Changes

Hungarian scholar László Tüto has argued that Marx believed that the bourgeois revolutions meant the worldwide historical liberation of the individual from the hierarchies of traditional societies. However, this liberation carried its own price. On the one hand, civil society and the state separated from each other in the bourgeois system, and as a result the individual became intrinsically split into a private person and a citizen of a state, two forms of existence that became opposed to each other. On the other hand, the economic freedom of private persons as members of civil society could only survive in the service of the spontaneous mechanisms of the market, that is, if people made themselves the tools of the tangible powers of the economy: goods, money, and capital. After the decline of freely competitive capitalism (into monopoly capitalism) this economic freedom was pushed into the background because of the property hierarchies. Freely competitive capitalism was characterized by the basic tendency of revolutionizing the means of production, and Marx concluded that the continuation of this tendency could only be ensured by going beyond the capitalist system to a socialist environment for civil society.

Hungarian scholar László Tüto has argued that Marx believed that the bourgeois revolutions meant the worldwide historical liberation of the individual from the hierarchies of traditional societies. However, this liberation carried its own price. On the one hand, civil society and the state separated from each other in the bourgeois system, and as a result the individual became intrinsically split into a private person and a citizen of a state, two forms of existence that became opposed to each other. On the other hand, the economic freedom of private persons as members of civil society could only survive in the service of the spontaneous mechanisms of the market, that is, if people made themselves the tools of the tangible powers of the economy: goods, money, and capital. After the decline of freely competitive capitalism (into monopoly capitalism) this economic freedom was pushed into the background because of the property hierarchies. Freely competitive capitalism was characterized by the basic tendency of revolutionizing the means of production, and Marx concluded that the continuation of this tendency could only be ensured by going beyond the capitalist system to a socialist environment for civil society.

===Dictatorship of the proletariat===

===Dictatorship of the proletariat===

The "dictatorship of the proletariat" was introduced by Marx and Engels, and later used by [[V. I. Lenin]] and [[Joseph Stalin]] to justify their totalitarian rule. They controlled the Communist party in the Soviet Union in the name of the proletariat (which had no voice.) Marx and Engels believed in the need for such a dictatorship during the transition to communism following the takeover by the proletariat. They envisaged some undefined form of absolute sovereignty of the people in a radical democratic state based on universal and equal suffrage. Supposedly the dictatorship would allow the proletariat to abolish bureaucracy and private ownership of the means of production, using force and repressive or dictatorial methods to overcome the inevitable resistance by the bourgeoisie. Lenin, however, saw the concept in terms of a dictatorship exercised not by a democratically chosen majority but by a vanguard minority revolutionary party; he eventually accepted the need for a state bureaucracy, and his more extreme opposition to the bourgeoisie led him to favor their exclusion and disenfranchisement to the benefit of the urban working class.   

The "dictatorship of the proletariat" was introduced by Marx and Engels, and later used by [[V. I. Lenin]] and [[Joseph Stalin]] to justify their totalitarian rule. They controlled the Communist party in the Soviet Union in the name of the proletariat (which had no voice.) Marx and Engels believed in the need for such a dictatorship during the transition to communism following the takeover by the proletariat. They envisaged some undefined form of absolute sovereignty of the people in a radical democratic state based on universal and equal suffrage. Supposedly the dictatorship would allow the proletariat to abolish bureaucracy and private ownership of the means of production, using force and repressive or dictatorial methods to overcome the inevitable resistance by the bourgeoisie. Lenin, however, saw the concept in terms of a dictatorship exercised not by a democratically chosen majority but by a [[Revolutionary Vanguard|vanguard minority revolutionary party]]; he eventually accepted the need for a state bureaucracy, and his more extreme opposition to the bourgeoisie led him to favor their exclusion and disenfranchisement to the benefit of the urban working class.   

===Alienation===

===Alienation===

Marx's theory of alienation was often employed to criticize religious, political, and economic divisions. However, the fact that it was basically about individuals and could only with great difficulty be applied to society made it a misleading tool when used in sociology.  

Marx's theory of alienation was often employed to criticize religious, political, and economic divisions. However, the fact that it was basically about individuals and could only with great difficulty be applied to society made it a misleading tool when used in sociology.