What Writers Have Successfully Identified the Principles into Building a Perfect Society

Political philosophy

The main aim of this assignment is to show knowledge and understanding of the writers who have successfully and clearly identified the principles that would enable us to build a perfect society. The philosophers that will be used from personal opinion are Plato and Karl Marx; although very different they had the same idea of building a utopian society, utopian is to mean perfect; a society without flaws, by applying certain principles in order for society to become a utopian one. The assignment will aim to demonstrate both sides of the argument in relation to whether their ideas would work, how there is a possibility they could not work and where their ideas stemmed from. Within the assignment works from Thomas Hobbes will be used as a comparison to show a different side of the argument, as he did not want to perfect society, but provided justification into why we needed to appoint a sovereign, so that society did not return into the state of nature.

It is only important that the argument starts with Plato as he is known for creating the blue print for a utopian society. A blue print being a sketch of what society was and the problems that were present, where in his would be eased. His main focus was to build a perfect society. His idea of creating a utopian society stemmed from the death of his mentor Socrates, who was put to death of allegedly corrupting the young, this deeply hurt Plato, who then began writing dialogues that contained replies that Socrates would say to him. One of these dialogues is known as the republic, where Plato establishes the principles on how to build his perfect society.

In order to build his perfect society, he believed that it was the philosopher kings that should rule in the interests of society. Justification for this was that society is governed by three desires; rational, spirit, and appetite. The one who were govern by reason, were the philosopher kings as they know and have seen the truths, these being the forms, and they have seen the ideal form of government being the philosopher kings and ideal form of society, this being a utopian one. Where every one knows their place and certain evils of society e.g.; poverty and misery are all removed. It has few laws and for him has no democracy. As he quotes from the republic "in the perfect state women and children should be held in common, that men and women should share the same education and the same occupations both in peace and in war, and that they should be governed by those of their number who are best at philosophy and war"(plato.1955:356). He believed people that obtained the truth would knowledge the rest of society and this would make them happy. This was part of Plato's idea of a utopian society, philosopher kings rule the rest of society because they know and have seen the truth.

So that the philosopher kings did not rule in their own interests they were to live in a state of communism, it was that they should posses none of the things other men now do, they were to train for war and act as guardians over the community, in return for which they where to get their keep as their annual wage and devote themselves to the care of their fellow guardians and the whole of the state" (plato.1955:357).

I would like to bring on the assignment and discuss Karl Marx's principles of building a utopian society. Unlike Plato, who wanted a state with no democracy other than the elites, Marx wanted a communist society with dictatorship rather than democracy. Just want to briefly out line the reason why Marx came to the conclusion on why he wanted to build a perfect society.

Marx had attended Berlin University after studying at the University of Bonn where he studied law. Turning his attention to philosophy from law, he began work on a doctoral thesis with a view to getting a university lectureship. After moving to Paris with his wife jenny in 1843 he soon began mixing with the radicals and socialists who congregated in this centre of progressive thought (singer.1980:6).

He then moved back to Germany where he articulated his philosophical position. This was philosophy in a very broad sense including politics, economics, and a conception of the historical processes at work in the world (singer, 1980:6). At this point Marx was prepared to call himself a communist, something that was not unusual around this time. However in the same year of 1844 he became close friends with Friedrich Engels; who was the main influence of Marx's work. Although Engels father owned an industrial cotton factory he had become involved in the same circle that Marx was moving in and had become a socialist revolutionist.

After moving to London he attended a congress of the newly communist league in December 1847, where he defended his view of how communism would come about (singer, 1980:8). Marx and Engels were commissioned with the task of putting down the doctrines of the league in simple language; the result was the communist manifesto, published in 1848 which was to become the classic outline of Marx's theory (singer, 1980:8).

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The idea of Karl Marx's utopian society was where everyone was equal. He explains that society is divided into two classes, this being bourgeoisie and the proletarians. Bourgeoisie being the dominate class, them being industrial factory owners who bought labor and proletarians, the one who sold their labor for a wage, this was described as being the class struggle. However he believed that there is no need for government as they only rule in the interests of the dominate class. He says in order to get to a communist state there are three other stages that have to take place; (i) Asiatic (ii) feudalism (iii) capitalism, which would then lead to (iii) communism; abolishment of private property. These are the stages all societies will go through and a step can not be jumped and the first to go through this would be Britain with it having a powerful economy at the time. He believed that the world shaped the way we are not man shapes the world with his thoughts. Marx began to lay down how change would come about, a principle or idea Ð'- the thesis, was challenged by it opposite the antithesis. From their conflict there emerged not the victory of one side or the other but combination of the two Ð'- the synthesis (Taylor; 1967:8). The social conflicts which were the basis of his system would finally produce a synthesis were no conflicts were left, and history would come to an end. This synthesis was socialism, an ideal society or utopia, where everyone would be happy without conflict forever more (Taylor, 1967:9).

Marx supposed that he had discovered the laws underlying human behaviour and that