We seem to be talking past each other. Did I say that capitalism can exist without police? No. Did I not say, rather that of course it is true, and Marx acknowledges it, that resort to force is the ultimate backup of any system of productive relations and/or political system? Did you read my post?
But, and here's the point, Marx is not Weber. the theory of revolution is not the theory of exploitation or the theory of capitalist reproduction. The police, the army, force, have no place in the theory of Capital, the account of how capitalism can operate with free labor. That does not mean, obviously, that Marx thinks that they are not important.
Does that mean that force has no place in Marx's (or any correct) total theory? No. Obviously not. See above, also my post, to which you are purportedly replying. For crying out loud, the point you are insisting on is one that Marx has in common with Nozick and Hayek, yes, capitalism requires a state with a territorial monopoly of force. (And the ability to project force to defend those productive relations.) That's not a Marxist point.
Does the acknowledgement by everyone that force is necessary to maintain capitalist productive relations mean that the problem posed and supposedly answered in Capital invokes force as an essential component of capitalist productive relations, reproduction, and exploitation? Au contraire. The puzzle is, how can there be exploitation, regular, recurring, reproducing itself, without regular application of force to extract surplus labor? The answer -- read Capital.
If you think I am wrong about Marx's project in Capital, or the nature of the solution he applies, say why. If you think that my account, or his account, of the role of force in maintaining capitalist productive relations (and states) is inconsistent with the project of Capital, say so and explain. In doing so please offer an alternative account/explanation/exegesis of Marx's distinction between free labor in capitalism and forced labor in slavery and feudalism. Otherwise it is unnecessary to offer, apparently an objection, a point I have -- I was going to say conceded, but really not, rather, made and put in its place. That is not an objection.
You underline my point about self-styled Marxists being closet Proudhonists. The only objection you can imagine to capitalism seems to be that it armed robbery, theft at the point of a gun. That is of course precisely the point Marx spent his life work refuting. Maybe I am, after all, a Marxist. More than you, anyway -- I don't agree with Marx on important points of his alternative account, but I think he was right about the defects of the Proudhonist account (positive and normative), and that a superior non-Proudhonist account along the broad outlines of his can be constructed from the material left when one discards the untenable aspects of his own view.
--- Yoshie Furuhashi <critical.montages at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/6/07, andie nachgeborenen
> <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > As I indicated in the heading
> > and in my carefully worded argument, the political
> > economic analysis of capitalism that is the core
> of
> > Capital poses and purports to answer the puzzle,
> how
> > do capitalist productive relations succeed in
> > promoting exploitation, producing surplus value
> for
> > the bourgeoisie to expropriate, _without_ reliance
> on
> > brute force immediate threat of physical coercion,
> > apparently with the free consent of all parties
> > trading equal for equal?
>
> Well, if you don't consent, you can get arrested,
> even if you weren't
> seeking transition to socialism. :-> Can
> capitalism exist without
> the police even in the West?
> --
> Yoshie
> <http://montages.blogspot.com/>
> <http://mrzine.org>
> <http://monthlyreview.org/>
> ___________________________________
>
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