The role of the state

Chris Burford cburford at gn.apc.org
Wed Oct 21 23:58:24 PDT 1998


At 07:12 PM 10/21/98 -0400, Michael Hoover wrote:

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.



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