the right of property. Marx's argument is that rights---of property particularly---produce isolated, self-interested individuals who are nevertheless dependent upon one another, and profoundly unequal. In making such arguments, Marx seeks to arrive at a social ideal which would give true rights to people based on social consciousness rather than selfishness and inequality. On the other hand, while he is associated with the French Revolution and its efforts to restore rights, Rousseau was far more concerned with limiting those rights if they threatened to interfere with what he saw as an orderly society, and with securing and protecting the rights of the rich to maintain their property.. Marx accurately critiqued capitalistic society and sought correctly to devise a system in which human rather than property rights would restore the humanity to human beings, while Rousseau showed his true, elitist colors in devising an ideal society which treated human beings as stupid beings requiring control far more than rights, except for property rights for his fellow elites. An examination of the two writers' views on the right of property will illustrate the stark differences between them, and will reveal the morality of Marx's views and the immorality of Rousseau's views.
Marx declares correctly that "The practical application of the right of liberty is the right of private property." What this means is that in the real world of power, those with that power make the laws, define rights, and grant the right which conveys political, social and economic power---the right to own private property---to themselves. Th...