Neumann’s Marxist legal analysis coexisted with reformist political hopes

Evidence

It was a rather modest result. If the development from liberalism via monopoly capitalism to fascism were seen, as Neumann saw it, as a consistent and effective process of transmutation serving to maintain the domination of the private ownership of the means of production, then how could a re-establishment of the good old aspects of liberal constitutionality which had been appropriate under competitive capitalism be conceivable? How could legal theories and legal interpretations which could have been defended as socially progressive be imagined under such a presupposition? Neumann’s book seemed to be saying: there could only be hope if something similar to the liberal constitutional state could be re-created, but with a ruling class which would recoil with horror from the fascist solution. Although he was now thinking in a Marxist fashion at the level of social-theoretical analysis, Neumann remained, like his teacher Laski, a political reformist who set all his hopes on an improvement in the politics of labour movement organizations once constitutional conditions had been re-established. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 248

Categorization

• XREF: Links Neumann to his teacher Laski and to the Frankfurt School’s broader tension between radical theory and reformist politics. — connects to: Weimar’s crisis radicalized reformist lawyers into defending the constitution — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 246; Neumann’s Marxism coexisted with reformist hopes for constitutional restoration — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 934; Neumann tied legal theory to progressive social function under prevailing conditions — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 932
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Weimar’s crisis radicalized reformist lawyers into defending the constitution — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 246; Neumann’s Marxism coexisted with reformist hopes for constitutional restoration — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 934; Neumann tied legal theory to progressive social function under prevailing conditions — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 932

Broader Connections

• Neumann’s Marxism coexisted with reformist hopes for constitutional restoration #corroborates (0.98) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 934