>I haven't read Pashukanis. I read an analysis of him, but I didn't get it. What
>is Pashukanis's thesis ?
His basic thesis is that the basic structure of the law is derived from the _form_ of value, and is not therefore reducible to the class content of social domination. Rather, legal rights and the legal subject are a real, not merely fictitious expression of social relations. The implication of Pashukanis' defence of legal rights in the USSR (as he argues, because commodity exchange still prevails and hence the legal subject still ought to have rights) was a rejection of Stalin and Vyshinsky's demotic assertion that the actions of the Soviet State were class justice, and above legal challenge.
For this impertinence, Stalin had Vyshinksy try and execute Pashukanis in 1937 - hence proving his point.
These are my notes on Pashukanis: 'Most useful points: 1. Why doesn't class rule appear to be what it is, why does it take the form of an independent public power rather than the direct domination of one class by another? 2. Contemporary law has its roots not in the Roman jus civil - the law of families - but in the jus gentium the law of nations, because exchange takes place first at the boundaries of ancient societies the modern form of the independent legal subject has its origins in the custom of hospitality to strangers. 3. The unity of the legal subject and the bearer of commodities. 4. Aristotle's identification of payment and punishment as exchange before and after the event.'
-- Jim heartfield