The Right of Property

Marx declargons correctly that "The practical drill of the refine of liberty is the right of orphic lieu." What this specifys is that in the real world of power, those with that power make the laws, define rights, and hand the right which conveys political, social and economic power---the right to own private lieu---to themselves. This is the practical truth of which Marx writes. Not only do those with belongings protect their own home and power with laws they themselves make, creating a profound inequality from the start, the result is disastrous for both humanity boilersuit and for any union based on such practices:

The right of blank space is . . . the right to enjoy one's fortune and to dispose of it as one will; without regard for another(prenominal) men and respectively of fraternity. It is the right of self-interest. . . . It leads every man to see in other men, not the realization, but rather the limitation of his own liberty.

The society which is based on private property, then, in Marx's view, creates singles who are continuously in a competitive battle with one another---to make unnecessary the property they have, to get more, or to take somebody else's property. This society is composed of frightened and self-interested individuals, all alienated from one another.

When Marx argues for the abolition of private property, he defends the Communist position w

hich is attacked as the effort to take away all rights:

We Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of mortalally acquiring property as the fruit of a man's own labour, which property is allege to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity and independence. Hard-won, self-acquired property! Do you mean the property of the petty artisan and of the humble peasant. . . . ? . . . The development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it. . . . Or do you mean modern businessperson private property? But does wage-labour create any property for the laborer? Not a bit. . . . By "individual" you mean no other person than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of property. This person must

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. The Basic Political Writings.

Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987.

However, as Marx points out, the individual owning property is hardly in a tell apart of " function" with respect to that property. To the contrary, that individual is in a miserable state as he becomes more and more alienated from others and from himself in a society torn by competition, greed and apprehension related to conditions surrounding private property:

It should be remembered that the psychiatric hospital of the social compact is property, together with its first condition that all(prenominal) person should be maintained in the peaceful enjoyment of what belongs to him.

Rousseau fails to see, or at least fails to acknowledge, that the "civil liberties: he says are guaranteed under his social contract are meaningless in terms of bringing about the equality he champions as long as the rich maintain their grip on the property of the country being considered. Although he fails to declare this fact, Rousseau does intelligibly realize the intimate link between civil liberties and property rights:

Rousseau does make it quite clear that the social contract is knowing to give legal power to a property owner. In the state of nature, no such power exists. The property
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