From: Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@BERKELEY.EDU)
Date: Wed Apr 13 2005 - 16:22:09 EDT
At 2:48 PM -0400 4/13/05, Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM wrote: >See message below on London Marx-Hegel Reading Group. The >group is looking at "Hegel's Doctrine of the State in Marx." The >emphasis it seems is on examining the relation of Hegel's _Philosophy >of Right_ to Marx's _early_ writings. Why, though, haven't they taken >the next step and asked what is the relation of the structure of the >_Philosophy of Right_ to the proposed structure of the 6-book-plan, >I wonder? > There is also the question however of to what extent a critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right is already implicit in Capital in which Marx does analyze the juridical and legal form and discuss the contradictions of civil society in such a way that would not allow for a Hegelian mediation. On an analysis of what Marx does say about the legal form, see Pashukanis, Bob Fine and Alan Norrie. On Hegel's ideas about contradiction and mediation, Raymond Plant has proven a good guide, and I think the great value of Mattick's work which is a rather strict application of Marx's concepts lies in his taking up the question of whether the state through the use of Keynesian instrumentalities could mediate the contradictions of civil society and create what Hegel understood as ethical life in which considerable space was to be provided for the social sphere of action in which subjects can pursue their private interests reciprocally in accordance with the conditions of the capitalist market. This is not to say that Marx's Capital is not incomplete; but incompleteness does not mean that a lot was not finished. It's been a long time since I read Shortall's excellent book, but perhaps he underestimates what was completed. Rakesh
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