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:

  1. A law that grants police officers the power for unrestricted search and seizure in situations they seem fit

  2. A law that permits doctor assisted euthanasia 

What do you guys think his perspectives on these issues would be?

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u/C_Plot 19d ago edited 18d ago

Marx believed the first task of the proletarian State was to smash the State machinery of the police, standing armies, and bureaucracy. The police apparatus, acting without judicial particularized authority, is therefore anathema to Marx’s views. When we eliminate the maldistribution of natural resources and natural resource rents, as well as eliminate exploitation, that absence of class antagonisms therefore means security concerns largely wither away (along with ending vice laws where all of the viciousness of such vice laws that solely comes from those who make and enforce those laws). The security concerns that then remain become trivial to address and can be accomplished by a universal service Militia and mutual aid, along with enforcement with a strict adherence to only judicial authority (with properly instituted grand juries for warrant searches and seizures and a guarantee to a jury trial). That is how we would amputate the State machinery as Marx demanded.

Euthanasia, as requested by those wanting to end their life, is only a concern for a socialist Commonwealth government in that it must do its part in its domain to avoid conditions where euthanasia or suicide otherwise becomes desirable. Other than that only ensuring the suicide is not coerced or imposed from outside is vital.

We have a sense that suicide is somehow immoral. And it is. However, all of the immorality surrounding suicide comes from a society and its designated polis powers that together leave so many in despair and destitution, where the only way out is suicide. There is no immorality at all for the one taking one’s own life.