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Sharon Xu
Roadblocks to Liberty and the Final Destination
It is a truth universally acknowledged that societal pressure has repressed the liberty of
humanity throughout history, and continues to obstruct it to this day. This phenomenon was
particularly apparent to political thinkers of the nineteenth century: evident in the mechanization
of industry and the emphasis of Victorian values, society continually squashed individuality on
all sides. Charles Dickens, John Stuart Mill, and Karl Marx all address the impediments to
liberty, decoding the source of this societal pressure. Their analyses, however, differ in the
treatment of the effect of class divisions on liberty. While John Stuart Mill asserts the necessity
of liberty for progress in On Liberty, he maintains that a liberal state and a society accepting of
eccentricity are enough to foster a nourishing environment for freedom and truth. In contrast, in
Hard Times Dickens forcefully depicts the control of a smaller dominant class over common
laborers and the dehumanization that follows. Marx expands this idea in The Communist
Manifesto, contending that supremacy of an upper class is implicit in any society with class
division; therefore, true liberty can only be gained with the unification of classes. These
conceptualizations lead to distinct understandings of the relationship between liberty and
progress.
In Mills On Liberty, he elucidates the need for three liberties: liberty of thought and
discussion, liberty of tastes and pursuits, or self-determination, and liberty of association,
assembly into a collective group. Mill firmly asserts that ultimately, the only consequence of
liberty is truth. In particular, he focuses on the contribution of liberty of thought to discovering
truth. No matter if the dissenting opinion is true or false, truth can only benefit from its free
expression. This is clearly seen if the assumed opinion is false and the dissenting opinion true.

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However, even if the dissenting opinion is false, discussion and debate prevent a living truth
from becoming a truth blindly passed down and mimicked, a dead dogma (40). One cannot
proclaim beyond all doubt that the assumed opinion is true, for to do so is to claim infallibility
(59). Most often, the assumed opinion and dissenting opinion each hold their grains of truth, and
it is only by the collision of adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth has any chance of
being supplied (59). A truth held unexamined is mere conformity, and conforming does not
educate or developany of the qualities which are the distinctive endowment of a human
being, teaching no skill other than the ape-like one of imitation (65). Thus, liberty of thought
and expression is as essential to individuality and the development of reason as it is to the
finding of truth.
To ensure this liberty, it is essential that both government and society abstain from
placing limitations on the exchange of ideas. In the Victorian era in which these men wrote, there
existed a clear collection of social values stressing thrift, hard work, and a proper dose of
respectability. The significance of etiquette and strict social conduct can be seen in the early
1800s in the work of Austen, and later on in Dickens as well. Respectability was seen as the
public display of inner morality (Gorman). Evangelical Protestantism and Methodism had taken
a strong hold, contributing to the emphasis of absolute right and wrong (Gorman). There were
rules about how to talk, how to walk, how to eat, who to talk, walk, and eat with, and of course
what to wear and how to behave. Consequently, societal pressure affected not only liberty of
thought, but also liberty of action, of tastes and pursuits, and to an extent liberty of association.
Mill allows for a single condition in which these liberties may be restricted only in the case of
harm to others. It is difficult to define precisely what constitutes as harm, but straying from
respectability does not fall under this category. In such a climate, it is hardly surprising that John

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Stuart Mill determined the fear of being eccentric to be the chief danger of the time (75). Mill
saw not the governmental suppression of liberty, but mainly the coercion of society. Thus, in Mill
there is a tyranny of the majority, a concept which contrasts sharply with Rousseaus idea of
general will. While for Rousseau general will is a force that unites society for harmony and the
betterment of all, Mill viewed general will as a subjugation by the many of the few. For Mill, this
consensus, this pressure over thinking and behavior, not only stifles creativity and ideas, but
ultimately, prevents advancement. With such weight put on conforming to propriety,
individuality and genius were dampened; improvement was hindered; progress was lost.
Likewise, Dickens also stresses the importance of individuality in Hard Times,
illustrating the heavy industrialization of the Victorian age which has reduced the common
laborer to a machine. During this time, the Industrial Revolution had accelerated the means of
production and wholly mechanized industry. Within this historical context, Hard Times satirizes
the workings of industry, highlighting the poor treatment of workers by factory owners. With
Bounderby, the administrator of Coketowns factory, the factory owner is caricaturized as a
hypocritical, pompous egomaniac; he is a bumbling, pretentious dimwit for whom the trivial
concerns of factory workers are beneath his notice. The upper class is ignorant of the humanity
of the laboring class. This is seen in the astonishment Louisa, an upper class girl, expresses upon
meeting Stephen, one of the laborers, and seeing that he is a human being much like herself.
She knew of [the laborers] existence by hundreds and by thousands. She knew what results in
work a given number of them would produce, in a given space of time. She knew them in crowds
passing to and from their nests, like ants or beetles. But she knew from her reading infinitely
more of the ways of toiling insects than of these toiling men and women (120). Dickens
reminds the 19th century reader not to forget the individuality of the laborer.

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As Dickens shows, the upper class is not the only group who dehumanizes a majority of
the population. Mocking what he called the stutterings of statisticians, he objects to ways of
thinking which confine humanity to numbers and facts. The advent of this new science ignores
not only the laborers humanity, but the individuality of the entire population. Likewise, he
ridicules the educational system which relies only upon facts. He emphasizes the significance of
imagination and emotion through Louisa and Tom in being taught to never wonder, their
development is crippled and they grow up feeling a part of them is missing.
In addition, Dickens portrays one more impediment to individual liberty: money, or more
specifically, the lack of it. When Stephen Blackpool, a factory worker, tries to get a divorce from
his drunken, alcoholic, half-crazed wife, he cannot because he does not have the funds (60).
Indeed, Bounderby calls Stephens morality into question after such a regression from his sacred
vows, further illustrating his own hypocrisy when he disowns his own wife, Louisa. Clearly,
money is a significantly limiting factor in regards to liberty.
The Communist Manifesto characterizes the same oppression of the lower class found in
Hard Times. In Marxist theory, Bounderby is a member of the bourgeois class, maintaining
control of the proletariat majority. The bourgeoisie sustain their power through capital, money
used to generate profit. Instead of a measure of the value of commodities, money becomes an
end of its own, a means of ruling over the proletariat who have nothing but their labor to sell.
Marxism extends Dickens critique by indicating what, to Marx, is the only possible remedy to
the oppression of the proletariat: the dissolution of classes. For Marx, this dissolution is essential
to true liberty.
In a free society, Mill reasoned that discussion and examination of ones beliefs leads
closer to truth; if led astray, the population would be able to find the true path once again as long

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as there is liberty. Marx is not so optimistic. For him, the proletariat working class is inclined to
think and act based on the norms of industrial conditions established by the bourgeois upper
class, which rakes in the profit of the proletariats labor. Even the bourgeois do not have true
freedom, for their very ideas are but the outgrowth of the conditions of [their] bourgeois
production and bourgeois property (21). The concept of bourgeois freedom has transformed
into eternal laws of nature and of reason, the social forms springing from [the] present mode of
production and form of property (21); it has taken these laws and concepts of private property
and stamped onto it the mark of justice and individuality, the reward of hard work. However, the
bourgeoisie are greatly deceived, for such capitalist society is defined by the revolution of the
proletariat against the substandard environment in which they work. Thus the productive
forces are pitted against the conditions of production (8), and how do the bourgeoisie solve
this dilemma? On the one hand by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the
other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones
(9). In other words, by laying the foundation for more damaging crises, while simultaneously
destroying the means by which these crises are prevented. And so, in this capitalist system, the
lower class conceives of nothing greater than factory labor, while the upper class capitalizes on
this ignorance, unaware of its own lack of understanding, the vicious cycle it is perpetuating.
Thus, liberty is lost in the mindless pursuit of monetary gain.
Thus far we have covered the most pressing dangers to liberty in the views of Mill,
Dickens, and Marx. Now, we can analyze how these dangers connect to each authors approach
to progress. Mill places complete faith in the idea of an open-minded society. There should be no
governmental or societal restrictions in thought, action, and association as long as these do not
cause harm to others. In such a society, the population is the soil in which [geniuses] grow

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(72), therefore it is essential to progress that the soil remains arable and fertile. Progress is
achieved through a minority of geniuses, who can only develop in a rationally freethinking
society. Mill does not address the issues of class which we see in Dickens. As a conservative,
Dickens suggests that poverty is an inescapable reality of life, an obstacle to liberty which few of
the poor will overcome. Through Louisas gift of money to Stephen, he advocates kindness and
awareness of the less fortunate. He highlights the necessity of fancy as well as fact in education,
and portrays human sentiment as a powerful tool in the development of individuality. Unlike
both Mills and Marx, however, he does not subscribe to the idea of human progress, that defined
forward movement throughout history. His vision is more like that of the Enlightenment ideal of
a balanced stasis his ultimate aim is to bring about positive ripples in the equilibrium of human
society. This could not be further removed to Marxs image of the mechanism of history, an
ongoing struggle between classes starting with freemen and slaves, moving to nobles and serfs,
and finally to the bourgeoisie and proletariat. Each revolution of the existing class structure has
brought an advance. The ultimate revolution, then, will eradicate class division entirely through
the abolition of private property, or capital. This is communism. To those that would object to the
abolition of private property, Marx points out that it is already nonexistent for nine-tenths of the
population (20). Capital is maintained through the blood, sweat, and tears of the proletariat, who
receive none of the fruits of their labor (21). Communism merely eliminates the power to
subjugate the labour of others [in order to] appropriate (20) profit. To reach it, society must pass
through revolution and most likely socialism, where government controls private property.
Communism is the end of history, the final destination, and above all, a mystery.
The ideas of these three philosophers have glaring implications for modern society. The
capitalist democracy of America is strongly attuned to the Millian ideal of liberty; it is seen in

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freedom of speech, the harm principle, in fact, the entire Bill of Rights. The significance of
imagination that Dickens highlights is a prevalent ideal with the escalation of art, music,
literature, and the humanities. His idea of cyclical history bodes ill for progressives who would
argue for evolution and advancement. Nonetheless, the worst criticism of the modern world is
drawn from Marx. The most powerful nations today are capitalist are they feeding off the labor
of the lower classes, as Marx described? Many would say no. Nowadays, a good percentage of
Americans are not high-powered executives, but earning comfortable wages far above
subsistence levels. They have capital in stocks and real estate; they can afford to take vacations.
America is seen as the golden land of opportunity with dedication, even the poorest can rise to
the top. Others would question the truth of this vision. Jobs are merely being outsourced to China
and India, precisely the invasion of new markets that Marx described. The so-called
communist nations such as North Korea and China are in fact naught but a corrupted distortion
of socialism. So, the question remains: are liberty and progress merely the product of a free state,
or is class unification essential to liberty, and progress an unavoidable mechanism of history? Or
is progress throughout history merely an idyllic delusion? Whichever theory one subscribes to, it
is clear that the final destination is yet to be reached.