On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:38:33 -0400 Bhaskar Sunkara
<bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com> writes:
> Is Chris' objection simply the intrumentalist view of the state?
> I've
> always found that analysis a bit wanting, but what are the
> alternatives?
> Poulantzas?
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I would also recommend Richard W. Miller's unjustly neglected book, *Analyzing Marx: Morality, Power, and History* (Princeton University Press, 1984). Miller's book was one of the more interesting texts of Analytical Marxism. He devoted one section of the book to an investigation of Marxist understandings of power and focused in particular on the debate between "structuralists" and "instrumentalists" over the nature and functions of the state. Miller's discussion of this debate took Poulantzas' *Political Power and Social Class* along with Althusser's "Ideology and Ideological-State Apparatuses" as key texts on the structuralists' side, and he took Ralph Milliband's *The State in Capitalist Society* as representative of the instrumentalist position. Miller saw both positions as containing important truths that a full Marxist analysis of the state must take into account. He also saw both sides as being afflicted by distortions which limit the utility of their analyses. Miller attempted to provide a resolution of the debate which incorporates the insights of both sides. He also took a look Franz Neumann's *Behemoth* as respresenting a persuasive Marxist analysis of the Nazi seizure of power in Germany.
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