Rocco D’Ambrosca: 05/20/2010
There have been many theories, models, and systems offered up as potentially desirable civil societies. Two of the absolute worst have been presented by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Karl Marx. Rousseau presents his model in, The Social Contract, and Marx presents his in, The Communist Manifesto. Both of these men present systems where the legitimacy of government is given in its correct pursuit of legitimate ends, with no such limit on the means used in pursuit of such ends. It will be shown why these systems are so undesirable, as they relate to the extraordinary degrees of corruption, tyranny, and complete totalitarian power.
In the case of Rousseau, he envisions a system where the people as the sovereign. The people collectively embody the sovereign, not an individual king or monarch. The sovereign is all those within the state who have agreed to a social contract or agreement to exist together for the mutual benefit of all. Rousseau reasons, “the sovereign, being formed wholly of the individuals who compose it, neither has nor can have any interest contrary to theirs; and consequently the sovereign power need give no guarantee to its subjects, because it is impossible for the body to wish to hurt all its members.” (RousseauB1C7). Such conception of the sovereign, would presumably allow a system that would work in its own collective interest rather than that of an individual king. No one would reasonably act against the state as such would be an act against himself.
Such a conception of the state is what leads Rousseau to the formation of a general will. When presenting the idea of a general will, he is quick to differentiate it from the will of all. “There is often a great deal of difference between the will of all and the general will; the later considers only the common interest, while the former takes private interest into account, and is no more than a sum of particular wills: but take away from these same wills the pluses and minuses that cancel one another, and the general will remains as the sum of the differences.” (RousseauB2C3). Rousseau also adds that, “the general will is always right and tends to the public advantage; but it does not follow that the deliberations of the people will always be equally correct. Our will is always for our own good, but we do not always see what that is; the people is never corrupted, but it is often deceived, and on such occasions only does it seem to will what is bad.” (RousseauB2C3).
Rousseau is very upfront in presenting the potential flaws of such a system. He expresses quite plainly, the absolute need of the people to be informed and educated regarding the common good, if they are able to accurately vote as to what is the correct general will. Rousseau also states the need for concealed individual ballots to limit and hopefully prevent the formation of factions, which can skew the general will to their own interests. “When the people, being furnished with adequate information, held its deliberations, the citizens had no communication one with another, the grand total of the small differences would always give the general will, and the decision would always be good. But, when factions arise, and partial associations are formed at the expense of the great association, the will of each of these associations becomes general in relation to its members, while it remains particular in relation to the state.” (RousseauB2C3).
These apparent flaws in the ability of the general will to correctly express the common good of the people are more than enough to render a verdict of no confidence as the basis of a civil government. It is far too easy for the populous to become out of touch and uninformed as to what constitutes an accurate expression of the common good. There is also no guarantee that individuals wouldn’t, at least occasionally if not always, vote in their own interest instead of the interest of all. Further, the potential for factions to form and force the general will to their benefit at the cost of others is also another constant threat to the reliability. Therefore, Rousseau’s system is deeply flawed since the general will is simply too unreliable and easily corruptible to serve as the basis of a government.
If this wasn’t enough, Rousseau’s conception of a civil society has strong potential for abuse of power in the form of tyrannical totalitarianism. Rousseau’s social contract requires complete and total submission to the sovereign to be ruled by the general will. Although Rousseau mentions the importance of individual liberty, in spite of such complete unconditional surrender to a government ruled by the already shown to be unreliable and easily corruptible general will, such a system leaves incredible potential for individual liberty desecration. The potential for a faction to rise or the public to be swayed in a less than beneficial direction, is too great of a risk to individual liberties within a system that puts an unstable and corruptible general will as supreme. Natural rights, as argued by John Locke, must be the bedrock of all civil societies if individual sovereignty is to be preserved. A man without guaranteed liberties within society is far better off fending for himself in nature, as nature could never produce such a threat as equal to a tyrannically totalitarian government.
But truly, nothing can compare to the horrifically revolting system as proposed by Karl Marx. As signified by the title of interest here, Marx is a communist. He believes in two social classes, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The bourgeoisie is defined as the owners of factories and other means of production, who hire the proletariat as workers. In this dynamic, the proletariat is described as comparable to a serf in a feudalistic system, where he is exploited for his labor and given nearly nothing in return for his service; while his boss, the bourgeoisie who owns the factory makes incredible sums. This class struggle between these two groups is seen as intractable, with a complete revolutionary change in political structure as the only means of rectifying such egregious injustice.
As true as this problem may be, the solution offered by Marx has been largely shown to be completely disastrous or at least extremely difficult to implement successfully. Marx lists ten decrees that must occur to create a communist political system. “1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. 2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. 3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance. 4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels. 5. Confiscation of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly. 6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State. 7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. 8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. 9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equitable distribution of the population over the country. 10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production.” (Marx). Granted, a few of these are important and reasonably needed changes that have been adopted today by many industrialized countries, specifically the United States, including numbers 2 and 10. 10 of course being extremely needed and 2 justified as a welfare reform to bring some level of balanced financial equality to the growing gap between rich and poor. But, everything else is a ruthlessly repulsive desecration of individual sovereignty and liberty, much of which can be seen as nothing less than absolute theft.
The goal of communism is an equal society, where everyone works together for the benefit of the state at the sacrifice of the individual. This can be seen as an absolute slave state, the very thing Marx purports to be trying to change. Such a radical shift is an arrogant and absurd proposal, which goes against literally thousands of years of human history. The only proven method of productivity and initiative drive is that of personal interest. A capitalist system is the best simply because it models nature’s competitive survival of the fittest. Any potential abuse of capitalism is remedied without major difficulty, with a few welfare reforms and regulations. A completely violent and inevitably disastrous overhaul of the established system to that of communism is grossly inappropriate and historically catastrophically destructive.
In addition to the obvious impracticalities of such a system, the potential for abuse of power and corruption are astronomical. Who would be in charge of all this stolen property and resources? Presumably, it would be the communist party. What’s to stop them from appropriating such for themselves and not distributing it as designed? Nothing! This was the very problem in the USSR, which caused tremendous human rights violations, abuse of citizens, and rampant corruption. A communist system is by design a totalitarian government, with no respect for the individual. Such a system is disgraceful and not a benefit to any of its citizens.
Both of these systems have been shown to be grossly undesirable. It is precisely because of their preference for the pursuit of specific agendas that run counter to the individual. An individual joins society only to gain protection of their natural rights from the abuse of others. Any system that emphasizes the power of the government to exercise questionable and most likely impossible ends is far worse than any possible state of nature. Add to this the implied absence of limits to means in pursuit of such ends, and you have a tyrannical totalitarian state with the almost guaranteed potential for extreme civil and human rights violations.
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