Formalism and Instrumentalism in the Marxist Critique of Right
With What Must Pashukanian Theory Begin
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6449032 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Carl Wilén (0000-0002-1408-2866, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 37 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 96-112 |
| Publication date | 2025-01-02 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Rethinking Marxism (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0893-5696 • E-ISSN: 1475-8059 |
| Publisher | Routledge (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/08935696.2024.2435774 |
| OpenAlex | W4408109119 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 47 |
The critique of the legal form of capitalism by E. B. Pashukanis has risen to prominence once again. However, the negative origin of the concept of the legal form, the critique of formalism and instrumentalism, has received too little attention. This essay substantiates the significance of Pashukanis’s critique, avoiding both overly general and narrow conceptions. Moreover, it proposes that his negative contribution is best understood as a critique of a spectrum between formalism and instrumentalism, containing both differences and similarities. Importantly, while acknowledging notable differences, the analysis of the inner connections between formalism and instrumentalism enables an examination of how the spectrum embodies a circular logic by which formalism unavoidably advances its negation through instrumentalism, and vice versa. The ultimate source of the circularity of the spectrum can be found in moments of circulation and production under capitalism, providing social validation of formalism and instrumentalism, respectively
Art · Economics · Epistemology · Formalism (music · Instrumentalism · Literature · Marxist philosophy · Neoclassical economics · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Sociology · Law · Marxism and Critical Theory · Philosophy · Political Economy and Marxism · Political theory and Gramsci
The Haitians
Time, Labor, and Social Domination
Between Equal Rights
Human Rights
Provincializing Europe
Communication and the Evolution of Society
Marxist Approaches to International Law
On the Nonglobalization of Ideas
Rethinking Ideology
Private Law’s Estranged Bedfellows
Labour and the Wage
The Corporation, Law and Capitalism
Revisiting Marx’s Critique of Liberalism
Knowledge and Ideology
Impersonal Power
The State Debate
The Moral Significance of Class
Expropriation and Exploitation in Racialized Capitalism
How Autonomous Is Law
Challenging the Rule of Law Universalism
Marx's ‘critique of Hegel's philosophy of right’
Three theories of separation
Democracy Against Capitalism
Subjectivation and Cohesion
Political power and social classes
On the Politics of Human Rights
Who Is the Subject of the Rights of Man
Commodity Form and Legal Form
Why Pashukanis was right
From Substance to Form
Homo Sacer
Undoing the Demos
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |