Carlos Rivera Lugo, the Marxist Critique of Law, and the Rebellion of K
Dr. César J. Pérez Lizasuain
Abstract
This article analyzes the Marxist jurisprudence of Carlos Rivera Lugo, focusing on his critique of the legal form as a constitutive element of capitalist social relations. Drawing on Karl Marx’s theory of commodity fetishism and Evgeny Pashukanis’s account of law’s relation to the commodity form, Rivera Lugo argues that bourgeois law is not autonomous but a fetishized social form that naturalizes exploitation, juridifies class domination, and reproduces capitalist subjectivity. Integrating insights from Jacques Lacan and invoking The Castle by Franz Kafka, he conceptualizes law as an enigmatic yet materially grounded abstraction that structures obedience while concealing its origins in political economy. Against reformist currents that treat law and the state as neutral tools — illustrated by experiences such as Popular Unity — Rivera Lugo calls for transcending bourgeois legality through the emergence of “non-law,” a form of communal normativity rooted in the commons and constituent power from below. The article argues that Rivera Lugo reaffirms historical-dialectical materialism as both method and praxis, insisting that emancipation requires dismantling juridical fetishism and constituting a revolutionary subject capable of instituting a communizing mode of sociality beyond the capitalist state.
Keywords
Carlos Rivera Lugo, critique of the legal form, bourgeois law, commodity fetishism, juridical fetishism, Dr. César J. Pérez Lizasuain
