Samuel Smiles, Friedrich Engels, and Karl Marx
Great men live for and by their convictions and ideologies and they make the complete use of a given opportunity or environment to establish their beliefs and principles. One of the underlying features of human world is that it is founded on several philosophies and ideologies which are divergent and contrasting in meaning. Sound principles and ideologies by eminent thinkers have influenced human being throughout the history and the superiority of a particular concept over the existing ideologies helps it in establishing its bases.
When the different established philosophies come to contact with each other, it is the more ideologically sound philosophy that emerges popular. In this background, it is greatly revealing to undertake an analysis to find whose vision would ultimately win out, if Samuel Smiles, Friedrich Engels, and Karl Marx happen to be trapped on a deserted island. Indisputably, Smiles would want to create a society based on his ideology while Marx and Engels would try to establish a society which corresponds to their concepts.
The question is indeed interesting and the answer will be further illuminating. As established through his famous book Self-Help (1859), Smiles would argue for a society in the island which gives complete room for individual freedom because self-help offers the best means for success of the individual as well as the society. However, Marx and Engels would counter this argument and try to establish a society based on the socialist ideas as disseminated through their Communist Manifesto (1848). In the modern context of the island, it will be the efforts of Smiles to establish a society which caters for industry, thrift and self-improvement which emerges successful over the socialist efforts of Marx and Engels.
Samuel Smiles held the view that cooperation will be at its best when it is based on the principle of self help and unlike socialists he emphasized the role of God who assists people who help themselves. The famous maxim ‘heaven helps those who help themselves’ may be realized as the result of vast human experience. Human history stands as the evidence for the success of people and communities that worked for their own good.
The concept of the well-being of the society as established by the socialists cannot stand in the long run. History has proved the failure of people and nations which worked for the common good. Many of the socialist nations failed to work out as the concept of common good of the people in the society is a false concept. Every nation which proved successful through the history worked for its good and the spirit of self-help as conceived by Smiles is the source of every valid growth in the human beings and communities. Self-help, Smiles establishes, “exhibited in the lives of many …constitutes the true source of national vigor and strength.
Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates.” (Smiles, 1882). The society as conceived by Marx and Engels has proved invalid in the modern world which completely focuses on the good of the society through self-help. Therefore, it is indisputable that in the given scenario where the ideology of Smiles comes into confrontation with that of Marx and Engels, it will be the society of the former which will emerge over the society of the latter.
Bibliography
Smiles, Samuel. Modern History Sourcebook: Samuel Smiles: Self Help, 1882. London: John Murray. Web.