WS: >Mine is pretty standard liberal (in the US sense) pluralist view, nothing radical - [the] state is a public forum [where] various group interests vie for influence, whereas government is an institutional representation of the state, but so is civil society, and social movements ... 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. <
I knew your theory was "nothing radical"!
To some extent what differs in the above paragraph from my view is just a matter of definition, so I'll ignore that part. But I want to stress that I think that the "pluralist" view is a very good perspective on the day-to-day operations of politics.
The problem is what the pluralists _leave out_, i.e., the structure and dynamics of capitalism as an exploitative mode of production that severely limits and shapes (warps) the pluralistic hurly-burly. That is, the competition that pluralists emphasize occurs on a playing field that isn't level, but instead is _systematically biased_ toward preserving capitalist exploitation.
I also think that a version of the pluralist story applied to the old USSR. Various bureaucratic factions vied for influence – sometimes pushed by working-class efforts – but the system was biased toward preservation of Party rule (until the system itself didn't serve an important faction of the ruling Party, in the late 1980s). I understand that the other main kind of "totalitarianism" (an extremely poor word) has been analyzed in similar terms, seeing the political and military dynamics of Nazi Germany in terms of factional conflict. Of course, the system wasn't established long enough to talk about a systematic bias.
Finally, it seems to me that pluralism would be part of socialism. It would be a _democratic_ pluralism, rather than the capitalist or Stalinist or fascist pluralisms sketched above. That is, "liberal values" can actually be _realized_ with socialism.
>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. <
I don't know who you're talking about here. It's not my perspective. I don't think the state is "innately evil" since I don't think in terms of "evil" (since I'm not religious). Instead, the state is something that's needed to force people to stay within the restricted bounds of any class society.
>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 … 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. <
This misunderstands (or totally ignores) the Marxian perspective, which I favor. The Marxian perspective doesn't want to "abolish the state" and set up anarchy. (The anarchists criticize the Marxists on this. You seem to assume I'm an anarchist.) Rather, the idea is to subordinate the state to democratic rule, something that can occur only by severely undermining capitalist power and ultimately by abolishing capitalism. The hypothetical "withering away of the state" for Marx did not refer to the end of all centralized organization, but instead to the end of the artificial _distinction_ between the state and "civil society" with the latter dominating the former.
The liberal theory of the state which you advocate sees the state as providing "public goods" such as law & order, a clean natural environment, etc. I think that theory really doesn't apply to capitalism (the system we live under) as much as to socialism. Under capitalism, the state typically serves the bourgeois "will of all" and must preserve capitalist class privilege. This severely distorts the way in which the state provides "public goods," so that "law & order" must favor capitalist exploitation, domination, etc. The very definition of "law & order" is distorted, so that all sort of immoral activities are seen as moral (because it's normal business practice). With socialism, the underlying bias inherent in capitalism as a society would be abolished, so that the public goods could be defined and produced in a democratic way.
>In a word, I am a wussy liberal reformist, not a radical - I want to
make a relatively few changes in the status quo … rather than turning
everything upside down and starting from the scratch. With such
objectives, I find the theory of [the] state that defines it as an
evil [sic] bourgeois institution of little use - because it does not
allow any possibility of social change, whereas my theory does. <
I never said that there was no chance of social change. Rather, it involves the organization of mass movements (in the US e.g., the labor movement of the 1930s or the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s) in order to provide a countervailing pressure to the capitalist one. It was only with that kind of mass pressure that Sweden could actually become Sweden (that you admire so much).
How could I write about social-democratic governments if I thought that it was some sort of either/or matter?? Note: I would prefer social democracy over the current kleptocracy. I just don't think we'll get it in the "wussy liberal reformist" way, using "wussy liberal reformist" strategy and tactics.
me: >> 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. <
again, you don't understand (or willfully decide not to read) what I write. See above.
>>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." …
>>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.<<
no, it doesn't. Again, what we require is a mass social movement for 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. <<
I call 'em as I see 'em. I don't tilt my analysis to serve the needs of optimism.
>> Because I also think that sooner we will see pigs flying by before
there is the state is gone…. <<
at this point, it's not "smashing the state" that's on the agenda. And I never said it was. -- 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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