Soichiro Sumida: Marx against the state

Under the idea of “the heteronomy of politics,” carrying out the critique of the state that classical Marxism left unfinished. Traditionally, discussions of Marx’s theory of the state have often addressed the state’s “relative autonomy” within the base-superstructure framework, or its reaction against the economic base. The view of the state as an “instrument of class rule” has also often been emphasized. These are not necessarily mistaken interpretations of Marx’s theory of the state, but they are discussions strongly influenced by Engels’s discourse. Soichiro Sumida, author of Marx Against the State, criticizes this tradition, saying that classical Marxism became absorbed in the “autonomy of politics”—assuming the state to be independent of capitalism—without a theory of the state or a critique of political economy based on economic form-determination. As an alternative, the author proposes the “heteronomy of politics.” Through this theory, the author emphasizes that the state is an object of analysis for the critique of political economy and, at the same time, a “form” that is heteronomously shaped and operated on the basis of economic principles. Marx Against the State argues, based on Marx’s methodology of the “critique of political economy,” that the transition to post-capitalism and communism is possible only through “opposition to the state,” and further through the “absorption of the state into an association,” rather than through statism. Tracing more than a century of change in Marxist theories of the state. To carry out the unfinished critique of the state, the author first reviews Marx’s critique of the state and compares and examines existing research. Marx’s critique of capitalism and his critique of the state are closely connected, and the state is only one point within a complex network of power.

Korean title: 국가에 대항하는 마르크스

Korean author: 스미다 소이치로

Korean publisher: 산지니

ISBN-13: 9791168612976