Marx’s Radical Critique of Liberalism and the Supersession of Bourgeois Rights

Abstract

This chapter builds on the theoretical reconstruction elaborated in Chapter 2 to re-examine Marx’s critique of liberalism and the fate of rights in post-capitalist society. Against the usual reading of Marx’s critique of liberalism as culminating in the negation or transcendence of rights, this chapter draws on the Hegelian concept of Aufhebung to argue for an interpretation according to which rights in communist society will not simply be rendered superfluous but will instead be transformed. A close reading of Marx’s texts shows that he regarded the granting of civil and political rights as a precondition for the future communist society.