WS writes:> I know "what" bourgeoisie is, I'm just not sure "who" they are. It was much easier to tell in the 19th century. <
Actually, it's both. It's synonymous with the "capitalist class." The B is both a position in the social structure of capitalism and the individuals who are in that position. It's not hard to tell what it is. People like E. O. Wright have presented statistical work on this (though I don't like his more recent work). Part of the problem, of course, is that the members of the B use their overweening influence on the government to make sure that information on them is extremely limited.
>As to the "throwing insults" - it was not my intention. I just find
it difficult to believe that knowledgeable people hold such simplistic
views of the state. It is one thing to use hyperboles - like
"Somalia" or "executive committee" in jurnalistic polemics - but do
you, or Marvin, or Yoshie or others really belive that the people who
call themselves "bourgeoisie" speak in one voice, always agree on a
course of action, communicate that to the government, and then the
government executes that? <
I can only speak for myself. I don't know any "Somalia" references except from you, so move on to the other one.
The executive committee (as the old boys used the phrase) is in the following sentence: "The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie."
As I said before -- and I guess maybe this is what Bob Dylan meant by "blowin' in the wind" (i.e., people don't read) -- just because the modern state's executive branch manages the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie doesn't mean they do a good job. If my memory serves me well, the example I gave is the Bush administration, which serves its cronies and punishes its enemies much more than anything else -- and may well be going against the long-term (class) interests of the bourgeoisie.
No-one asked me about my "theory of the state," but it does not involve the idea that the "bourgeoisie speak in one voice." After all, they have all sorts of competing interests. They also don't agree on a course of action or communicate it to the government. Instead, there are a whole bunch of different organizations (think tanks, the GOP, the Democratic Party, the National Association of Manufacturers, the Council on Foreign Relations, etc., etc.) They present programs and visions, they point to problems and propose solutions. Some of these programs are backed by more money than others (campaign contributions, bribes, etc.) and so have much more influence than others. Their influence biases the entire electoral system so that it's extremely hard for people without sufficient money to oppose them.
One can ape good ol' Jean-Jacques Rousseau to distinguish between the "will of all" of the bourgeoisie and the "general will" of that class. The former represents all of the political pressures by all of the capitalist interest groups (see above). It's what actually gets put _into practice_ by the executive of the state (given the weakness, nowadays, of countervailing forces such as the working class).
This "will of all" differs from the "general will" of the capitalists, i.e., their class interest. Whether or not the capitalist class interest is implemented is hard to tell until _after the fact_. But it involves a _minimum program_, i.e., preservation of the capitalist system of property, class domination, exploitation, and alienation. Because this represents the shared interests of the members of the capitalist class, it is part of the "will of all." Thus, the system is preserved even by the incompetent and craven Bushwhackers and the like. At least in the short run: procapitalist governments have f*cked up in the past, so they may do it again, destabilizing their own system.
>If that was the case, how do you explain the new deal, civil rights,
war on povery, th efailure of social security "reform" etc, etc. <
Just because the capitalists have the overwheening power doesn't mean that they always win. There are countervailing forces, based in the working class and other non-bourgeois sectors. (In the rich-capitalist, imperialist, countries such as the US, there is more room for non-bourgeois victories without revolutionizing the system than in the dominated countries.) In addition, divisions within the ruling class can be crucial. Third, the captalist economy does not always cooperate. Overaccumulation such as that of the late 1990s can lead to sudden shocks such as the 2000-01 recession, despite the fact that nobody in the ruling class wanted it.
The first three in your list have been discussed on lbo-talk a lot, but what I've seen is
(1) the New Deal was an effort to save US capitalism in the face of a gigantic failure of the capitalist system to do even its basic jobs, mass movements from below (such as the sit-down strikes in Detroit), and the threat of competition from the USSR and fascist countries.[*] Because the ND was organized by capitalist elites (e.g., FDR), it dealt with these problems in a top-down and (despite what the GOP said) pro-capitalist way. Look at the NRA, for example. As soon as the three pressures listed faded, Dr. New Deal retired.
[*](The New Dealers' fear of fascism involved, among other things, the fear that people outside their circle would take power.)
(2) the civil rights movement is easier: it was a large popular movement from outside the normal political channels that reacted specifically to Jim Crow but shook the whole political establishment. Something had to be done before the movement got out of hand! J. Edgar did his repressive and illegal part, but that wasn't enough. Reforms were needed, especially since some capitalists saw the Jim Crow South as an obsolete way to do things, in fact blocking the movement of capital.
(3) the war on poverty was largely a reaction to the civil rights movement. Its size was much much smaller than that of the war budget. Anti-poverty programs have almost always involved paternalistic efforts to control the poor, rather than efforts to empower them. (When the poor were indeed empowered, the US government shrank back immediately.) Calculations by various authors suggest that anti-poverty programs have mostly been paid for by other "non-poor" sections of the working class.
(4) Bush's social security "reform" was not only opposed by a lot of everyday people (such as the well-organized oldsters), but by sections of the bourgeoisie. You know if the Chile-type solution had been imposed (as some Bushwhackers wanted), it would have made the bourgeoisie's situation _worse_ rather than better. A lot of oldsters were going to end up on "welfare."
>It is one thing to say that business interest have more influence on
government than other interest groups - which is certainly true of the
US - but the position that government does not act independently from
business interests has been refuted long time in literature ...<
I have no argument with the various leftist or leftish scholars you cite as sources of information and analysis, but I wouldn't let them limit my understanding.
One source of information and analysis of the state that I've found of use is Hal Draper's KARL MARX'S THEORY OF REVOLUTION (several volumes). -- Jim Devine
"The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side." -- James Baldwin
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