Revue Française d’Histoire des Idées Politiques, 15, avril 2002
The purpose of this article is to present a reflexion on what jurisprudence should be in order to be critical, in a philosophical and political meaning. In the articles known as "theft of wood", Marx studied empirical Law, concretely a statute operating a requalification of customary rights in theft. His critics is logicaly very complex : it’s a refutation of the rationality of modern property (discussed in its hegelian version) based on the legitimacy of customary property rights ( in their savignean version), but against Savigny and the Historical School, Marx makes a distinction between feudal customary rights and universal customary rights of the poor, thelast being the only ones to be rational. Doing this distinction, the very young Marx is trying to build a legal language alternative to roman Law, the popular Law as a way to re-introduce politics into the technical element of Law.
- Mikhail Xifaras, Marx, justice et jurisprudence
