Citizen Marx : Republicanism and the Formation of Karl Marx's Social and Political Thought.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Leipold, Bruno.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Marx, Karl, 1818-1883.

Marx, Karl.

Republicanism.

Communism.

Philosophy, Marxist.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (441 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Princeton : Princeton University Press, 2024.

Summary:

The first book to offer a comprehensive exploration of Marx's relationship to republicanism, arguing that it is essential to understanding his thought In Citizen Marx, Bruno Leipold argues that, contrary to certain interpretive commonplaces, Karl Marx's thinking was deeply informed by republicanism. Marx's relation to republicanism changed over the course of his life, but its complex influence on his thought cannot be reduced to wholesale adoption or rejection. Challenging common depictions of Marx that downplay or ignore his commitment to politics, democracy, and freedom, Leipold shows that Marx viewed democratic political institutions as crucial to overcoming the social unfreedom and domination of capitalism. One of Marx's principal political values, Leipold contends, was a republican conception of freedom, according to which one is unfree when subjected to arbitrary power.Placing Marx's republican communism in its historical context-but not consigning him to that context-Leipold traces Marx's shifting relationship to republicanism across three broad periods. First, Marx began his political life as a republican committed to a democratic republic in which citizens held active popular sovereignty. Second, he transitioned to communism, criticizing republicanism but incorporating the republican opposition to arbitrary power into his social critiques. He argued that although a democratic republic was not sufficient for emancipation, it was necessary for it. Third, spurred by the events of the Paris Commune of 1871, he came to view popular control in representation and public administration as essential to the realization of communism. Leipold shows how Marx positioned his republican communism to displace both antipolitical socialism and anticommunist republicanism. One of Marx's great contributions, Leipold suggests, was to place politics (and especially democratic politics) at the heart of socialism.

Contents:

Cover

Contents

List of Illustrations

Note on the Text

Preface

Introduction

Marx and Republicanism

Republicanism in Nineteenth-Century Europe

Marx in (and beyond) the Nineteenth Century

Part I. The Democratic Republic

1. A German Res Publica: Marx's Early Republican Journalism, 1842-43

Left Hegelianism and Prussian Authoritarianism in Vormärz Germany

Freedom of the Press and the Rule of Law

Republican Freedom, Arbitrary Power, and Democratic Self-Rule

Feudal, Liberal, and Radical Representation

Coda

2. True Democracy: Marx's Republican Critique of the Modern State, 1843

Kreuznach and the Study of the Modern State

(Prussian) Absolute Monarchy

(Hegel's) Constitutional Monarchy

The (Modern) Republic

A (Future) Democracy

A Republican Critique of Communism

3. Soldiers of Socialism: Marx's Transition to Communism, 1843-45

Human and Political Emancipation

Arnold Ruge's Republicanism

The Silesian Weavers' Revolt and the Critique of Politics

Alienation and Domination

Part II. The Bourgeois Republic

4. The Red Flag and the Tricolor: Republican Communism and the Bourgeois Republic, 1845-52

Antipolitics and Republican Socialism

The Antipolitics of "True Socialism

The Many Republics of 1848

The Insufficiency of the Bourgeois Republic

The Necessity of the Bourgeois Republic

5. People, Property, Proletariat: Marxian Communism and Radical Republicanism, 1848-52

The Republicanism of Karl Heinzen and William James Linton

The Political versus the Social

The People versus the Proletariat

Republican versus Communist Social Measures

Abolition of (Bourgeois) Private Property versus Universalization of (Petty Bourgeois) Private Property

Coda.

6. Chains and Invisible Threads: Liberty and Domination in Marx's Critique of Capitalism, 1867

Domination and the Workplace

Domination and the Means of Production

Domination and Exploitation

Domination and the Market

Part III. The Social Republic

7. A Communal Constitution: The Social Republic and the Political Institutions of Socialism, 1871

Republicanism and the Commune

Marx and the Commune

Real Democracy and the "Vile Multitude

Popular Delegacy and Representative Government

Popular Administration and Transformation of the State

An End to Politics?

Postface

Index.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9780691261867

0691261865

OCLC:

1455749887