Date: Sun, 9 Feb 1997 12:48:12 -0500 (EST)
From: Justin Schwartz <jschwart-AT-freenet.columbus.oh.us>
Subject: M-TH: MArxism and Libertarianism



Sometimes I think Marxists and libertarians are the only ones who take the
other seriously. The liberals and the conservatives agree that radicals
loonies are irrelevant. Cris, have you examined Cohen's engagement with
libertarianism in his new book on Self Ownership? Also, I have piece, From
Libertarianism to Egalitariansim in Social Theory and Practice, Fall 1992.

As to the state/economics debate. I guess a lot of Marxists who haven't
given much thought to theory may be unreflective reductionists. There are
enough of them on other Marxism lists. But from Marx on reflective
Marxists have taken the state very seriously as having real autonomy. I am
quite unimpressed with Althusser, but think of Ralph Miliband or E.P.
Thimpson, my own leading lights in Marxist studies. So as to avois
rehashing elementray stuff, let's agree that we can start with the idea
that the state is quite central in social theory and that no one who has
given it serious thought can suppose that it is imply an unproblematic
instrument of class control.

That doesn't mean that class isn't primary in a sense. The sense is hard
to specify, but I think that Milton Fisk has done the best job in his
great and neglected book, The State and Justice, which I cannot recommend
highly enough. As Milton explains it, social and political phenomena may
have lot of different causes and it's not necessary for materialist
explanatiuon that economic causes play any role at all in their
explanation. What the economy does is to provide a framework or background
which explains why the causal connections have the effects they do. I
myself gloss this my saying that class and econokmic factots operate as a
sort of a filter, sorting out which ideas and political institutions, etc.
have explanatory salience. It's no accident, for example, that the notion
of the Divine Right of Kings is a historical curiosity today. No class
forces exists to pick it up and make it potent.

By the way, Chris, your remarks about customary rules induced me to pick
up Van Caenegam's short book on The Birth of the English Common Law. It's
a bit technical even for a law student, but I think any intelligent reader
could catch the drift. One thing he emphasizes, apart from confirming my
recollection that the CL was a centralized system of royal justice, is
that it was much preferred by all and sundry over the decentralized local
and customary methods of dispute resolution because its its uniformity,
certaintly, consistency, and relative honesty. The old courts were never
abolished, but no one who could afford the fee for a royal writ would use
them.    

--Justin




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