To understand what Marx and deTocquiville ;two of the
great social thinkers of all time, believed, you have to
understand what was going on at the time. They were living
in the peak of the Industrial Revolution. The cities that
housed this revolution were overflowing with factories and
people. People who were once country folk decided to come
out to the cities in search for a better life. These
"working class" people were also known as proletariats.
Another aspect was what were these people thinking? They had
there minds set on the right thing, a better life, but what
made them think they would live a fair life? Liberalism was
The bourgeoisie, or higher class believed in this
ideology, and it rubbed off on the working class. Liberals
believed in a constitutional government, equality of
opportunity, and laissez faire economics. They believed in
self interest, freedom, and privacy. So why then were
the working class people poorer than when they were in the
country, lived in slums and shacks, and worked terrible hard
hours? This is where Karl Marx comes in.
Marx saw that the proletariats had no rights. He
thought that they lacked political power and government
protection. He felt that it wasn't fair for the upper class
to control the means of production and business in general,
when the working class was doing all the hard work. He said
that the working class was the class that had to bear all
the burdens of society without enjoying its advantages.
Materialism was also a factor in this class struggle. It
proved that the class struggle could not be evaded.
After studying the social classes in America, he came
to believe that classes were not bad at all. He was
impressed by the general equality of conditions among the
people. He thought that the democracy that was in America at
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