KARL MARX : THEORY OF LAW

AND STATE

-Kshitij Kayth
-Group no. 11
-17181
 KARL MARX

• Karl Marx, in full Karl Heinrich Marx, (born May 5, 1818, Trier, Rhine province, Prussia
[Germany]—died March 14, 1883, London, England), revolutionary, sociologist,
historian, and economist.
• He published (with Friedrich Engels) Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei (1848),
commonly known as The Communist Manifesto, the most celebrated pamphlet in the
history of the socialist movement. He also was the author of the movement’s most
important book, Das Kapital. These writings and others by Marx and Engels form the
basis of the body of thought and belief known as Marxism
 STATE AND CLASS STRUGGLE

• Division of labour and split of classes

• Capitalism and classless society
• Historical materialism :
Primitive communism Slave society Feudal society Capitalist society Socialist society Classless society
 KARL MARX THEORY OF LAW

In Marx’s own writing and subsequent Marxist approaches to law are :-

• Law is inescapably political, or law is one form of politics.
• Law and state are closely connected; law exhibits a relative autonomy from the state.
• Law gives effect to, mirrors or is otherwise expressive of the prevailing economic
relaltions.
• Law is always potentially coercive and manifests the state's monopoly of the means of
coercion.
• The content and procedures of law manifest, directly or indirectly, the interests of the
dominant class(es).
• Law is ideological; it both exemplifies and provides legitimation to the embedded values
of the dominant class(es).
 MARXIST CONCEPT OF STATE AND LAW

• According to Engels, in the beginning there existed a classless society; independence of

means of production, no legal rules .
• Later, primitive society became socially divided through the division of labour and split
into classes. Capitalist possessed the means of production, started exploiting the working
class, it was the domination of proletariat by capitalist class. It was at this movement in
time that law and State were born.
• Law is a rule of human conduct which differs from other rules of conduct because it
involves coercion, that is the intervention of the state. The State is a social authority
which, either by the threat or the use of force, assures that this rule is respected. There is
no law without a state, and there is no state without law; state and law are two different
words designating the samething.
• Not every human society has a state organization and law. The state and the law are the
results of a specific economic structure of society. They are only to be found in a certain
form of society at a particular stage of its evolution
 MARXIST CONCEPT OF STATE AND LAW
CONT.

• Law and the State only appear when society is divided into social classes, one
of which economically exploits the other or others. In such a situation, the
ruling class has recourse to law and the state in order to strengthen and
perpetuate its domination.
• The law is the instrument which, in the class struggle, safeguards the interests
of the ruling class and maintains social inequality for its own profit.
• The state is the organization of the exploiting class for the purpose of
safeguarding its own class interests.
THANK YOU