Marx

MARX

historical materialism refers to the study of society from a viewpoint that conceives of history as the outcome of opposing forces. Marx thus broke with a more conventional linear notion of history as involving a steady progress on the basis of a cultural, economic, or otherwise social variable, in favor of a more conflictual notion of history in terms of societal forces that invoke one another precisely because they are in opposition.

Thus, the political, cultural, and socio-historical conditions of a society are explained as the outcome (synthesis) of opposing forces (thesis and antithesis) that are of an economic nature.

on the basis of a dialectical analysis, all things existing should be criticized in order to contribute to laying bare the injustices that exist in society and work towards the betterment of society. Philosophy should have a practical intent and be guided by explicitly political motives.

Marx applied the perspective of historical materialism to investi- gate and critique the society of his days, that is, nineteenth-century industrial societies that were undergoing rapid transformations under influence of the expansion of capitalism.

Marx argued that the essence of modern society lay in its economic transformation from feudalism to capitalism. Whereas feudal societies were predominantly agri- cultural and centered around the power of landowners over serfs, capitalism developed from a gradual concentration of the means of production in technologically advanced factories.

The owners of these means were relatively few in number but extremely powerful in being able to control the labor of a relatively large number of workers and determine their wages.

The owning class, Marx argued, can thus create enormous amounts of wealth, which do not have to be shared with the large class of workers who are powerless and alienated.

Worker alienation under capitalism takes on at least four forms: (1) alienation from the product of one’s labor because the product does not belong to the worker; (2) alienation from labor itself because labor, under conditions of a division of labor, constitutes but a fragment of the production process; (3) alienation from social relations because they are valued only in terms of market conditions; and (4) alienation from oneself because one’s entire existence is dominated by the demands of capitalism.

Marx’s theory is not to be understood merely as a theory of the economy, for his analysis of capitalism is meant to provide the basis for an analysis of society.

The economic organization of society is its material core from which all other social developments in matters of politics, culture, and law can be explained. This is summarized in Marx’s famous dictum that the

infrastructure of a society determines it superstructure. Thus, the division between the economic classes of owners and non-

owners appears at the societal level as a class antagonism between the relatively small but powerful bourgeoisie and the relatively large but powerless proletariat.

The bourgeoisie can articulate its economic power also at the political, cultural, and legal level because of its control over all important institutions of society, such as government, the legal system, art, science, and education.

The economic interests of the bourgeoisie, therefore, also become arti- culated at the societal level as the dominant interests that count for society as a whole.

because the basic conflicts of a society are always economic, according to Marx, only the destruction of capitalism in favor of a communist mode of production, whereby the workers collectively own and control the means of production, would ensure a successful revolution of society into a more just social order.

Marx did not develop a comprehensive perspective on law and his ideas on law are scattered throughout his writings, especially in some of his earlier works. Marx’s theory of the state provides the most useful entry into his perspective on law.

Congruent with his materialist perspective, Marx asserts that the economic conditions of society determine what type of state will develop, which in a capitalist society implies that the state will be controlled by the bourgeoisie as an instrument to secure economic rights and to moderate class conflict. Thus, the capitalist state represents and secures the power of the domi- nant economic class which now also becomes the politically dominant class.

Marx argues that the democratic republic, rather than being a more egalitarian form of government relative to centralized autocratic regimes, is the most advanced form of the capitalist state, for it totally disregards the property distinctions that have arisen under capitalism.

Similar to Marx’s notion of the state, his perspective on law is instrumentalist and views the legal system in function of its role as an instrument of control serving bourgeois interests. Rather than abiding by a principle of the rule of law that holds that it is just for the law to be applied equally and fairly to all, Marx maintains that capitalist law actually enhances the conditions of inequality that mark capitalist society.

Specifically, Marx contends that the capitalist legal system contributes to, as well as legitimates, the inequalities that exist as a result of capitalist economic conditions. In the practice of law, it is revealed that the legal system contributes to inequality because capitalist law establishes and applies individualized rights of freedom, which benefit those who own while disfavoring those who are without property.

The formal equality that is granted in law by treating the various parties

that are in contract with one another or with the state as equal contributes to sustain and develop the economic inequalities that exist among legal subjects.

Legal doctrine, moreover, justifies the practices of capitalist law on the basis of a notion of justice claimed to be universally valid but which in actuality serves the interests of only the dominant economic class.

As such, the law takes on the form of a bourgeois ideology. In its ultimate triumph, moreover, the ideology of capitalist law becomes widely accepted, even among those members of society who are economically disadvantaged and thus additionally subject to the inequalities brought about by the legal system.