The rule of law vs the archaization of law (on the specificity of legal form of the dependent peripheral capitalism)

Abstract

The subject of this research is the phenomenon of archaization of legal form, which is reflected multiple modern legal systems, including the legal system of modern Russia. The author believes that the state of current Russian legal order testifies to the downfall of one of the declared goals of Russia’s policy of the last three decades – establishment of the so-called rule of law; while the general academic theory of law has not yet formulated a precise understanding of the corresponding processes, as fearing to go beyond the scope of certain ideological boundaries, it first and foremost deals with the formally due than with actually essential. Archaization in the legal systems of modern countries is the revival of the forms of law, legal practice and legal consciousness that are inherent to the pre-capitalist societies. The thesis is substantiated that the process of archaization of law and legal form as a whole, should be considered as one of the objectively determined development patterns and functionality of the societies of dependent peripheral capitalism. The article reviews the objective prerequisites for this phenomenon: its conditionality by socioeconomic relations (preservation of the elements of other production methods in terms of peripheral capitalism), inequality in distribution of the key social resources, and specific social-class structure of the corresponding societies. The general definition of archaization of legal form acquires more precise contours when the author turns to the realities of modern Russian legal order.