larry bartels, unequal democracy (2008)

chapter 1

(2): economic inequality shapes politics is half of this book. other half is that politics profoundly shapes economics.

(3, 30, 60): claim #1--partisan politics have had a substantial impact on the economic fortunes of the middle class and the poor. real incomes of working poor families have grown six times as fast under democrats, real incomes of the middle class have grown twice as fast. a great deal of economic inequality is attributable to republican policies and priorities. (chapter 2) [there is an acknolwedgement on pg. 30 that some of these differences have been 'muted'--this begs explanation]

(3-4): claim #2--party image of white conservative working-class is largely mythical. this group has become more democratic. (chapter 3)

(4): claim #3--there are three reasons that republicans have fared so well over the past half-century, despite this (chapter 4)

1. myopic focus of voters on recent economic performance
2. high sensitivity to income-growth, which means that Republican's success in generating election-year income growth helps them
3. responsiveness of voters to campaign spending rewards Republicans' advantage in campaign fund-raising

(4): claim #5 (#4 is views on inequality--see chapter 5)--public income regarding the tax cuts was remarkably confused, despite egalitarian beliefs (chapter 6)

(5): claim #6--puzzle of the federal estate tax--which would have been repealed much earlier, had the political system been responsive to peoples' preferences. (chapter 7)

(5): claim #7--a 40% decline in the real value of the minimum wage since the late 1960s, despite consistent and strong public support for it. (chapter 8)

(5): claim #8--US Senators views are explained much better by their own partisan preferences than by the preferences of their constituents. where their constituents do matter, it is their affluent and middle-class constituents (the views of ordinary citizens have no discernible impact) (chapter 9).

(6): this book provides strong evidence that economic inequality has a profound impact on the political process.

(7): massive cumulative influence in divergent real income growth over the past half-century (real incomes of 20th percentile increased by less than 15,000 dollars; at the 9th percentile, 130,000 dollars) [see the charts on pages 8 and 9]

(9): much of the income growth that did appear was attributable to increases in working hours.

(13): the dramatic economic gains of the past 30 years have, in fact, been concentrated among the extremely rich

(14): [very deceptive use of polling data here -- 'many americans', when really the figure is quite low, and less than those who disagree that income differentials are necessary]

(15): 255 of the 400 richest people were 'self-made' -- interesting...

(17): citing Krugman to make clear that income stagnation is not explained by technological/sectoral change (how do you explain stagnation of mathemeticians and computer scientists; while CEO salaries jump by 100%?)

(19-20): tendency to totally ignore the 'political dimension' [again, this is important -- but it needs to be tempered. welfare cuts? glass-steagall?]

(22-23): interesting bit about media and inequality (how can you have ads for vacations to the caymans interspersed with analyses of inequality?)

(24-25): importance of government fiscal policy, taxation, central bank operations, debt management, banking, trade and tariffs, bailouts -- all this is agreed, no doubt. but needs, again, tempering [can we think about the 'autonomy' of the State, as it relates to this discussion? in other words, we might have a proxy for partisan effects in strength of labor movement, or even something else?]

chapter 2

(29): key--you need a response to this book's emphasis on political facts that can accomodate both

1. the limits of those partisan effects (and here can enter talk of state 'autonomy')
2. the underlying structural 'facts' (and here can enter some assessment of the narrowness of the regimes he's talking about -- really, the only Democrat that enters this analysis is Clinton. differences may be important (the EITC, for example), but the similarities are critical too (failed health reform, welfare reform, etc.)

(30): nice chart illustrating partisan difference

(35): and a nice chart, also, to problematize the question of Democrats in the neoliberal age [under carter inequality jumps (volcker shock, anyone?); under clinton it's steady, though if there hadn't been a decline in the first year there would have been an increase (what explains this blip?). this is quite strong evidence for point 2, above. part of the problem is the 'blackboxing' of social and technological trends, which allows him to talk about the long-term trends without any notion of partisan complicity. we need to respond to this point, as well]

(41): income growth for the 95th percentile has been remarkably stable, across regimes and across time.

(44): example of richard nixon, certainly, is illustrative--he pursues a contractionary policy before pursuing an inflationary policy confronted with the election campaign. here, certainly, we can agree that partisan effects mattered.

(45): same with gerald ford -- launches the whip inflation now policy, before calling for a one-year tax rebate in 1976

(46): the portrayal of Carter is deceptive -- where is the Volcker shock? the shock to the economy is presented as exogenous.

(50): unemployment and GNP growth preferable under democrats; inflation roughly equal.

(53): the 'honeymoon' effect -- first-year of their terms is when presidents have their most significant effects

(58): important--noting that it has become more difficult for presidents to influence pre-tax income. this is an important point about the neoliberal age, which is left implicit in the rest of the argument, i think. but obviously the other point, about taxes and the partisan policies, is important and shouldn't be neglected.

chapter 3

(66): argument--three questions, answer to all is no.

1. has the white working-class abandoned the democratic party?
2. has the white working class become more conservative?
   
3. do moral values trump economics as a basis of working-class?
   

(68): Brooks' definition of the 'white working class', clearly suspect; Bartels offers three reasons on 69-70.

(72-74): to the first question, no--it has not, the opposite trend is observed when you split the data up the way Bartels has. Republicans, in fact, win by 18 percentage points amongst high-income whites.

(77-78): what we have seen has everything to do with an erosion of Democratic support in the South, where the party's stance on civil rights and Jim Crow cost it the white vote. this is quite stark, actually.

(78-83): to the second question, no--hese are his attempt to assess views on gov't spending, etc., and he sees little evidence on the core issues [would have been preferable to use a cumulative measure, here]

(84, 86, 89): to the third question, no--combined weight attached to the economic issues exceeds the importance given to cultural issues by voters. he does find that american politics is increasingly about cultural issues, but still primarily about economic issues. evidence that higher-income voters attach more importance to cultural issues, than lower-income voters.

(90): to a fourth question, also more-or-less no--churchgoers might attach more importance to cultural issues, but this obscures differences amongst churchgoers.

(95): class politics are alive and well in the US--in fact, citing a huber and stanig study that shows that the gap in right-wing electoral suport is larger in the US, than Europe.

chapter 4

(98-99): argument--the puzzle of republican success despite their terrible performance is explained by three forms of myopia that characterizes voters:

1. voters responds most to income growth in election years
2. election-year income growth is more consequential for affluent families--much more so than for middle-class and poor families. part of this is the special kind of false-consciousness he adduces, it would seem (see graph on 105)
   
3. voters are swayed by campaign-spending (pg. 120)
   

(107): in a FN he says that Nixon presided over a booming economy--really?

(111, 125): a special kind of false-consciousness--american voters most sensitive to the fortunes of high-income voters

chapter 5

(129): argument-- two important conclusions from this chapter

1. strong evidence of the importance of egalitarian values in American political culture
2. at the same time, the increasing inequality of the last three decades hasn't had a marked effect on public perceptions (this is a place to talk more about false-consciousness, ideology, etc.)

chapter 6

(164): argument--example of the Bush tax cuts is an excellent example of disconnect between egalitarian sentiments and policy preferences (most people, in fact, hadn't thought about the cuts--page 188). there is considerable latitude given to the political system, he's arguing [this is the wrong way of interpreting this, i would argue]

chapter 7

(198): argument--perplexing story of the estate tax repeal. most people in favor of repeal, though it would benefit only the super-rich. in fact it proves the stubbornness of the political system.

chapter 8

(226-227): argument--paradox of why minimum wage hasn't been raised. explanations include:

1. declining stregnth of labor unions (pg. 240)
   
2. partisan politics--republican presidents and republican congresses (pg. 243)
   
3. alternative policy, like the earned income tax credit (pg. 246)
   

(228): study shows that moderate increase in the minimum wage didn't have the effect anticipated by the orthodoxy.

(248): he notes the critical importance of lobbying and corporate interests [strange that this doesn't figure in the explanation, directly.]

(251): demonstrates the unresponsiveness of political institutions in the US

chapter 9

(253): the premise of this presentation is emphatically pluralist--it is the miliband-style critique, of the sort that poulantzas scorned.

(253-254): argument--senators in this period (late 80's, early 90's) were vastly more responsive to the their affluent constituents, than to their constituents of modest means. (see the stark graphs on pg. 261 and pg. 270)

(262): "equal representation of incomes" not "equal representation of citizens"

(277): divergent knowledge levels is not an explanation

(280): important--if senators responded only to campaign contributions, they would respond in a way that accords with the data seen in this chapter.

chapter 10

(285): preferences of low-income people have no discernible impact on the political process.

(287): schumpeter quote

(288-289): bright spots--there are many affluent people with egalitarian views

(290): speaking of 'ideological polarization' -- but this is fundamentally not helpful. all he is saying is that party unity has hardened. push back here.

(292): push back here, too--Democrats have pursued policies for the have-nots(!), Republicans for the haves -- again, this is a clear case where he is not being nuanced in the conclusions drawn from his data.

After investing some three billion dollars in Afghanistan's destruction during the Cold War, Washington and its allies now proved parsimonious in the reconstruction funds they offered. At that 2002 Tokyo conference, international donors promised just four billion dollars of an estimated $10 billion needed to rebuild the economy over the next five years. In addition, the total U.S. spending of $22 billion for Afghanistan from 2003 to 2007 turned out to be skewed sharply toward military operations, leaving, for instance, just $237 million for agriculture. (And as in Iraq, significant sums from what reconstruction funds were available simply went into the pockets of Western experts, private contractors, and their local counterparts.)

On average, a tanker fills up six times a day, Sagar said, siphoning as much as 41% of the city's daily water supply, an amount that generates $43 million annually for tanker owners, according to Orangi.

problem, again, is to adduce a structural mechanism by which the State would align itself with the capitalist class.

in Poulantzas, we have the mechanism of 'atomization', via 'citizenship' (but this doesn't explain how the capitalist class is 'organized', as a counter-tendency).

we are left with an account of disorganization, then, but not what we're looking for.

- - - - -

this week's readings also take on 'instrumental' theories, as did Poulantzas. Offe raises an additional problem—it will have to be accompanied by a 'masking' effect (otherwise the State will run into a legitimacy problem). Offe does not take a clear position, though; more sets the stage.

Block adduces a mechanism. the need to maintain 'business confidence'--to maintain a healthy economic climate. if policies are proposed which have the effect of convincing firms and investors that will bring in a less-than-acceptable rate of return, the reaction will be to slow down the pace of investment, to exit, or even to go on an investment strike. all this spells disaster, for the regime. States will find it in their own interests, in short, to attend to the preferences of capitalists.

this is a feature of the Capitalist state, insofar as the State doesn't possess an independent source of surplus generation.

in the actual practice of State reproduction, State managers internalize the imperative of keeping 'business confidence' alive. they know that the key to their success, is this—State managers actively solicit the cooperation of capitalists. You don't hazard approaching those limits (in this sense, it doesn't work so much as a 'constraint'). And this reinforces the class-bias of the State.

To the untheoretical observer, this may look like 'influence'. But this is not the case.

Regardless, all this raises a question. How do you get the New Deal? How do you get Social Democracy? Block's answer is class struggle.

But this needs to be filled out, a bit.

The mere existence of class struggle will not induce the effect of concession. It is only when class struggle is able to make it cheaper to enact reforms than to oppose them (when it imposes 'costs') that this happens. When mobilization gets to the point that political demands are made, it is better to appease workers than to risk losing power altogether.

To an extent, for politicians, the mobilization of the working-class counteracts the power of the capitalists. Aggregation of the working-class cannot be ignored (in other words, the worker has to overcome the constitutional collective action problem).

At the same time, this also imposes two costs on politicians:

1. they may lose tax revenues

2. workers represent blocs of political power, that might threaten the politicians.

In other words, 'space' is opened up for the State. 'Autonomy' from the ruling class is increased (the State, don't forget, is always autonomous from labor—the puzzle, for Marxists, is when it can be more or less autonomous from capitalists)

The structural theories of the State don't mean to explain the whole gamut of State action. Argument here is that they make themselves apparent at critical junctures. You rarely actually 'see' them. A set of 'nested constraints'. [Not sure this makes sense to me]

Regardless, when labor's power increases, these regular constraints widen.

Jason stanley, "comrades or competitors?"

(12): challenges to solidarity in global market, for three reasons

1. inequality is greater in global market
2. cross-border immobility--capital mobility increases price elasticity for labor, from perspective of capital [but would they not still be competing, for jobs, even if there were mobility?]
3. an appreciating currency increases the price of labor; workers have no control over appreciation/depreciation, yet it will provoke cross-border hostility

(23-24): in the aftermath of the Auto Pact--because of appreciation in the US dollar beginning in the mid-70's, real wage costs were lower in Canada till the mid-80's. this made the crisis of the late 70's less severe, and the recovery of the early 80's stronger. [in this narrative, currency appreciation is at the forefront -- but not clear how labor immobility is working to undermine solidarity? isn't it more like divergent skill?]

(30-31): since cabotage routes were not part of the liberalization agreement and since freight was a small part of the IBT for american workers, there was muted response, on their part. canadians were more up-in-arms after liberalization of their half in the late 80's--in '86, a nationalist proposal was defeated; but in '89, it passed. importance of political economy ftw!

ralph miliband, "state power and class interests" (1983)

(57): guiding question--"how great a degree of autonomy does the state have in capitalist society?"

(58): two views in Marx

1. State as instrument of a ruling class
2. State as 'independent from and superior to all social classes' (Bonapartism as extreme example)

(58): in dialogue with Poulantzas, a distinction, Miliband is arguing, had to be made between:

1. the State acting on behalf of the ruling class (defensible)
   
2. the State acting on behest of the ruling class (vulgar deformation)

(59): the question of whether Marxist theories share a problematic with democratic pluralist views of the State [this is what Block and Offe are concerned with, too]

(60): Theda Skocpol's view of the State, two readings (first favorable, second excessive)

1. the interests that the State may have, on its own, and the question of how that intersects with the interests of the ruling class (important amendment, miliband is saying)
   
2. the possibility that the State possesses interests that are fundamentally opposed to the interests of all forces in society (excessive conception of autonomy)

(61-62): at some level, my reading is that he is suggesting here that, in Marxism thus far, there have been, in a sense, two sources of the autonomy of the State:

1. class struggle--the extent to which struggle challenges the hegemony of the ruling classes
2. also, functional--to better serve the existing order and the dominant class
   

(61): US as the country which comes closest to total capitalist hegemony (no feudal heritage, weak labor movement)

(62): key--this does not satisfy him--yes, the foregoing bit about sources of autonomy is important, and yes, the dynamic of State action is explained by the imperative requirements of capitalism and the pressure of captialists--but this is not the whole story. there are to main impulses that give the State an 'autonomous' kind of interest [whereas the previous autonomy had everything to do with capitalism, in a sense, this is more about the State, it seems]

1. self-interest--people in power wish to retain it.
   
2. the 'national interest', as a motivation for those in power [this is much weaker than the first, I think--can be thought of as a 'legitimation', in fact. for the 'national interest' is naught but ideology, surely]

(64): "these twin concerns encompass, or at least seek to encompass, capitalist class interests: but this is not the same as saying that state action and these class interests coincide."

(65): and thus, key: he is going to argue we must think of this as a "partnership between two different, separate forces, linked to each other by many threads, yet each having its own separate sphere of concerns" [this loses so much of the force, really--no conception of the inequality and the deep differences between the two institutions. the State is much more dependent on the capitalist class, than the other way around, surely? unless we are thinking of a State which owns sources of surplus? and is even that sufficient? quite confusing formulation, i think]

(65): we have to find space between, in short, a 'class-reductionist' position and a 'state-reductionist' one. "I seek to avoid both forms...", in speaking of a partnership.

(66): Skocpol, and the State living 'for itself'

(67): mistakes of Statecraft are not evidence of 'fundamental disagreements' between the ruling class and the capitalist class [two examples: war in Vietnam, and Hitler's expansion]

claus offe, "structural problems of the capitalist state"

(106): principal take-home point. individual capitalist are limited in three dimensions (vis-a-vis larger capitalist rationality)

1. competition amongst each other
2. time-wise -- they are predisposed to think in the short-term
3. politically, there may be interests of which they're unaware that are in the interests of the class, at-large
   

block, "the ruling class does not rule: notes on the marxist theory of the State"

(51-52): two elements of an alternative theory

1. different way of conceptualizing the relationship between State and class
2. elaboration of a structural framework that makes sense of why the State is a capitalist State

(52): capitalism's capacity to rationalize itself is the outcome of conflict between three agents:

1. capitalist class
2. state managers
3. working-class

(53): instrumentalist theory neglects two things:

1. the ideological character of the state--the State may be an instrument, but it also strives to appear otherwise. why?
   
2. to act in the general interest of the capitalist class, it must be able to act against the interests of any given capitalist. how? (if it is just an instrument, in other words). the instrumentalist account assumes too cohesive a ruling class.
   

(54): the key notion, in a more developed, structural framework, is the notion of a division of labor between capitalists and the State (the latter 'manages', so to speak)

(55): using Marx's notion of representation to talk about this structural link between the capitalists and the State

(56): instrumentalism's affinity to reformist socialism--both regard the State as an instrument that is worked on. if the link between the State and the capitalist class could be broken, the working class could wield the State.

(56): certainly, there are subsidiary mechanisms (two, they mention)

1. direct influence of individual capitalists. also, under this they put the phenomenon of "the revolving door"--capitalists serving in government
2. bourgeois cultural hegemony (widespread acceptance of certain unwritten rules) [they are saying, though, that this is question-begging, to an extent
   

(58): the crux--the major structural mechanisms, which have to explain why (1) anticapitalist policies are off the table and why (2) capitalist policies are on said table.

1. capacity ofState to finance itself through taxation or borrowing depends on the state of the economy.
   
2. public support for a regime will decline if the economy declines.
   

(58-59): in other words, for these reasons, capitalists have to ensure favorable private investment decisions, by capitalists. they have to see to "business confidence" (includes intangibles as well as tangibles)

(60-61): useful account of the danger of left-wing regimes for business confidence--dynamics here are:

1. left of center government comes in to redistribute income to the poor
2. business attempts to resist this shift by raising prices
3. inflation causes people to flee the gov't currency
   
4. all this gives the government two choices: (1) reassure the business community and pursue orthodox policies; (2) forge ahead
5. if it forges ahead, it is faced with a balance of trade deficit problem.
   
6. continued inflation continues to cause people to flee the currency, leading it toward monetary/fiscal crisis, as it gets harder and harder for it to get loans.
   
7. the government may temper its reformism. or it may forge ahead.
   
8. if it forges ahead, it will have to impose serious restrictions on capitalists (price controls, import controls, exchange controls).
   
9. all this is a new level of threat for capitalists, and will invite a new level of resistance.
   
10. the only alternative left, for the State, is socialism (which, of course, demands a highly politicized and radicalized base). SOCIALISM OR BUST.
    

(62): none of the preceding requires any sort of conspiracy. this is a structural constraint [of a capitalist State, or a State in capitalism?]

(63-65): here highlighting a dynamic that needs more unpacking--the class struggle, they're saying, impels capitalism in a way that demands a larger and larger role of the State in the economy. more capacity, then, to discipline Capital.

(65): faced with reforms, State managers weigh three things--all these mean that reforms are likely to go in a direction that doesn't damage business confidence but has the effect of expanding State power.

1. don't want to damage business confidence
2. do not want class antagonisms to escalate
3. they recognize that there is potential, through reforms, to expand their own power.
   

(66): as a rule, major reforms will be difficult. at times where business confidence is not a serious obstacle (war, depression), they are on the cards.

(67): good summary paragraph. two main take-home points:

1. 'capitalist rationality' emerges out of the three-sided relationship between capitalists, workers, and state managers. state managers seek to maintain the viability of the social order--they don't want to offend business confidence, but also have to rationalize capitalism, at times.
   
2. state managers can only act, then, on the terrain marked out by the intersection of two factors: class struggle and the level of economic activity.
   

huber and stephens, development and crisis of the welfare state (2001)

(xi): welfare states, especially Nordic ones, as "remarkably resilient"

chapter one: introduction

(1-3): the argument, in nine claims

1. (1): partisan politics is 'single most important factor that shaped the development of welfare states'. this was strongly related to social structural features (strength of organized labor and religious cleavages). [this is a theoretical contribution, insofar as it stresses the importance of left political power, and not just movement power with infrequent left government--Australia and NZ from 1950-1972 are examples of the latter--see pg. 10, pg. 114, pg. 195. this (and their emphasis on gender) is what principally distinguishes them from the 'political class struggle' school--see pg. 20]. their reflections on CD welfare states vs. SD welfare states fit here, too, since the more universalistic character of the latter has its origins in the fact that it was 'more left', in this sense--see pg. 144, 312-313, where the distinctions are summarized (Netherlands is a CD case where there is constant pressure from SD).
   
2. (1): the welfare states required, also, the economy to be embedded in high-productivity, export production regimes (had to maintain high investment and high levels of employment). a 'mutually enabling fit'--see pg. 23. against others (Esping-Anderson), their argument is that the essence of the welfare State is not decommodification, but actually high qualification for the labor market--see pg. 184, pg 334. emphasis is that an individual's separation from the labor market be temporary and involuntary. they try and integrate as large a proportion of the population as possible.
   
3. (1): the importance of the partisan character of government (see pg. 305) declines as you move to the post-crisis years, as States have less latitude (leftists less to expand, rightists less to cut). at the same time, they do not go to zero (Nordic states after crisis of early 90's).
   
4. (2): immediate cause of retrenchment was a large increase in unemployment (more people dependent on transfers, less people contributing). the exception to this is the US and especially the UK--see pg. 219.
   
5. (2): against the orthodox globalization literature, found little support for claim that cutbacks were caused by sharp trade competition. at the same time, it was true that financial deregulation mattered for policy choices--it is more difficult to keep interests low because of threat of exit, see pg. 12). on top of this, globalization did matter to an even greater extent, in Australia and NZ, which hadn't constructed their welfare states on the basis of exposure to the international economy in the same way as the other States.
   
6. (2): the structure of decision-making mattered, insofar as constitutions with many 'veto points' both inhibited and slowed the pace of policy change [US and Switzerland vs. UK and Denmark and NZ]. NZ and UK had system-changing retrenchment, something that we can only make sense of if we pay attention to this--see pg. 307, pg. 309
   
7. (2): a strong interactive effect of women's labor force participation and social democratic government--i.e., linkages seen in Nordic countries between "social democratic government, increases in participation, women's political mobilization, and social service expansion'. "where women have been more mobilized and allied with political parties that support gender equality..." --see pg. 28, pg. 196.
   
8. (2, see also 28-29, 323): found a medium level of path-dependency (not strong, because then you can't make sense of the UK or of New Zealand), owing to four mechanisms. these are four ways in which the claim about the 'long-term effects of partisan government' is operationalized--see pg. 28-29: first, structural constraints (balance of power in society; policy options are limited by the constellation of power in a country in a given period (US labor, Swedish business)); second, ideological hegemony (center of gravity of public opinion, distribution of actors preferences, which can be shaped, also, by historic struggle); third, policy ratchet effects (rapid growth of support for welfare state provisions after their introduction, generating a new political center of gravity); fourth, regime legacies (empowerment of certain social actors who then shape further development; future possibilities for development of the welfare state are determined by what happened previously--each actor begins with the current state as given) [all this is a theoretical contribution, related to the very first point. however it does seem as if some of them are a bit confused; they blur with each other, but no matter.]
9. (13, 337): a theoretical contribution, but perhaps helpful to think of as a ninth claim--part of 'power constellation theory', of course. they are finding space between the pluralist and Marxist theories of the State--welfare state policy can respond to labor and work against the interests of capital (rather than being 'functional' for capitalist dominance, as Poluantzas put it), without requiring us to be as silly as the pluralists, of course. another way of putting it, as they do in the conclusion: "in the absence of working-class organization, the Marxist theory was correct: Public policy was formed according to the interests of capital". However, if counterhegemony is mobilized through working-class organization and electoral politics, this can change--see pg. 337-338
   

(3): the theoretical frame, power constellations approach

1. class power balance
2. structure of state and of state-society relations
3. complex of relations amongst systems of states, on an international level

(8-9): two methodological contributions

1. bringing quantitative and qualitative analysis together
2. you can miss larger constraints when you analyze simply short-term events (so, for example, you will see little employer opposition in Nordic countries--but this misses how much these employer preferences have been shaped by a longer history)

(11): 'siding' with the political-institutional school, who agree that this wasn't built by bureaucrats...

(12): ok--high-skill high-wage position int he international economy [this clearly isn't open to anyone--how do we run with this?]

(12): welfare state benefits as 'compensation' for wage restraint in export industries

chapter two: theoretical framework and methodological approach

(14): there have been three main theoretical approaches

1. logic of industrialism--these are byproducts of economic development and its consequences
2. state-centric--focused on the policy-making role of bureaucrats, who are relatively autonomous from social forces (very different kind of relative autonomy, of course)
3. political class struggle/power resources--distribution of power between left and right identified as primary determinant of difference in impact of welfare state (see claim one, as summarized above)
   

(17-18): on class--as elaborated, a fundamentally Weberian theory of class (borrowing Elster--no exploitation). yet when it comes to operationalizing this, they have a more or less Marxist list. acknowledging, also, the critical importance of organization (this is part of a claim highlighting the importance of the point of production--so in that sense, it is possible to think of this as more-or-less Marxist. unpack).

(20): critical contribution--what distinguishes us from the other power resources theory is our focus on political parties. focus on the long-term partisan character of government.

(22): more on path-dependency, policy legacies

(22): more on State structure and 'veto points'

(23): importance of a 'mutually enabling fit' between welfare states and the production regimes in which they're embedded.

(25-26): craft vs. industrial unions -- or, more broadly, centralized vs. decentralized unions (with the former more likely to take a leftist, class-wide perspective). this has at least three effects on labor movement:

1. more successful at consciousness transformation means more electoral success
2. more electoral success means more likely to influence state policy
3. more powerful vis-a-vis capital

(26): and in sum--it is this form of organization of the union movement, its influence on the incumbency of the left, and the possibilities for capital which are highly consequential for the policy regime (we have lost some of the ordering of the argument, here, so think through this)

(31-32): again, more reflections on 'path-dependency'--placing themselves in the middle

(35): a bit on counterfactual reasoning -- the task is to try and imagine what would have happened had the long-term partisan character of government been flipped (if the LP had been in power in Australia from 1950-1972, for example)

(37): Swedish bourgeois parties did not dismantle Welfare State from 1976-1982

chapter four: welfare state and production regimes

(110): thinking of four types of welfare states

1. social democratic: (1) universalistic entitlements, (2) comprehensiveness of social policy regimes, (3) citizenship based entitlements, (4) high income replacement rates (in pensions, i.e.), (5) emphasis on high levels of publicly delivered social services; (6) gender egalitarianism; (7) policies aimed at labor force training. associated with nationally coordinated market economy with high union coverage and centralized wage bargaining, etc., etc. (details here).
   
2. Christian democratic: (1) fragmented entitlements; (2) mostly employment-based entitlements; (3) emphasis on transfers; (4) moderate to high replacement rates; (6) male breadwinner pattern; (7) passive labor market policy.
   
3. liberal welfare state: (1) partial program coverage; (2) income or needs testing entitlement; (3) moderate to low replacement rates; (4) few public delivered services; (6) passive family policy; (7) passive labor market policy.
   
4. wage earner welfare state (Aus, NZ): (1): partial coverage due to protection given by wage-setting; (2) role for income testing; (3) moderate to low replacement rates; (4) few publicly delivered services ; (6) male breadwinner; (7) passive labor market. liberal market economy with, especially initially, substantial protection to domestic producers.
   

(112): social democratic states much more equal and had lower levels of poverty than the liberal welfares states. also surprising how 'redistributive' CD welfare states, were.

chapter five: welfare states and production regimes in the golden age

(115-117): sources of SD strength

1. strong labor movements is critical, undisputed starting-point for social democratic strength (not divided by ideology or confessional--religious homogeneity, in other words).
2. a divided right helps.
3. corporatism, where you have strong union movements in export markets that need some coordination.

(119): a break with the 'poor law' tradition--a right not to be poor, rather than saving only the 'deserving poor'

(120): important--legislation more egalitarian than negotiation

(122): SAF aggressiveness was conditioned by SD strength

(123-125): three phases of development, in Sweden

1. 1945-1955
2. passage of ATP, in late 1950's
3. beginning in 1960 which is where you begin to get increased women's participation, which leads to women's mobilization, in turn (late 60s early 70s)

(127): active labor market policy (moving displaced workers to high-productivity sectors, making it impossible for low-productivity enterprises to exist)

(129-130): critical--they had to have a growing market for their products (for Sweden, this was continental Europe)

(135-137): Finland in two phases, pivoting on the 1960s (which is when it became a real Nordic welfare State, as the Left comes to power in 1966--a shift, with this, to one of the highest reinvestment ratios)

(141): a weaker left in Denmark, stronger agrarian interests

(144): key--the CD welfare states, less universalistic, less service oriented, and much less gender egalitarian

(147): 1949 elections was key counterfactual in Germany's case--could have been much more universalistic and solidaristic

(152): German welfare state was getting stronger in the 70s, but then the crisis hit

(156): Austria was closer to SD state than Germany -- mainly because of greater participation of SD in government

(162): Netherlands was more religiously divided--like in Germany, there was a missed opportunity after the war, but the Left was too weak to take advantage

(164): here, more conservative forces had the reins, but were always worried by the serious challenge posed by the Left (this is important to the larger argument)

(169): key--NZ was one of most advanced welfare state in 1950 (labor had been in power for much of the two decades previous--see pg. 174), but degenerated as the international economy took its toll (because it was based on a protected manufacturing sector)

(180): AUS vs. NZ on constitutional structure, reflected in medical outcome (less generous in the former)

(184): key--essence of the welfare state is not decommodification, but high qualification and participation in the labor market

(188): important to remember that the women's mobilizations came from those outside the core of SD welfare state's initial constituency (manufacturing workers). this is why it is particularly important to play close attention to 'interactive effects', rather than read this as a simple consequence of SD.

(189): business was not interested in wasting political capital on chucking things they could not chuck.

(190-194): various examples to illustrate how they see path dependency working out. useful.

chapter 6: welfare state retrenchment

(219): key--welfare states by and large unemployment driven (Denmark, Netherlands as early as 1975; Germany and Australia in the 1980s; Scandinavia in the 1990s). all a pragmatic response to increasing burdens on the welfare state, and declining contributions. exceptions are the US and UK, where these are ideologically-driven.

(220): there was, everywhere, declining public share of health expenditure quite early (70s). explained away by rising medical costs.

(220): partisan effects had disappeared by the 1980s (diminished already in the 1970s)

chapter 7: the politics of welfare states after the golden age

(223): key, crisis of the 1970s brought:

1. internationalization of trade
2. internationalization of production
3. deregulation of financial, capital, currency markets (which has meant, critically, that governments cannot control both the interest rate and the exchange rate--countercyclical monetary and fiscal policy produces an outflow of capital and a downward pressure on exchange rates. in a fixed regime, this will drive the interest rate higher and higher).
   
4. decline of industrial, rise of service
5. decline of Fordism, rise of skill-differentiated manufacture and flexible specialization

(224): globalization refers to the first three components above

(225-226): specific way in which unemployment impacted

1. fiscal pressures
2. and the perception that they were permanent problems

(226): not the internationalization of trade, since these were highly open economies already. these countries have been high-skill export economies. [but does this dismiss the argument that they became open to competition?]

(227): capital is not always looking for low wages (most investment flows to OECD countries)

(227-230): key--certainly, the internationalization of capital markets has had a detrimental impact on the generosity of welfare states. you could only keep low interest rates if you were willing to accept a depreciating currency, which would mean, among other things, difficulty importing capital goods, raw materials, etc. [question is how this fits, exactly, in the argument--proximate cause, via unemployment? this seems right, see pg 230]

(230): key, impact on fiscal policy is complicated. it is quite clear that they are saying the latter dynamic prevails in the 1980s and 1990s.

1. on one hand, should be easier--since the threat of crowding out is less [this seems weak]
   
2. on the other hand, fiscal expansion will have to be counteracted by monetary austerity, or else your currency will depreciate (owing to inflation). if you have fixed exchange rates, this will require you to drive up interest rates, counteracting fiscal stimulus. if you have floating exchange rates, your exchange rate will fall, increasing domestic inflation, which threatens to become a vicious cycle.

(230): important--there is a kernel of truth, then, in globalization being linked to retrenchment (lower investment owing to deregulation). but it is a second-order cause, and there are other things that have caused unemployment. [this is more important than they are letting it be, i think--here they are talking about the 'crisis' (fall in investment, capital stock formation, etc.), some of these:

1. speaking of rising participation rates, but this is limited in its scope.
2. 'demographic burden'--but not clear, they say, because it is more a question of labor force participation
3. having grown to limits--but these are political, they are saying

(300): 'modest cuts' vs. (302):widespread cuts (of considerable magnitude, some)

(305): still some partisan impact in the 1990s in Nordic countries

(307, 309): UK and NZ have deep cuts -- this shows that 'political structure' matters.

chapter 8: conclusion

(312-323): repeated summary of the argument

(324): five problems with the American model of neoliberal job growth:

1. if you account for incarceration, there's nothing special going on
2. not clear that the American experience is 'replicable', if you think of what happened to UK/NZ, who tried it
3. costs in terms of poverty and inequality are quite high
4. increase in inequality is likely to lead to a deterioration in skills
5. the idea that wages have to be low in service is dubious because service sector is heterogeneous

(325): an essential step has to be increased levels of domestic investment

1. invest social insurance systems domestically [not already happening?]
2. return to budge surpluses to bring down interest rates
3. change financing of social security schemes to ease burden on employers
4. creation of part-time jobs (two part-time better than one full-time and one employed), as in Netherlands
5. investment in training

(328): all this is radically different than in UK/US

(334): again, unlike Esping-Anderson, commodification is the heart of the Welfare State, not decommodification.

(340): you have to pay attention to the structure of States (state-centered theory), but not without forgetting power relations

(341, 345): interesting, and worth discussing--in their final restatements, it comes close to a Marxist theory--Nordic states as a compromise between capital and labor, where capital has considerable hegemonic power and states are still structurally dependent on capital. but, they will want to insist, power constellations, only, can make sense of the great distinctions to be made between Sweden and the US (certainly, it does seem like P's functionalism is off-limits; simply not true that the welfare state, also, has not redistributed income, like some old Marxists once thought)

(344): Aus/NZ radically egalitarian in their origins?! Sweden very hierarchical, Norway not. Saying all this to make an important claim about how an inherited political culture cannot explain anything.

Taxing income earned through agricultural activities is the sole prerogative of provincial governments under the 1973 Constitution of Pakistan. All the four provinces have enacted laws to this effect, but total collection in 2009 was below Rs. 2 billion against the actual potential of Rs. 200 billion (share of agriculture in GDP was about 22 percent). This abysmally low collection proves beyond any doubt lack of political will to tax the rich absentee landlords. Presently, the provincial governments are not collecting tax on agriculture income but on fixed per acre basis. They charge Rs.150 per acre from the irrigated area and Rs100 per acre from non-irrigated land. This is gross violation of Constitution that requires tax on agricultural income.

The arrest of key Taliban leaders in Pakistan stopped a secret channel of communications with the United Nations, the former UN special representative to Afghanistan said Friday in a BBC interview.

After weeks of tense calm in volatile North Waziristan Agency (NWA), the Taliban on Wednesday announced to honour their peace accord with the government. The Taliban, led by Hafiz Gul Bahadur, issued a leaflet in Urdu language, pledging to abide by the peace accord. “We will keep our peace accord intact for the sake of our people and all the Muslims,” the Taliban explained in the leaflet. They denied any role in the recent strong-worded leaflets issued by some elements in North Waziristan against the government and the military authorities, accusing them of working for the interest of the US in the region. They also distanced themselves from remote-controlled bomb attacks on security forces in tribal region and termed them an act of the enemies of the North Waziristan residents.

on the characterization of authoritarian regimes in latin america, fernando cardoso

(33): puzzle is authoritarianism in 'modernizing' societies (caudillismo in haciendo/export-agriculture economies could be understood), contrary to expectations of modernization theory

(35): importance of 'bureaucratic-authoritarian', indicating the fact that military domination is institutional, and not individual (which was 'caudillismo')

(36): authoritarianism is distinct from fascism because the former aspires to induce apathy in the masses [perhaps, another way of putting it is that it is not coming to terms with the arrival of masses on the political stage, a la fascism, but rather pre-empting that arrival; though this is not exactly right, since 'bureaucratic-authoritarian' regimes do react to leftist movements]

(37): different 'ideological' content, too -- more hierarchial/conservative content, than 'racial' nationalism

(38): thesis--a form of regime that guarantees the continued advance of capitalist industrial development (rather than a new form of state)--in other words the basic alliance/pact of domination that exists among social classes remains unchanged

(39): form of State in Latin America is 'dependent' and 'capitalist'

(40): simple economic determination is clearly not useful--but we do need to think about how economic accumulation (which demands, in a 'dependent' and 'capitalist' country, increasing inequality) is managed in a political regime, and how the military option addresses this source of tension

(41): the metastasization of the 'executive' at the expense of the legislature [this clearly fits the Pakistan example, quite well]

(41): importance, also, of thinking through possible tension between the executive and military [stepan's reminders fit here]

(44): discussion of degree of liquidiation of representative mechanisms [Ayub's BD fits here well, of course] as corresponding to degree of distrust amongst dominant classes, for masses

(44): Thermidor in LA as a response, also, to threat of socialism (cold war, cuban revolution, etc.) [in Pakistan not so clear, one thinks--but E. Pakistan, clearly, as 'threat']

(47): different 'control capacity' of authoritarian regimes, re: public opnion [Peru vs. Uruguay/Argentina]

(50): clearly not in the service of landed elites; this is an outdated thesis, he is stressing

(50): moreover, argument, harkening back to State/regime, which is that military regimes have not pursued policies particularly distinct from those pursued by democratic regimes--it is the fact that the latter cannot stem social pressures that accounts for the turn to repression, really [this makes eminent sense in Ayub--but Zia, Musharraf, how to think through this?]

(51-52): noting the autonomous economic interests of the State -- that, otherwise, it is difficult to suggest that particular social classes benefit more under authoritarian rule than under democratic (Mexico and Brazil). and certainly, there is no one-to-one correspondence between military regime and economic policy (Peru vs. Chile)

Khurshid Kasuri, Pakistan's former foreign minister, said the participation of General Ashfaq Kayani, the army chief, in the talks was a firm indication of where power resided in a country with an inconsistent civilian administration.

alfredo stepan, rethinking military politics

(3-8): political society, civil society, and the State -- too much focus on 'civil society' to the exclusion of political society; we need to make a distinction between 'liberalization' and 'democratization' (latter encompasses former)

(10): stressing military's own institutional interests, vs. Poulantzas' conception of 'relative autonomy' of State

(11): military is demanded where 'hegemony' is absent (following Gramsci and Weber) -- in other words, a 'specific' attnetion to the military is critical [this is a decent start at conceptualizating the Ayub period, no doubt--but not clear if it gets us much farther than we already were.]

(15): "the new professionalism"

(17): '68-'72 most repressive period, under Medici

(19-20, particularly in Brazil p. 25): autonomy of intelligence agency [q. about ISI, here]

(28-29): abertura begins in 1973 -- throughout this period, he's aruging, you see institutional obstacles to the 'opening', where it is argued that 'social conflicts' don't permit democratization

(30-32): three components to military rule (gov't, security, institution), four configurations

(38): use of civil society against military extremists (principally the security apparatus) -- in other words, the suggestion is that this is how we ought to think of aspects of the abertura

(44): analysis of military discourse, citing Foucault? this could get ugly...

(56-57): by 1982, the 'Brumerian' moment had passed (economic crisis, threat of Left had receded, multiclass civil society opposition to the regime) -- so question is what was presenting the military from abandoning power?

(59-60): for reasons listed here (generally, strength of their own position within the state structure), military was comfortable moving towards some sort of 'opening', as long as their institutional interests were seen to (development of arms industry, no retaliation against them)

(60): summary of his own argument re: 1964 (conjunctural factors, despite general weakening of democratic forces)

(61): three causes of presidency going to civil society in 1985 (are these really causes? this is descriptive, no?)

1. gov't candidate drove supporters to opposition
2. broad candidte for opposition
3. military had to allow selection of both candidates, and election to proceed
   

(64): needed a candidate who was moderate enough that the military would accede (noting that this would not have been possible in Argentina or in Chile, where military killed more than one hundred times people, per capita, than in brazil)

(68): wrt to civilian control of military (i.e. once indemocratic period), two dimensions--"articulated military contestation", and "military institutional prerogatives"

(80): situation re: military budget was the 'opposite' in Brazil, from Argentina; in the former, stood to gain from democratization, as a 'pressure group'

(84): interesting--arguing that the emergence of a significant arms-industry decreases the rationale for military dictatorship, precisely because, now, they don't need state power to guarantee arms. they don't need to import weapons from abroad; and now, additionally, they have non-military industrialists who benefit from the arms industry, in general, meaning the possibility exists of making alliances across civil society. this is what he sees in Brazil, viz-a-viz other countries on the cone (giving the example of India, too--"military-industrial complex paradoxically strengthens the chances for democracy")

(87): Brazil learned from Argentine military's incompetence in Malvinas war

(92-96): table detailing eleven military prerogatives

(100): military prerogatives/military contestation table --four possibilities

(122): interesting comparative graph of the transitions

(128): this has been one of stepan's main points--that 'brumerian' moments can turn, easily, into 'praetorian decades' (i.e., outlast the desire of civil society to have military rule, precisely because the military has its own institutional interests)

(136): the need, in essence, of the erosion of military claims to military expertise [all this is quite underwhelming, in all honesty]

(145): bring the military into the political fold, ensuring that conflict unfolds transparently [yawn...]

The US Embassy in Bishkek last week confirmed the sensational news that Washington proposes to build up a counter-terrorism training center in Batken in southern Kyrgyzstan, close to China's border, which ironically enough will be in immediate proximity to a proposed Russian base.

the theory of the capitalist state (poulantzas and miliband)

up until the 1960s, in political science and sociology the reigning approach to the State was 'pluralism' (and it's still the dominant approach in the mainstream). this takes the State as a neutral actor; simply a site that takes in pressures and demands from outside groups, and acts accordingly (not necessarily a passive actor—but its direction comes from 'pressure groups', fundamentally)

it does not assign, to any particular pressure group, any advantage in access or influence. the list of potential pressure groups is quite large (students, employers, religious organizations, etc. – any 'civic' organization, which is pursuing its interests in an organized way).

politics, therefore, doesn't have any ex ante direction—all groups have potentially the same influence over state policy as any other group

around the 1960s, criticisms of this approach started to circulate.

in the US, you get C. Wright Mills ('a strange character').

it's Ralph Miliband's book, on the British state, which heralds this literature

primarily, this 'radical' approach attacks the illusion that no one pressure group has an ex ante advantage. simply put, because lobbying and pressure takes resources, groups that have greater resources will have a structural advantage in the political process.

in fact, there are four nested arguments, here:

1. social origins, recruitment from elite circles-- the highest echelons of State mangers, in the US, are recruited out of the corporate sector; in Britain, the civil service plays this role.

2. social networks—even if the social origins aren't aligned, the social networks into which these folks are cast define their buddies, allies, etc. (kids in private schools, etc.)

3. lobbying—in the form of think-tanks/advice, as well as the more obvious forms (in the US, any crucial legislation that's drawn up on business is drawn up by thinktanks—the simple reason for this, of course, is because lawmakers are idiots). expertise belongs to the people that run the economy.

4. finance—in the US, there are two elections, every four years: the less important one is the one we know—before you get the votes, there's an initial competition over funders. before politicans compete over votes, they compete over funders. cannot say anything that gives the impression they will act against the interests of their funders.

these four, taken together, have come to be known as the 'instrumentalist' theory of the State. the State is being wielded by the State, as an instrument (the capitalist class control the State apparatus—their physical proximity to the State, 'claims' over the State constitute their authority). this is to be contrasted to the 'structuralist' theory of the State, which we will come to.

vivek, however, is noting that the four 'instrumentalist' claims are better understood as a 'structuralist' theory (because the notion of unequal resources demands a 'structural' understanding, most obviously).

important--at the same time, it does share an important commonality with 'pluralism', which is that the State is more-or-less neutral (that all of these influences/pressures come from without, in a sense). it is, in some sense, a 'thing' to be wielded, even still. where they differ from pluralists is that they believe that certain pressure groups have structural advantages.

this is what Poulantzas is objecting to, principally (and others, too).

important--the political implications of the 'instrumentalist' view obviously problematic. the notion is that the institutions of the State can be changed, if the nature of the navigator and the maps change. the State is simply a machine, in a sense. it is a distinction understood, for example, as “the State in Capitalism” vs. “the Capitalist State” [the notion, of course, is that the State has to be smashed—that it

is intrinsically biased towards the interests of elites]

so what's the argument?

the challenge for structuralist state theory has been to adduce mechanisms which incline it toward dominant class interests. something about the State's very institutional structure that biases it toward capitalists' intrests.

what is Poulantzas' argument?

he begins by noting that the Capitalist State is characterized by a structural fact about the capitalist economy—which is that the extraction of the surplus does not require the use of political power to extract the surplus. feudalism, of course, works differently. in capitalism, force is not required—the 'dull compulsion' of economic relations is sufficient.

what, then, is the function of the State, under Capitalism? it switches from being an actor in extraction—instead, it manages the 'effects' of surplus extraction. it strives to be the factor of cohesion; it is what keeps the whole thing together. (this is compatible with the pluralist notion, vivek is arguing—it 'manages' difference. in other words, we can't stop here)

the question of its complicity in elites' interests, of course, relies on Poulantzas' argument that the 'way' in which it keeps things together is crucial.

in managing and organizing for the coherence of society, the State becomes a bourgeois state by virtue of the fact that it reproduces capitalist relations of production. this is a political function, two-fold:

1. disorganizes the dominated classes.

2. organizes the dominant classes.

how does it do this?

for the dominated classes, two things:

1. constitutes them as 'formally equal' to their exploiters—it reinforces economic atomization with political atomization (this is very different from the Feudal State, which enshrines status distinctions). abstracts away from class to found the nation (we can think of this as a separate function).

2. disorganizes the dominated classes by allowing for economic concessions, to them. the root of what Lenin called 'economism'

notice, though, that this 'atomization' of subjects applies to everybody. left to itself, then, this is a mechanism that should equally effect both classes. so this disorganization has to be complemented by the selective organization of elites. this is where the theory gets murky, vivek's arguing.

Poulantzas argues that the State organizes the dominant classes by “the play of its institutions”. the first claim: the action of the State institutions have to have the effect of increasing the organization of the dominant classes. the second claim: capitalist classes exist as a bloc of classes, which means that it has to organize a differentiated mass—how is it, then, that the State organizes the dominant classes into a power bloc?

in almost every instance, though, in Poulantzas' book he is exceedingly vague on how the State institutions organize the dominant classes. rather, it seems more that the dominant classes act on the State, in his narrative (in effect, here you have to introduce the 'instrumentalist' claims to make this sensible, in a way—but this is precisely what he is writing against).

it is not clear that it is the State which is making them cohere as a dominant power bloc. there is no sense that it is the State which is doing the work.

this is a weakness of the theory—but it doesn't necessarily make this theory useless.

it does show that the State disorganizes the dominated classes, as an effect of its own reproduction. but the second dynamic is not justified, in his account.

---

types of States (class character) vs. forms of State (within these class categories) – if the effect of disorganizing dominated classes is the task of the bourgeois state itself, it is hard to see how this could be true. this is an artifact of the 20^th century state—the bourgeois State has been around for four hundred years, and it was not the case that workers were formally equal to capitalists throughout this period. what Poulantzas is really describing, here, is the 'bourgeois-democratic' state. before this, it was the 'bourgeois-oligarchic' state.

---

structured totality (Althusserian conception—each part has its own integral logic) vs. expressive totality (everything is a jumble, expressing the overwhelming influence of the 'essence')

---

functional vs. intrinsic definition of a concept

---

'contradictoriness' of State intervention? certainly, every effect of the State is not an 'intended' effect; how do you account for this? 'functional' vs. 'accidental'?

---

Althusser was the first Western Marxist who argued that Marxism must be a 'science' (unlike the Frankfurt School and Lukacs). Yet his actual epistemology was fundamentally 'idealist' – 'generality 1, generality 2, generality 3'. Concepts working on concepts generating theories—so you have claims of science, rhetorical, that don't prove to be worth anything, philosophically. People who take the rhetoric seriously and abandon the philosophy became good Marxists. People who take the philosophy seriously become poststructuralists (Laclau/Mouffe).

---

Summary remarks: we're trying to understand whether the State, by its very institutional structure, is implicated in class power. Poulantzas is one attempt. Next week we will look at three reasons that this might be the case: Offa, Miliband, Bloch.

ralph miliband, the capitalist state: reply to poulantzas (1969)

(55): absolutely spot on (first problem, method)--"To put the point plainly, I think it is possible, in this field at least, to be so profoundly concerned with the elaboration of an appropriate ‘problematic’ and with the avoidance of any contamination with opposed ‘problematics’, as to lose sight of the absolute necessity of empirical enquiry, and of the empirical demonstration of the falsity of these opposed and apologetic ‘problematics’. Poulantzas declares himself not to be against the study of the ‘concrete’: I would go much farther and suggest that, of course on the basis of an appropriate ‘problematic’, such a study of the concrete, is a sine qua non of the kind of ‘demystifying’ enterpiise which, he kindly suggests, my book accomplishes. After all, it was none other than Marx who stressed the importance of empirical validation (or invalidation) and who spent many years of his life in precisely such an undertaking; and while I do not suggest for a moment that Poulantzas is unaware of this fact, I do think that he, and the point also goes for Louis Althusser and his collaborators, may tend to give it rather less attention than it deserves. This, I must stress, Is not a crude (and false) contraposition of empiricist versus non- or anti-empiricist approaches: it is a matter of emphasis—but the emphasis is important."

(56): cannot ignore the behaviors of managers, which doesn't mean that you think they are constitutive of capitalism: "I think myself that one must refer to both not because managerial ‘motivations’ are in themselves critical (and Poulantzas is mistaken in believing that I think they are) but precisely in order to show why they are not. By ignoring them altogether, one leaves a dangerous gap in the argument which needs to be put forward against managerialist apologetics."

(57): key, the crux of difference on the nature of the state (second problem)--"For what his exclusive stress on ‘objective relations’ suggests is that what the state does is in every particular and at all times wholly determined by these ‘objective relations’: in other words, that the structural constraints of the system are so absolutely compelling as to turn those who run the state into the merest functionaries and executants of policies imposed upon them by ‘the system’. At the same time, however, he also rejects the ‘long Marxist tradition (which) has considered that the State is only a simple tool or instrument manipulated at will by the ruling class’ (p. 74). Instead, he stresses the ‘relative autonomy of the state’. But all that this seems to me to do is to substitute the notion of ‘objective structures’ and ‘objective relations’ for the notion of ‘ruling’ class. But since the ruling class is a dominant element of the system, we are in effect back at the point of total subordination of the state élite to that class; i.e. the state is not ‘manipulated’ by the ruling class into doing its bidding: it does so autonomously but totally because of the ‘objective relations’ imposed upon it by the system. Poulantzas condemns the ‘economism’ of the Second and Third Internationals and attributes to it their neglect of the State (p. 68). But his own analysis seems to me to lead straight towards a kind of structural determinism, or rather a structural super-determinism, which makes impossible a truly realistic consideration of the dialectical relationship between the State and ‘the system’."

(58): clearly this is not what happens to Poulantzas, but the point is fair: "The political danger of structural super-determinism would seem to me to be obvious. For if the state élite is as totally imprisoned in objective structures as is suggested, it follows that there is really no difference between a state ruled, say, by bourgeois constitutionalists, whether conservative or social- democrat, and one ruled by, say, Fascists."

(58): important--"It is perfectly true that all states are in some degree ‘autonomous’, and Poulantzas misreads me when he suggests that I ‘finally admit this autonomy only in the extreme case of Fascism’ (p. 74). What I do say is that Fascism is the extreme case of the state’s autonomy in the context of capitalist society, which is not at all the same thing— and that between the kind of autonomy which is achieved by the state under Fascism, and that which is achieved by it under the conditions of bourgeois democracy, there is a large gulf, which it is dangerous to underestimate."

(59): critical (the third problem, ideology)--"But I also think that, just as it is necessary to show that the institutions mentioned earlier are part of a system of power, and that they are, as Poulantzas says, increasingly linked to and buttressed by the state, so is it important not to blur the fact that they are not, in bourgeois democracies, part of the state but of the political system. These institutions are increasingly subject to a process of ‘statization’; and as I also note in the book, that process is likely to be enhanced by the fact that the state must, in the conditions of permanent crisis of advanced capitalism, assume ever greater responsibility for political indoctrination and mystification. But to suggest that the relevant institutions are actually part of the state system does not seem to me to accord with reality..."

poulantzas, the problem of the capitalist state (1969)

(68): "while for example in the feudal mode of production, Marx indicates that if the economy still has the role of determinant in the last instance, it is ideology in its religious form that holds the dominant role." [???]

(68): "the absence of a study of the State derived from the fact that the dominant conception of these Internationals was a deviation, economism, which is generally accompanied by an absence of revolutionary strategy and objectives—even when it takes a ‘leftist’ or Luxemburgist form. In effect, economism considers that other levels of social reality, including the State, are simple epiphenomena reducible to the economic ‘base’." [yes, convincing]

(69): "I simply mean that a precondition of any scientific approach to the ‘concrete’ is to make explicit the epistemological principles of its own treatment of it. Now it is important to note that Miliband nowhere deals with the Marxist theory of the State as such, although it is constantly implicit in his work. He takes it as a sort of ‘given’ in order to reply to bourgeois ideologies by examining the facts in its light." [uh-oh, Althusser rears his head]

(70): accusing Miliband of a personnel-based theory: "I would say that it is visible in the difficulties that Miliband has in comprehending social classes and the State as objective structures, and their relations as an objective system of regular connections, a structure and a system whose agents, ‘men’, are in the words of Marx, ‘bearers’ of it—träger. Miliband constantly gives the impression that for him social classes or ‘groups’ are in some way reducible to inter-personal relations, that the State is reducible to inter-personal relations of the members of the diverse ‘groups’ that constitute the State apparatus, and finally that the relation between social classes and the State is itself reducible to inter-personal relations of ‘individuals’ composing social groups and ‘individuals’ composing the State apparatus."

(70): yes, this is important, whether or not it characterizes Miliband's position (it is Weber's, for example): "This is a problematic of social actors, of individuals as the origin of social action: sociological research thus leads finally, not to the study of the objective co-ordinates that determine the distribution of agents into social classes and the contradictions between these classes, but to the search for finalist explanations founded on the motivations of conduct of the individual actors."

(71-72): discussion of managers and motivation (first problem)--Poulantzas taking issue with 'motivation' for profit as source of capitalism. if you abandon this, you don't need to think about a 'managerial' class, he's arguing. instead, you are now interested in the more fundamental problem of 'fractions of capital'.

(72-73): on question of bureaucracy (second problem), Miliband shows social origins and personal ties of bureaucracy linking them to the capitalist class, inverting the argument of the liberals. "Yet however exact in itself, the way chosen by Miliband does not seem to me to be the most significant one. Firstly, because the direct participation of members of the capitalist class in the State apparatus and in the government, even where it exists, is not the important side of the matter. The relation between the bourgeois class and the State is an objective relation. This means that if the function of the State in a determinate social formation and the interests of the dominant class in this formation coincide, it is by reason of the system itself: the direct participation of members of the ruling class in the State apparatus is not the cause but the effect... the participation, whether direct or indirect, of this class in government in no way changes things..."

(73): same goes for other arms of State: "We come now to the problem of the members of the State apparatus, that is to say the army, the police, the judiciary and the administrative
bureaucracy. Miliband’s main line of argument is to try to establish the relation between the conduct of the members of the State apparatus and the interests of the ruling class, by demonstrating either that the social origin of the ‘top servants of the State’ is that of the ruling class, or that the members of the State apparatus end up united to this class by personal ties. This approach, without being false, remains descriptive."

(73): bureaucracy as a social category, not a class

(74): this, Poulantzas argues, leaves Miliband unable to account for 'relative autonomy' of the State apparatus (if, indeed, it's true that the State is cornered by the ruling classes)

(75): the third problem, is the question of different branches of State--"the State apparatus forms an objective system of special ‘branches’ whose relation presents a specific internal unity and obeys, to a large extent, its own logic. Each particular form of capitalist State is thus characterized by a particular form of relations among its branches..." [thus it would change not due to staffing/funding, but due to shifts in relations of production or the class struggle]

(75): for military dictatorships: "a modification which would not be due simply to the growing importance of military expenditure, but to profound modifications of the relations of production and the class struggle, of which the growth of military expenditures is finally only the effect. One could thus establish the relation of the army not simply with the dominant class, but with the totality of social classes—a complex relation that would explain its role by means of a shift in the State as a whole. I believe that there is no more striking evidence of this thesis, in another context, than present developments in Latin America."

(75): the fourth problem, the present-day capitalist state--noting a similarity between Miliband's position and the State monopoly capitalist school, all of which lead to regressive political conclusions

(76-77): the fifth problem, the ISA's--"we have both stopped half-way: which was not the case with Gramsci. That is to say, we have ended by considering that ideology only exists in ideas, customs or morals without seeing that ideology can be embodied, in the strong sense, in institutions: institutions which then, by the very process of institutionalization, belong to the system of the State whilst depending principally on the ideological level.... the system of the State is composed of several apparatuses or institutions of which certain have a principally repressive role, in the strong sense, and others a principally ideological role."

(77-78): four reasons why ISA's are part of State

1. same function as State--to maintain cohesion
2. backed, in the last instance, by the State repressive apparatuses
3. the modification of the State has ramifications for the ISA's (think Fascism and the church)
4. the destruction of the ISA's presupposes a tussle with the State (cannot do without it)
   

nicos poulantzas, political power and social classes (1973)

part 1, section 1

(37): classes as the 'effect' of certain levels of structures

(37): 'political' vs. 'politics' -- distinction between 'juridico-political superstructure of the state" (which is the political), and 'political class practices' (political class struggle, or 'politics)

(38): historicism--which "makes superfluous the theoretical study of the structures of the political and of political practice" (Lukacs, Korsch--an 'over-politicization')

(40): towards anti-historicism--the political as that "crucial level in which the contradictions of a formation are condensed" (only this, he's arguing, allows you to appreciate the anti-historicist character of the argument that the political class struggle is the motive force of history)

(41): a la Lenin, the 'political class struggle' (or political practice) as the nodal point where contradictions are condensed

(42): political structures are the 'institutionalized power of the state' [as distinct from political practice, no?]

(44-45): state's specific function is to constitute 'the factor of cohesion' in a social formation (a 'complex unity'), with two implications:

1. equilibrium is not given by the economic, but has to be maintained at the level of the political
2. transformation can only unfold at the level of 'political practice'

(46): a key point--under capitalism, the state acquires a 'specific autonomy', which underlies the 'specificity of the political'

(47): the problem of the overlapping of several modes of production in any concrete instance

(48): relating the state to the political class struggle demands relating the state to the 'ensemble of the levels of structures--to the articulation of instances that characterize a formation'

(49): the State as the official resume of society--the condensation or fusion of contradictions

(50): following Bukharin, State as 'regulator' -- maintaining conditions of production and conditions for the existence of the unity of a mode of production/formation

(53): the State and a 'twin role--corresponding to 'exploitation' and 'organization-cum-supervision'

(53): economic function, ideological function, political function

(53-54): in sum, two results

1. State's 'global role' as cohesive factor unfolds in particular modalities (economic, ideological, and political'
2. State's functions can be grapsed only their interrelation (and their role in 'political class conflict') [i.e., not just directly political, but also generally political]

(55): State intervention in the economicvs. a 'liberal State' (non-intervention in the economic) [question of the dominant role--none of this, though, changes the general facts, he's arguing convincingly]

part 1, section 3

(99): power is 'constituted' in the field of class practices (i.e., not at the level of structures, but is an effect of the ensemble of these levels')

(102): 'power' cannot be enumerated at the level of structure (relations of production), but only at level of political class struggle

(104): rejecting class-for-itself/class-in-itself [why? interrogate]

(104): definition--power as capacity of a class to realize its specific objective interests

(107): important--a class can exist at the level of the class structure, without making itself felt in the political arena [it seems like in this case we will want to say they exist as a 'social force' but not politically -- though this is inconsistently the case in his argument, if it is the argument. the idea is fairly clear, though]

(108): ok--"power reveals relations not directly determined by the structure"

(111): important, needs interrogation--similarly, interests can only be related to the field of practices (not at the level of structures) [but in what sense can you have objective interests; this is where he introduces the 'near-side'/'far-side' stuff]

(112): class interests always relational

(112): 'objective', then, seems to refer to 'interests' once have abstracted away from 'ideology' and the way in which their represented by agents. it doesn't, though, mean that we understand them at the level of 'structure'--there can be no interests at this level, remember

(113): ok--'power relations' are determined 'in the last instance' by 'economic power'

(115): the 'relative autonomy' of the state is not due to the fact that the Stae has its own power, but because it constitutes 'power centers' (again, this function of unity/cohesion')

(116) state apparatus (personnel of the state) vs. state power (the social class or fraction of a class which holds power)

(117): not an 'instrumentalist' conception

(118): not zero-sum power--i.e., loss of power by the bourgeoisie does not mean gaining of power by the working-class

part 2, section 1

(124-125): we are not proceeding on the state/civil society schema, precisely because it abstracts from the 'class struggle' and hides real problems in the concept of separation

(128): important--the constituting of individuals as juridical-political individual citizens (which has 'real' and 'ideological' components)

(129): it is the separation of the direct producer from the means of production that produces the 'specific autonomy'

(130-131): at the level of the economic class struggle, the State has the effect of concealing the fact of classes from individuals (it imposes isolation, individualization). this is what makes it possible for the State to be implicated in the constitution of classes, at the level of the political class struggle.

(133): the capitalist State relates to the socio-economic relations in the form in which they appear in their isolation, insofar as socio-economic relations are already class practices [but consider our objection, here]

(133-134): in sum, two functions

1. sets up agents of production so as to produce the effect of isolation
2. represent the unity of the isolated relations (the "unity of an isolation" which is "largely its own effect")

(135): the 'specific autonomy' of the State from the relations of production is reflected by the autonomy that the 'political class struggle' possesses viz-a-viz the economic

(137): again, in sum [rich passage, needs some unpacking]--in constituting class unity out of the isolation of the economic class struggle, the State serves the interests of the dominatn classes. it has to constitute their unity, first of all. but it also, ideologically, constitutes their particular interests as the interests of the whole--this is made necessary by the autonomy of the political class struggle, and made possible by the isolation of the dominant classes.

(137): hegemony as based in political practices, not structures

(138): we are not going to use 'hegemony' in the sense of 'legitimacy' in the eyes of the dominated classes

(140-141): rather, hegemony will have a two-fold meaning applied to the political practices of the dominant classes

1. so, as they constitute themselves as the 'general interest'
2. also, though, to talk about the dominant role within the dominant classes (the leadership of the power bloc'

part 3, introduction

(187-190): useful summary of the claims thus far

1. CMP has specific autonomy of instances
2. state is the cohesive factor in the unity of a formation, which has several functions (economic, ideological, political) which are condensed in its strictly political function--"its function in relation to the field of the political class struggle"
3. the State 'determines' the class struggle, but only in the sense that it unfolds within limits set by it--additionally, the political class struggle redounds on the State, too [sense that he is trying to make sense of the Welfare State, social democracy, etc.]

(188-189): critical claim

1. for the dominated classes, the function of the capitalist state is to prevent their political organization which would overcome their economic isolation (an isolation which is partly produced by the state). for this the ideological role is critical, but obviously other functions have their place, too [the political-repressive, presumably].
2. for the dominant classes, the capitalist state is "permanently working otheir organization" by cancelling out their economic isolation (which is also the effect of the State and the 'ideological'--how so? this needs unpacking)

(189): nicely put--the State's contradiction is that it presents itself in its institutions as a class state, ruling over a society that it says are not 'divided into calsses' -- in other words, it is as if it believes that all people are part of the bourgeois class in whose interest it rules. [on second thought, this may be a liberal summary of his claim]

part 3, section 1

(190): capitalist state represents the political interests of the dominant classes, not their economic interests--it is the 'organizing agent'

(190-191): it can move against their immediate interests in the favor of the dominated classes, but only to secure the hegemony of the dominant

(191-192): crucial--the fact that the dominated classes can impose themselves, within limits, on the State, shows imply that the State presides over a society divided into classes (and functions not, then, as the simple tool of the dominant classes). it respects, though, these interests only to the extent that it can accommodate them into prolonged domination [there is an important question, then, about the institutionalization of these gains]

(193): explicit mention of the Welfare state, in this regard--making economic sacrifices in order to safeguard political power

part 3, section 4

(229): against a 'dualist' conception of the struggle between dominated and dominant

(230): point 1--the rule of a 'power bloc' is made possible/necessary by the nature of the capitalist state [unpack this--it doesn't seem terribly important to the larger argument, but worth understanding all the same]

(231): point 2--insofar as CMP is characterized by a plurality of dominant classes (citing landlords)

(232-233) point 3--the bourgeoisie appears as divided into fractions [the question, here, is along what lines it splits--due to competition (and thus as individuals), or due to circuits, etc.--he seems to imply the latter, but is this convincing?]

(234): definition of power bloc--contradictory unity of the politically dominant classes as related to the capitalist state

(237): hegemonic leadership within the power bloc

(239): summary of claims here--contradictory unity, and class struggle within power bloc

(243): the question of the 'supporting classes', who don't demand any real political sacrifices from the power bloc but offer their support primarily on the basis of 'ideological illusions' and also due to the fear of the power of the working class (specially the petty bourgeoisie). all this depends, he reminds us, on the state of political disorganization prevailing amongst these classes.

(247): political practice vs. political scene (parties, etc.) [which corresponds to form of state vs. form of regime, see 252--this is not a chronological distinction, though]

(250): discussing question of 'staffing' of the State, dealing with England through concept of hegemonic leadership and power bloc

(251): we need to be able to distinguish between 'party relations' and 'class relations', which is something that political science is not good at doing

part 4, section 1

(255): enumeration of the concept of 'unity', as it is peculiar to the capitalist state (due to the 'autonomized juridico-political superstructure')

(256): important--again, against the notion of the State as instrument--instead, a 'relative autonomy' viz-a-viz the power bloc and viz-a-viz allies/supports, which is unique to the Capitalist state.

(257): important, on two species of relative autonomy--to try and make all this explicit: the political class struggle has a 'relative autonomy' viz-a-viz the other instances; and the State, has relative autonomy viz-a-viz the dominant classes in this political class struggle (and, importantly, the latter fact 'reflects' the former) [unpack this, a bit]

(258): Bonapartism as a theoretical model of the capitalists state, when we abstract away from the historical story, there

(260): relative autonomy is not, at all, premised on some notion of equilibrium between the forces in the class struggle

part 4, section 2

(266): the 'ne0-liberal' theory of the State

(267-268): the institutionalist ('institutionalization of the class struggle')

(272): state socialist and Bismarckian illusions, premised on a notion that social forces are in equilibrium (and that the State form is foreshadowing the future--'planning', etc.) [return to text, if interested in his rebuttal]

(273): again, against instrumental theory of State monopoly capitalism

(274): again, the unique relation between the economic and political undergirds this theorization ('a new articulation of the economic and the political')

part 4, section 3

(275-277): again, useful summary section

1. the autonomization of the political class struggle viz-a-viz the relations of production, owing to the unique nature of capitalism. this induces isolation in the agents of production, despite a socialization of the labor-process. the effect of this is to conceal class rleations from the agents, for all classes. this fact of the 'isolated' economic class struggle is precisely why the political class struggle is of such importance.
2. as well we have to consider other isolated classes in the social formation (they are overdetermined in their isolation by the state effects, in addition to what it already means to be a peasant or petty-bourgeois in the CMP)
3. state presents itself as the public unity of society--it represents the 'people nation', the 'poltical unity' of an 'economic isolation' which is its own effect'.
   
4. this is an ideological function, which is to occlude the class structure. (of course, this isn't the only function of the State's juridico-political superstitious--it also has 'real' effects)

(279): again, unique fact of capitalism is that class membership is absent from political institutions

(279): all this allows the State to function as the 'unambiguous' power of the dominant classes (how? follow the argument, now--this is where he begins to justify this claim, he's saying)

(282): key--it is precisely through the relative autonomy of the State that the State upholds the political interests of the politically dominant classes (he is noting some confusion about multiple uses of the term autonomy--both autonomy of political from economic, and of the State from the political). he is saying that unity is a condition of possibility for this autonomy--but isn't what he's actually arguing the other way around? that political unity is only possible if the State has relative autonomy.

(284): key--and this is the answer to why that's the case, again, which is specific to CMP

1. because the bourgeoisie is incapable of raising itself to the level of internal unity
2. because of the bourgeoisie's struggle with the dominanted classes, against whom it finds it difficult to realize political hegemony
   

(285): to rule better in its name, in sum; the political organizers of the dominant classes. [again, i think the question of dependence of the State on the bourgeoisie is less clear, in this formulation]

(287): again, we are not talking about those instances of relative autonomy that arise from 'equilibrium' in the class struggle' (this is something much more regular) [this does elide the question of what happens at those moments to the State--but one would think he would turn to Lenin and the constitution of a 'dual State', for answers]

(287-288): more summary--how does relative autonomy follow?

1. because of the isolation of the bourgeois calss, who can't raise themselves to the level of unity. the State must organize class domination
2. it must function to politically disorganize the working class, by presenting itself as the representative of the 'people-nation'
3. its important role viz-a-viz supporting classes.
   

(288): again, the conscious paradox of his formulation--that the State assumes relative autonomy from dominant classes precisely in order to serve them better.

(289): the question of equilibrium resulting from social forces--not much said, but just distinguishing it from the stable formulation of the concept of autonomy

(291): aspiration to legitimacy in the State's presentation of itself as representative of people-nation

(294): 'totalitarianism' is not actually that distinct from 'unambiguous class power in the capitalist state'

part 4, section 4

(298): again, bourgeoisie as a 'uniquely fractured class', which has its origins at the level of the actual relations of production [here we have a quote that suggests a competition-centered interpretation of this fact]

(299): State as 'political organizer' of the power bloc, precisely because individual parties and its fractions are unable to do so ['only because', he is saying--worth interrogation, because of its 'functionalist' implications]

(300): the State, remember, doesn't confront a politically unified dominant class--it is the agent of this unification

(303): question of separation of powers