Freedom:
They had the same ideas about freedom. For both Marx and Rousseau freedom means to be able to realize certain higher good,such as to free and equal participation in political activities or freedom from alienation. In order for people to have the ability and opportunity to do the higher good, the society has to create certain conditions for people. One of the key conditions according to Rousseau and Marx, is equality.
Although their ideas about freedom is exactly the same, in regard to impediments to freedom, they were not like-minded. Rousseau saw inequality as an impediment to freedom, whereas Marx considered private property and the capitalist relations of production as the impediments to freedom. According to Rousseau, due to people’s natural tendency to compare and to envy, inequality creates jealousy, vanity, and alienation. The development from natural inequality moral inequality is a process of moral corruption, through which the freedom is lost. Marx on the other hand, believed capitalism alienates workers and prevents them from achieving true freedom. Alienation is at the same time the distortion of human nature and loss of freedom.
Equality:
Both Rousseau and Marx hate inequality and sought a society that made all men equal. Both wanted a society that brought men back to their original state of equality. Unlike Marx, though, Rousseau sought the equality through liberty and abolition of slavery without thinking about economic issues, whereas Marx just sought the equality through equal production and wages. Marx was not so much concerned with that actual liberty of the individual, he just wanted everything to be equal.
State and Government:
Rousseau’s and Marx’s opinions about state and government were not similar.While Marx was against state and government, Rousseau was for them. In Marx’s opinion, state is, by definition, nothing more than an instrument of social control used by the members of one class to suppress the members of another and so he thought that state and government limit people’s freedom. According to him, without economic classes, there would be no need for a state. State is a coercive power for class domination, therefore, he argued that communist administrative organ would not be a state in itself, because society would be classless and this administration would not exercise coercion. On the other hand, Rousseau does not advocate abolishing the state and government. Instead, he thought that a small state is good for people’s self government.
Division of Labor:
Marx's analysis of the division of labor was remarkably similar to Rousseau's. Both argued that the desire for private property led to the division of labor, and this in turn gave rise to the existence of separate social classes based on economic differences and inequality. Both Rousseau and Marx did not believe that the division of labor was a change for the better.
Family:
They had different point of views about families. Rousseau believed that the family is a natural and essential form of society, whereas Marx did not consider it important. Marx wanted to abolish the family because he thought that it is nothing but a convention for the sole purpose of making money.
Religion:
According to Rousseau, religion was inescapable, bu he disapproved Christianity, as he considered it as weak and masochistic faith. Since civil government without religion is an impossibility, he wanted the replacement of Chiristianity with a civil religion which is a civil profession of faith. From Marx ‘s point of view, “relion is opium of the people” and it is only conglomeration of false and fantastic statements which science has condemned. According to him, religion originates from fear, in their powerlessness before nature and later before their exploiters and forces of capitalism. So Marx believed that atheism alone is rational. On the other hand, Rousseau proposed Deism in place of atheism, if not for speculative reasons, at least as a support and foundation for moral activity
Ideal Society:
Both Rousseau and Marx sought for a society without class distinctions and without rich and poor. Marx saw communism as the ideal society because it is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and man, that capitalism fosters. Rousseau’s ideal society forms the basis of Marx’s ideal society. In Rousseau ideal society, common well-being rather than individual preference would be the superior. There would be no justification of ownership of goods. And to serve equality would be the first goal of his society.
Civil Society:
They are not like-minded about the issue of civil society. According to Marx, civil society is a terrible and destructive social system because its social effect is to sever all man's species-ties, substitute egoism and selfish need for those ties, and dissolve the human world into a world of mutually hostile individuals. Therefore, he thought that civil society is the cause of men’s problems. On the other hand, for Rousseau, civil society is necessary to transform the individual into an intelligent being and a man. Civil society is essential if men are to exercise and develop their faculties, broaden their ideas and feelings, and uplift their souls.
Karl Marx followed in the communitarianism tradition of political authority and obedience pioneered by Jean-Jacque Rousseau. Rousseau set the cornerstone and Marx was architect of the socialistic monument built upon it. The similarities between their ideologies shows how profoundly Marx was influenced by Rousseau.
