Enlarging the Concept of the Political: for another reception of Marx’s Critical Theory

Abstract

In order to understand the dynamics of the contemporary conflicts around civil society and the new social movements, we would like to point to an other reception of marxian critical theory according to a reinterpretation of Marxs’s concept of politics and compare his young formulation in Critic of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right with the later texts. First, we take into account briefly the question of the history of effects in the reception of Marx’s works. After that, based on the the interpretation of Jean Cohen, we intend to show that, in the mature texts, Marx restricts the concept of politics in his theory of revolution and reduces it to an “epiphenomenon” of the economic relations. In restricting it, the increase of the concept f politics to the social emancipation would remain attached to the notions of “labor”, “development of productive forces” and, consequently, the theory of social class.