Karl Marx, a German author, and John Locke, a British educator, are both very well known philosophers. Both have written essays on the ideal government: Marx created Marxism and Locke defined democracy. Both forms of government have been tried throughout the course of time. Both, however, came from two different types of men, from two different time periods in history, and in reaction to two different types of government. Though Marx and Locke would have agreed that power would be given to the people in the ideal government, when put into practice, their theories fall apart.
             Marxism was a classless form of government. Actually, there was no government in Marxism, the people ruled themselves. In theory, people were all at a common level; the only person that was to be higher than others was an administrator, whose only role was to make sure that the will of the people was carried out. It became the job of the people to regulate the country, to maintain equality and make sure that all of the capital that was produced was dispersed evenly among all of the people:
             "The distinguishing feature of communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few. In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property" ( Kuhn ).
             What Marx was saying was that people should not be able to own their own land: land would be owned equally by everybody.
             Democracy, Locke's theoretical government, is a system of placing power with the government, but, at the same time, making sure that power is not abused. The democratic government is split into three parts, the Legislative branch, for making laws, the Executive branch, ...