> In German debates, the Miliband view is almost entirely disregarded, and the
> question is framed in terms of Paschukanis vs. Poulantzas, or more acurrately
> these days, a synthesis of Paschukanis and Poulantzas.
>
> With Paschukanis you have the question posed, as raised here by Carrol, of
> **why** does class rule in capitalist society split off so that it is mediated
> economically by the commodity form and politically by the state form.
I think Pashukanis is brilliant and I agree that he brings something extra. I also agree with Poulantzas' critique of Pashukanis, though, that he tends to 'read off' the form of the state from the form of the economy - a recognition of the 'relative autonomy' of the state is important.
>
> Poulantzians and Post-Structuralists tend to disregard the question of social
> form entirely (I think Foucault stated quite expressly he was even uninterested
> in the state as such, and more interested in government), spending more time
> elucidating the **how** rather than the **why**,
I don't know about this... I think Althusser and Poulantzas are greatly concerned with the 'why' of the state, i.e. why the state is a necessary social relation within capitalism, I suppose from a basically functionalist perspective. Foucault certainly addresses the why in his stuff on the evolution of the state in European history, in 'Security, Territory, Population' and 'Society Must Be Defended'.
> But this counterposition of a Hegel-Marx-Paschukanis-Frankfurt School lineage
> on the state versus a Spinoza-Marx-Althusser-Poulantzas lineage is more and more
> breaking down, and the more interesting state and legal theorists, like Sonja
> Buckel and Joachim Hirsch, are attempting to reconcile the two.
I don't know Hirsch or Buckel at all. Looks like they haven't been translated yet... Sounds interesting though.
As for what Miliband brings, I guess it's good old-fashioned Anglo empiricism and attention to the concrete. Which I think is really important for state theory, because strategy makes a difference - the state is a key organiser of agency within the system and it's an agency that is somewhat unpredictable.
Mike Beggs