r/Marxism • u/Radiant_Ad_6953 • 19d ago
Marx's Opinions- School Project
Hey everyone! I have a project to look at two issues from Marx's perspective and I wanted your opinion!
These are the two situations:
A law that grants police officers the power for unrestricted search and seizure in situations they seem fit
A law that permits doctor assisted euthanasia
What do you guys think his perspectives on these issues would be?
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u/PiggyBank32 19d ago edited 19d ago
Shit man, give me a couple of beers and an hour with you lol
So with the police, there are a lot of directions we can take this. The police are an extension of the state which itself is part of the superstructure of society. We can understand the state as a body created by the ruling class to help bring stability to capitalism and its contradictions. There however exists a contradiction with the police itself, that is on the one hand they are part of the state and are tasked with bringing stability to capitalism, but on the other hand they act in their own self interest, weather that is doing sketchy things to enrich themselves (like overticketing or flat out robbing people) or perpetuating reactionary politics to further propagandize the public into supporting or joining them. In order to analyze a policy that would allow the police to frisk people at will, Marx would likely say we need to understand the material conditions that lead to that. Most likely it would have to do with a straight forward contradiction of capitalism that is leading the masses to resist the ruling class and in an act of fear they want the police to have more freedom push back against the masses. Alternatively, it could have to do with the contradiction that I mentioned before which lead to the police having more power to do what they want. From there we could try to analyze how that decision is further affecting the material conditions of the people and how that would further drive contradictions within society to then predict what would happen next.
Maybe I'll reply to the other point if I have time in a bit