1. Read “Opposing Viewpoints: The Natural Rights of the French People: Two Views” (textbook pages 461-462).
• What new ideas about society and government in France are reflected in this excerpt from The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen?
• Are there any indications that the United States Declaration of Independence or Constitution or the 1689 English Bill of Rights influenced the National Assembly? If so, how?
• In what ways were the ideas of Olympe de Gouges Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen ahead of their time?
• Compare this declaration with the Declaration of the Rights of Man… in terms of its content and goals. What are the differences? Would de Gouge’s ideas be accepted today? How widely? Where and where not?
2. “The Classless Society” (textbook page 483).
• Why did Marx assume that the proletariat must come to power?
• What did he say it would do once it attained power?
• Is the ownership and control of “property” the only cause of class development?
• Was Marx a social scientist or an “ideologue”?
• Could it be argued that Marx himself was a product of the nineteenth-century Industrial Revolution and that his ideas mainly reflect that moment in history? Why or why not?
