Just how does X is "relatively autonomous" from Y have anything to do with Y
being "relatively autonomous" from X assuming we have some sort of inkling
what "relatively autonomous" is supposed to mean. I understood it to mean
that laws (X) were relatively independent of capitalism (Y) in at least two
senses: i) specific laws may not directly relate to the interests of capital
per se. For example laws concerning which side of the road to drive on, or
what age a person can get married, or drive a car, etc.etc. Also, specific
laws such as the right of non-property holders to vote or minimum wage laws
may even be against the interests of capital.
ii) laws are interpreted according to legal reasoning with no direct
reference to the needs of capital.
Neither of these senses of "relatively autonomous" has anything to do
with whether law determines the nature of the market and property
relationships.Does David or anyone else deny that property rights and
markets are dependent on the law for their operation for the most part. The
only exception seems to be informal trading and black and grey markets but
even the latter two are so named because of the existence of legal markets.
Surely the main Marxian thesis is that law is only relatively autonomous,
relations of production and the consequent overwhelming power of capital
ensure that the type of market relations that are legal and enforced and the
type of property relationships that are recognised will primarily be those
in the interest of capital overall. David asks how can capitalism be
autonomous from the law? By determining the law, and specificiallly
determing it in such a way that overall the market and property is defined
in the interest of capital. This does not entail as has been shown that the
law for its part cannot be relatively autonomous. When this autonomy
seriously conflicts with capitalist aims there will be a struggle to change
the law. Surely this has happened as the welfare state laws have been eroded
or even jettisoned in the age of globalisation. Many of these changes have
zilch to do with free markets, by the way, but everything to do with
profit. Agreements re patent protection are a good example.
Cheers, Ken Hanly
----- Original Message -----
From: Justin Schwartz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2001 11:32 PM
Subject: [PEN-L:11423] Re: RE: Re: Re: Marxian theory of the state
>
> I agree with your general point, David, but you can overdo it. Underlying
> the general thrust of the law are power relations that are if not wholly
> independent of the law, at least explanatorily prior to it. I am now
reading
> Peter Linebaugh's The Many Headed Hydra, which discusses, among other
> things, the sort of struggle between the traditional and popular assertion
> of the right of the poor to the commons and the claims of the rising
> capitalist class to private property, expressed in enclosure laws (among
> other things) that privatized those commons. Those enclosure laws sprang
> from the political power of an economically emergent class that used the
> power of the state, including its power to reefine property relations, to
> remake what counted as property. In the New World, the expropriation of
> common Indian land as [private European property was much more naked and
> independent of prior law, at least of Indian "law" or custom, as could be.
> --jks
>
> >
> >Jim Devine writes:
> >
> >------------------------------
> >right, the law is "relatively autonomous" from capitalism, i.e., what
> >serves the long-term (class) interests of capital. A law which serves
> >capital in one era can hurt capital in another.
> >
> >------------------------------
> >
> >I need clarification. The argument is repeatedly made on this list that
> >there is no such thing as a "free market" and "private property" because
> >the
> >market and property is defined by the laws that regulate the market and
> >property. If so, how can capitalism be autonomous from the law? Is not
> >capitalism, by definition, defined by the law that creates and regulates
> >markets and property in any specific context? I mean, if there is no law
> >defining property, how can there be "capitalism?" Does this make any
> >sense?
> >
> >David Shemano
> >
>
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