1. Freedom in Marxist Theory:
Although Marx and Engels never wrote systematically about the concept of freedom, its implications are sound enough to attract readers. In fact, it was seen in opposition to alienation that the capitalist mode of production had generated.
As Rowcke in his work “The Problem of Freedom in Marxist Thought” observes “The notion of freedom plays a central role in the thought of Karl Marx…his notion of freedom often figures significantly in the background which gives meaning to his more specific and immediate concerns. The notion of freedom lurks behind the critique of religion and the whole description of the forms of alienation…the theme of the freedom of men has a pervasiveness and extent in the long development of his thought which marks it as one of those basic themes providing continuity to his work.”
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Nevertheless, he accepts that capitalism was more beneficial in extending freedom than the earlier modes of production because it threw career open to talent and unleashed production forces of greater extent.
Marxist conception of freedom sees an interdependent relationship between liberty and equality. It means self-realization and self- determination. It is not to be confused with satisfaction of material wants.
It signifies a condition where each human being endowed with their creative potential can exercise them. It cannot be realized in a capitalist system of production characterized by necessity.
Rather, true freedom can be realized in a rational system of production. This means the destruction of capitalism and the creation of a communist society that embodies collective control, collective individuality and personal freedom.
As Gellner has observed “For the Marxists civil society is a fraud. The idea of plurality of institutions-both opposing and balancing the state and in turn controlled and protected by the state- is, in the Marxist view, merely the provision of a facade for a hidden and a maleficent domination.”
2. Property in Marxist Theory:
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One of the most distinctive features of Marxism has been a scratching critique of the institution of private property. Perhaps it would not be incorrect to say that their critique of capitalist mode of production is primarily based on their analysis of the institution of private property.
According to Marxists, the institution of property did not enjoy the same status in different epoch of the history. They point out that there was no notion of private property under the primitive communist society.
It arose with changes in the mode of production. There emerged different forms of private property in different mode of production, while in the slave society a slave was the private property of his master, feudalism was marked by private property in land ownership.
However, it became a dominant form of economic organization with the arrival of commodity production under Capitalism.
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The Marxists see division of labour as the principal cause for the emergence of private property. In the undeveloped stage of production of the primitive communal society the people directly depend on the nature. They live by hunting, fishing, cattle rearing etc.
With the development of productive forces and resulting division of labour in the large state there arises slave system characterized by the existence of private property in the workmen themselves.
When the large-scale agriculture becomes the chief mode of production, in the feudal period, the chief forms of property consist of landed property with serf labour claimed to it.
The surplus value appropriated by the dominant class and instruments of primitive accumulation paved way for industrial revolution and the mechanized production pave way for the capitalist system.
Under the Capitalist system, the means of production are privately owned and the worker is forced to sell his labour power as a commodity in the market.
The surplus value accumulated by the capitalist further the exploitation of working class. However, Marxists are optimistic with bourgeois in forms of property as it helps in creating working class as a class for itself. They will rebel against the existing class relations, which justify the bourgeois system of property.
Marx, Engels and Lenin held the view that the proletarian revolution would put to an end commodity production and also private property in the means of production.
The property in these countries will be in the form of state property or collective property. It would finally disappear even in the sphere of consumption with the establishment of a classless communist society.