This chapter reassesses Marxism’s relationship to law by considering the extent to which law can serve as a vehicle for progressive change in the era of neoliberalism. The chapter opens by exploring the importance that EP Thompson attached to struggles over law and rights, comparing his work with Marx’s reflections on the struggle for a legally limited working day. It explains why Marx and Engels valued legal struggles, even as they welcomed the revolutionary supersession of capitalism. The chapter then considers a specific case: legal efforts to expand the negatively circumscribed right to personal security to include a positive right to housing in Canada. While transformative change is sought through political mobilisation and contestation, law offers a medium through which oppressed classes can resist encroachments by states and multinational corporations while advancing a democratic-socialist alternative to financialised capitalism in keeping with the Marxist quest for human emancipation.
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your Elgar Online account
-
Front Matter
-
Part I: MARX AND THE MARXIST TRADITION
-
Part II: CONTEMPORARY MARXIST ANALYSIS OF LAW, RIGHTS, AND THE STATE
-
Part III: FUTURE ORIENTATIONS OF MARXIST LEGAL ANALYSIS
