Karl Marx Private Property Analysis

Private property is the defining characteristic of capitalism. Marxism and Liberalism are significantly different political ideologies. For this reason, it is a surprising to discover, when comparing and contrasting these philosophies, Marx and Mill are able to agree on certain facets of private property. Both philosophies believe that private ownership of production and property creates an unstable but expanding economy. Simply put, they agree that private property creates a class who achieves concentrated wealth, and a working class that is burden with struggles. However, their opinions depart from one another on how they view the effects of private property on society. Mill conveys that private property is primarily a liberating and beneficial …show more content…
Further, he does not deny the plausibility of communism if it were administered gradually and on a small scale (Mill275-279). A pivotal point of Mill’s perspective on private property is that personal ownership of land is what stimulates capitalist competition (Mill 253). This competition leads to lower prices of commodities, which actually leaves more surplus to pay wages of workers (Mill 253). This is a divergence from the Marx perspective that competition actually increases worker suffering. Furthermore, Mill is willing to admit that capitalism can at times depress wages, but he qualifies that remark by espousing that all wage declines mirror market fluctuations but competition will eventually revamp workers’ wages (Mill 249, 256). A large portion of Mills’ argument for private property is constructed when contrasting capitalism to the schematics of communist property. Mill asserts numerous facets that he defines as lacking in communism. First of all, managers of private property have motive, incentive, and a large stake in producing as efficiently as possible (Mill 262-263). Additionally, Mill notes that a transformation to altruistic form of shared property would be a challenging endeavor to establish universal conformity to a new economy, and that transformation in …show more content…
He thinks that maintaining private property is more liberating than the Marxist proposal for shared property. Without individual property the economy lacks incentive, motivation, as well as expert managers. These two features of private property spur completion, which creates economic growth. Furthermore, he sees a revolution as more chaotic then any cyclical chaos capitalism produces. Also in relation to the communist view point, Mill understands attacks on private property as overstating flaws or misunderstanding the economy. Simply put, according to Mill private property is the most liberating political ideology available and is already the accepted form of economy spanning a significant portion of the globe, so justification of revolution and transformation to an unknown is a more dangerous concept than it is