The name of Karl Marx is familiar to most people as a key figure in the theories of communism. Even if people have not read his work, they know enough about Marx to describe him and his work as highly critical of capitalism and as a proponent of socialism. The name of Alexis de Tocqueville may be less well known, but his ideas were equally important in shaping how we think about politics—particularly in America. Tocqueville was one of the first philosophers to articulate a vision of “American exceptionalism” and to celebrate American democracy. Thus, in many ways, we can think of Marx and Tocqueville as holding opposing political views.
And yet—when one looks closely at their writings—one finds many similarities. Part of this has to do with the time in which they wrote: The world of Marx and Tocqueville was a world racing towards modernity. The 1800s saw Europe undergoing rapid social, economic, and political transformations. The French Revolution had shaken up the political establishment, laying the foundations for democratic and nationalist movements that followed. The Industrial Revolution, which had started in the last decades of the 1700s, really took off by the mid-1800s. The Europe that Marx and Tocqueville witnessed was becoming a rapidly urban and secular society. That had deep impacts on the social, economic, and political realities of Europe.
During several decades, monarchs across Europe fell and were replaced by popular governments. The monarchs that kept their crows (as in Britain) lost political power to popularly elected parliaments. Rapid industrialization and urbanization finished what the ideas of the French Revolution had started: ended feudalism. Meanwhile, the rise of nationalism led to the creation of new countries as small kingdoms and principalities were joined together (as in Germany and Italy, both in 1871) or as provinces seceded from empires (as in Greece in 1831 and Serbia in 1878).
Both Marx and Tocqueville tried to make sense of these developments—both to explain why they happened and to predict what the future would look like. In this sense, Marx and Tocqueville were similarly engaged in doing social science. They also broadly used a similar approach that helped define modern social science: Guided by historical events, they critically examined empirical evidence (rather than divine revelation or traditional beliefs) to theories that could explain the evidence.
However, despite some interesting similarities, Marx and Tocqueville came to very different conclusions. While both saw history as a linear progression towards greater freedom and liberty, they had differing views about the primary cause of this progression. Finally, Tocqueville was more pessimistic about the future of democracy than Marx.
This module asks you to read two relatively short writings from each of these figures:
- Part I (“Bourgeois and Proletarians”) of The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
- “Introductory Chapter” to Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville
As you read both, pay close attention to how the authors’ explain why the changes taking place in the modern world have taken place. For both authors, history moves in a linear progression towards greater equality and freedom—but the “engine of history” each describes is different. Similarly, pay close attention to whether the authors are optimistic about a future with greater equality and freedom—and whether either thinks that something of value is “lost” in an egalitarian future. Before you read, look over the following brief biographies of each figure for some context.
Karl Marx
Karl Marx (1818-1883) was a German economic historian and a principle founder of modern sociology (and by extension political science). He was born into a middle class German family and studied at universities in Bonn and Berlin, before becoming a journalist. He was interested in understanding broad social and economic processes, and their relationship to each other. Marx’s general theory (known as “Marxism”) argues that history is driven primarily by material conditions—principally changes in technology.
This broad theoretical approach is one of the major theoretical approaches in social sciences. It’s important to note that this does not mean that social scientists are “Marxists” in the common political sense. It means that many social scientists subscribe to a paradigm that views material, technological, or economic conditions (or “structures”) as key explanations for social, political, and economic conditions. In other words, social scientists that adopt a “Marxist” approach argue, for example, that technological innovation will lead to social, economic, and political changes.
Marx wrote (with his friend Friedrich Engels) The Communist Manifesto in 1848, just before moving to London, where he spent the rest of his life. Written as a pamphlet for workers during the early stages of the movement to create organized labor unions in Europe and elsewhere, The Communist Manifesto was written to be a short and accessible introduction to this view of history. As you read it, pay close attention to how Marx describes the transition from one “stage of history” to another, and how it is driven by “material conditions.”
Marx’s theories went on to be very influential in the emerging communist movements of the twentieth century. Many argue that Marx’s predictions about socialist revolutions overthrowing capitalism were proven false with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Yet others argue that the kind of capitalism Marx saw in the 1840s (when there were no child labor laws, eight-hour workdays, other basic protections for workers) no longer exists. Others would argue that the rise of the internet and other new technologies are reshaping the world as we know it in fundamental ways—and that this is consistent with Marx predicted. As you read The Communist Manifesto, pay close attention to Marx’s predictions, and ask yourself whether any of them have relevance today.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1858) was a French aristocrat and a social historian. Like Marx, he was very influential in the early development of sociology. Unlike Marx, who had a more “modern” educational and professional background, Tocqueville was a private intellectual. Like Marx, he was also interested in understanding social problems and using empirical observation as a means to understand the changing world around him. He can also be understood as a founder of a general theory, simply known as the “political culture” approach. This approach argues that political culture (the fundamental beliefs shared by a community about how society should be organized) is the driving force for political, social, and even economic innovation and change.
Although this is not a dominant approach in the social sciences, the political culture approach has had times of revival. One recent example is Samuel Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations, which argued that coming future global conflicts would be driven by “civilizational divides” (such as between “the Islamic world” and “the West”).
Tocqueville published the first volume of Democracy in America in 1835, after spending nine months travelling through much of the United States. Although he was sent by the French government to study American prisons, he instead focused on trying to understand the United States. He was fascinated by the emerging new democracy he saw in the United States, and wanted to understand why that form of government seemed to work so well in America—in contrast to the failure of the French Revolution. However, as Tocqueville makes clear in his introduction to Democracy in America, by the 1830s it was clear that “democratic” values were also taking hold throughout Europe, as people demanded popularly elected governments.
Tocqueville was one of the first to suggest that the United States (then still a relatively small and unimportant country) represented the future. In that way, many credit him with the idea of “American exceptionalism” and advocating for a special, almost innate “democratic” tendency in American society. As you read the Democracy in America, pay attention to how Tocqueville describes the emergence of this new “democratic” idea—and why he thinks it took root first in America. But also pay close attention to what Tocqueville thinks about a future in which everyone is equal and free.
