Open AccessPerson, Property and Contract: A critical dialogue with Hegel from Marx
Author(s) -
Christian Iber,
Agemir Bavaresco
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
revista de humanidades de valparaíso
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.102
H-Index - 2
eISSN - 0719-4242
pISSN - 0719-4234
DOI - 10.22370/rhv2021iss18pp9-26
Subject(s) - hegelianism , private property , property (philosophy) , marxist philosophy , law and economics , property rights , autonomy , law , political philosophy , capital (architecture) , sociology , capitalism , appropriation , philosophy of law , epistemology , philosophy , political science , comparative law , politics , archaeology , history
Hegel’s Philosophy of Law deals in the Abstract Law section of the categories: person, property and contract. Research critically reconstructs this theory from a Marxist perspective. In the concept of person, first of all, the singular will is reduced to a solipsist will unrelated to intersubjectivity. Then, the concept of Hegelian property bases the private appropriation of property as the externalization of the singular will. This legal property guarantees the maintenance and reproduction of private property, that is, it will guarantee the private accumulation of capital, Marx will say. Anyway, the theory of the contract would link the autonomy of the contracting wills, however, it is a mere appearance, because, in fact, the owners’ wills are under the domination of the capitalist market, as it is explained in Marx’s Capital. The theoretical deficit of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law in general is that the legal concepts of person and property correspond to the abstract will. Hegel describes the juridical description of the legal system of the modern state as the development of free will that legitimizes the asymmetry of civil society in its socioeconomic inequalities.