Ferdinand Lassalle’s “the Working Man’s Programme” really typifies
some of Lassalle’s socialist ideas which took place during a break out of revolution
in Germany during the 1800’s. His ideas received a lot of pushback, which
caused Ferdinand to do some prison time, but also moved him almost effortlessly
to the leadership of the new forming political party at the head of the social working
class at the time. In his address about the importance of the working class, or
the “Fourth Estate”, he uses a great deal of well thought out rhetoric to
address his audiences and time his speech appropriately.
Lassalle’s
goal is to convince his audience of the importance of having the working class
be involved in the state, and that their involvement will better all people of
all classes, not just the individual. Lassalle uses Marx’s ideas about social
change as a basis of authority for his arguments. This is really interesting as
he eventually pulls away from Marx and uses those ideas to compare and contrast
to his view that the state itself can be the tool to bring social reform. This
is a powerful technique as he is able to appeal to all his audience members by
mentioning ideals from the thoughts of Marx and then making it more in line
with what is already in place. Some would call this a cowardly approach to a
revolutionary speech, but I think it is a clever way, a “sales tactic” if you
will, type of approach to transfer enthusiasm about his ideas to his audience.
I would have liked a little more historical background, as I am not familiar with this, but you summed up his approach, and tied it into today nicely.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you mean by the fourth estate?
ReplyDeleteI thought I explained it in the first paragraph, but the Fourth Estate is simply the working class of the class society that existed in Germany in the 1800's.
DeleteOk, sorry I missed that.
Delete