The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class

Axel Honneth, a professor of social philosophy at the University of Frankfurt and Columbia University, begins this essay by noting that while 100 years ago, socialism was taken seriously by all pro...

The Idea of Socialism: Towards a Renewal

Revisiting Marx’s Critique of Liberalism: Rethinking Justice, Legality and Rights

An End to Progress

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Homeschooling, democracy, and regulation: An essay review of Homeschooling: The history and philosophy of a controversial practice

This article critically examines Axel Honneth’s account of social freedom by paying particular attention to the conceptual apparatus of normative reconstruction that is supposed to lend social free...

Market Morality, Socialism, and the Realization of Social Freedom: A Critique of Honneth’s Normative Reconstruction

As early as 1962, Jurgen Habermas was convinced that Karl Marx’s theoretical attempt to ‘turn Hegel the right side up’ had resulted in a one-sided embrace of revolution and a perilous rejection of legality and rights. Habermas would restate these remarks thirty years later in Between Facts and Norms, noting that the collapse of state socialism, with its characteristic disdain for legality and rights, culminated in the discrediting of revolutionary Marxism. This article revisits Habermas’s theoretical dichotomy between revolution and legality in view of his ambivalent relationship to ‘Marx’s spectre’ and shows its significance for Habermas’s ongoing debate with Wolfgang Streeck concerning the tension between democracy and capitalism. Using textual evidence from Marx’s neglected journalistic writings before, during, and after the 1848 revolutions, the article offers a competing perspective of Marx’s views on legality and rights at a time when their respective fates were critically at stake. A careful reconsideration of Marx’s reflections and a confrontation with his spectre offers Habermas fruitful resources for responding to Streeck’s critique and for reviving the project of ‘radical reformism’ at a time when the liberal constitutional order finds itself under attack.

Revolution or legality? Confronting the spectre of Marx in Habermas’s legal philosophy

E. P. Thompson, who argues for the historical significance of struggles for rights and laws. Shoikhedbrod, using his interpretation of Marx’s critique of liberalism, provides a more systematic account of the importance of constitutionalism and the rule of law in constraining arbitrary power, providing essential space for contestation in egalitarian struggles, and forming crucial preconditions for the communism that will achieve right and legality in a higher form. The clear strength of Shoikhedbrod’s work is his engagement with the legal and juridical aspects of these debates. He offers an important corrective to the dismissive attitude found in some schools of Marxism. Shoikhedbrod also provides persuasive arguments for the enduring importance of rights, whatever the form of the society. If there is a limitation to the book, it is that Shoikhedbrod describes as “orthodox” the interpretation that Marx ultimately dismisses right and legality. This discounts the variety of disagreements between commentators and the different schools of thought in the long-running debates about Marx and justice. For example, Marx asserts, “As far as right is concerned, we with many others have stressed the opposition of communism to right, both political and private, as also in its most general form as the rights of man.” Shoikhedbrod contends that this assertion, like other similar assertions by Marx, has often been “taken out of context.” But Shoikhedbrod does not provide enough contextual evidence to refute common-sense interpretations of this passage as Marx’s plain disavowal of rights as such. (Admittedly, there are other passages where Marx does seem to affirm some notion of rights.) This book is unlikely to persuade many of the commentators who think that Marx regards his critique of capitalism, as well as his theory of communism, as beyond appeals to justice, though Shoikhedbrod might convince some of them that Marxism needs a robust theory of rights and, indeed, that Marx provides some resources for such a theory. Shoikhedbrod offers a spirited critique of liberalism and a good case for why no theory or practice, whether communist or otherwise, can dispense with rights and legality. Although Habermas once called himself “the last Marxist,” Shoikhedbrod’s book shows that, in our age of rising global inequality, this is not the last we have heard from Marx.

Response to Paul Gray's review of Revisiting Marx's Critique of Liberalism

Brodie, Ian. 2018. At the Centre of Government: The Prime Minister and the Limits on Political Power. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Browne, G. P., ed. 2009. Documents on the Confederation of British North America. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Docherty, David. 2002. “The Canadian Senate: Chamber of Sober Reflection or Loony Cousin Best Not Talked About.” Journal of Legislative Studies 8 (3): 27–48. VandenBeukel, Jason, Christopher Cochrane and Jean-François Godbout. 2021. “Birds of a Feather? Loyalty and Partisanship in the Reformed Canadian Senate.” Canadian Journal of Political Science 54 (4): 830–49.

The Political Thought of C. B. Macpherson: Contemporary Applications Frank Cunningham, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, pp. 210

This chapter elaborates a Marxian approach to grappling with the contradictory relationship between private wealth and political domination in contemporary capitalist societies. It begins by offering a theoretical diagnosis of the normative issues generated by the relationship between private wealth (a manifestation of private power) and political domination, and concludes by briefly outlining a range of preliminary proposals for democratically transforming this relationship with the ultimate goal of abolishing capital as a social relation. The chapter also demonstrates the advantages of the Marxian approach to these issues as compared to liberal egalitarian and neo-republican accounts that remain dominant in contemporary normative political theory. 

Igor Shoikhedbrod

Papers

Market Morality, Socialism, and the Realization of Social Freedom: A Critique of Honneth’s Normative Reconstruction

Revolution or legality? Confronting the spectre of Marx in Habermas’s legal philosophy

Response to Paul Gray's review of Revisiting Marx's Critique of Liberalism

The Political Thought of C. B. Macpherson: Contemporary Applications Frank Cunningham, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, pp. 210

Private Wealth and Political Domination