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

francesca polletta, freedom is an endless meeting

preface

(vii): athenian democracy from 461 BC - 322 BC

chapter 1

(2): activists have been drawn to the solidary, innovatory and developmental benefits of participatory democracy

(3): in other words, there are practical/political benefits to participatory democracy

(3): social relationships shape participatory democracy in two ways

1. familiar relationships provide frameworks for group
2. activists' identification of the tactic have shaped it, too [this is part of the silly nonsense that it became 'white', so SNCC abandoned it]

(8-10): three features of participatory democracy

1. people share in decisions -- feel a part of things (solidary)
   
2. more inputs from everywhere (innovatory)
3. trains people as activists (developmental)

(12): another summary--solidary counters inability of groups to offer incentives to participate; innovatory benefits counteract the fact that politics is uncertain; developmental benefits counteract inexperience

(19): table of movements/decision-style, etc. [painful]

(24): battles were not between idealists and pragmatists--rather, they were between different ideologies--and, even, about other things (race, friendship [!], limits of liberalism)

chapter two

(29): AFL's Gompers calls himself 'three-quarters anarchist'

(32): deeply unsatisfying treatment of Labor in the 1930s

(38): mistaking the symptom of Old Left's failure, for its cause--if you were to extend the same kind of careful treatment to what she opposes the New Left to, we might have a book on our hands...

(53): coded insult of communists as 'nondemocratic' and the bureaucracy/liberals as 'democratic' -- what is this hogwash?

chapter three

(56): again, her main point--activists chose participatory democratic practices as much for idealistic reasons as for pragmatic reasons

(57): by April 1960, 50,000 students had sat-in at lunch counters

(60): extraordinary over- and under-representation of whites and blacks, respectively in these Southern counties

(63): Ella Baker emerges out of the SCLC to found the SNCC--democracy is part of what's at stake, in this break

(66): and this' populism' would be at the heart of what inspires SNCC in later years

(73): again, if you hadn't noticed already--there is a developmental rationale to participatory democracy

(74): prefigurative commitment and political change [!?]

(79): meetings as Durkhemian 'collective rituals'

(85): what is this nonsense! 'hurtful', 'friendship', ahhhhhh!

(86): in sum--participatory democracy is eminently practical for social movements, for four reasons

1. participation helps decisionmakers gather information
2. developmental benefits of shaping preferences/skills
3. specifies a range of possibility, heightening sense of belonging in minorities [?]
4. foster conventions of scruitny that endure [?]

chapter four

(89-90): SNCC unraveled because came up against limits of tutelage and friendship as basis [?]

(90): perceived as white by black staffers [!?]

(117): goals became unclear after 1964 Atlantic City Convention -- didn't solve programmatic and racial questions, and this was the reason for the decline

(118): more of this nonsense about black, white, identity--this is not an explanation!

chapter five

(121): SNCC in between top-down and bottom-up, actually.

(124): explanation for SDS failure is, well, "dynamics of friendshp and exclusion"

(127): participatory democracy as a model for social change--not internal organization

(140): more on friendship, and how it constrains groups

(142): newcomers challenging old guard on hypocrisy

(145): 100,000 members

(145-146): reason for decline, also, had to do with fact that there was an upsurge of action, elsewhere [implicit in this, though, has to be a recognition of the limits of this kind of organization -- what could capture the upsurge? labor in the 30s did, to an extent that this doesn't come close to doing]

(147): a missed opportunity, proposing to make it participatory and democratic and national?

(200): badly done p. democracy gives you structurelessness; badly done organizing give you authoritarianism

conclusion

(203): purpose was to recuperate a rationale for doing participatory democracy

(204): again, a caricature of the Old Left that depends on her having ignored it

(205): participatory democracy had explicitly political impulses driving it

(207): again, the limits of friendship -- this is when participatory democracy stopped working!? [oh god save me]

(213): four conflicts that explain the decline of groups (problems of p. democratic groups, then, have been exogenous to the form of organization)

1. conflicting demands of making social change
2. orientation toward goals or process
3. tension between conventionality and innovation
4. behavioral limits on the social relationships on which activists have modeled their interactions [oh god]

(217): obstacles lie in "broader cultural conceptions" (as well as these conflicting demands, etc.). at certain prssure points in the 'associational relationships', these appear. [in other words, we have 'friendship' doing most of the work, with culture as an auxiliary. mighty fine book, this is.]

poulantzas, the problem of the capitalist state

(68): "Here I would advance, with all necessary precautions, the following thesis: 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’."

Has anyone considered the possibility that labor has been doing it all wrong? That rather than going after the Democrats all this time, they should have been going after the Republicans? The argument can be made that organized labor should have used that $400 million to buy off their enemies instead of using it to grease the palms of their nominal friends—friends who, alas, can’t (or won’t) get the job done.

sharon smith, "the 1930s"

(...) By 1932 it was estimated that 75 percent of the population was living in poverty, and fully one-third was unemployed. And in many places, Black unemployment rates were two, three, or even four times those of white workers.

(...) In 1933, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt granted workers the right to organize into unions in Section 7(a) of the National Recovery Act, and workers rushed to join unions.

(...) By the 1930s, objective conditions were overripe for mass industrial unionism in the United States. Industrial productivity had risen by less than 10 percent between 1899 and 1914, but between 1920 and 1930 productivity increased by 7 percent each year. By 1926, the Ford Motor Company announced that 43 percent of its jobs required only one day’s training. Most importantly, the working class was no longer segregated along racial lines. The slowdown in immigration after 1914 brought with it a corresponding increase in internal migration. A half-million Southern Blacks moved north during World War I. By 1930, more than 25 percent of Black men were employed in industrial jobs, compared with only 7 percent in 1890. By the mid—1930s, Black workers made up 20 percent of the laborers and 6 percent of the operatives in the steel industry nationally. And one-fifth of the workforce in Chicago’s slaughterhouses was Black. White workers couldn’t hope to win unless they united with Black workers–and that wouldn’t happen unless they organized on the basis of equality.

(...) Moreover, Lewis had supported Republican Herbert Hoover in the 1932 presidential election. He was woven of the same cloth as the rest of the AFL leadership. But unlike the others, he recognized that if the AFL didn’t open its doors to the unskilled, another rival union organization would develop and grow from the mass organizing drives which were already taking place. As Lewis’ biographer, Saul Alinsky, concluded, Lewis merely "read the revolutionary handwriting on the walls of American industry," when he pushed to organize an industrial union federation.

(...) When the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO) formally opened its doors as a section of the AFL in 1935, industrial workers flooded in. And those groups of workers who were already at the forefront of struggle, such as the auto and rubber workers, quickly affiliated their unions with the CIO. In 1938, when the AFL finally expelled the CIO and its million members, the CIO changed its name to the Congress of Industrial Organizations and emerged as a rival union federation.

(...) As the level of working-class struggle grew, and the economy began to stabilize, big business began to desert Roosevelt. As Mike Davis argues, "It was this mass desertion of business from the administration in 1935 that drove a reluctant Roosevelt temporarily into the arms of Lewis and the CIO insurgents."27 Roosevelt needed the working class vote in order to win the 1936 election, and he shrewdly tailored his campaign to win the hearts and minds of workers. He put on quite a convincing show, declaring at one point during the campaign that if big business hated him, "I welcome their hatred," and if he were given the chance to serve a second term they will have "met their master." It was toward this end that in 1935 Roosevelt made two far-reaching concessions to workers.

(...) He pushed through the National Labor Relations Act (also known as the Wagner Act), which finally made it illegal for employers to refuse to bargain with unions. And he secured passage of a Social Security program, by which the U.S. government agreed to provide a minimal standard of living for the poorest families in society and for the elderly. These two concessions proved to be the biggest gains workers won from the government during the Depression decade–gains which earned Roosevelt his legendary status as a friend to the working class. But although Roosevelt promised workers that "we have only begun to fight," these were to be the last significant reforms he would grant to working class people.

(...) Although Roosevelt remained popular, many workers–especially those who were most active in building the new industrial unions–began to turn away from the Democratic Party as the Depression decade wore on. Indeed, Democratic politicians were proving in practice that they stood firmly on the side of the bosses, while the compassionate New Deal rhetoric went out the window as soon as the class struggle intensified. In 1935 alone, 20 state militias–most controlled by Democratic governors–were called out against strikers in 73 disputes. A 1937 Gallup poll showed that at least 21 percent of the population supported the formation of a national farmer-labor party as an alternative to the Democrats and Republicans.

(...) [UAW 1935 Congress -- first no support for Roosevelt, then threat from leadership]

(...) Thus, despite the significant shift leftward in working class consciousness by the mid—1930s, the pressure to support Roosevelt was tremendous, even among many socialists. The Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party fell into step behind the New Deal coalition, its politics virtually indistinguishable from Roosevelt’s by that time. Many long-standing members of the Socialist Party as well succumbed to the pressure to campaign for Roosevelt in 1936.

(...) The Great Depression was the most significant period of class struggle that has ever taken place in the United States. The sheer intensity of the struggle led ever broader sections of the working class to become radicalized and to begin to generalize politically. For a very short period of time as the working class movement advanced–between 1935 and 1937–the level of radicalization was such that on a fairly large scale workers began to realize that if they were to have a chance at winning, they had to confront all the bosses’ attempts to divide and weaken the working-class movement. Workers had to break down racial barriers and build genuine unity and solidarity; they had to prepare themselves to confront the violence of the bosses, which grew in ferocity during this period; they had to fight against anti-communism; and they had to break with the Democrats and the Republicans and form an independent working-class party. Thus, the Depression decade marked the key turning point for the working class movement in the United States: For the first time, the potential existed to build a genuine mass revolutionary workers party. But such a revolutionary alternative would have required a forceful revolutionary leadership inside the working class movement. Instead, there was the Communist Party.

(...) There was one reason in particular why the Communist Party was the organization which played the decisive role in the labor movement of the 1930s: its comparatively large size. Even at the very beginning of the Depression, the Communist Party claimed a membership of 7,500, compared with the Communist League of America’s 131 members in 1931. At the end of 1938, the CP had grown to 82,000, while the membership of the Trotskyists, by then in the Socialist Workers Party, peaked at 2,500. Meanwhile, the Socialist Party continued its process of decline. Subsumed by inner turmoil as its right and left wings continued to do battle, SP membership actually declined in 1935–a pivotal year of growth for the class struggle. [oh but come on! this is not an 'exogenous' factor!!!]

(...) As American CP leader Earl Browder argued in the mid—1930s, "If one is not interested in directives from Moscow, that only means he is not interested in building socialism at all."

(...) But for all the weaknesses of the American Communist Party, its commitment to fighting racism was exemplary. In fact, the CP in the 1930s provides an extraordinary example for socialists on how to go about building a working-class movement that makes fighting racism an integral part of the class struggle. This was true despite the CP’s bizarre "Black Belt" theory. As part of Stalin’s left turn during the Third Period, he argued that the American CP should advocate "self-determination for the Black Belt." This meant calling for a separate Black republic in the Southern states, where a majority of Blacks still lived–even though no demand for such a republic had ever been raised by Blacks themselves. Perhaps for this reason, the Black Belt theory’s call for a Black republic had virtually no influence on the party’s practice, and was rarely even mentioned in its literature.

(...) All literature, whether communist or union, had to be secretly distributed–smuggled inside baskets of laundry by Black women posing as laundresses or at the local barbershop, where communists would drop in for a "trim" and pick up their leaflets. The communists issued their own leaflet in response to the Klan, which read, "KKK! The workers are watching you!" And in 1933, the CP held a demonstration in front of the Birmingham courthouse, which demanded that the KKK and other white supremacists be outlawed, and the right to vote without the racist restrictions that prevented a majority of Blacks from voting throughout the South.

(...) All over the U.S., communist youth circulated petitions against segregation in baseball and other sports, in a campaign which featured white and Black ball players calling for integration in sports. When communists traveled to Washington, D.C. for a demonstration to free the Scottsboro Boys, they stopped off on the way and sat in at restaurants that refused to serve Blacks–a tactic adopted decades later by the civil rights movement.

(...) By 1934 the party claimed 1,000 members in Birmingham, mostly Black. After three members of the Sharecroppers Union were shot and killed by police in 1932, 3,000 people marched in a funeral procession for six miles, following caskets that were draped in banners with the communist hammer and sickle, while 1,000 stood along the route in tribute.

(...) This meant that, after spending the previous seven years denouncing as social fascists not just Roosevelt and the Democrats, but also liberals and reform socialists, the CP was instructed to become virtually indistinguishable from them. And as the 1936 presidential election approached, the Popular Front meant that the CP was instructed to do everything in its power to help ensure Roosevelt’s victory. Communists were to become loyal–if uninvited–members of Roosevelt’s New Deal coalition. [this is distinct, really, from Davis' explanation -- important, then, to think through the argument more carefully]

(...) As late as January 1935, the Daily Worker described Roosevelt as "the leading organizer and inspirer of fascism in this country." But by the end of 1936, the CP formally entered the Democratic Party. While it didn’t formally support Roosevelt in the election (voicing fear that open communist support might hurt his campaign), the CP made it clear that it hoped he would win.

(...) Some left-wing historians–those who wish to downplay the problems of Stalinism, along with those who wish to apologize for reformism–argue that the Popular Front was a major step forward for the CP, because it ended its self-imposed isolation of the Third Period. They point to the fact that the party more than tripled in size during the Popular Front period, from 26,000 members in 1934 to 82,000 members in 1938, as evidence of success. But that line of reasoning ignores the fact that the CP’s membership also tripled in size during the Third Period years between 1930 and 1934, when it grew from 7,500 to 26,000.

(...) The fact remains that from 1928 on, the CP never decided its strategy based upon what was needed to move the labor movement forward. Because it was tied to Stalin’s coattails, the American CP could not aim to build an independent revolutionary movement inside the working class–either during the Third Period or the Popular Front. In shifting from the Third Period to the Popular Front, the Party merely traded one disastrous policy for another, shifting from outlandish sectarianism to the adoption of equally outlandish patriotism.

(...) Because of the Popular Front, the communist shop floor leaders were instructed to help the CIO leadership in delivering the working-class vote to the Democrats. Despite the fact that many of the most militant workers were already willing to break with the Democratic Party in 1936, Roosevelt was reelected in one of the biggest landslides in U.S. history. [if only -- not sure if this claim is tenable, though]

(...) During the course of the Flint sit-down strike, which began on December 30, 1936 and lasted until February 11, 1937, 140,000 out of a total of GM’s 150,000 production workers either sat down or went out on strike. But the strike’s importance was more than just economic. The attention of the entire nation was riveted on the Flint auto workers, as they took matters into their own hands and stood up to the bosses, the CIO leaders, the National Guard, and even Roosevelt–and won.

(...) The Flint victory had an impact nationally, raising working-class confidence still higher. By the end of 1937, nearly a half-million workers all over the U.S. had taken part in a sit-down strike. The number of all strikes more than doubled between 1936 and 1937, from 2,172 to 4,740, involving nearly two million workers overall.

(...) Outwardly, Lewis appeared to defend the communists from conservatives within the CIO. "I do not turn my organizers or CIO members upside down and shake them to see what kind of literature falls out of their pockets," he told red-baiters. But privately Lewis made it quite clear that he was merely using the communists. He argued, "Who gets the bird, the hunter or the dog?" And later, once the union had finally gained a foothold in the steel industry and he no longer needed them, he fired all the communists from the union’s payroll.

(...) But the CP leaders’ newfound aversion to wildcat strikes did not immediately filter down to communists on the shop floor–many of whom continued to lead the wildcats and sitdowns which erupted during the course of 1937. Not only was confidence still rising among the rank and file, but that confidence enabled workers to begin to try and assert some control over the pace of production and other working conditions. [this is critical]

(...) [November Pontiac strike] The Communist Party finally broke the stalemate–by condemning a strike led by its own members, which it had publicly supported only days earlier. After an article appeared in the New York Times blaming the strike on the Communist Party, the CP leadership immediately switched sides, fearing it might alienate its New Deal allies. Earl Browder personally ordered the party’s Pontiac auto workers fraction to end the occupation.

(...) The Pontiac strike effectively marked the end of the CIO strike wave of the 1930s. The dynamic of class struggle is such that, if it does not continue to move forward, it very quickly begins to backslide. The monthly average of strikes fell by more than half between 1937—39, while the CIO added only 400,000 new members–compared with nearly 4 million in its first two years. By late 1937, recession had once again set in. Between August and November of 1937, the industrial production index dropped by 27 percent, once again throwing millions of workers into unemployment. Between November 1937 and January 1938, U.S. car production fell from 295,000 to 155,000. Employment in the auto industry dropped from 517,000 in 1937 to 305,000 in 1938.

(...) Once the 1936 presidential election was out of the way, Roosevelt was free to show his true class loyalties. Moreover, with a new war on the horizon, as Mike Davis argues, "FDR’s overriding desire to win support for an increasingly interventionist foreign policy, pre-empted further reform initiatives or new concessions to labor."93 As Roosevelt began his war buildup, he looked to reestablish his ties with big business. Thus, Roosevelt slashed relief and works programs for the poor and unemployed in 1938 and again in 1939, even though unemployment was rising sharply. And he made a pronounced turn against the labor movement, beginning in 1937.

(...) [thesis:] It was to be expected that Roosevelt would turn his back on workers, and that the CIO leadership would not lead a fight against Roosevelt. But by the time workers learned this bitter lesson, the greatest upsurge in U.S. working-class history was over. And the Communist Party had played a decisive role. The CP had an impact inside the labor movement which reached far beyond its own membership. Not only did the Communist Party have a substantial base among industrial workers, but by 1937, CP members held top leadership posts in 40 percent of CIO unions. There was a decisive missing element in the working-class movement of the 1930s: an organization of revolutionaries that was large enough to influence the course of the struggle. The Communist Party was large enough, but it had long ceased to be a revolutionary organization. So instead of leading workers toward revolution, the CP left thousands of workers without a way forward. Most workers who’d joined the CP during the course of the 1930s left by the end of the decade, undoubtedly confused and demoralized by the experience, with a grossly distorted vision of socialism. In the eyes of the most militant workers, the Communist Party discredited itself when it turned its back on the class struggle at its turning point in 1937. [too easy, one thinks]