What Would the Legal System Look Like Under Communism?

[Nihilist_Pig]

Here's the deal: I adopt Kelsen's normativist theory of law. Among it's key points are that "the State" is identical with the legal system and that in order for the system of legal norms to function properly, the normative sources must be organized hierarchically (in accordance with the hierarchy of institutions which create the legal acts from which norms are derived).

How then do we reconcile the notion that a mass society cannot exist without an institutionalized legal system* with the aspirations of communists and anarchists to ultimately abolish all hierarchies and forms of control? How do we organize the legal-institutional order, so that we ensure the most freedom of the masses to participate in and actively control the regulative process?



*This I take as a given because of the following reasons:
1) The essence of society is that of people entering stable, long-term, generic relations with one another (the relation between the capitalist and the worker; the relation between husband and wife; the relation between the criminal and the society he threatens through his actions; etc.)
2) Law then exists in order to safeguard and ensure the normal development of these relations (e.g. private property as a legal institute exists in order to secure the capitalist's control).
3) Lesser forms of legal systems such as the law of taboo and tradition are functional in small communities, where social, cultural, economic and scientific development are slow and steady and can rely on common-sense notions of morality and justice ("don't steal from your neighbour or the tribe won't respect you and won't work with you, leaving you helpless"). In the dynamic of modern mass society, in which technology and culture are in constant flux and law has to regulate the behaviour of millions of people, you need better organized forms of legal control.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Well I don't think any mass society "needs" a legal system, at least not one resembling those of societies we are familair with.

For a classless and stateless society, first of all I think a lot of functions of "law" would actually just be incorporated into organic interactions. So trading of resources from one community to another would be on a mutual basis and all the "legal contract" aspects of trade today would be vastly simplified (as the exchange would be more direct and just for use rather than an economic relationship where one side could be intentionally ripped-off by the other). So groups of producers could exchange with a very simple contract: this for that, if not, it's off.

For crimes and violent or anti-social acts, I think we should distinguish between a "criminal law system" and having a protocol or method for dealing with extrodinary things. I think - given that IMO violent crime of the sort we know would be vastly reduced in a liberated classless society - if there were was an extreeme crime, then ad-hoc bodies could be organized to present the case and have a democratic process for deciding what to do.

I think it will be more complicated and more of an effort to create some sort of guidelines for deciding these sorts of things in the immediate-post revolutionary situation where society may still be unstable, a lot of people may have baggage from a lifetime of capitalism, and there are still some threats of counter-revolution. I think this period would be more troubbled and potentially more violent and require a more structured way to deal with things to ensure that both worker's power is protected and that legal issues are done fairly and humaely.

But once it is impossible for one to gain from the exploitation of another, the sorts of legal regulation of society we are used to would be largely redundant IMO.

[Lowtech]

with the aspirations of communists and anarchists to ultimately abolish all hierarchies and forms of control? How do we organize the legal-institutional order, so that we ensure the most freedom of the masses to participate in and actively control the regulative process?its important to distinguish between the concept of law and the fact that current law is mostly written from the context of a plutocratic society.

plutocratic structures are not a form of governance. a form of control yes, but not any legitimate form of governance. and it is clearly not a practical hierarchy.

therefore, communists are not seeking to abolish protocols that maintain an orderly society, rather we wish to remove plutocratic control, plutocratic hierarchies that serve only to perpetuate economic subjugation.

i hope the op isn't a one post warrior.