What Did Marx Say About The State Of Nature

REFLECTION #9 – Marx After reading Marx, I am thinking a lot about the state of nature. Locke and Rousseau had some very clear ideas about what the state of nature looks like and I am wondering how Marx might respond to their ideas. I am also wondering about the critique Marx provides of capitalism. I am thinking a lot about what Marx might say about our labor and economic systems.
Because Marx’s ideas on communism center around a withdrawal from government to a place of communal living, I think Marx views that state of nature as a place where everyone has what they need and only what they need. People want for nothing and share everything. There is service without servitude and everyone has interest in the general will because personal
and general will are one. Marx, holding this image, would think that Locke is naive. Locke proposes that the top priority of people is protection of property. That people are innately in competition with one another and that they want to possess things. Marx and Locke disagree about human behavior in the state of nature. Private property is a key pillar of this idea. Locke founds his political philosophy on the necessity of government to protect private property, but Marx would argue that this is unnecessary because greed and ownership are cultural constructs. In Marx’s state of nature, there is no private property because communism is characterized by the abolishment of private property and Marx uses communism as a vessel for returning to the state of nature.
On this point, that private property is unnatural and corrupting, Rousseau and Marx agree. Rousseau and Marx both see property as negative because Rousseau argues that property yields government which yield corruption of the natural virtue of the human condition. Rousseau also wrote a lot about personal and general will. He believed that prioritizing the general will was more important because it would ultimately benefit the individual. Marx is more radical on this front because he claims that the general will and private, individual will are much more closely related, and maybe one in the same. In Marx’s communist state of nature, helping the general population directly translates to helping the individual. I believe that Marx would think Rousseau was on the right track in thinking about the general will and in believing that government and civilization are corrupting forces, but I believe he would find him too moderate. Marx is more radical on the issues that Rousseau addressed because he proposes universal service to the general population and a
withdrawal from government to return to the state of nature. Marx was very important to include in this sequence because juxtaposition of his writings with those of Locke and Rousseau, who have shape much more modern American governmental practices, allows for a very important dialogue about what people are naturally like and how that might be in compliance or contradiction with modern ideas.
I think Marx would be horrified by modern America.
Our class system, our distribution of wealth, and our means of production are all areas that do not fit with the utopic vision Marx outlines in the text. He proposes very clear step on proper withdrawal from corrupt governmental and societal practice and we have not taken many of those steps. Though some areas are on their way through various governmental actions and unions as we talked about in precessional, Marx would still find many faults. In this country there exists a huge disparity of wealth. The majority of money is in the hands of a very small number of people and Marx would find this to be a huge problem. Capital is what allows this to happen. Money itself is a creator of many problems. In the text Marx outlines why money is an alienating factor because it does not provide for equal exchange. Money has no inherent value and so distorts the system of trade. It also makes alienation from labor possible because workers and wages are so estranged from product. They are all pillars of a capitalist system and Marx finds them abhorrent. The existence of money creates classes and alienation of labor. Money rules America and keeps us from attaining the utopia that Marx envisions. Money perpetuates greed which tells us that we need much more than we do, which keeps us from an ideal in which we all work collectively to meet the needs of the community and live in harmony with each other and the earth. The environmental impacts
of modern America are not something that Marx speaks directly about, by the industry and gree Marx warns against are the same forces which exploit which drive us to exploit the earth. I think Marx would view climate changes as a natural extension of capitalism. Withdrawal from these flawed values that our cultural and our government put forth may have all kinds of benefits that Marx never even considered. I am wondering if communism could help slow global climate change.
In Marx’s state of nature, the utopia he envisions as a result of withdrawing from government in living under service to the general will, there are no classes, no disparities of wealth, no starvation, no private property, no enslavement, no money or greed, no exploitation that can cause alienation of labor, and no single-minded focus of expansion that can cause climate change. People want for nothing and have what they need and they give freely to others as a way of helping all, including themselves. They have no need of government like ours in America because they do not need protection of property as Locke suggests due to the fact that there is not property and because they do not need to be united under the general will as Rousseau suggests due to the fact that the relationship between general will and personal will is very strong. In this text, Marx proposes ideas very different from Locke and Rousseau that help to critique the understanding of government and society. The state of nature that Marx puts forth is something new and as such its significance is great. The writings of Locke and Rousseau have direct influence on the American government, so understanding other political philosophies is extremely important. Thinking about how Marx may critique Locke or Rousseau and understanding what his reaction might be to modern America is key in understand this text and in creating a more complete personal opinion on politics.