Page - 246 - in Otto Bauer (1881–1938) - Thinker and Politician

© ewa czerwińska-schupp, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/9789004325838_007 This isanopenaccessarticledistributedunderthetermsofthecc-by-ncLicense. chapter 6 State,Democracy,Socialism The ‘thirdway’ tosocialismwascomplementarytotheAustromarxists’ reflec- tionsonthestateandthedirectionthatSocial-Democraticpoliticsaspiredto takewithinthebourgeois-democratic framework.Theidiosyncraticqualityof theseanalyseswas that theyunderstood the state, law, and formsofpolitical order (democracy, dictatorship) asmutually independent forms: theydistin- guishedbetween a formal and a sociological order – i.e. they abstracted the formofphenomenafromtheircontentandsocial function.TheviewsofHans Kelsen,amoderateliberaltheoristonlawandthestateandfounderofthe‘pure theoryof law’, provided thebasis for thisdifferentiation.1 Three fundamental thesesof legalnormativismweremost influential in theAustromarxists’ the- ory of state formation. The firstwas of a purely formal character of political andlegalcategories,whichgrantedthemthestatusofaprioriideas.Thesecond servedtojustifythedualismbetweenbeingandought, formandcontent, facts and values, causality and normativity, and, ultimately, law and politics. The thirdwas theassumptionthat thestatewassynonymouswith the law,andas suchtheterritorialorderwas identical tothecoerciveorder.Owingtothefact that theydrewonKelsen’s ‘pure theoryof law’, theAustromarxistsdeveloped perspectivesondemocracyandthestatewhicharestilldiscussedtoday.2 TheAustromarxiantheoryof lawandthestatewasdevisedmainlybyKarl RennerandMaxAdler.Renner inparticular focusedonthe formalaspectsof thecategoriesunderinvestigation,whileAdlerresearchedbothnormativeand sociologicalfunctions.Despitetheconsiderabledifferencesbetweentheirpos- itions,RennerandAdleragreed,alongwithBauer,thattheworkingclasscould 1 The‘puretheoryoflaw’wasdevisedundertheinfluenceofneo-Kantianismandlegalpositiv- ism.Kelsenadoptedtwomethodologicalguidingprinciplesfromneo-Kantianism:formalism andthedualismofbeingandought.Heamalgamatedahistoricism,criticismandrelativism with legalpositivism.Furthermore,Kelsen’snormativityof lawdrewonpositivism’snotion that theoriginsof lawwerenotscientific, sincetheessenceof lawconsistsofa formalorder ofnorms.According to the ‘pure theoryof law’, normsare acts ofwill, and thebasis of the legal system, theGrundnorm (fundamentalnorm), is a logicalprecondition for legal recog- nition in theKantian sense. The specific characterof legal science lay in the fact that legal normsare investigatedonlyonthebasisof legislation,whilesocialconditionsarenot taken intoaccount. 2 See, forexample,Sartori 1987.