>>2588593translated from german wikipedia
Hacks adopted a Marxist outlook in the early 1950s. By the time he moved to the GDR, this had developed into a clear and lifelong commitment to the political and state organizations of the socialist labor movement. However, he remained an independent thinker throughout his life. On the one hand, he vehemently oriented himself toward the classics, while on the other hand, he continuously developed his own ideas about art, philosophy, politics, and history. In his essay Schöne Wirtschaft (Beautiful Economy), for example, he applies the categories of Marx's economic theory to the conditions of the production and sale of works of art, thereby also pointing out the limitations of this theory in this area. An example of his position in the Marxist tradition is Hacks' judgment on absolutism, in which, contrary to what is usual in the Marxist tradition, he saw an independent social formation, distinct from feudalism and capitalism, which had a historical right to exist. At the same time, he also made clear the limits of capitalist society, often through Goethe's perspective, but always using Marxist means. Although not far removed from Marx and Lenin, he took his concept of the state more from Hegel than from Marx: only in and through the state did people have a chance to realize their general and particular interests. For Hacks, the Marxist thesis of the “withering away of the state” was only acceptable in the sense of the abolition of the state through its perfection. In this sense, however, he accepted it, thereby succeeding in reconciling the views of Marx and Lenin with those of Hegel.