Original scientific paper
Communism and State in the Works of Karl Marx
Laslo Sekelj
; Pravni fakultet, Novi Sad
Abstract
The author analyses the concept of state as a form of alienated life in the works of Karl Marx, starting from the assessment of state denoting that form of political institution which emerged within absolutist monarchy, that is, together with the first forms of commodity production. State is an illusory community for Marx, for it is an expression of the illusory common interest conceived by an abstraction from the sphere of bourgeois society: in the modern bourgeois society Marx differentiates two spheres, that of the bourgeois society (i.e. the sphere of the human empirical existence) and the sphere of state (i.e. independently developed common interest). Asserting that state is fictitious community for Marx — the philosopher — a surrogate of a community becoming autonomous as opposed to the individual — the author analyses Marx'es concept of the superseding of state (Aufhebung), and he ascertains the inherent limitations of that concept which are manifested, primarily, in the lack of any analysis of the functioning of the modem industrial society. Specifically, instead of seeking possible empirical modes of superseding such a political institution, Marx is developing — and without any consistency — an abstract model (the Commune of Paris as it could have been) of the superseding of state, which leads to the relocation of the whole problem from the level of political philosophy to the level of possible operationalizations of the idea of communism.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
155951
URI
Publication date:
30.6.1981.
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