On 14/11/2013, at 12:54 AM, Marv Gandall <marvgand2 at gmail.com> wrote:
> We could not fully understand the great events of the twentieth century - the Russian Revolution and its subsequent bureaucratization, the triumph of fascism in Germany, even the US New Deal - without taking into account the relative autonomy of the state.
This statement seems to represent a quite muddled view of the state and those responding, whether to agree or disagree, seem just as muddled.
I would just like to remind people that the state under mature capitalism is not the instrument by which the capitalist class rule. The instruments of class rule under capitalism are economic, that is the employing class rule through their power to hire and fire, to directly control their employees and through their control over the means of production and the purposes to which it is deployed.
The modern democratic political state is clearly not subject to direct control by the capitalist class, its electorate being composed overwhelmingly of the working class. What's more, the capitalist class plainly prefer it that way, prefer a political state which is not under their direct control. At every turn of history they have pushed in that direction.
I suppose that reflects the fact that, by and large, the capitalist class are not confused about which is the most powerful force to control?
As to whether that is Marxist doctrine or not, I cannot say. Seems like it should be, but I can't recall my Marx (what I have read of it) well enough to be sure.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas