The Young Marx on Feudalism as the Democracy of Unfreedom

Dados Bibliográficos

ID8958697
AutoresDimitrios Halikias (0000-0002-2610-5578, Harvard University, autor correspondente)
Ano2023
Volume67
Fascículo2
Páginas281-304
Data de publicação2023-11-29
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoThe Historical Journal (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0018-246X • E-ISSN: 1469-5103
EditoraCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0018246x23000493
OpenAlexW4389151215
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas1
Referências citadas16

Karl Marx consistently contrasts the alienation and egoism of bourgeois, capitalist society with the holism and intimacy of medieval feudalism. In his critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of right , he cryptically terms medievalism the ‘democracy of unfreedom’, arguing that feudalism embodied an integration of political and economic life that the fragmented modern constitutional state abandons. Focusing on writings from the early 1840s, this article examines Marx’s account of feudalism to better understand his early democratic theory and its relationship to his account of human emancipation. While Marx rejects feudal nostalgia and insists on the revolutionary progress brought by capitalism and liberal constitutionalism, he nonetheless believes that medievalism models a partial unity of political and economic life that ‘true democracy’ will restore and radicalize

Alienation · Bourgeoisie · Capitalism · Constitutionalism · Democracy · Emancipation · Epistemology · Feudalism · Hegelianism · Medievalism · Political philosophy · Political science · Politics · Theology · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Law · Philosophy · Political Economy and Marxism · Political Philosophy and Ethics