[lbo-talk] The State (Was: Ralph loves the nice plutocrats)

Somebody Somebody philos_case at yahoo.com
Sun Sep 27 09:01:46 PDT 2009


Marvin: The wealthiest and most influential families in these societies were split between those who acted as agents of Western imperialism and those who favoured national independence and state-led economic development - or, as development theorists and others were wont to describe it, the propertied classes were split between the "comprador bourgeoisie" and the "national bourgeoisie". The nationalist factions rose to power following World War II, which destroyed the empires of Britain, France, Germany, and Japan. Somebody: In other words the ideology of a small would-be elite rather than class difference played the critical role in determining whether these states would maintain a substantial private sector or not. What you describe may be the common left-wing view, influenced in part by Maoism, but it's pretty remote from the vulgar materialist conception of state, in which it acts as the control organ for big capital, which was the original dispute. The so-called "national bourgeoisie" in countries like Myanmar and Libya all but destroyed the nascent bourgeoisies in their countries. For example, take a look at the five principles Qadhafi imposed in 1973, when he introduced popular committees into Libyan society: a) All existing laws are to be repealed and replaced by revolutionary procedures.b) The country shall be purged of those who are politically unhealthy.c) Civil liberties shall be accorded to the proletariat, but not to those who disdain the masses of common people. Consequently, arms will be distributed to many sectors of the population.d) All those who belong to the caste of bureaucratic parasites will be removed by the people... who will be the instrument for the destruction of the bureaucracy.e) The Cultural Revolution against all that is reactionary, misleading, and ruinous to young people's minds is proclaimed. - Political Culture in Libya, Amal Obeidi  Obeidi describes in length how the Libyan regime worked to socialize and education the population in the state ideology, which was a melange of Marxism, Pan-Arabism, and Islamism. How inculcating the Green Book into the minds of the workers is supposed to buttress emerging capitalism is difficult to fathom. The fallacy is that any non-Marxist state pursuing national development is necessarily bourgeois. 



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