There seems to be a fairly strong desire for a structuralist explanation out of a analytical system that emphasizes the contingent and changing nature of capitalism. This starts from Marx's statement that 'all that is solid melts into air' and continues through the emphasis on crisis in Capital and the Grundrisse. Capitalism doesn't merely have crises, but is crisis made productive. (See Capital Vol. 1, Chapter 1 where Marx shows the logical expansion of crisis through his concept of value.) Actually, this is a point that Carrol made earlier in the conversation. Capital has operated in systems of chattel slavery, dictatorship, monarchy, as well as representative democracy. Capital is a logic of accumulation, not a static state system. You might think about it in Deleuzian terms as an apparatus of capture, bringing in a multiplicity of forms to make them productive for itself.
robert wood
> Marv Gandall wrote:
>
>> So when we say the function of the capitalist state is to reproduce the
>> capitalist system,
>
> What is the actual mechanism that ensures the operation of this law at
> all times?
>
> SA
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