Alexandros Chrysis - Böcker

This collection of specially commissioned essays provides the first incisive collaborative intervention to ongoing debates about law and politics under capitalism from an explicitly socialist constitutionalist perspective.Heterodox literature on constitutional studies, to a large extent and with a few notable exceptions, share a rejection of Marxist analytical principles. Moving beyond the formalism and instrumentalism, this volume will engage with the question: what differentiates a Marxist conception of socialist constitutionalism and the role of institutional forms in building socialism, from republican and post-Marxist conceptions? Drawing inspiration from socialist thinkers and historical attempts to build socialism, the contributors explain the relevance of socialist conceptions of democracy and rights for contemporary struggles for social emancipation. They combine historical and theoretical analyses to review socialist constitutional theory and practice, while thinking about the future of democracy and rights in a communist polity. The contributions deal with a variety of topical issues including the relationship between state, law and society; the relationship between constitutional law and revolutionary social change; right as legal superstructure and right as a form of social consciousness; the ethical grounds of communism; socialist conceptions of right; principles for a socialist constitutionalism.Consolidating Marxist approaches to public law and constitutional theory, Socialist Constitutionalism and the Communist Polity offers both a rigorous contribution to the elaboration of Marxist theory and a re-examination of foundational constitutional concepts, questions, and debates that will help to orient non-specialist readers.

Following Marx’s own itinerary from Paris to London, from politics to the critique of political economy, The Marx of Communism delves into a creatively unfolding international debate on the democracy-communism relation, while supporting a 21st century communism as a social alternative to capitalism.

Following Marx’s own itinerary from Paris to London, from politics to the critique of political economy, The Marx of Communism delves into a creatively unfolding international debate on the democracy-communism relation, while supporting a 21st century communism as a social alternative to capitalism. Taking into consideration Marx’s analysis of communism both as a movement and a social formation, this study focuses on the dialectics of transition from capitalism to communism. Dealing with communism as the outcome of a long-term cultural and political process, the author defends Marxian communism as the open-ended constitution of a self-governed demos, whose citizens create their own way of life on the ground of a stateless and classless society. From this point of view, the end of the state does not mean the end, but the revival of politics in terms of a communist bios. Reshaping their collective and personal values and setting limits to the production/technology dynamics of their economy, this book argues, the citizens of a communist polis form a promising antithesis to the private individuals of a capitalist society.

This book constitutes a critical intervention in the theoretical discussion over the political relationship between democracy and communism. Shedding light on the philosophical origins of the democracy debate, it draws a clear demarcation line between liberalism and republicanism, arguing that after rejecting the former and supporting the latter, the young Marx endorsed 'true democracy' as a prelude to his forthcoming theory of communism. To this end, while following the dynamics of the Marxian history of political ideas and pre-communist theory of the state, the book takes into account the thought of a vast range of philosophers and political theorists, starting from the Ancient times (Aristotle), passing through the Age of Enlightenment (Spinoza, Rousseau), the German Idealist tradition (Hegel) the Young Hegelians’ Republicanism (Bauer, Ruge, Feuerbach), and reaching our own times (Arendt, Colletti, MacPherson, Castoriadis, Poulantzas). It will be of interest to students and scholars interested in the history of political thought, theories of democracy, and Marxism.