Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 06:54:03 GMT
From: Chris Burford <cburford-AT-gn.apc.org>
Subject: M-I: Civil society


I understand "civil society" to be used in a warm sense
to emphasise the range of democratic possibilities 
open especially to non-dogmatic marxists. 

I fear that is too bland and one sided a presentation.

Marx's pregnant work "On the Jewish Question" 1843
definitely presents civil ("buergerlich") society as 
a negative phenomenon.

Since reading this some time back, (thanks to Jerry 
drawing attention to it) I have become increasingly 
convinced that unless marxists face up to the 
contradiction deep within the concept and indeed the
phenomena of civil/bourgeois society, we will remain
politically irrelevant.

I have tried to explain IMO the relevance of this 
contradiction in the course of the current debate 
about cross posting.



Chris Burford

 


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