During the First and Second Industrial Revolutions, capital and liberal democracies were seen as being the fundamental reason behind the low standards of living and the low social conditions of the workers. During these periods, many philosophers and economists criticized the extremely low levels of social and also economic assistance that these type of democracies granted to the working classes. Karl Marx, is one of the many philosophers that admonished (contested) these two democracies during this period. According to Marx, these two types of government should be replaced by communism, since it would provide for a more equal and socially just society.
Although this statement may seem to be unusual, since we tend to associate communism with Stalin and China, their type of communism is different from the communism that Marx and Engels envisage in their Communist Manifesto. Marx and Engels vision of communism is based on the principles of equality and freedom to decide what to do and what to become. Nevertheless, the beautiful and democratic vision of their communism, what they imagine is…show more content… For Marx, human emancipation allows citizens to get involved into the society, and to relate with one another. Marx states that the rights that liberal democracy grants to men: freedom, equality, security and property do not lead to human emancipation. Marx believes that these rights make men inevitably look at the others as enemies, since they separate men rather than unite or relate them. According to Marx this is so because in a society men have to fight in order to gain these rights, especially with respect to security, since men are competitive and selfish. So, instead of socializing (relating) among them, men will fight each other in order to secure their rights. (Wolff, Jonathan. “Liberalism.” Why Read Marx Today? Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002. 40-44.