The first, or in Stuchka’s words, the concrete form of law, is a legal relationship which corresponds to a production relationship and, with it, constitutes the base [or] reality. However, more than once Marx directly points out the existence of social relationships which are not production relations but which merely derive from them and correspond to them. In his notebooks from the late 1850s, posthumously published as the Grundrisse, he indicates that “the concentration of bourgeois society in the form of the state” would be part of the larger systematic critique of political economy he was pursuing at the time.1Karl Marx, Grundrisse, trans. When we say that social relationships have assumed a legal expression, this means inter alia that they have been given a coercive nature by the state power of the ruling class. Friedrich Engels, “Letter to Conrad Schmidt” [1890]. “As far as I am concerned”, he wrote. Law in bourgeois society serves not only the facilitation of exchange, but simultaneously and mainly supports and consolidates the unequal distribution of property and the monopoly of the capitalist in production. Equally, classless communist society – having territory, population and an economy – will do without the state since the necessity of class suppression will disappear. If one takes this point of view then one must either deny the existence of a distinctive feudal state law, or show that despite the existence of a Soviet state we do have Soviet state law. Law, for bourgeois sociologists, becomes an empty form which is unconnected with concrete reality, with the relationships of production, with the antagonistic character of these relationships in class society, [and] with the presence of the state as a particular apparatus of power in the hands of the ruling class. [1]. As such, it is radically different from bourgeois law despite the formal resemblance of individual statutes. Marx’s critique rested on the claim that by locating universality and equality in the bourgeois constitutional state (Rechtsstaat), Hegel inverted the relationship between the state and civil society. William Chambliss has argued that ‘at the heart of the Capitalist system lies the protection of Private Property. Google Scholar We cannot do without them. Bourgeois theorists of the state, assiduously avoiding the question of the class nature of the state, propose every type of artificial and scholastic definition and conceptual distinction. Writing that “the state is an abstraction”, and that “[o]nly the people is a concrete reality”, Marx counterposed Hegel’s constitutional monarchy with a defense of democracy.5Marx, “Critique of Hegel’s Doctrine of the State”, 85. This will be hardest of all for a jurist for whom law is a purely technical and artificial superstructure, strangely enough, holding sway over its base. “For power and subordination”, wrote one of the Russian bourgeois jurists (Lazarevsky), “two elements are necessary: the consciousness of those exercising power that they have the right to obedience, and the consciousness of the subordinates that they must obey.”, From this, Lazarevsky and other bourgeois jurists reached the following conclusion: state power is based upon the general conviction of citizens that a specific state has the right to issue its decrees and laws. V.I. Proceeding from this distinction, we establish that to the extent that private property and the power of capital remain untouchable, to this extent the democratic form of government does not change the essence of the matter. From Evgeny Pashukanis, Selected Writings on Marxism and Law (eds. This chapter begins with a discussion of Marxism, which is a theory about the meaning of history. The proletariat, having overthrown the bourgeoisie and consolidated its dictatorship, had to create Soviet law in conformity with the economy, in particular the existence of many millions of small and very small peasant farms. The capitalist state and the Marxist programme. Cemal Burak Tansel (ed), States of Discipline: Authoritarian Neoliberalism and the Contested Reproduction of the Capitalist Order (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017); Ian Bruff and Cemal Burak Tansel (eds), Authoritarian Neoliberalism: Philosophies, Practices, Contestations (London: Taylor & Francis, 2019). This of course does not exclude concrete historical national differences between each of the systems. Overlaying this is the fact that his own ideas about the state changed as he grew older, differing in his early pre-communist phase, the young Marx phase which predates the unsuccessful 1848 uprisings in Europe and in his later work. Marxist theories tend to focus on better understanding the individual pathologies of criminal offenders. I. Lenin, “The State and Revolution” [1917], in Robert C. Tucker (ed), The Lenin Anthology (New York: W. W. Norton, 1975); V. I. Lenin, “The State: A Lecture Delivered at the Sverdlov University” [1919]. Neo-Marxism and the Origin of the Committee on States and Social Structures” (2019) 72 Political Research Quarterly 714. formal ideas and concepts), they ignored the socio-economic and political essence of the matter. Of course, the state cannot exist without population, or territory, or economy, or society. The conscious will – towards the formulation and consolidation of production and other relationships – is the will of the ruling class which finds its expression in custom, in law, in the activity of the court and in administration. Learn how your comment data is processed. Louis Althusser, Etienne Balibar, Roger Establet, Pierre Macherey, and Jacques Ranciere, Reading Capital (London: Verso, 2015). Telos: Critical Theory of the Contemporary 35:5 (1978) In the legal superstructure, these relationships appear as property relations and as relations of domination and subordination. The criticism and unmasking of this eructation is necessary for the purpose of eradicating this bourgeois ideological infection. Here, we merely emphasize the fact that without the work of legislators, judges, police and prison guards (in a word, of the whole apparatus of the class state), law would become a fiction. But the application of law is an active and conscious process by which the state apparatus plays the decisive role as a powerful weapon of class struggle. Today, Marxist state theory is largely an open-ended and intellectually pluralistic research framework. We present these conclusions, for they typify the whole trend and, moreover, are most fashionable in the West. In common with important figures in other intellectual disciplines, such as history, in late 1930 Pashukanis undertook a major self-criticism which was qualitatively different from the incremental changes to his work that he had produced earlier. There is no doubt that the formulation and conformation of social relationships to the means of production is basic to law. K. Marx, The Class Struggles in France (1850), MESW, vol.1, p.282. Leading theoreticians like Engels, Kautsky,21Karl Kautsky, The Class Struggle (New York: W. W. Norton, 1971 [1892]); Karl Kautsky, “Parliamentarism and Democracy” [1893], in Ben Lewis (ed), Karl Kautsky on Democracy and Republicanism (Leiden: Brill, 2020). I thus selected the word “social” and a whole chapter in my first book was dedicated to it only in the sense of relations of production and exchange (as Marx and every Marxist understands this). Part of the difficulty stems from the fragmentary character of Marx’s writing on the topic. Later interpreters of Marx have had to grapple with this gap and its implications. This means you are free to share/repost/republish/remix for non-commercial purposes on condition that you acknowledge CLT and link to the source page. Production relationships form the basis of society. Journal of Education Policy: Vol. 1. Translated by Peter B. Maggs. 15. p.370. The definition of law which precedes the facts presupposes knowledge of what is law and what is not law. But all the transitions from monarchy to republic, from aristocracy to democracy, which we observe there, do not destroy the basic fact that these states, regardless of their different forms, were slave-owning states. Economic Relations and the Law. Engels further developed this view in his Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, suggesting that the state had emerged from the gradual division of labour in settled civilizations to moderate the resulting class antagonisms. Outline of a Marxist Theory of Law. The positions outlined in this excerpt contain a series of mistakes. Obviously, no one could use the term ‘State’ in reference to a community in which the ‘organization of order’ is administered in turn by all of its members.” [2], Struve’s position, according to which the distinguishing feature of a state is coercive power, was not without reason termed “professorial” by Lenin. At the same time nothing was better for legal professionals, for judges, [and] for defence counsel since this definition fully satisfied their practical needs. Lastly, the urgency of the climate crisis has drawn the focus of many researchers to the state as a site of struggle over resource extraction and future policies for climate change mitigation.44Thea Riofrancos, Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador (Durham: Duke University Press, 2020). In the present, at least four new theoretical frontiers are being opened to supplement previous omissions. 1 (Chicago: Haymarket, 2007); Max Adler, The Marxist Conception of the State: A Contribution to the Differentiation of the Sociological and the Juristic Method, ed. In Germany two separate but concurrent lines of inquiry unfolded. It suffices to mention such a work as Oceana – by the English writer Harrington, and which appeared soon after the English Revolution of the seventeenth century – in which changes in political structure are related to the changing distribution of landed property. Beginning in the 1960s, Gramsci’s translation into English and Althusser’s major retheorization of Marxism further facilitated the critique of base-superstructure models. 5. Pashukanis’ radical reconceptualization of the unity of form and content, and of the ultimate primacy of the relations of production, is without doubt to be preferred to his previous notions. In a modern state, Engels wrote, “law must not only correspond to the general economic condition and be its expression, but must also be an internally coherent expression”, facilitating the growth of jurisprudence as a new “independent sphere” of social practice and preventing the law from being the “blunt, unmitigated, unadulterated expression of the domination of a class”. Marxist Theory of Law. Lise Vogel, Marxism and the Oppression of Women: Toward a Unitary Theory (Leiden: Brill, 2013 [1983]); Tithi Bhattacharya (ed), Social Reproduction Theory: Remapping Class, Recentering Oppression (London: Pluto Press, 2017); Kirstin Munro, “‘Social Reproduction Theory’, Social Reproduction, and Household Production” (2019) 83 Science & Society 451. Raymond Williams, “Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory” [1973], in Culture and Materialism (London: Verso, 2005). as relations which are formed in connection with certain views and are supported by the conscious will of the people. CLT (Holding) Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of Counterpress Limited. Bourgeois property includes in a masked form the same relationship of domination and subordination which, in feudal property, appears chiefly as personal subordination. G. M. Goshgarian (London: Verso, 2014). 15.2.2017 On approaching Marxism: a preliminary note. It originally consisted of three related ideas: a philosophical anthropology, a theory of history, and an economic and political program. Concomitantly, it seemed, the Party insisted on the reconstruction and realignment of the appropriate superstructures in conformity with the effectuation of these new social relations of production. However, its reception in the Anglosphere schematically separated them into competing “instrumentalist” and “structuralist” approaches to the capitalist state, in which the capitalist class either controlled the state through the influence of personal networks or the state’s independence was structurally guaranteed by its role in the capitalist mode of production.34David A. Hegel saw constitutional monarchy as the state form that best combined the universal lawmaking power of the legislature (elected by corporate bodies in civil society) and the particular executive power of the civil service, forming a unity represented in the figure of the individual sovereign. This consists of using formal logical conclusions in order to move from particular norms to more general concepts and back, proceeding from general positions to propose the solution of concrete legal cases or disputes. Bourgeois political and juridical theorists attempt to establish a classification of political and legal forms without scientific criteria; not from the class essence of the forms, but from more or less external characteristics. Law and Marxism: the state and the constitution COM_CONTENT_ARTICLE_INFO Ben Gliniecki 15 February 2018 Last year, constitutional crises arose in Britain, the USA, Spain, Poland, and Brazil. It is clear that the terms “right” and “law” are used here not in their direct sense, but by analogy. We need decisions of cases, not formally, but in their essence; the state of the working people, as distinct from the bourgeois state, does not hide either its class character or its goal – the construction of socialism. bourgeois, law as “law in general”. Choices in Marxist Theories of Politics” (1981) 29 Political Studies 632; Peter B. Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, and Theda Skocpol (eds), Bringing the State Back In (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985). Stuchka has therefore declared Marx’s teaching – that law is an ideological superstructure to be a tribute to the “volitional theory” of the old jurists. G. M. Goshgarian (London: Verso, 2014). Unless otherwise indicated, written content on this site is published under, Legal Form: A Forum for Marxist Analysis of Law, Some Hasty Musings on Matters Legal and Economic, No Bases, No Superstructures: Against Legal Economism, More Depth, Less Flatness: Marx’s Negative Ontology of Social Totality, CfP: Critical Legal Studies: Debating the Anti-Liberal Tradition →, Creative Commons licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). to the defence of the elimination of individual responsibility and wage egalitarianism. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube. In the name “of the general interest”, Social Democrats deprive the unemployed of their welfare payments, help in reducing wages, and encourage shooting at workers’ demonstrations. The state now came to appear as the realm where individuals’ political equality as citizens could be recognized and expressed. Academia.edu is a platform for academics to share research papers. [16] Such a concept of law minimizes the class coercion essential to bourgeois law, essential to feudal law and to all law. 9. This respected scholar consciously introduces confusion, consciously ignores the concrete historical conditions under which the working people actually can exercise administration of the state, acting as organized collectives. During this time, law took on an increasingly abstract and formal character, replacing estates as the primary way of mediating between individuals in the new “independent” realm of civil society. Is There a Marxist Theory of the State? Marxist Theory of Law and State  Leading figures of the Marxist theory = Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Vladimir Lenin. This does not mean that the ruling class has to use physical force in every case. This process, which in Marxist discourse is known as the withering away of the state and law, 20 See Friedrich Engels, ‘Anti-Dühring’, in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Collected Works: Volume 25, (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 2010), 267-268; also see Lenin, The State and Revolution (1974). In addition, aristocracy, or the power of a minority (i.e. P. Beirne & R. Sharlet), London & New York 1980, pp.273-301. What I did that was new was to prove: (1) that the existence of classes is only bound up with particular historical forms of struggle in the development of production ...; (2) that the class struggle inevitably leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat; (3) that this dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and the establishment of a classless society. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Stuchka’s article Law in Encyclopaedia of State and Law, (1925-1927), vol.3, pp.415-430. As earlier, so even now [he wrote] I consider basic law, law in general, to be civil law, understanding thereby the form of organization of social relationships in the narrow and specific sense of the word (i.e. Rodney Livingstone and Gregor Benton (London: Penguin, 1992). The state does not stand for the good of all, rather it protects and promotes the interest of the few at the cost of many. A legal relationship is a form of production relations because the active influence of the class organization of the ruling class transforms the factual relationship into a legal one, gives it a new quality, and thus includes it in the construction of the legal superstructure. Soviet law in each of the stages was naturally different from the law of capitalist states. 10. Alternative Marxist Approaches to Law. Having made this discovery, it cost Stammler nothing “to prove” that regardless of the difference between the “life and activity of nations” and “the objects of legal consideration”, we observe the unity of the legal idea and its equal appearance and intervention. However, the essential and basic – that which provides the guiding theme for the study of different legal institutions – is the difference between the position of the slave, the position of the serf and the position of the wage labourer. Proceeding from the economic basis, from different forms of exploitation, we differentiate slaveowning, feudal and capitalist systems of law. Stuchka would, in fact, have had to reach this conclusion. © 2018 CLT (Holding) Ltd. CLT (Holding) Ltd is a company limited by shares registered in England & Wales with number 11150350 and address as listed in the Register of Companies. 1 (Chicago: Haymarket, 2007); Max Adler, The Marxist Conception of the State: A Contribution to the Differentiation of the Sociological and the Juristic Method, ed. the bourgeoisie) and the privileged estates of feudalism and their monarch. Ellen Meiksins, Democracy Against Capitalism: Renewing Historical Materialism (London: Verso, 2016 [1995]). At the same time as production relations are imposed on people regardless of their will, legal relationships are impossible without the participation of the conscious will of the ruling class. 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Such, it is an “ oppositional ” critique to liberal legalism concentrate their attention on,... The Stalinist orthodoxy to the defence of the elimination of individual statutes of Stammler in the West autonomy:. 1923 ), London & New York 1980, pp.273-301 & R. Sharlet ), London New... Class over another with production relations in this definition, including a of. One, will appear concurrently on legal form content, and bourgeois economists the economic....