Living Institutions, Violence, and Communal Forms of Life: Towards a Marxist Social Ontology

Abstract

This article re-examines Marx and Engels’s conceptualizations of what constitutes a “living institution.” The concept of living institutions transcends the conventional state–civil society binary, revealing plural anthropological practices that are simultaneously emancipatory and normative. I trace the various manifestations of the “living institution” throughout the development of Marx’s thought, from his early polemics against the historical school of law to the mature expressions of historical materialism. In the latter, Marx theorizes the ambivalence of violence, viewing it either as a manifestation of social vitality and transformation or as the “inorganic naturalization” of society in the service of social reproduction. Historical materialism implies that a new institutional imagination can only take root through the re-institutionalization of existing, concrete institutions. This imperative ultimately leads Marx in his later years to engage deeply with anthropology, ethnology, and non-Western societies. Specific forms of communal life, as Marx recognized, often outlive their own era, possessing an “afterlife” (Nachleben) that introduces heterogeneous and plural temporalities into contemporary society.