ted and unjustified to explain obedience towards law as a conscious act of volition, for the actual behavior of individuals is directed by socialization and ingrained responses to the demands of society rather than by voluntary choices to follow the law or other norms.241 The specific elements exerting influence over the rules and propositions of law represent the different interests of society and class; hence, the consciousness of law cannot be causative in relation to the rules of law, as the consciousness of law itself is enslaved by the law and the aforementioned categories of interest.242 This critical remark carries over to Hägerström’s analysis of natural law, because whatever natural law prescribes is much more likely to originate from positive law than vice versa (which is a fact that can be proved by reference to the actual sources utilized by natural lawyers in their quests for rational law - that is, Roman law).243 Accordingly, in all likelihood, whatever the content of the popular consciousness of law is, it cannot constitute an idea of law that is autonomous in relation to the content of positive law. On the contrary, it is much more likely than not that the consciousness of law and positive law are codependent. In this respect Hägerström’s theory,that the prime mover of different types of social change is the ongoing struggle between classes, is clearly influenced by Marxism, whose theoretical models Hägerström was intimately acquainted with.244 And on the occasion of the50th anniversary of Karl Marx’s death, Hägerström gave Marx’s ideas due credit and acknowledged that where the idea of law as such lacked autonomous reality, it gained reality in its function as a super-structure to economic realities, which was further accentuated by the role law served in the class struggle where the idea of law gained reality on account of its close ties a ca l l f o r s c i e n t i f i c p u r i t y 367 241 Hägerström, “Är gällande rätt?,” p. 80; “Is Positive Law?,” p. 39. 242 Hägerström, “Naturrätt?,” p. 334. 243 E.g., Hägerström, “Nehrman-Ehrenstråles uppfattning.” 244 See, e.g., Hägerström, Social teleologi i marxismen;“Marx och filosofin. (Karl Marx: Uttalanden Kring 50-Årsminnet).”; De socialistiska idéernas historia.
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