ABSTRACT
The last problem links the two preceding: in Marxist theory the proprietal subject enjoying certain ‘rights’ is considered an irredeem ably bourgeois notion, arising from the realities of individual private possession. While it is possible to argue that the notions of proprietal subject and possessive rights are in no sense specific to the organization of production in terms of commodity exchange, this point will be secondary in my argument. I shall argue that the notions of a given proprietal subject and o f ‘rights’ are problematic categories in any legal system; that they create severe problems in securing the objectives towards which legislation is directed; and that attempting to solve questions of divergent interests in terms of ‘rights’ can only lead to impossible contradictions. This is because questions o f ‘rights’ and of the priority of the ‘rights’ of one class of agents over another tend to generate doctrines that seek to necessitate the agent’s possession of or priority to ‘rights’ by reference to its nature. These problems are in no sense specific to socialist states;
I shall illustrate them by reference to a salient example, the problems of abortion legislation in contemporary Britain.
