Re-Marx on Repression and the Rule of Law: [Commentary

Abstract

For all Martin Krygier's1 dislike of Marxism, his authorial voice is strikingly like that of Karl Marx. Like Marx, he is capable of very clever, very well-intentioned, highly questionable polemics; like Marx, he often slips, rhetorically, from complex argumentation to argumentative caricature; like Marx, he displays a visceral, ill-disguised distaste for that of which he writes; like Marx, he sometimes confuses political and ideological rationalization for analytic ratiocination; like Marx, he obviously knows how to start an argument-and relishes the prospect. I respond to and the Rule of Law not purely for the sake of argument, however. Nor do I feel any particular urge, as do some intellectual historians and hagiographers, to engage in debate over what Marx really said or meant. Such things are both unrecoverable and, in any case, irrelevant. My own investment in this exchange is critical. It is founded on the belief that Marxism is not merely useful but essential to think with; that it remains a highly effective theoretical position from which to interrogate our taken-for-granted assumptions about economy and society, politics and law. It is not the only critical tradition, of course. But it is perhaps the most thoroughgoing, probably the most unyielding, certainly the most uncomfortable. And, in positive terms, it continues to produce valuable insight. I hasten to add that this presupposes a view of Marxism as a constructive discourse-an argument of images, concepts, and practices, to extend the nice phrase of James Fernandez2-and not as