A Study On Karl Marx’s Thought Of "Community Of Freeman"

On the basis of atomism, modern liberalism insists on individual will andemphasizes the innate idea that men are born free, which is basically accepted by bothLocke and Rousseau, however, Locke emphasizes individual freedom in natural statewhile Rousseau put more stress on that in social state. This reveals the innercontradiction of liberalism since the17th century. Hegel and utopian communistsperceive that modern subjective philosophy causes the limitations of people’sviewpoints on individual liberalism, they advocate philosophizing people’s rights,obligations and their relations from the perspective of realistic social community, andattempt to reconstruct the relationship between individual and society, individual andcountry. Their viewpoints arouse Marx’s sympathy, which are, however, criticized byMarx without exception. Marx’s thought of "community of freeman" is formedthrough inheriting and criticizing modern liberalism, Hegel’s philosophic thinking andutopian communism. Starting from realistic individual viewpoint, Marx’s thought of"community of freeman" stresses that living individual is the first premise of humanhistory, and all social structures and forms of state come into being in the process ofindividual life, thus, the development of society should take the overall developmentof man as ultimate aim. Furthermore, Marx believes that there is no individual whohas no real contacts with outside world for individuality is formed by certain socialrelations, thus, individual development and individual freedom are unable to realizewithout certain community. Consequently, Marx proposes that the overall and freedevelopment of individual should be realized by developing productivity andconstructing the community of freeman. As to country and society, Hegel considerscivil society as the lower stage of spiritual development rather than real existence,instead, he believes that country is the actual being of ethical entity, however, fromthe viewpoint of Marx, civil society is the real existence in spite of its various defects.Because of the different understanding of civil society, Marx argues that political emancipation is not the real human emancipation, since country is the product of theruling class, it has to destroy country and construct the community of freeman for thepurpose of realizing human emancipation. Different from utopian communism,Marx’s thought of "community of freeman" is constructed on the basis of theunderstanding of human nature and the essence of separate property, it purposelypreserves the past social wealth and sublates alienated labor to realize the real humanemancipation.