vivek chibber, locked in place (2003) chapter 1: introduction

(4): india's failure as a relative failure

(6-7): e. asian example teaches us that this is not so much about state intervention, but about the quality of state intervention. specifically, in two dimensions:

1. state's cohesiveness as a strategic actor
   
2. state's ability to extract performance from private firms

(9): critical--the question of the installation of this apparatus has been answered by referencing goings-on within the state. in contrast, bringing attentiont to the conflicts between the state and societal actors. two nested claims, here:

1. divergence in outcomes depended on the orientation of the business class -- state managers' agenda was frustrated by a well-organized offensive launched by domestic capitalists
2. the mechanism that caused a different reaction in India and Korea was the former's adoption of ISI, and the latter's adoption of ELI. they generated different political incentive structures.

chapter 2

(13) state intervention in the latter half of the twentieth century has been more extensive and invasive than earlier 'late development.' the hallmark is the appearance of 'development planning'.

(16-17): these demands on the state (state capacity) require institutional structures that can do two things:

1. coordinate amongst firms--guarantee inputs and coordinated investment projects
2. compel/discipline capital

(19-23): this, in turn, requires three things

1. rational bureaucracy
2. nodal agencies
3. embededness

(29-44): four theses

1. state building in India imperiled by capitalist offensive; not the case in Korea
   
2. ISI vs. ELI
3. Korea was able to switch to ELI because of unique historical conditions; this was not possible in India, ELI would not have helped appease capitalists
4. full explanation for failure in India would have to incorporate INC demobilization of the labour, which reduced State's autonomy from Capital

(52): coup of 1961, SK -- crucial

(53): not b/c of State power, but b/c of capitalist enthusiasm [this is why point about authoritarianism is misplaced]

(56): Rhee (1948-1961), pursued 'bad' ISI in 50s

(58): crux--critical factor allowing for policy change in SK was emerging alliance between K. and J. capital

(60): EPB as 'nodal agency'

(61): 1964-1965 -- the 'pact' around the export-led strategy

(62-65): control over finance/credit --> State autonomy? [no, Vivek is saying-- this doesn't render state managers indifferent to capitalists' reaction to their policies]

(66): summary page--development of dev. State in SK

(68): b. confidence went down with the coup

(69): 1961-1963 failure in SK

(71): difference between export-led and export-promotion (most countries did latter; SK was unique in pursuing former)

(72): in early 60s, Korean firms not so hot

(72): but firms will still be amenable, where a reasonable chance of success in markets, exists

(73-74): Japanese help was crucial, in SK--and it began before '64-'65

(77): FDI important or not? not a lot of the investment, but central to success in key sectors

(78): in short--the Japanese relationship [seems to suggest that Japanese supplied the credit; what does this mean in terms of importance of State monopoly of credit?]

(79-80): wrt Japanese capital, state support was critical (1) ensuring partnerships; (2) guaranteeing credit, etc. [but why not just allow State control over Japanese? why allow State control over themselves? isn't there a prisoner's dilemma, here? you might even want State to control others, but why your own firm? but maybe 'chaebols' obviate this]

(82): key--ELI causally prior to dev. state

(83): w/o this ELI analysis, you have a 'bootstraps' model

(86): three theses, re: India

1. release of Bombay Plan not motivated by desire to launch developmental State. instead, response to Quit India agitation of '42-'43, which industrialists perceived as threat. trying to preempt socialist planning, calling for capitalist planning
   
2. capitalists were quite opposed to idea of giving State any measure of power to control investment ('39 coordination fell apart', reception of BPlan, etc.). after 1945 very clear.
3. opposition to State power over private capital was generated by structural factors--partly due to flight of British capital, but mainly result of State ISI strategy

(92): Q. India went out of INC's hands

(110): by demobilizing labour, Congress was eroding its capacity to impose discipline

(113): Gandhi--singular capacity to mobilize the masses (especially rural) earned the respect of the Left; staunch defense of property earned the trust of the Right

(125): imp--question, here, of what allowed them to split the labour movement so easily. is it as simple as saying that they had political hegemony?

(128): argument re: business offensive in India

1. state managers needed to both (a) win support of capitalists; (b) impose discipline on capitalists.
   
2. but (b) was not tolerable to capitalists, and (a) made it very rational for them to resist (b) (they liked ISI largesse, which made it easy for them to make profits without ramping up productivity)
   
3. capitalist class was handicapped because self-regulation was discredited; and also 'planning' of the largesse kind was favored
4. as a result, industrial planning policy was passed--but severely compromised by State's concern to appease capitalists. PC basically became an advisory body
   

(142): political lobbying and investment strike, when things didn't seem to be going their way

(144): Nehru was concerned, but couldn't do anything: (1) departure of Left and (2) ascension of V.B. Patel left him powerless

(146): PC was neutered, as a result

(148): the State as 'doting nanny'

(163): importance of 'the nodal agency' -- need to discipline political elites, as well

(169, 172): structure of Korean business important in facilitating corporatist arrangements? made embeddedness/discipline easier? but then should have been easier in India, Vivek notes

(175): regulation in Korea vs. self-regulation in India

(182): in sum, planners weren't given institutional power

(195): why didn't reform occur?

1. not because of ideological biases--ideological argument can't explain why planners didn't pursue 'better' State intervention.
2. not because they were corrupt--in Japan and SK, corruption was compatible with effective State intervention

(196): Crisis of 1957 triggered re-think--onset of foreign-exchange crisis, exports would have to be increased.

(200-206): but trying to turn firms towards export markets, following Korea's example, in 1958-1959--floundered for three basic reasons.

1. preference for the domestic market--firms are comfortable making easy profits insulated from competition. why change? [so why change in SK, after 50s? because of historic opportunity given to them by Japanese]
2. but MNC's in India didn't play the Japanese role--corporations in India exported very little, unlike the Japanese, who had set up to export
3. b/c of this, only State export promotion schemes were left--and these didn't work, for reasons already detailed. structure of policy apparatus wasn't coherent, and firms remained committed to domestic market.
   

(207): imp--the fact that reform was understood as 'less State intervention' rather than 'better State intervention' was a function of the 'balance of forces' [Vivek adds that this was generated by the planning process itself, though I'm unclear what this means, exactly? why did the failure of the planning process produce a more powerful capitalist class? isn't it the case that we had this already--absent a labour upsurge or like increase in State autonomy, this was the destined trajectory]

(209): imp-- bureaucracy reaction to crisis is to ignore plan directives even more, allow foreign capital partnerships to aid import of machinery (this just favored luxury consumption, etc.)

(210): PC was incapacitated by its lack of clout--but it also was implicated in debacle, which made it a prime target for attack

(214): PC duly marginalized under Shastri and Gandhi--power shifted to the ministries

(212, 214): 1964 Nehru dies. 1964-1966 Lal Bahadur Shastri. 1966-1984, w/ exception of 1977-1979, Indira Gandhi. over this period, PC loses all its power.

(217): push towards 'ministerial autonomy' [how do you think of this, structurally? what is the place of the story of 'purely political' conflict?]

(218): US aid for liberalization

(227): planning possible when domestic capital resists, if you have the power, which you can have if (a) bourgeoisie is too weak; (b) labour is strong as counterweight; (c) exceptional circumstances [what would this look like? we're certainly not talking about benign State-capital cooperation anymore]

(228): Taiwan example of (a) [but Pakistan? something else has to be going on]

(228): Postwar France an example of (b)

(229): postwar Japan an example of (c)

(233-236): lots of countries tried ELI in 60s and 70s, but failed. this, largely, was b/c of pre-existing ISI and b/c lack of 'cohesive' State [but former the case in Korea, too, and it doesn't matter; and latter, if important, needs explanation--in acct explained by ELI, no? Vivek focusing, then, rightly, on the inability to reduce 'entry costs'--Korea had this b/c of Japan, but others didn't, obviously]. other possibility was their 'socialization by the State', but this is precluded because of the balance of class forces--of course, there you need a solid State structure.

(239): underdevelopment precluded ELI for most countries

(240): a postwar France, in India?






----

[1] is there an ISI that could anchor development, given suitable State discipline?

[2] authoritarianism important for overcoming resistance of political elites?

[3] question of m-term/l-term rationality, re: accepting discipline? not so much, I think -- they need coordination of investment, etc. so they accept it, on s-term grounds. but worth asking

[4] technological assistance vs. discipline?

[5] Indian capitalists' position as the 'default'

alex calinicos, the modern state (1987)

15th to 18th C – centralized and bureaucratic states emerge in the form of Absolutism

prior two this, there are two main forms

(1) World Empires—monarchies that rule through military power, and have little or no relation to States of a comparable level of advancement (this is very different from the modern state, which is part of a state-system, the members of which are at a more-or-less shared level of development)

(2) City-States—a number of States co-existing, but small in size. Rely often on popular armies, and can develop 'democratic' political forms (the modern state, though, rules a much larger territory—reflecting development of political forces—rules that territory through a bureaucratic apparatus, and a standing army)

so the modern state is distinctive.

modern states form a system—they co-exist with each other, and they interact with each other.

these interactions take various forms.

one such form is trade. rise of the modern state is coincidental with the formation of the world market [hobson/blaut would have their grievances with this]

the most important form of their interaction as States, of course, is war/military competition. the European state-system was characterized by the most ruthless military competition. what this leads to is a kind of Darwinian process of natural selection—in 1500, there were 500; in 1900, there were 25.

the emergence and development of this system is often seen—especially by bourgeois sociologists—as a refutation of Marxism. why? because it emerged in a context that wasn't capitalist—in a context where the prevailing form of exploitation was feudal ('analytically autonomous' from world capitalism). the notion is that the competitive interaction of nation-states represents a logic of military competition that is autonomous from capitalist social relations—both historically and in the present (Skocpol, Mann)

the point of disagreement with this position is not over the emergence of absolutism prior to the emergence of the bourgeoisie. Marx was well aware that many of the institutions of the modern state precede the 'bourgeois revolutions.'

the argument is not an argument over the facts. it's over the explanation.

can the emergence of the modern state be explained in terms of historical materialism? the answer is yes (Brenner)

the two key elements to Brenner's argument

(1) the crisis of the late-middle ages—the 14th and 15th centuries (plagues, famines that hid Europe in the middle of the 1300s, and then in the early of the 1400s). symptoms of a deep-seated economic crisis. you have another crisis in the 1600s—the whole of Europe is swept by wars (Thirty Years' War) and famine, which climaxes in the English Revolution in the late 1600s.

this arises in the context of the feudal mode of production.

characteristic form of exploitation is lord over peasant—extraction of surplus labor on the basis of legal rights over the peasant, reinforced by his political power. unlike in capitalism, both lord and peasant have direct access to their means of subsistence—none of this is mediated by the market. the peasants have direct access to their means of subsistence, they typically have their own plots. the Lord uses his military powers, his armed retainers to get resources from the direct producers.

in this situation, in which both exploiters and exploited have direct access, neither have incentive to increase the productive forces. no one has an incentive to develop the level of the productive forces. the main developments in the level of productive forces that do occur, under feudalism, occur in the early middle ages, when feudalism first appears. after that, the main form of growth is extensive (not intensive), and runs into limits by the 1300s.

(2) the crucial point—the second aspect—is that these dynamics give rise to 'political accumulation'. the lord, to maintain and increase his consumption, must (a) squeeze his peasants harder; (b) pinch other lord's peasants. what that means is that a fierce competitive dynamic is unleashed (e.g., the Hundred Years' War). this process of military competition then gives rise to State-building. more pressure to build up professional armies, etc.

this, the argument is, will culminate in the absolutist state (Perry Anderson—the only way feudalism could persist, in the face of its economic stagnation)

far from it being the case, then, that you don't need Marxism—Marxism is central.

and the one major exception to the 'absolutist' trend, England, demonstrates the superiority of the Marxist method.

out of the crisis of feudalism, the feudal lords were able--'unintended consequences' of the class struggle in the later middle ages—to separate peasants from the land, and to transform them into wage-laborers. in the 1400-1700s, these new wage laborers didn't go to work in industry (the industrial revolution takes place in the late 1700s); rather, they become involved in capitalist agriculture. you see the emergence of the capitalist 'trinity'--the landowner, the capitalist (who rents the land), and the worker. this permits a dynamic development of the productive forces—there is a sharp increase in agricultural productivity, which in turn enables the development of industrial capitalism (without it, of course, you couldn't support an industrial workforce).

also, you have 1640-1660 and 1688-1689—the English revolution—the outcome of that process was to establish as politically dominant a capitalist landed class. in the 18th century, the dominant class were capitalist landowners. the State that they create is an odd one—the bulk of political control is still in the hand of local landowners (in the nobility and landowners—no centralized standing army or bureaucracy). the country is run through a parliament of landowners. BUT, externally, a strong state—based, above all, on the Royal Navy, created with the support of the land-owning parliament as a means of expanding Britain's influence in the world.

and so we see a period—during the 18th century—which is sometimes described as the First World War. England vs. France (which is the greatest of the absolutist monarchies). this culminates in the Napoleonic Wars.

to understand why Britain came out on top in this war is to appreciate the economic dynamism of capitalism. rapid economic development gave the British ruling-class the naval and military power to defeat the French (English also helped build up Prussia, remember, as a rival to France). internally, this involved an absolutely massive increase in military spending—between 1700 and 1815, public spending rose fifteen-fold (civilian aspects never amounted to more than 23% of total spending—the rest was military!). the centralized monarchies put the burden of taxation on their peasantries—in England, however, because of relative economic dynamism, lords were prepared to tax themselves, relatively heavily (the land tax amounted to something like 20% of the nominal gross income of landowners). they were prepared to take from their own pockets.

in the 1800s, the English pattern is generalized throughout Europe. this becomes especially true as, more and more, military power comes to depend on having a considerable industrial base.

and so you see, in Germany, the junkers encouraging development in industry, in order to win wars, etc. in other words, 'political accumulation' becomes subordinated to economic accumulation. the outcome, of course, is imperialism.

this process continues today.

this historical argument thus has an important political point—the horrific bloodshed of the contemporary interstate system can only be ended by a socialist revolution that destroys world capitalism!

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.

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.
   

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 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.

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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.

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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')

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functional vs. intrinsic definition of a concept

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

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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).

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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

robert brenner, "from theory to history..." [critique of mann]

(189): ok, important but not really powerful--mann's account of the rise of europe is internally contradictory, because it violates his theoretical commitments [since it requires him to presuppose the socio-geographical unity of Europe, even as he's argued for anti-holism in his four forms of 'social power' model'--see 190, 200-201, 205]

(193): why do people sit at the bottom of these hierarchies, for Mann? because they are out-organized. this will come again, and is quite critical to understanding the faults in what he's peddling.

(194): summarizing Mann's argument, which appears here as hogwash, confused/overdetermined/disorganized (formally complex--actually meaningless)

(203): key--there's no account of the economic reproduction of the agents that operate the organizations he's outlining (which, means, then, that there is no account of how they're able to hold sway)

(205): here this point emerges, again, in Mann's treatment of diffused power vs. authoritative power (but this is confused, obviously) -- he retreats to simple 'out-organization'

(207): key--why do those at the top carry any bite--why are those at the top able to carry out their will, at all? [and Brenner has more than hinted at the resolution--these instruments of domination will have to be intimately related to the economic distribution of resources, which these four networks cannot explain, but must presuppose]

(210): "capitalist is a captain of industry because he is a capitalist, not vice versa..."

(211): Brenner's account of why the economic and the political were merged, in feudalism--which has to do with the predominance of 'political accumulation', of course. it could also be come at, from the opposite direction--any class with the means of domination, in hand, would obviosuly use that authority to pursue the conditions for materially reproducing itself.

(217): rules of reproduction--no incentive to innovate, due to immense costs of specialization (safety first)

(220-222): key point--unlike Mann's account and others', Brenner is asserting that the centralized state, in feudalism, does not emerge because of capitalist dynamics. it is emphatically feudal--it emerges due to the material requirements of lords, pursuing its construction. they were obliged to rely on extensive growth, which pit them against rival lords.

(222): neither was this led by a monarch, who proceeded without a political community. he needed lordly followers, since he depended on them for "counsel, administration, finance and military backing. "

(222): thus, feudalism exhibits both a Malthusian dynamic--and a unilineal dynamic to ever larger, more centralized states.

(226): again, it cannot be the simple pursuit of a social need that determines whether you will be successful in establishing a social network with you at its head--this is voluntarist hogwash, and confronts countless counterfactuals which it cannot explain away. you need some account of why certain people triumph over others.

(226-227): similarly, political power is not set up to fulfill political functions, "per se for themselves." one rather can only conceive of states being set up to fulfill the political needs of some already-existing group. [Mann himself recognizes this!

(227): the separation of the economic and the political, under capitalism, becomes possible when economic surplus extraction no longer depends on extra-economic coercion, but on the dull compulsion of the economic structure.

(228-229): key, why does the State not move against the capitalists?

1. historically, it only emerged with the rise of the capitalist class--they pursued a state which could defend their property rights without plundering them (winning of Parliament in 1688-1689)
2. logically, the state--to pursue its own goals--needs dynamic economic growth, which means it needs vigorous capitalist accumulation. "only apparently autonomous, the state is dependent upon capital."
   

But there was a lingering problem we had with the argument on civilian government spending. If the past three decades have been ones of retrenchment for labor and the left, growing inequality, increased power of capital over the government, and massive and successful attacks on government programs that serve the poor and working class, how could civilian government spending as a percentage of GDP have remained stable at around 14 percent? Should it not have declined? A good part of the seeming paradox is explained by other sources of spending with very strong political backing such as various subsidies going to agriculture, highways, and business, and the need to maintain at least the basic services and workings of civilian government. While much of civilian government spending as a percentage of GDP has been constrained over the past thirty plus years — especially social services — other areas that benefit the ruling order directly have increased.
One area in particular that has been on the receiving end of ever increasing public funds has been police, courts, prisons, and jails — what is euphemistically termed “public order and safety.” As chart 2 demonstrates, the share of such penal state spending has nearly doubled as a percentage of civilian government spending over the past fifty years and now stands at 15 percent of the latter. Because total civilian government spending stayed pretty constant as a portion of GDP, this sharp increase in penal state spending has had the effect of crowding out other forms of civilian government spending.

neil brenner, new state spaces

chapter one, introduction (1-27)

(2): important--"this book is intended to broaden and deepen the geographical imagination of contemporary state theory by investigating the major role of urban regions as key sites of contemporary state institutional and spatial restructuring. rather than treating cities and city-regions as mere subunits of national administrative systems, i suggest that urban policy--broadly defined to encompas all state activities oriented towards the regulation of capitalist urbanization--has become an essential political mechanism through which a profound institutional and geographical transformation of national states has been occurring. my claim is not simply that the institutional infrastructure of urban governance is being re-defined but, more generally, that transformations of urban policy have figured crucially within a fundamental reworking of national statehood since the early 1970s. a geographically attuned and scale-sensitive approach to state theory is required in order to decipher the new state spaces that are being produced under contemporary capitalism."

(2): we are talking about the last three decades, of course, following the decline of "spatial keynesianism." (faced with challenges of urban industrial decline, welfare state retrenchment, european integration, and economic globalization). "as of the early 1980s, national states began to introduce new, post-Keynesian spatial policies intended to reconcentrate productive capacities and specialized, high-performance infrastructural investments into the most globally competitivve city-regions within their territories." -- the need to (a) enhance global competitive advantages and (b) attract mobile capital.

(3): to what extent, though, will we be romanticizing the postwar period, here? "the postwar project of national territorial equalization and sociospatial redistribution has thus been superseded..."

(3): two arguments outlined here:

1. that city-regions "have become key institutional sites in which a major rescaling of national state power has been unfolding."
   
2. that "national state institutions continue to play key roles in formulating, implementing, coordinating, and supervising urban policy initiatives, even as the primacy of the national scale of political-economic life is decentered."
   

(4): let's try and think about this a bit more, particularly wrt to other ways in which the state has been theorized; surely we're not abandoning schematics that do use the state, singular?--"i believe that the generic concept of the state has become increasingly problematic. the notion of statehood seems to me a more precise basis for describing modern political institutions, because it does not ontologically prejudge..."

(5-7): three trends

1. global economic integration--"national territorial economies are becoming more permeable to supranational, continental, and global flows of investment."
   
2. urban and regional resurgence--"a renewed importance for major fractions of industrial, financial, and service capital..." (citing the global city, industrial districts, learning regions, offshore centers, etc.)
3. the consolidation of new supranational and cross border-institutions--EU, NAFTA, APEC, ASEAN, MERCOSUR, IMF, World Bank, G8, etc., etc.
   

(8): three methodological challenges

1. scale as a proccess, rather than fixed thing
2. intrinsic relationality of all scales, and their embeddedness within broader hierarchies (this is emphasized again in box 1.2)
   
3. postdisciplinary challenge

(12-13): definition of uneven geographic development--"the circumstance that social political, and economic processes under capitalism are not distributed uniformly or homogenously across the earth's surface, but are always organized within distinct sociospatial configurations--such as urban agglomeration regional clusters, rural zones, national territories, supranational economic blocs, and so forth--that are characterized by divergent socioeconomic conditions, developmental capacities, and institutional arrangements..."--outlniing the contradictory interplay of equalization and differentiation...

(14-15): important--we will clearly need an account of the interests that move states, for here, so far, we are seeing the state as a hammer--it can be wielded to alleviate or exacerbate uneven geographic development. turning point was the late-1970s.

(16): KEY--"during the fordist-keynesian period, the problem of uneven geographical development was generally construed as a matter of redressing 'insufficient' or 'imbalanced' industrialization on a national scale. the task of state spatial intervention, under these conditions, was to mold the geography of capital investment into a more balanced, cohesive, and integrated locational pattern throughout the national territory. by contrast, with the rescaling of state space and the proliferation of urban locational policies during the post-1970s period, this project of national territorial equalizaiton has been fundamentally inverted. it is no longer capital that is to be molded into the geogrphay of state space, but state space that is to be molded into the geography of capital." [again, though, this formulation sets us up as keynesians, when we would really like to break the chains]

(16-17): why, with post-keynesian, we can expect crises [well, but what about keynesianism?]

(18): state rescaling as 'ideal-type', or 'real abstraction'? setting the theoretical stage.

(18-21): three levels of abstraction (see box on page 19)

1. abstract--capital accumulation, class struggle
   
2. meso--keynesianism, neoliberalism
   
3. concrete--actual policies
   

(21): in this book, mainly concerned with meso level (but of course, involves other levels, too)

(24): citing jessop as postdisciplinary take on the State

chapter two, the globalization debates (27-

(28-29): globalization as an opportunity to bring space back in to analyses of capitalism--and, obviously, an opportunity to dispose of the 'cartesian' notion of the fixed, nation-state--"to challenge the iron-grip of the nation-state on the social imagination'"

(29): KEY--"thus, one of the central intellectual barriers to a more adequate understanding of contemporary global transformations is that we currently lack appropriately historical and dynamic conceptualizations of social space..."

(30): not 'deterritorialization', but 'reterritorialization'

(30): important, the crux of the contention: we need to transcend the imaginary of the nation-state, and move toward an understanding of the new sociospatial configurations. importantly, "the effort to transcend state-centric modes of analysis does not entail a denial of the national state's continued relevance as a major locus of political-economic regulation."

(30): this chapter sets out its stall to critique the 'global territorialist' approach, and the 'deterritorialization' approach

(31): "the notion of globalization is first and foremost a descriptive category denoting, at the most general level, the spatial extension of social interdependencies on a worldwide scale."

(32): "in other words, all aspects of social space under modern capitalism must be understood as presuppositions, arenas, and outcomes of dynamic processes of continual social contestation and transformation." [bringing the 'social' in, but, like harvey, it seems ever-so-abstract...]

(33): important--insofar as we will be thinking about 'causes' behind global transformation, the dynamics seem to be located in capitalism's inherent tendency to see 'every limit... as a barrier to be overcome'. in other words, we need to think carefully about how this will dovetail with the question of shifting state strategy (if the keynesian and then post-keynesian paradigms were indeed driven, in his argument, by the notion that this was what was (a) best for national ecomonic growth, and/or (b) best for labor). how, in other words, to bring the State into a capital-centric account?

(33): we have a deterritorialization-reterritorialization chronology--first, capital annihilates barriers; then, second, it fixes itself in space as a means to extending its orbit.

(34): these spatial configuration as 'forces of production' (now we are wading into knotty theoretical formulations--though this begins with harvey, of course.)

(35): this particular deterritorialization-reterritorialization is part of the "longue duree dynamic of deterritorialization, reterritorializaiton, and uneven geographic development that has underpinned the production of capitliast spatiality throughout the modern era."

(35-36): six implications of this broad theorization

1. global restructuring as a conflictual, uneven, dialectical process
2. global restructuring as both spatial and temporal
3. global restructuring unfolding upon multiple spatial scales
4. not involving total obliteration of sociospatial scales (i.e., the state), but their reconfiguration
5. stems from a diverse range of political-economic causes (reogranization of capital accumulation, consolidation of neoliberalism, financial deregulation, accelerated technological change, new population movements, geopolitical shifts, transformation of global labor force...) [how do we move to a coherent account of what actually happened, as the capital-centric account initially implied? or is this very much a case of overdetermination by all of this?]
6. states as essential geographical arenas

(37-38): important--here begins the section on the epistemology of state-centrism, which has three most essential spatial assumptions (see box 2.1)

1. space as static platform, not social (spatial fetishism)
   
2. social relations organized within containers (methodological territorialism)
   
3. assumption that social relations are organized at a national scale (methodological nationalism)
   

(41): the intellectual plausibility of this frame, he's arguing, was contingent--it can be traced to "the late nineteenth and early twentieth century historical-geographical context in which the social sciences first emerged, during which the territorial state's role in encaging socioeconomic and politicocultural relations within its boundaries dramatically intensified."

(43): and even then, there was a tendency to see what you expected to see, through it--reify it, rather than see a tendency in operation ("to conflate the historical tendency toward the territorialization of social relations on a national scale--which has undoubtedly intensified during much of the twentieth century--with its full historical realization")

(44): important--the two (mistaken) assumptions of the deterritorialization thesis

1. that globalization is non-territorial, borderless, supraterritorial.
2. that globalization entails the contraction of state power, or its erosion.

(45): first mention of 'glocalization' (swyngedouw)

(45): the relativization of scales (jessop)

(47-48): the (nonsense) notion of integration into 'global society'

(48-49): more profound critique of those who see globalization as preconstituted structures, rather than qualitative re-structuring...

(49-52): important, critique of wallerstein as 'state-centric'--"however, considering wallerstein's avowed concern to transcend state-centric models of capitalist modernity, national state territories occupy a surprisingly pivotal theoretical position within his conceptual framework... wallerstein's conceptuion of global space is.. most precisely described as an inter-state division of labor... in this sense, wallerstein's concern to analyze the global scale as a distinctive unit of analysis does not lead to any qualitative modification in the way in which this space is conceptualized... the global and the national scales are viewed as structural analogs of a single spatial form--territoriality... to be sure, wallerstein conceives global space as a complex historical product of capitalist expansion, but he acknowledges its historicity only in a limited sense, in contrast to previous historical systems such as world-empires. for within the cpaitalist historical system, space appears to be frozen into a single geometric crystallization."

(52-53): two general methodological conclusions:

1. emphasis on the global spatial scale does not necessarily lead to the overcoming of state-centrism
2. state-centric conceptions of global space mask the national state's own crucial role as a site and agent of global restructuring.
   

(55): the prospect of 'placelessness' (!)

(56): important--three serious deficiences of deterritorialization approaches

1. historicity of territoriality is an either/or, presence or absence (?)
2. telationship btw global space and national territoriality is a zero-sum game
3. most crucially, "deterritorialization approaches bracket the various forms of spatial fixity, spatial embedding, rescaling, and reterritorialization upon which global flows are premised."
   

(57): important--"a major agenda of this book is to advance an interpretation of contemporary global restructuring as a rescaling of the nationally organized sociospatial configurations that have long served as the underlying geographical scaffolding for capitalist development."

(57): important--remember, two types of deterritorialization under discusssion: of capitalism, and of the state.

1. of capital (57-60): more-or-less asserting that a territorialization moment is unavoidable, still. "we are witnessing, rather, a profoundly uneven rescaling and reterritorialization of the historically entrenched, state-centric geographical infrastructures that underpinned the last century of capitalist industrialization." capital cannot ever enjoy pure placelessness.
   
2. of the state (60-64): the state, also, is most definitely not dead. "national states began actively to facilitate the process of geoeconomic integration through a variety of policy strategies..." as panitch writes, "capitalist globalization... takes place in, through, and under the aegis of states."

(63): and why the urban? well, "as we shall see, large-scale urban regions represent crucial geographical, institutional, and political arenas in which the rescaled geographies of statehood under contemporary capitalism are being forged and contested."

(66-67): in sum, four methodological challenges:

1. historicity of social space--"historically specific character of national state territoriality as a form of sociospatial organization."
   
2. polymorphic geographies--"national state territoriality is today being intertwined with... an immense variety of emergent forms (supranational institutions, etc.)"
   
3. the new political economy of scale--decentering of the national scale of political-economic life
   
4. the remaking of state space--key role of national states in promoting sociospatial transformations.

chapter three, the state spatial process under capitalism (69-113)

(70): "just as a fish is unlikely to discover water, most postwar social scientists viewed national state territories as pregiven natural environments for sociopolitical life." -- the 'territorial trap'

(70): fordist-keynesian period as a period of historically unprecedented attempt at closure [we can interrogate this, since it ought to give us some clue what 'closed' and 'open' denote; not absence of world trade, certainly]

(70): at times, though, there seems to be a simplified periodization (more simplified, in other words, than the harvey narrative)--we have moved from westphalian, to post-westphalian [if we wanted to draw the periodization out, i am worried that it, as abstract narrative, doesn't match the concrete level] -- this is emphatically misleading, though, for he does also went to stress its indeterminacy during the modern period (see 76)

(72): critical--"of particular importance, in this context, is a sustained inquiry into the conditions under which inherited geographies of state space may be transformed from relatively fixed, stabilized settings in which state regulatory operations occur into potentially malleable stakes of sociopolitical contestation. concomitantly, there is an equally urgent need for a more explicit theoretical conceptualization of the determinate social, political, and economic processes through which transformations of state space unfold."

(72): KEY--"i argue that state space is best conceptualized as an arena, medium and outcome of spatially selective political strategies" [how does this work, then, with the argument that it is potentially malleable and open to political contestation? because it is difficult to argue that its rescaling in the neoliberal period was a response to political contestation--it was in the service of capital. so a kind of political influence, but there is no role for understanding it as a tool to be wielded, in this account, correct? in other words, the question is: is it that capital has captured the state, in the neoliberal period? or is it that the state has decided to go with capital?]

(75): citing Ollman on the dialectic, in order to emphasize process over fixity

(76): "while Weber was highly sensitive to the historical specificity of modern state territoriality relative to premodern political geogrphies, he was considerably less interested in its evolution within the modern interstate system."

(77): five functions of the modern state

1. war-making and military defense
2. the containment and enhancement of national wealth
3. the promotion of national identities
4. institutionalization of democratic forms of legitimation
5. the provision of social welfare

(77): spatial scales are tied to "regulatory strategies"

(78-80): important, state space:

1. in the narrow sense--changing configuration of state border, boundaries, frontiers
   
2. in the integral sense--changing substantive ways in which institutions are mobilized to regulate social relations (state inverventions into economic process, etc.)

(81): critical--"the crucial point, therefore, is that the question of which scale of regulatory activity is primary within a given configuration of state power is essentially an empirical-historical one, and not a matter that can be settled on an a priori basis."

(84): important--summarizing his understanding of jessop's notion of strategic-relational theory of the state--"most crucially, neither the state's spatial form nor historically specific forms of state spatiality are ever structurally pregiven; rather, they represent arenas and outcomes of spatially selective political strategies. this conceptualization forms a theoretical linchpin [of this book]" [see also 89]

(84): underdetermined nature of the value form

(85): the state form as analagous

(85): KEY--according to jessop, "the separation of the state from the circuit of capital may seriously constrain its ability to function as an agent of capitalist interests." (the state, then, as a site of contestation). "the state form is an undeteremined condensation of continual strategic interactions regarding the nature of state inteverention, political representation, and ideological hegeony within capitalist society. accordingly, 'there can be no inherent substantive unity to the staet...; its always relative unity must be created...' for jessop, the funcitonal unity and organization coherence of the state are never pregiven, but must be viewed as emergent, contingent, contested... it is only through the mobilization and consolidation of state projects... that the image of the state as a unified organizationl entity can be projected into civil society." (SEE FIGURE 3.4, pg. 86)

(87): state as site of strategies, as generator of strategies, and as product of strategies.

(91-93): important:

1. state spatial form (defined with reference to the principle of territoriality--it is territoriality that underpins the potential autonomy of state institutions from other social forces within civil society)
2. state spatial projects (oriented toward state's institutional structure--initiatives to differentiate state territoriality into a functionally coordinated, coherent regulatory geography)
   
3. and state spatial strategies (oriented towards circuit of capital--influence the geographies of development, reshape geographies of capital accumulation)

(95): two dimensions

1. a scalar dimension (a hierarchy among a variety of scales)
   
2. a territorial dimension (jurisdictional units)

(96): "the relation of state institutions to patterns of uneven spatial development is frequently an object of intense sociopolitical contestation." [but, and i think we would all agree, it is possible to push this to lengths that would be absurd--we are still talking about a state that is in the broad interests of capital, perhaps more in the way althusser specified...]

(104): all of this is becoming frustratingly formal!

chapter four, urban governance and the nationalization of state space ()

(114-115): ok--"state rescaling has emerged as an important political strategy through which diverse governmental coalitions have attempted to manage the disruptive consequences of a deeply rooted socioeconomic crisis." [again, question of response to politics and contestation, or in line with capital's broad interests]

(115): definition of spatial keynesianism--"spatial keynesianism was a multifaceted, multiscalar, and contradictory amalgamation of staet spatial projects and state spatial strategies that were constructed in response to some of the major regulatory dilemmas associated with postwar fordist urban-entrenched patterns of uneven spatial development by spreading urban growth as evenly as possible across the entire surface of each national territory.."

(116): in this chapter, wants to 'get at' the state by looking at the way in which it strove to regulate urban development/urbanization.

(117): key--"I argue that spatial Keynesianism was composed of a variety of spatially selective political strategies through which wester European antional states attempted to manage the distinctive patterns of urbanization and uneven spatial development that crystallized across western Europe during the Fordist-Keynesian period..."

(120): urban development in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, evolution of capitalism from liberal-competitive to state-managed; a new industrial geography of the second industrial revolution

(122): fordist period as the high-water mark of national capitalism

(128): see box, "key axes of regulation under fordist-keynesian capitalism"

(130): here, a point at which to ask the question of the place of labor in pushing the State--"the goal of state action, in this context, was less to enhance the productive force of capitalist sociospatial configurations than to spread the industrialization process as evenly as possible across the entire surface of the national territory."

(133): compensatory mechanisms, myrdal -- targeting of peripheralized spaces (136)

(171): "spatial keynesianism was not dismantled through a single, catastrophic rupture. rather, its constitutive elemnts were eroded due to a confluence of distinct processes of restructuring, leading in turn to path dependent, politically contested regulatory realignments and institutional modifications within each national state apparatus."

chapter five, interlocality competition as a state project

(172-173): "in contrast to the redistributive agenda associated with the Kenesian welfare national state, the competition state attempts to promote economic regeneration by enhancing the global competitive advantages of its territory..."

(176): we have seen--

1. state spatial projects--establish customized, place-specific regulatory capacities in major cities, city-regions, and industrial districts and more generally, to decentralize key aspects of economic regulation to subnatinoal institutional levels.
   
2. state spatial strategies--reconcentration of socioeconomic assets and advanced infrastructural investments within globally competitive city-regions.
   

chapter six, alternative rescaling strategies

(257-261): SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT

1. ABSTRACT: A. curret round of global restructuring represents an intensification and re-workign of uneven spatial development / B. state influences this through diverse political strategies / C. towards a processual concpetualization of state spatiality, which calcify into distinct sociospatial configurations
2. MESO-LEVEL: A. post-1980s western europe, which has facilitated transnational corporate accumulation strategies... has produced intense economic dynamism within a select group of powerful, globally interlinked cities... / B. an inverstion of state appraoches to the regulation of uneven development; redistribution abandoned, competetiveness prioritized. / C. patterns of state spatial selectivity have been transformed; new projects and strateiges designed to make major cities competitive. (towards RCSR--rescaled competition state regime)

(261): this configuration, it is argued, is permeated by crisis-tendencies.

(304): from second-cut, to third-cut RCSR?