Marxism Laws

All of this raises a few questions. Why did constitutional laws come into being in the first place? Did Solon of Athens and Oliver Cromwell, the leader of the English Revolution, have very similar ideas about constitutions, even though they were two thousand years apart? And why has the ruling class allowed the state to formally and legally detach itself from those in whose interests it acts through checks and balances, instead of continuing to take the form of outright oppression of one class by another? Marx`s early writings on the state were formulated as a critique of Hegel`s political and social philosophy. Hegel understood the modern state as the embodiment of rationality and universality as they have developed throughout human history. As such, it was the means by which the social fragmentation caused by narrow notions of individual liberty (property rights, trade), facilitated by the emergence of bourgeois society in England, and the radical political egalitarianism of the French Revolution could be reconciled. By virtue of their membership in the political state, individuals were able to overcome their personal, family and commercial interests and thus gain the self-confidence of their own freedom in the objective laws of the state. Hegel saw constitutional monarchy as the form of government that best combined the universal legislative power of the legislature (elected by the corporative organs of civil society) and the special executive power of the civil service, forming a unity represented in the figure of the individual sovereign. In particular, the public service, composed of qualified professionals and open to entry from all strata of society, had the task of safeguarding the “universal interest of the State”.2G. W. F. Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right, ed. Allen W. Wood, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991 [1820], p.

329. Individuals asserting their constitutional rights against the state through the courts are a feature of a system in which the state is separate and distinct from society as a whole – dictating to society rather than being an integral part of it. A socialist state, on the other hand, would be an administration in which the vast majority of people participate in daily life directly through their local workers` councils in their workplaces and neighborhoods. The constitutional rules governing these state structures would not be abstract laws applied from above, but living directives shaped and used by the mass of people to help them perform the administrative functions of the state. Therefore, the power that guarantees security to capitalists who participate in the exchange of commodities must be a public power, independent of a particular capitalist, but nevertheless at the service of the capitalist class in general. This is the role of the bourgeois state and its function is to defend the system of commodity exchange. A set of rules is needed to guarantee the independence of this state from a single capitalist or group of capitalists and to guarantee its loyalty to the capitalist system as a whole – these rules are constitutional laws. For Marxists, there is nothing mysterious about the state: it is a weapon of the ruling class that can be used in the class struggle. Constitutional laws seem to regulate and limit the power of the state – does this mean they should be supported by Marxists? That would be a misunderstanding. Constitutional laws are a conquest of bourgeois revolutions against the old feudal order, and they spring directly in their content and form from a system based on commodity production. We have no illusions that constitutional guarantees can help the working class win its struggle against the bourgeoisie. It also means that the state, which is completely different under socialism, constitutional law and law in general would also be very different.

Last year, there were constitutional crises in the United Kingdom, the United States, Spain, Poland and Brazil. Such crises pose major problems for the ruling class because the state and the constitutional laws surrounding it are deliberately mystified. Parliamentary democracy and the rule of law are treated as immutable ideas woven into the fabric of the universe. Thus, when crises develop over the structure of the bourgeois state itself, there is a danger that its aura of mystery and power will be dispelled. 208 Rockwell Hall, State University College, 1300 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14122, United States In 1918, the first constitution of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic was adopted. It later became the model for the constitution of the Soviet Union. It was a document that openly described the class base of the state without resorting to impenetrable legal language or garish legalistic decoration. He explained that power in the country rested with the workers and peasants of Russia, expressed through the soviets (workers` councils), and that the old ruling classes and those who supported the White armies in the Russian Civil War were denied access to political power. Marx emphasizes this point in his book The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.