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15 - State

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 May 2020

Marcello Musto
Affiliation:
York University, Toronto
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Summary

An often-remarked absence in Karl Marx’s legacy is the failure to write a comprehensive critique of the state as a medium of class domination. A book on the state was part of his six-book plan for Capital, which guided his work between 1857 and 1863. According to this plan, a text on the state would have followed books on capital, wage labour, and landed property. This corresponds to the method of political economy, namely, a movement ‘from the simple [concepts], such as labour, division of labour, need, exchange-value … to the State, international exchange, and world market’. The state is a concrete-complex relational ensemble that can be comprehended theoretically only through prior, more abstract-simple conceptual analysis. Marx’s efforts to explore the topics of the first three books (albeit with a different organization) meant that he focused more on the economic than political dynamic of accumulation in his unfinished critique of political economy. Moreover, given the virtual absence of the proposed book on labour, he focused more on capital, neglecting the working class as an active economic, let alone, political subject.

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Chapter
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The Marx Revival
Key Concepts and New Critical Interpretations
, pp. 266 - 284
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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  • State
  • Edited by Marcello Musto, York University, Toronto
  • Book: The Marx Revival
  • Online publication: 29 May 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316338902.016
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  • State
  • Edited by Marcello Musto, York University, Toronto
  • Book: The Marx Revival
  • Online publication: 29 May 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316338902.016
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • State
  • Edited by Marcello Musto, York University, Toronto
  • Book: The Marx Revival
  • Online publication: 29 May 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316338902.016
Available formats
×