Analyzing State:Rousseau And Marx

The national problem has always been the core of political philosophy.For this problem, Rousseau and Marx had made a thorough inquiry. Now it seems that the Marx’s state theory undoubtedly benefits from the influence of Rousseau, which is reflected in both content and form of Marx’s thoughts. Formally, the dialectics of social development and human development of Rousseau affected the Marx’s theory framework profoundly. In content, the Rousseau’s alienation theory, civil society and the state, the people’s sovereignty, national reason, free community influenced widely on the ideas of Marx. Marx devoted his lifetime to researching how to overcome the alienation, for the purpose of giving the real relationship back to person. In consideration of the origin of relations of Marx and Rousseau, as well as the guidance of the inner structure of national problem, this thesis makes attempt to discuss national problems from the view of a few core problems,which are the moral politics, the origin of the nation, democracy, and the withering away of the state.The introduction introduces the reason of this topic selection and the significance of this paper, this thesis combs the current research situation, and makes an introduction to the entry point of this topic and research focus starting from the inner structure of national problem. The discussion of the moral politics in the first chapter was supposed to answer the question of nature of the state. Regard to the nature of the state, roughly speaking, there are two views, one considered that nature of the state is moral community, the other held the view that the state is interest coalition. This chapter expounds the Rousseau’s and Marx’s assertion about moral politics through the trace of moral politics pedigree, and then analyzes the effect of Rousseau moral politics on Marx. The second chapter discusses the Rousseau’s and Marx’s theories concerning the origin of the nation, explicates the Rousseauism factors in the Marx’s theory of national origin, and then points out that Marx discarded the Rousseau’s theory of national origin. The third chapter expatiates the Marx’s and Rousseau’s democratic thoughts, illustrates that Marx inherited and transcendended the Rousseau’s democratic thought, indirectly answers the problem of the legality of the state. The fourth chapter explores the thoughts about the dying out of the state of Rousseau and Marx, points out the contribution of the Rousseau’s obsolescence of the state theory to the Marx’s state theory, analyzes the conditionity of how to realize the stateless of communist society of Marx. Conclusion part summarizes the impact of the Rousseau’s state theory on Marx, points out Marx’s innovation,which was based on the Rousseau’s state theory.