Socialismo científico e direito: um estudo a partir de Friederich Engels

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the connection between the law and the scientific socialism based on the theoretical production of Friederich Engels (1820 – 1895), with an emphasis on his works that were written in the last quarter of the XIX Century ('70s, '80s, and '90s.). The reason for this approach is to understand the legal phenomenon in its propositional-positive aspect, instead of the traditional critical-negative study of the Marxist approach in law studies. The Anti-Dühring, originally published between 1877 and 1878, is understood as the main theoretical source of this work. It is investigated how Engels develops his concept of scientific socialism, having as fundamentals: the historical materialism (dialectic) and the criticism of the bourgeois political economy. Thus, the fundamentals of Engelsian scientific socialism are studied in the first chapter. The second chapter investigates how scientific socialism, to Engels, acquires its specific form, studying its historical development until it gains its scientific form and is linked to the modern proletarian classes. Also, it studies the contingency measures proposed by scientific socialism after the proletarian revolution and how scientific socialism will position itself before the revolution, aiming to achieve it. In the third chapter, the relationship between the juridic phenomenon and Engelsian scientific socialism is established. Since Engels does not deal with the law in a systematic form, the chapter will focus on the possible connections between scientific socialism and the juridical phenomenon as determined by Engels. In the chapter, the following connections were studied: the bourgeois legal worldview; the law as a means to the proletarian revolutionary struggle; equality, liberty, and necessity as a theme in connection with the law; the economic determination in its last instance and its relationship with the law studies. Lastly, this dissertation in its chapters emphasizes the discordant arguments of the commenters on the studied Engelsian works and it does not abstain from positioning itself about these discordant aspects and proposes solutions to future research. In the conclusion, the most polemical topics in the Engelsian oeuvre are systematized considering the research outline and the sketches for further research, such as: a) the positioning of the philosophy in comparison the development of modern science; b) the existence of a dialectics between the natural and the social being; c) the understanding of the dialectics as method and a constitutive element of the natural-social being; d) the presence of a certain degree of ontological determinism as a consequence of the Engelsian ideals; e) the necessity of the Engelsian scientific socialism to be developed and formed from the social-historical transformations; f) the necessity of a deep materialistic understanding of the bourgeois legal worldview, especially in non-European countries; g) the possibility of dialectical use of revolutionary legal normative content as a mean to tension and overcome the conservative and bourgeois juridical form; h) the problem of the economical determination and the necessity of comprehension of mediation form between the praxis and the collective and individual subjectivity.