On The Criticalness Of Marx's Legal Thought

Marx's legal thought has its distinctive criticalness.When Marx's legal thought is compared with other traditions and many legal thoughts in modern sense,its criticalness appears more obvious.As one of the most important external features,criticalness may be accredited as a key perspective for deeply understanding Marx's legal thought.As a kind of critique from the perspective of academic tradition rather than politics,the academic tradition of critique has a long history.The criticalness of Marx's legal thought is intrinsically related to the academic tradition of critique,and therefore the criticalness of Marx's legal thought should be perceived in the context of the academic tradition of critique.To study the criticalness of some kind of thought is to explore the reasons and basis for the thought's negation of some things,opinions and theories by analyzing the objects who are not satisfied with this kind of thought as well as the degree of such dissatisfaction,further find out the intrinsic factors that determine its criticalness,and explores the space for their further continuation and expansion and the time value of the said thoughtThe development of Marx's legal thought has undergone three major stages.In the first stage,as far as the text is concerned,most of Marx's writings are on legal phenomena and law issues.In the second stage,Marx's writings on legal phenomena and law issues are comparatively dispersed.In the third stage,Marx's writings on legal phenomena and law issues are scattered in general,but there are still more focused discussions in term of theory.The study on the criticalness of Marx's legal thought is never an integrated study of Marx's legal thought in full sense.Therefore,as far as the research on the criticalness of Marx's legal thought is concerned,the important texts under the study are composed of two parts.The first part includes the texts that Marx discussed about legal and law issues at theoretical level,such as Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law and Marx's Excerpts from Maine.The second part encompasses the texts processing a very important status during the development of Marx's thought and theory and mostly about some laws and legal issues,such as Onthe Issue of the Jews,The Poverty of Philosophy,The Communist Manifesto,the first volume of Capital and Critique of the Gotha Programme.In his book Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law,Marx made a thorough critique of Hegel' part philosophy,in which Marx distinguished vulgar criticism from real criticism.Marx completely denies some concrete viewpoints of Hegel as well as Hegel's way of observation starting from spirit and spiritual activity and taking the thoughts formed in the field of abstract logic to cultivate objects.With the deepening of critique,Marx gradually discovered more profound critical basis.However,because the manuscript of Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law was not completed,Marx could not fully launch the corresponding critique at the deepest level.Marx's critique of some contents and related legal phenomena in Hegel's philosophy of right was inseparable from his adopted method and standpoint for research.The criticalness of the critique Marx made in On the Issue of the Jews was quite thorough.His dissatisfaction with the political transcendence realized in the form of law and the concept of human rights based on self-interest was obvious and quite strong.Marx's critique of some legal phenomena and legal thoughts,as well as Marx's legal thought,went deep into the human and private interests,as well as the human nature and class life,Marx realized the factors such as money and private property behind many problems,but he did not make further elaborations.In The Poverty of Philosophy,the criticalness of Marx's legal thought was completely thorough,which was of strong criticalness.Marx completely rejected the views,such as “the currency exchange capacity empowered by monarch and law”,“wipe out bourgeois by collecting taxes and levies”,and “worker strike is illegal”.Marx also completely denied Proudhon's shabby employment of “dialectics.More importantly,Marx revealed the nature and real roles of law itself and the relationship between law and social development in reality thoroughly,especially the relationship between law and the inevitable trend emerging during the progress of real society.Marx's critique made in The Communist Manifesto is very thorough.Embarking from the real history of the development of human society and based on thorough historical materialism,Marx pointed out the one-sidedness of the “law” concept upholding by bourgeois.That was to regard special will as universal law and special interests as universal interests.He also pointed out the temporary nature of bourgeoisownership.His critique was based on thorough historical materialism.In the first volume of “Capital”,Marx criticized some labor laws and factory legislations in the UK from the fourteen to nineteen century,and criticized some laws and legal practice in the process of capital accumulation as well,which was of extremely strong criticalness.The extreme thoroughness of his critique stems from the concrete application of thorough historical materialism.Both Marx's critique of the views such as “equal rights” and “free country” in Critique of the Gotha Programme and his critique of some of the legal requirements proposed by German Workers Party were very thorough,which were of strong criticalness.The critique made in Marx's Excerpts from Maine was of strong criticalness and variety.Considering the book is mainly composed of Marx's excerpts and annotation,such note-featured style implies that Marx did not make full expansion of all the issues involved therein.Therefore,some critique made by Marx in Marx's Excerpts from Maine is not the most thorough one.In Marx's Excerpts from Maine,Marx skillfully applied the mature method of critical research he had mastered,and the means of thorough historical materialism,exposed the intrinsic inevitability of some social realities,and thus revealed the distortion of reality by some views and theories.The appearance of the criticalness of Marx's legal thought experienced the change from being comparatively strong to very strong and then from being extremely strong to very strong.Whereas,the trend of such change was not absolute.In the different stages of the development of Marx's legal thought,the intrinsic factors that influenced and decided the appearance of the criticalness of Marx's thought differ as well.In general,the intrinsic factors that influenced and decided the appearance of the criticalness of Marx's thought experienced such a changing process as from being featured by critical research method and the stance of realism to be characterized by understanding the logic of real society itself and its inherent inevitability and supplemented by critical research methods and stance of realism.At the beginning,the criticalness of Marx's legal thought was mainly based on the way of thinking.Afterwards,with the deepening of Marx's understanding of the real society and its inherent inevitability,the criticalness based on social reality and its inevitable trend appeared and occupied dominancy gradually.Ultimately,the criticalness based on social reality and its inevitable trend accompanied by thecriticalness based on mode of thinking formed the resonance and coordination of criticalness.Whereas,while the resonance of the two kinds of criticalness was growing strong,it came to an abrupt end by the passing away of Marx.Finally,Marx's understanding into the legal phenomenon,and the logic of social reality and its inevitability related to the relationship between laws was not completely finished before his death.The criticalness of Marx's legal thought was formed in the comprehensive transformation of human society.In case there was not such comprehensive transformation,Marx would not have made strong critique of some legal phenomena,viewpoints and theories.Marx not only provided a thorough and critical method for research on some legal phenomena,land issues,but also made a demonstration of such method.In addition,Marx indicated the direction for further research,that was to study the concrete changes of realistic social phenomenon of reality rather than the abstraction of these phenomena in thinking,and the intrinsic inevitability behind these changes such as contradictions,conflicts and inevitable tendency as well.Based on the key perspective of criticalness,straightening out various criticism in some important texts by Marx and studying the appearance,inherent factors and reasons of the criticalness of Marx's legal thought will make the understanding into the contents that the distinctive contrast criticalness is to express more concrete and deep so that more concrete perceptions into Marx's legal thought can be obtained.In the meantime,the analysis of Marx's dissatisfaction with some legal phenomena,viewpoints and theories,the thorough critical research method adopted by Marx,and the concrete study of social reality and its intrinsic inevitability which was the research direction Marx indicated enables the forming of some understanding with“Mark of Marx” into the development of law theories and the formation of legal order.These understandings may still provide some time value in the whole transformation of human society.Many of Marx's legal thoughts in the texts are not the “Marx's legal Thought”which Marx obtained from the research direction according to his critical research method and plan.As far as Marx was concerned,“Law” and “legal rules” are two different concepts with different emphases.Marx's legal thought is so obviously different from the thought of analytical judicial positivism that Marx thought that some jurisprudence applied for analyzing positivism was some kind of “friction”.AndMarx himself rejected metaphysics.Being completely realistic,Marx's theoretical position emphasizes starting from the things themselves existing in reality and the real connection between things to obtain more concrete,comprehensive and profound understanding of the logic of the things themselves and the intrinsic inevitability in between.It is the “inevitability” emphasized by Marx that can truly address the issue of opposition between “reality” and “obligation” and contribute to the development of law philosophy and law science.As far as legal regulations are concerned,legal phenomena reflect the contradictions of social reality as well as the intrinsic inevitability of such paradoxical movement through historical changes.Marx revealed the true sources of legal order,the legal order in the sense of text sense.That is to develop our relevant ideas and expectations for specific social order into the concept of “law” for legal regulations in accordance with the requirements for specific social order expressed and formed in legal texts,as well as those produced from specific groups in society,and the real life and production practice of the said groups.While the sources of legal order in reality are the corresponding social environment and social conditions which endow reality to the legal order in the sense of text,especially the life style and mode of production in a specific society.What Marx pursues is always an "inevitability." Between the inevitability of the economy and the inevitability of the law,he left an outline of the "relationship of law" and related important notes.It is an important issue for later scholars to explore these problems according to the methods and directions provided by Marx.