Marx and Tocqueville viewed the causes for inequality in society uniquely.

These views shaped the way each understood the Revolution of 1848. Tocqueville defends the idea that there is no solution to the problem of oppression and class equality, while Marx offers the opposite: a solution. Tocqueville viewed the Proletariats with less sympathy than Marx. He claimed that the Bourgeoisie was not stealing from the Proletariats. He interprets inequality as problem with no solution. He believed that the poor class was being blind and ignorant to argue with the upper class. Without them, they would not have a job, yet they are simply bickering and complaining about their situation. Tocqueville believed that the working class, the Proletariats, should stop arguing with the Bourgeois class and should simply get along with them. Tocqueville saw that there was tension between to the classes and predicted a bitter end with arms. This idea is similar to Thomas Malthus idea of the population crisis. Malthus believed that one should not give the poor food because although it is helping them in the short term, in the long term it is hurting everyone. The poor are penurious for a reason and should not get taught to expect something which they do not earn. As Malthus proposes, A man who is born into this world already possessed;[], has no right to the smallest portion of food, and, in fact, has no business to be where he is. (Malthus, Population Essay, p.115) Tocqueville agrees with Malthus in the sense that some people are born the way they are and nothing can be done about them. There is no political solution to this problem of hunger and oppression. Marx also believed that with the addition of the Bourgeoisie in society, there would be new classes and in turn new industry. However, the Bourgeoisie become extremely competitive and exploiters of the poor. The Bourgeoisie destroyed the guild system and put together a large workforce.

Marx believed the sole cause of the Revolution was because the Proletariat class was wrongfully criticized by the Bourgeoisie class and empathized with the Proletariats. Tocqueville excoriated the Proletariats because they were rebelling against the Bourgeoisie class, which in turn caused the Revolution. Marx and Tocqueville both have unique perspectives on why inequalities exist. Thus, they shaped the way the common man thought of the 1848 Revolution. As Marx points out, Society is saved just as often as the circle of its rulers contracts, as a more exclusive interest is maintained against a wider one. () The exclusive interest being that the Bourgeoisie wanted to strengthen their own power, instead of

helping the combination of classes. Marx predicted that these mere wage laborers would go through with such a scam. They are in need for constant expanding markets as they must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, [and] establish connections everywhere. All they care about is themselves and are national-one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness, in turn make other countries adopt their sense of Bourgeoisie production, which in turn [makes] civilizations into other Bourgeoisie themselves. However, this could have been prevented and stopped if, according to Marx, the Proletariats did not align themselves with the Bourgeoisie.