O direito é um fenômeno capitalista: a história das formas jurídicas

Abstract

Defining what law means is a central question to the philosophy of law. It is also the starting point for those who are interested in studying the history of law. The ones who would like to do it by using the lens of historical materialism should start by getting to know the critique of marxism on law, which is greatly known because of its conclusion that law is a capitalist phenomenon, since legal form is the parallel of the commodity form under capitalism. This is the conclusion that Pashukanis, soviet legal scholar, reaches after his studies of capitalist social forms. It is, clearly, a controversial thought. At the time, his contemporaries tried to contest his theory. After all, humanity has been living under rules since its beginning, so how could one say that law is a recent phenomenon? The soviet legal scholar answers this question in his best known work The General Theory of Law and Marxism. In this monography, it will be explained how Pashukanis reached his conclusions. Following, it will be shown what he understands about the juridical universe that came before capitalism. Finally, as its known, law, to marxism, is historically recent, so it will be discussed in this text its transience, in other words, how it could disappear from social reality in the future