Mill & Marx on Freedom

Both John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx were philosophers with a strong emphasis on individual freedom. Mill viewed freedom under a legitimate government concerned with the greatest good as necessary and possible. Mill (93) argued in On Liberty that individual freedom is and must be viewed as a "sacrosanct" quality, and that there are few if any circumstances under which a state may rightfully interfere with individual freedom. Karl Marx also theorized about society's evolution toward true freedom, believing society evolved toward freedom in historical stages. He viewed capitalism as a necessary stage toward evolution of true freedom, one that was required to bring about through alienation of labor a revolution that would shift the means of production and create a communist society. As Sullivan (1) suggests, "Marx was concerned ultimately with human freedom, reviving the ancient concept of communism, wherein human beings could fulfill their cooperative roles within society without fear of exploitation." This analysis will provide a discussion of Mill's liberal view of individual freedom and Marx' social class and economic view of individual freedom. A conclusion will discuss whether or not Karl Marx' analysis successfully counters and provides an adequate and convincing alternative to John Mill's much more liberal understanding of freedom.

John Stuart Mill's liberal philosophy of personal or individual freedom stems from hi

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ined that "It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness" (Sullivan 1). In other words, Marx believed that social infrastructure, capitalism in our contemporary world, imparts beliefs and values. In this way, history is a "class struggle" to Marx, one wherein one group has advantage over the other in ways that oppress individual freedom: "freeman and slave, patrician and plebian, lord and serf�in a word, oppressor and oppressed," (Rayment, p. 1). Different classes form and maintain values and beliefs that typically favor their own class and oppress the liberties or freedoms of other classes. We can see this in Hindu society or even modern America, where the values and beliefs of white, wealth Protestants still dominate through social institutions. As Marx believed, "The entire class creates and forms them out of its material foundations and out of the corresponding social relations," (Sabine and Thorston, p. 696). In this view, there is no consideration of the greatest happiness for the greatest number or the utility promoted by Mill's liberal view of individual freedom. Marx saw little of the natural harmony proposed of capital

Category: Philosophy - M