a contribution about how Marx discussed the state.
He argued also
"is a stateless society as utopian as many have been led to believe?...no, because it would mean transformation from a bureaucratic society to a participatory one...active participation and dialogue - not simply voting for political representativves - would mark the determination of basic goals, short and long range planning, and responsibility for their achievement..."
I think this is a productive seam for discussion. Marx and Lenin are clear that after a revolution the state will contain features that are bourgeois in form. Although I could not immediately lay my hands on the quotes if challenged, I remember pretty confidently also arguments that *prior* to the revolution structures emerge that presage socialism. For example the increasing social management of the economy.
This lies behind some of my interest in New Labour, which I do not think tries to be a social democratic government, and is not accurately criticised as a social democratic government. I think it is a government that tries to govern in a pluralistic way without a model of socialism through central directives. It does *not* conceal the nature of capitalism and the class interests of capital. It is quite blunt about this. Therefore
it does not sow illusions.
But that is just one project.
Fundamentally I think the development of computers allows the possibility of social organisation that Mike describes with participation and dialogue. For example a committee could indeed be set up to monitor the managment of surpluses and financial risk on a global scale. Such forms however will not have a socialist content without specific class struggle to seize the form from the hands of the capitalists. That is one way a struggle for reforms becomes revolutionary.
Chris Burford
London.