I think the point was to address the question, "do states in capitalist societies sometimes act consciously against the interests of both domestic and foreign capitalists?" The answer appears to be "yes," with the conclusion to be drawn that the Marxist notion that the state in a capitalist society is merely the tool of the capitalist class is false.
--- On Mon, 9/28/09, Marv Gandall <marvgandall at videotron.ca> wrote:
> From: Marv Gandall <marvgandall at videotron.ca>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] The State (Was: Ralph loves the nice plutocrats)
> To: "LBO-Talk" <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
> Date: Monday, September 28, 2009, 7:58 AM
> "Somebody" wrote:
> >
> > 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.
> =====================================
> Then perhaps you view the social forces and social
> relations in Libya as
> "feudal". If not, how would you describe them?
>
> Related question: what about Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, which
> don't even
> incorporate a modern ideology like "Marxism" in their
> Islamic curricula? Are
> these essentially "feudal" or "capitalist" states?
>
> Capitalist development in a long process, presided over by
> states which
> assume many forms, mostly autocratic - a diversified,
> industrial,
> predominantly urban economy and a liberal democratic
> political system
> appearing only a very advanced stage. Moreover, these
> states, even the least
> developed, can't be viewed in isolation from the global
> capitalist economy
> in which they are today all implicated and whose laws they
> are obliged to
> follow.
>
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