Marx e o movimento do direito nos textos econômicos (1857–1879)

Abstract

This dissertation intends to investigate law in Marx’s late economic texts, from 1857 onwards. Our object could only thus be the objectification of capitalism in its classical path, which includes England and France. If Marx was to unveil the modern society’s internal legality of motion, nothingmorenaturalthantodiscoveritsimmanenttendenciesinitsgreatestconcretedevelopment. Asithadtobe,thisimpliestheinvestigationoftheclassicalpathtotheobjectificationofcapitalism. Consequently, the most substantial Marxian analyzes in his economic texts, our object, point to the extraction of the objective motion of law in the classical path, in the reciprocity of the whole. From this investigation we conclude that there are in Marx two stages in law, each with two main features. At first, in the wake of capitalism in the classic path, we have the abolition of the remnants of feudal law, which hindered the nascent accumulation, and the institution of a law harmonic to capitalism, which actualizes its objective presuppositions. This is the legislation to compulsion to work, which extends work as compulsorily as later legislation shortens it. The two traits of the first moment, therefore, are the end of feudal law and the institution of a law of primitive accumulation, which rearticulates Roman law on the basis of nascent modern production. Both are the defining moments of the creation of an appropriate working class to capital. Later, with the maturing of the capitalist mode of production, the operation of its immanent laws leads, in turn, to two traits. On the one hand, the self-protection of the working class over the unbridled impulse of capital and its growing agitation lead to the institution of a normal working day, which is, at the same time, a rational bridle to the blind unrestraint of capital and expression of the maintenance of an objective assumption of accumulation, which is an adequate working class. On the other hand, we have the generalization of these conditions of competition, which normalizes the conditions of extraction of the relative surplus value and takes capitalism to a higher level, where a remarkable development of the productive forces happens. We then debate with the Brazilian marxist critique of law that claims direct lineage to Marx, even though it puts aside the study of the material determinations of law. Considering the rigor that is required in determining law in our object, it is vital to determine what is law in Marx. A secondary problem, however, is to determine what it is not, or why the materiality of law, as exposed, is not grasped by the Marxist literature that deals with the subject. And what there is not is a general theory of law. It follows from this what is, in our view, the theoretical exhaustion of the currents we oppose. Disinclined to capture the materiality of law, both in classic and in other paths, they did not seriously address the issue.