Compare the role of historical progress in the ideas of two of the following: Kant, Rousseau,

Marx, Flaubert. In your essay, you should put the emphasis on role, not on an accounting of
specific progress.

The task of comparing the different notions of historical progress ascribable respectively to
Rousseau and Marx, might involve more complexities than what envisioned at first
glance, mainly due to the disarming conceptual contradictions observable in Rousseaus
diagnostic detection of the source of the troubled human condition in Modernity, and
the curative treatment specifically developed by himself at the end of the First Discourse.
In order to avoid confusion and to ensure the linearity of my argumentation, I would
rather begin investigating how the two authors under analysis approached the outcomes
of the historical progress, namely Modernity, then proceed in disclosing the divergent
directions of their philosophical reasoning (as we will ascertain later on, Marxs
perspective extends forward, while Rousseaus backward), to, finally, obtain a clear
picture of the different role that historical progress played in Marx and Rousseaus vision.
To initiate, both Marx and Rousseau, adopting different conceptual vehicle for their
accuses, assumed a highly critical position towards the political and social outcomes
attributable to the historical dynamic, and consequently towards Modernity. Marx in his
essay Estranged Labor, and more formally in the Manifesto, hurls his fiercest critics
towards the modern industrial system, that through the process of alienation (or selfestrangement) reduce the labor force to the rank of a commodity, impoverishing the
working class my means of the market competitive struggle. The alienation of the
worker in his product means not only that his labor becomes an object, an external
existence, but that it exists outside him, independently, as something alien to him and
that it becomes a power on its own confronting him. argue Marx in Estranged Labor
concluding that through this process of externalization (or Entausserung) the worker sinks
to the level of a commodity and becomes indeed the most wretched of commodities;
that the wretchedness of the worker is in inverse proportion to the power and
magnitude of his production. Similarly, Rousseau criticizing the corrupted development
of human being in Modernity, in the First Discourse with the accuses directed towards

Arts and Science of promoting inequality and inauthenticity, and in the Second Discourse
with an emphasis on the degradation of human virtuous capabilities since the departure
from our primordial nature, by his own words aimed at revealing in his pretended
perfection the true source of his misey (Confessions).
From their respective criticism to Modernity the two authors expanded their
philosophical investigation in two diametrically opposed directions. Marx, having
inherited from Hegel the dialectic understanding of the historical course based upon the
triad thesis-antithesis-synthesis , conceive the workers condition as a strident conflict, that
would inevitably find its resolution in the progression of history. In this sense, Marx,
confident in the reasonable development of events, and conscious of the impossibility
inherent in the perpetuation of a contradiction in the historical course, faithfully direct
his philosophical argumentation forward towards the advent of the announced Proletariat
Revolution. Contrarily Rousseau turn his philosophical inquiry towards the past, tracing
back the steps of the human progress to reveal mans primordial condition, at
foundation of which the author identifies the two instinctual principles prior to reason,
concealed in Modernity by the corruption brought by human progress and societal
organization, namely the interest in self-preservation and the natural repugnance at
seeing any other sentient being suffering.
Finally the role that historical progress assumes in Marx and Rousseaus philosophical
conception automatically reveals as a derivation arising from the comparison of the
different authors critics of Modernity, and from the direction of their philosophical
enquiry according to the latter On one side, Marx, following Hegels footsteps, not only
is certain of the dissolution of the contradiction inherent in the modern workers
condition as history progress, but confidently foretell this occurrence in the advent of
the Proletariat Revolution. On the other side, Rousseau, is not waiting for another round
of the event carousel for the resolution of the circumstances plaguing humanity, but
contrarily expected the arrival of an era in history when the desire of immobility of that
carousel will enliven the human spirit. This sentiment, which in turn flows into a
worrying omen for the future, is detectable in the Preface of the Second Discourse in which

Rousseau state that: There is, I sense, an age at which the individual human being
would want to stop; you will seek the age at which you would wish your Species had
stoppedand this sentiment ought to be considered, as the panegyric of your first
parents, the condemnation of your contemporaries, and a source of terror to all those
who may have the misfortune of succeeding you.
In Conclusion, if Marx looking forward, conceive historical process as the only mean by
which resolving the Modern contradiction, Rousseau, looking backwards at the
foundation of our society, interpret historical progress as the source of the current
human corruption.