posted on 2023-06-07, 21:25authored byAndrew Chitty
This essay investigates the idea of the "essence" or "basis" of the state, which actual states express and realise to a greater or lesser extent, in Karl Marx's 1842 writings. It concludes that Marx begins by seeing this essence as freedom, following G.W.F. Hegel, but increasingly comes to describe it instead in terms of "life" and "life-forces" . It is argued that this shift represents an initial step towards the historical materialism of The German Ideology, in which humans' productive forces (associated with their "life-process") are expressed and realised in their social relations of production, paralleling the relationship between freedom (or life) and the state in 1842.
History
Publication status
Published
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Page range
220-241
Pages
360.0
Book title
The New Hegelians: Politics and Philosophy in the Hegelian School
ISBN
9780521854979
Department affiliated with
Philosophy Publications
Notes
Available from: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/sefd0/papers/basisofstate.doc