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)