Role of historical progress in the ideas of Rousseau and Marx

For Rousseau,as he states in "Discourse on the origin of inequality",animal is "but an ingeniousmachine",and so is human.Nature gave them senses to wind them selves up,the only difference isthat the human is endowed with few more features-he has free will,he is aware that he has it and heis capable to improve him self over and over again.That capacity of human Rousseau callsperfectability.Wishes of savage man does not go beyond his needs.From this originalcondition,,"taught by expirience that the love of well-being is the sole-motive of human actions" heand the others slowly form society based on mutual interest."As they grew enlightened,they grewindustrious".Soon came property,and with the natural inequalities grew social inequalities.In theend,the circle will close-"private persons return to their first inequality...subjects have no law butthe will of their masters.".Rousseau gives us a verry pessistic view on progress.Although humans byvirtue of perfectability can progress as a species to the infinity,that is in fact regress.In "Discourseon arts and sciences" Rousseau gives us warning-"People,know once and for all that nature wishedto protect you from knowledge,just as a mother snatches away a dangerous weapon from the handsof her child...".The more we know,the more civilized we are,the more wrteched we become.Still,heknew that historical progress is inevitable,"arts and sciences had corrupted our morality",addednothing to our true happiness and his recommendation is to stay in obscurity,"limit ourselves tocarrying out our own well."For Marx,the role of progress is,in fact,positive.In "Estranged labour" he states that the nature isour inorganic body,we use it for existence and we use it as a tool and the object of our lifeactivity.We depend on nature,and nature is here for us-so,"we must maintain a continuingdialogue..." with it.Therfore,historical progress is,for Marx,the process of humanizing nature andnaturalizing human.As he says in "Private property and comunism","entire so-called history of theworld is nothing but the creation of man through human labour,nothing but the emergence of naturefor man,so he has the visible,irrefutable proof oh his birth through him self,of his genesis.".Whenwe go through different epoches,it is the result of the developement of productive forces ofsociety.They are the material basis of society,along developes ideological superstructure-that wouldbe politics,arts,sciences,moral,religion,...The progress is infact the result of opositions in societywhich strive to anihilate one another,and become in synthesis something better.We can conclude that Rousseau and Marx belive in historical progress,one thinks of it as adegradation of man,the other as a constant improvement.Rousseau sees it as a downward spiralfrom some ideal condition,when savage had no need of moral and laws,science and arts.Still wemust conform.Marx thinks of it as a constant ascent,and no matter how it looks today,future mustbecome better.Man is building society and him self,it is the neverending process.