Marx also wrote of Bentham in _Capital_, Vol. 1: 'Bentham is a purely English phenomenon. Not even excepting our philosopher, Christian Wolff [disciple of Leibniz], in no time and in no country has the most home-spun commonplace ever strutted in so self-satisfied a way. The principle of utility was no discovery of Bentham. He simply reproduced in his dull way what Helvetius and other Frenchmen had said with esprit in the 18th century. To know what is useful to a dog, one mush study dog-nature. This nature itself is not deduced from the principle of utility. Applying this to man, he that would criticise all human acts, movements, relations, etc., by the principle of utility, must first deal with human nature in general, and then with human nature as modified in each historical epoch. Bentham makes short work of it. With the dryest naivete he takes the modern shopkeeper, especially the English shopkeeper, as the normal man. Whatever is useful to this queer normal man, and to his world, is absolutely useful. This yard-measure, then, he applies to past, present, and future. The Christian religion, e.g., is "useful", because it forbids in the name of religion the same faults that the penal code condemns in the name of law. Artistic criticism is 'harmful', because is disturbs worthy people in their enjoyment of Martin Tupper, etc. With such rubbish as the brave fellow, with his motto, *nulla dies since linea* ('no day without its line': ascribed to the painter Apellesm who let no day go by without adding something to a painting), piled up mountains of books. Had I the courage of my friend Heinrich Heine, I should call Mr. Jeremy a genius in the way of bourgeois stupidity.'
As for Kant, Marx & Engels consider him theorist of weak and miserable burghers and don't have much to say about him. Marx held, in 1837 letter that he wrote to his father as well in verse from that year that he dedicated to Jenny, that Kant relegated resolution of conflict between individual and society to world beyond. His poetry includes following lines:
Kant and Fichte soar to heavens blue
Seeking for some distant land
I but seek to grasp profound and true
That which - in the street I find.
Kant's liberalism was close to Humboldt's in that he was primarily interested in moral and philosophical argumentation concerning moral respect for individuals as ends-in-themselves. What this means in political practice is unclear so he becomes *everyman* for thinkers with individualist bent.
Hayek & Nozick adopt Kantian legalistic and procedural stance on rights in that rights function to provide 'fair' framework for individuals to pursue their 'own' good without propounding any particular conception of 'the good'.
Rawls & Dworkin's Kantianism interprets 'fair' or 'right' arrangement more socially (although Rawls acknowledges that Kantian theory doesn't go 'deep' enough to justify support of his system and that he cannot derive conclusions from Kantian base without resorting to extraneous considerations).
Bernstein, citing Kant has his mentor, argues that case for socialism should be made on moral grounds, asserting that Marx without Kant is cant. For him, equality is premised on each individual possessing a 'rational will' that is of equal worth and deserving of equal respect.
Marx with Bernstein, I can't... Michael Hoover