[lbo-talk] the state & class [was: Unproductive Workers = The BestOrganized in the USA]

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Tue Jan 24 14:39:00 PST 2006


Jim:


> As usual, the only thing that can really trump a theory is
> another theory. I've shown you mine (see below), so show me yours.

Mine is pretty standard liberal (in the US sense) pluralist view, nothing radical - state is a public forum were various group interests vie for influence, whereas government is an institutional representation of the state, but so is civil society, and social movements (cf. Charles Tilly, _From mobilization to revolution_). So it boils down to institutionalized rules and expectations and power struggle - whoever has more power, get the upper hand. Power comes from a combination of factors, control of material resources, knowledge, control of social resources (networks, alliances), control of symbolic resources and legitimacy. I think this "middle range" theory can do a much better job predicting the actual behavior i.e. policies & their implementation of state governments than your theory.

As to the issue of tautology - I guess that is a matter of personal taste. If I wanted to position myself as a perennial malcontent complaining about the state which I perceived as innately evil, then indeed I would like to define it as product of some evil force (e.g. bourgeoisie), because that would give me a certitude of my contrarian or anarchist views. In such a case tautology indeed would be useful. Because it would prevent me from compromising or selling out.

But that view has little appeal to me because I actually like the state, and like the fact that it has the power to suppress some forms of human behavior. My interests are not in abolishing the state and run some kind of anarchy or mob rule - which I find utterly reprehensible - but to make sure that the state uses it power to suppress or encourage certain forms of human behavior for what I consider good, rather than for bad. I believe that some forms of human behavior are inherently evil (such as various forms of predation, criminality, egoism, profiteering, greed, destruction, violence, power trips, idleness, etc.) and the only way of preventing these forms from being too destructive to other people and society is some form of lawful institutional control i.e. the state.

In a word, I am a wussy liberal reformist, not a radical - I want to make a relatively few changes in the status quo (e.g. if the US became more like Sweden, I would consider it a smashing success) rather than turning everything upside down and starting from the scratch. With such objectives, I find the theory of state that defines it as an evil bourgeois institution of little use - because it does not allow any possibility of social change, whereas my theory does.


> It's vaguely insulting that you think I am not familiar with
> the above. (However, since you don't make a serious effort to
> read what I write, I can't be insulted, since you're
> insulting some strawMarx.)

Being insulting certainly was not my intention. I merely provided counterexamples to the view that the state is inherently evil and oppressive institution always representing the interests of the capitalist class. The purpose here was to illustrate the point that the state can be a force for what I consider good if the right social forces control it.


> It is just not true that the Marxian view is that the "state
> is nothing but executive committee of bourgeoisie." The theory is that
>
> 1. that the state is by its very nature a repressive
> organization needed to preserve class domination (and it
> doesn't really matter which class(es) are dominant); and
>
> 2. under capitalism, the executive branch of the government
> and to a lesser extent the legislative branch (at least
> according to Marx) tends to represent and aggregate the
> bourgeois "will of all." (NB: the government is NOT the same
> as the state. It's the body of people running the state, or
> trying to do so.)
>
> I would add:
>
> 3. in "normal" times under capitalism, there is harmony
> between what the executive of the government does and the
> required state role of preserving and managing the capitalist
> class system and its dynamics.
>

That is a very pessimistic view indeed - it basically assures us that "we" will always be screwed and it precludes any social change. I am already depressed by what I see around me, and someone telling me that there is no way out as long as the state is around us is more than I can bear. Because I also think that sooner we will see pigs flying by before there is the state is gone.

So the bottom line is that we seem to have different tastes, so to speak. I happen to like the state and its power, even the US state, it is just the social groups that control it that I find objectionable, and my goal is to kick those people out and bring our people in their place to make the desired policy and structural changes. You seem to dislike the state and long for something else. That is fine, except I am not sure what that something else is. How do you imagine social order without a state?

Wojtek



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