Marxist Theories of Law Past and Present: A Meditation Occasioned by the 25th Anniversary ofLaw, Labor, and Ideology

Abstract

Capitalist society seems particularly disorderly of late, a disorder contributing to the beginnings of what we hope will be a renewal of Marxist legal scholarship. This essay reviews some key developments in Marxist analysis of law from the 1970s to the present. Over all, our essay traces a back and forth between Marxists’ emphasis on theoretical inquiry on the one hand and empirical and historical work inquiry on the other. We argue that Christopher Tomlins’s 1993 book, Law, Labor, and Ideology in the Early American Republic, remains salient for thinking about ways to combine Marxist theoretic and historical work to understand the role of law in capitalist social formations and that Nancy Fraser and Rahel Jaeggi’s recent book Capitalism: A Conversation in Critical Theory offers complementary resources for a renewal in Marxist legal thought. We conclude that further development of Marxist legal thought will require a mix of both empirical and theoretical innovations, and we identify political questions that Marxists will need to address.

The sociological dimensions of multicultural education

“…Like multicultural education, critical race theory has been around since the 1970s. It emanated through critical legal studies that points to the law as an ideological, uncertain‐principled entity with fundamental social biases, especially toward groups lacking power (Holdren & Tucker, 2020; Reynolds & Mayweather, 2017; Shaffer, 2015). Theorists and educators point to Derrick Bell as the originator of critical race theory who wrote extensively and elaborately about the function of race in America and the unequal relationships between African Americans and Euro‐Americans during and after the Civil Rights Movement.…”

“…The Frankfurt School developed the concept of critical theory , which became academically popular and spread during the mid‐20 th century after theorists from the school emigrated to the United States. Critical theorists examine society's flaws to help oppressed and exploited people understand what blocks them from equal opportunity and social progression (Holdren & Tucker, 2020; Ozmon, 2012, p. 260). Critical theory, like critical race theory and multicultural education belong to the Western philosophical school of postmodernist thought.…”

Introduction

“…The "postmodern" approaches that Tomlins and others were charged with advocating back in the 1980s and early 1990s turned out to be contributions to an era of productive linguistic and cultural "turns" that transformed labor and legal history and much more besides. Tomlins's earlier works have clearly withstood the test of time, and are now routinely referenced as turning points in historiographical debates (Vinel 2013;Holdren 2020).…”

The “Background Conditions” of the Hedge Fund in General Electric’s Schenectady: Reconsidering the “History of Capitalism”

“…This raises the possibility that trying to identify, theorize, or historicize "capitalism"from the grassroots or otherwise-as the encompassing totality of an "institutionalized social order" might reify capitalism's appearance of permanence (Holdren andTucker 1163-1164). 3 Such a possibility would have disturbing implications for historians or theorists who are working in a critical tradition, but whose studies of "capitalism" or "the history of capitalism" reveal the contradictions in capitalist social relations while concealing their historical contingency.…”