2023/02/12 by Mikkel Flohr · 1 voice · 1 citation
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · #Critical Theory and Philosophy #Global Economic and Social Development #Political Economy and Marxism
paper · doi:10.1080/1600910x.2023.2173268
openalex publication_date 2023/02/12 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/02
Alienation became a central but controversial concept in the reception and interpretation of Karl Marx’s thought after the posthumous publication of the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts in 1932. Numerous interlocutors debated the content and configuration of Marx’s concept of alienation and its relationship to G.W.F. Hegel and Ludwig Feuerbach, as well as his own subsequent critique of political economy. But these debates inadvertently ignored Marx’s prior Critique of Hegel’s Doctrine of State. This article aims to remedy this omission. Through close textual analysis and theoretical recontextualization I reconstruct and reinterpret Marx’s elaborate critique of the modern sovereign state as an alienation of civil society rooted in the dynamics of the modern system of private property, which also sheds new light on Marx’s concept of alienation, its relationship to prior political philosophy, (post-)Hegelian philosophy and his subsequent critique of political economy.