In 1830, Mill developed a close friendship with Harriet Taylor, marrying her in 1851 after the death of her husband. Harriet was influential to Mill’s development, helping him to broaden his conception of human life from the ascetic ethic of his father, to one that valued emotion and individuality. This is said to have influenced his thinking on utilitarianism and liberty.
Key works
1859 On Liberty
1865 Utilitarianism
1869 The Subjection of Women
See also: Thomas Hobbes • John Locke • Jeremy Bentham • Alexis De Tocqueville • Robert Nozick • John Rawls
IN CONTEXT
IDEOLOGY
Abolitionism
FOCUS
Equal rights
BEFORE
1776 The Constitution of the United States establishes the new republic.
1789 In the French Revolution the Declaration of Rights states that “men are born and remain free and equal in rights”.
AFTER
1860 Lincoln’s election as the 16th US president provokes the secession of Southern states in defence of their right to maintain slavery.
1865 With the surrender of General Robert E. Lee of the Confederacy, the US Civil War ends in victory for the Union.
1964 The US Civil Rights Act bans job discrimination on the basis of “race, color, religion, or national origin”.
The foundation of the United States of America after the Revolutionary War against Britain left the nature of the new republic unresolved. Although the country was formally committed to the equality of “all men” through the Declaration of Independence of 1776, slavery saw millions of Africans transported across the Atlantic to plantations throughout the Southern states. The 1820 Missouri Compromise outlawed slavery in the northern states, but not in the South.
"One section of our country believes slavery is right and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong and ought not to be extended."
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln’s statement that “no man is good enough to govern another man, without that other’s consent” comes from a speech of 1854. He argued against the right of states to maintain their own laws, by contesting that the foundation of the United States on the right to individual liberty overrode the right to “self-government”. The republic was built on liberty and equality, not on political convenience or as a compromise among states that retained their own authority. Considered a moderate opponent of slavery, Lincoln had previously argued against extending slavery, but not for abolishing it. Yet this speech heralds the defence of republican virtues that became the rallying call for northern states when the Civil War erupted in 1861. Lincoln’s message became more radical, and led to the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 and the outlawing of slavery across the United States in 1865.
See also: Hugo Grotius • Jean-Jacques Rousseau • Thomas Jefferson • John C. Calhoun
IN CONTEXT
IDEOLOGY
Socialism, mutualism
FOCUS
Private property
BEFORE
462 BCE Plato advocates collective ownership, arguing that it promotes the pursuit of common goals.
1689 John Locke argues that human beings have a natural right to property.
AFTER
1848 In the Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels outline their vision of a society with no property.
1974 US philosopher Robert Nozick argues for the moral primacy of private property.
2000 Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto claims that secure property rights are essential for lifting developing countries out of poverty.
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, the French politician and thinker, made his famous assertion that property is theft at a time when many in France felt frustrated by the outcomes of the revolutions of the previous few decades. When Proudhon published What is Property?, 10 years had passed since the 1830 revolution that had ended the Bourbon monarchy. It was hoped that the new July monarchy would finally bring about the vision of freedom and equality embodied by the 1789 French Revolution. But by 1840, class conflict was rife, and the elite had grown rich while the masses remained in poverty. Many saw the result of the political struggles not as liberty and equality, but as corruption and rising inequality.
"The downfall and death of societies are due to the power of accumulation possessed by property."
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
Proudhon said that the rights to liberty, equality, and security were natural, absolute, and inviolable, and were the very basis of society. However, he claimed that the apparent right to property was not the same as these. In fact, he maintained that property undermined these fundamental rights: while the liberty of the rich and the poor can co-exist, the property of the wealthy sits alongside the poverty of the many. Thus, property was inherently antisocial. Property was a primary issue of the working-class and socialist movements that were emerging in Europe in the 19th century, and Proudhon’s fiery declaration encapsulates the revolutionary ferment of the time.
See also: Hugo Grotius • Thomas Paine • Mikhail Bakunin • Karl Marx • Leon Trotsky
IN CONTEXT
IDEOLOGY
Anarchism
FOCUS
Corruption of power
BEFORE
1793 English political philosopher William Godwin outlines an anarchist philosophy, arguing that government corrupts society.
1840 Pierre-Joseph Proudhon imagines a just form of society devoid of political authority.
AFTER
1892 Peter Kropotkin proposes “anarchist communism”, arguing for a form of cooperative distribution as well as production.
1936 Spain’s anarchist union, the CNT, boasts more than 1 million members.
1999 Anarchist ideas re-emerge around anti-capitalist demonstrations in Seattle, USA.
In Europe in the 19th century, modern nation states emerged, democracy spread, and the relationship between individuals and authority was recast. In God and the State, Russian revolutionary Mikhail Bakunin investigated the requirements for the moral and political fulfilment of human society. At the time, society was seen as an association of individuals under the authority of a government or the Church. Bakunin argued that humans become truly fulfilled by exercising their capacity to think and by rebelling against authority, whether of gods or of man. He made a searing attack on “religious hallucination”, arguing that it is a tool of oppression to keep people servile, and that it helps the powerful to maintain their position. Life for the masses is wretched, and solace can come from belief in God. But living in accordance with religion dulls the intellect, so it cannot allow human liberation. Bakunin argued that the oppressors of the people – priests, monarchs, bankers, police, and politicians – would agree with Voltaire’s dictum that if there was no God, it would be necessary to invent him. Bakunin insisted instead that freedom required the abolition of God.
"The idea of God implies the abdication of human reason and justice."
Mikhail Bakunin
Acquiescence to the man-made institution of the state would also enslave people. The laws of nature unavoidably constrain what men can do, but Bakunin claimed that once these laws were discovered and known to all, no political organizations would be required to regulate society. Everyone could consciously obey natural laws because every individual would know them to be true. But as soon as an external authority, such as the state, imposes laws – even true ones – individuals are no longer free.
Power corrupts
Bakunin argued that, when acting as society’s guardians, even learned, well-informed people inevitably become corrupt. They abandon the pursuit of truth, seeking instead the protection of their own power. The masses, kept in ignorance, need their protection. Bakunin believed that accordingly, privilege kills the heart and mind.
The implication was, for Bakunin, that all authority must be rejected, even that based on universal suffrage. This was the basi
s of his philosophy of anarchism, which he said would light the path to human freedom. Bakunin’s writings and activism helped to inspire the emergence of anarchist movements in the 19th century. His ideas propelled the rise of a distinct strand of revolutionary thought, which sat alongside Marxist beliefs.
St Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow represents the authorities that Bakunin called on people to rebel against, and instead exercise their own freedoms.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN
Bakunin’s rebelliousness was first in evidence when he deserted the Russian army as a young man. He spent time in Moscow and Berlin, immersing himself in German philosophy and Hegelian thought. He began writing revolutionary material, which drew attention from the Russian authorities, and was arrested in 1849 when, inspired by the 1848 uprising in Paris, he tried to foment insurrection.
After eight years in prison in Russia, Bakunin travelled to London and then Italy, where he recommenced his revolutionary activities. In 1868, he joined the First International, an association of left-wing revolutionary groups, but a disagreement with Karl Marx led to his expulsion. Although both men believed in revolution, Bakunin rejected what he saw as the authoritarianism of the socialist state. Bakunin died in Switzerland, agitating for revolution until the end.
Key works
1865–66 The Revolutionary Catechism
1871 God and the State
1873 Statism and Anarchy
See also: Georg Hegel • Pierre-Joseph Proudhon • Karl Marx • Peter Kropotkin
IN CONTEXT
IDEOLOGY
Individualism
FOCUS
Direct action
BEFORE
380 BCE In Plato’s dialogue the Crito, Socrates refuses the chance to escape execution, arguing that as a citizen of Athens he has a duty to obey its laws.
1819 English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley writes Masque of Anarchy, which imagines the potential of non-violent resistance to injustice.
AFTER
Early 20th century Suffragettes break the law in the UK to protest at the lack of voting rights for women.
1920s Mahatma Gandhi applies his version of civil disobedience, Satyagraha, to the cause of Indian independence.
In his essay Civil Disobedience, published in 1849, American writer Henry David Thoreau argued that an individual should do what his moral conscience, not the law, tells him is right. If he does not do this, governments will quickly become the agents of injustice. Thoreau saw evidence for his view in the government of the United States before the Civil War, and in particular in the existence of slavery. The essay was written shortly after the end of the Mexican–American War (1846–1848), in which the US had taken territory from Mexico. Thoreau had vehemently opposed the war, which he saw as an attempt to extend slavery into new territories.
For Thoreau, the existence of slavery rendered the US government illegitimate. He said that he could not recognize any government that was also the government of slaves. Thoreau held that the state easily becomes the vehicle for this kind of injustice when its citizens passively collude with it. He likened men with dulled moral senses to pieces of wood or stones from which the machinery of oppression can be fashioned. For him, it was not just the slave owners who were morally culpable for slavery. Citizens of the state of Massachusetts might seem to have had little to do with the slavery of the South, but by acquiescing to a government that legitimized it, they allowed it to endure.
The logical conclusion of Thoreau’s thinking is summed up by his statement that the best government is that which governs not at all. According to Thoreau, progress in America came not from government but from the ingenuity of the people, so the best thing government could do was to get out of people’s way and let them flourish.
Thoreau said that a disaffected individual must do more than just register disapproval at election time: the ballot box is part of the state, but the individual’s moral conscience stands above and outside such institutions. “Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence,” he urged. An individual’s sense of natural justice may call for direct actions independent of the machinery of government or the views of the majority. For Thoreau, these actions were: the withdrawal of recognition of the state; non-cooperation with its officials; or the withholding of taxes. Thoreau himself was briefly jailed in 1846 for refusing to pay the Massachusetts poll tax because of his opposition to slavery.
Thoreau influenced later thinkers and activists, such as Martin Luther King, who cited him as an inspiration. In the 1960s, as the civil rights struggle gathered momentum in the US, Thoreau’s ideas gained a renewed relevance for activists engaged in acts of civil disobedience.
The bondage of slaves such as these in South Carolina was not only a crime by the slave owners, according to Thoreau. All citizens who allowed the practice were morally implicated.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Born in 1817 in the town of Concord, Massachusetts, Henry David Thoreau was the son of a pencil maker. He attended Harvard University, where he studied rhetoric, classics, philosophy, and science. He ran a school with his brother John until John’s death in 1842.
At the age of 28, Thoreau built a cabin at Walden Pond on land owned by the writer Ralph Waldo Emerson, and lived there for two years. His book Walden, an investigation of simple living and self-sufficiency, extolled the benefits of solitude and man’s direct experience of nature. Thoreau joined Emerson and the “transcendentalists” – who believed in the basic goodness of the individual. In 1862 he died of tuberculosis. His last words – said to have been “Moose, Indian” – perhaps exemplified his love for the natural life.
Key works
1849 Resistance to Civil Government, or Civil Disobedience
1854 Walden
1863 Life without Principle
See also: Peter Kropotkin • Emmeline Pankhurst • Mahatma Gandhi • Martin Luther King • Robert Nozick
IN CONTEXT
IDEOLOGY
Communism
FOCUS
Alienation of labour
BEFORE
380 BCE Plato argues that the ideal society has strong limitations on private property.
1807 Georg Hegel puts forward a philosophy of history that inspires Marx’s theories.
1819 French writer Henri de Saint-Simon advocates a form of socialism.
AFTER
1917 Vladimir Lenin leads the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, inspired by Marx’s ideas.
1940s Communism spreads across the world and the Cold War begins.
1991 The Soviet Union breaks up, and nations in Eastern Europe adopt capitalist economic systems.
Over the middle decades of the 19th century, Karl Marx – philosopher, historian, and iconic revolutionary – made one of the most ambitious analyses of capitalism ever attempted. He sought to uncover laws governing the transition of societies between different economic systems, as part of his investigations into the changing nature of work and its implications for human fulfilment. Marx’s work addressed central concerns of the time: how the rise of industrial capitalism affected living conditions and society’s moral health, and whether better economic and political arrangements might be worked out and put into practice.
Marx was active in a period that saw new revolutionary ideas emerging in Europe that led to the uprisings of 1848. In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, he sketched out important elements of his economic thought, considering how capitalist organization blights the lives of workers. He argued that communism solves a problem that bedevils capitalism – the organization of work. In the Manuscripts, Marx developed the notion of “alienated labour”, the separation of human beings from their true nature and potential for fulfilment. Marx saw various kinds of alienation as inevitable in capitalist labour markets.
"Private property is thus the product… of alienated labour."
Karl Marx
The fulfilment of work
Marx believed that work has the potential to
be one of the most fulfilling of all human activities. The worker puts his effort and ingenuity into the transformation of the objects of nature into products. The goods that he creates then embody his effort and creativity. Under capitalism, the existence of private property separates society into capitalists – who own productive resources, such as factories and machines – and workers – who possess nothing except for their labour. Labour becomes a commodity to be bought and sold, and workers are hired by capitalists to produce goods that are then sold for profit. Marx argued that this removes the fulfilling quality of work, leading to alienation and dissatisfaction.
One form of this alienation arises from the fact that goods made by a worker who is employed by a capitalist do not belong to the worker, and cannot be kept by him. A suit cut by a tailor in a clothes factory is the property of the capitalist who owns the factory – the worker makes the suit and then hands it over to his employer. To the worker, the goods that he makes become “alien” objects with which he has little real connection. As he creates more goods that contribute to a world that he stands outside of, his inner life shrinks and his fulfilment is stunted. The worker may produce beautiful objects for other people to use and enjoy, but he creates only dullness and limitation for himself.
Under a capitalist system, according to Marx, the worker becomes disconnected from the products that he creates the moment they are handed over to his employer. This causes the worker to lose his self-identity.
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