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]