The Comparison Of Marx's And Marcuse's Views On Revolution

In the middle of the 20 th century,the influence of neoliberalism in capitalist society continued to expand.Marcuse saw that although the political and economic level of a capitalist society has improved significantly from before,people in this social context have not escaped depression.On the contrary,the form of repressive vulgarization has become deeper,and individuals in society are fully integrated into the model of capitalist instrumental rationality and control.Marcuse believes that this social state of capitalism is morbid and must be changed through revolution.As an important representative of the Frankfurt School,Marcuse's thinking was deeply influenced by Marx,but it was very different from Marx.Marx is in the period of free capitalism.He believes that the unfreedom that humans endure is due to the alienation caused by the private ownership of capitalist means of production.This alienation affects their own and external environment.The desire to change this situation can only be achieved through a violent revolution of the proletariat.In the opinion of Marcuse,this revolutionary theory of Marx is no longer applicable to the current social reality.He believes that the change of the actual situation requires that the theory of human liberation also be revised socially and historically.So Marcuse spent his whole life following the development track of social history,trying to realize the new development of Marx's revolutionary theory.Based on this theoretical connection between Marx's and Marcuse's revolutionary views,this essay will take the two revolutionary theories as the research object and make a comparison under the premise of grasping their theoretical content.I hope that we can further understand the theoretical content of the two and determine whether Marcuse surpassed the theory of human liberation and social change Marx.This essay consists of 6 chapters.The first chapter is the introduction,which mainly introduces the background of this topic,the current status of domestic and foreign research,research methods,innovations and deficiencies.Chapters 2 to 5 are compared one by one from four perspectives: the social reality,the revolutionary subject,the revolutionary method,and the prospects of the revolution.In addition to understanding the theoretical content of the two,it also explores Marcuse's views on a series of related issues,such as the relationship between technology and society,how to treat technology neutrality,new changes in the proletariat,and the influence of Freud's psychoanalytic theory on him,etc.Chapter 6 summarizes the connection and differences between the two revolutionary views on the basis of the previous comparison.Although both Marcuse and Marx agreed that the essence and existence of human beings should be unified,they have different views on how to achieve this unity.Marx always adhered to the historical materialist stance and started with objective reality.He believed that the root of the problem was the private ownership of capitalist means of production,so he pointed his criticism at private ownership in the economic sphere and its performance in the political sphere—the capitalist system.Marx called on the broad masses of proletarians who suffered the most severe oppression and suffering to unite,to overthrow the bourgeois rule through a violent revolution,and to move towards a free and comprehensive communism.And Marcuse believes that the change in the reality of society has shifted the main oppression of people to the spiritual level,and the key to solving problems has also shifted to restoring an original ability of human to a certain level of consciousness,which is what he believes is the instinct of human,it is eros.At the same time,Marcuse believed that the proletariat had been assimilated by the bourgeoisie at this time and could not assume the task of revolution.Instead,he chose three types of marginalized people who did not integrate into the capitalist system,hoping to replace capitalism and build a new non-repressive civilization through external resistance and protest by rebuilding a new social value system.It can be seen at this time that Marcuse's theory,compared with Marx's,regards human consciousness as a criterion for judging whether society is reasonable or not,which falls to subjectivism;He entrusts the revolutionary mission to the minority who could not be united,deviating from the historical concept of the masses,with a strong heroism;He positions the revolutionary approach as resistance and rejection,and has not make a clear and systematic statement of specific practices,which lacks revolutionary and practicality;He describes the prospect of the revolution only as a free and leisure life,lacking realism and operability,with a serious utopianism.Therefore,Marcuse's road to human liberation is bound to end in failure,and his revolutionary theory has not achieved a transcendence of Marx's.Like Marx,Marcuse devoted his life to the great cause of human liberation.Although,in general,his theory is a distortion of Marxism and cannot achieve the ultimate goal of liberating humanity,there are still many contents worth studying.Through comparative research,we can learn from what is reasonable and provide a reference for solving the social problems we are facing.