Hegel and Mills on Marx and Engels.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel who gave us Phenomenology of Spirit might have had quite a few things to say about the fight that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels described in The Communist Manifesto. Hegel might have thought of the human history that led to this fight to be the product of alienation, not of the material kind, but of the metaphysical kind. Hegel might have thought the same way of Marx and Engels revolutionary reconstitution of society at large and the common ruin of the contending classes. Hegel might have deemed the human history leading to them as the product of same alienation.
To Hegel, the fight and resulting societal reconstitution and class ruin might have arisen in the course of alienation that is the gap between what Hegel saw as universal consciousness on the one hand and what he saw as particular consciousness on the other hand. Hegel saw all that is historical as a movement from such alienation to freedom. All of human history is a movement toward the freedom that is the final unity between the universal consciousness and the particular consciousness.
John Stuart Mill who gave us On Liberty might have viewed things a little differently. Mill might have paid attention to the behavior of the different actors and he might have seen it as an exercise of their individual liberties. Mill might have championed the prerogatives of the different actors and rallied against any governmental attempt at interference with these prerogatives. Mill might not have been willing to compromise these prerogatives to any extent. To Mill, these prerogatives proceeded from the different actors personal sovereignty that Mill might have regarded as absolute and non-negotiable.
Mill might see the way forward for these different actors in much the same way. If there is any kind of settlement that Mill might be drawn to, it would be one that leaves the different actors alone. Under no circumstance might Mill accept a course of action that leads to any form of violation of individual liberties. Mill might not have looked favorably upon what Marx and Engels described as a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large and the common ruin of the contending classes if these would involve any measure of curtailment of precious personal sovereignty.
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