4/2/2010

theoretical parameters of vivek's book are a bit askew from what we've been looking in, in this course.

two enduring forms of the State

1. welfare State
2. developmental State

wanted to show that the developmental State could be understood in the same frame as the developmental State. it used to be thought of as a 'third-world State'. and when the 'developmental State' came around as a theoretical category, it was understood a-theoretically. vivek looking at it as a 'capitalist State'.

the terms of this debate, though, were different.

the key concept that was developed came from the debate about the Welfare State, which was 'state capacity' – when Marxists say that the welfare State functions to perpetuate capitalism, they assume both a willingness and a capacity to administer to capitalist interests. this cannot be taken for granted; it has to be built.

because it has to be built, facts about the State itself are going to have a large bearing on whether and how State capacity is built. in the developmental State literature, this had a large impact. it came out of the context of neoliberalism, where the argument was that State's will necessarily muck it up (rent-seeking, or crowd out, or whatever). in every case, the State will harm development. this came out of Latin American stagnation—they squelched private intiative.

BUT: by the late 80's/early 90's you had a growth miracle in E. Asia. and you had extensive State intervention. what the developmental State literature argued was that what distinguished these States was 'State capacity'--they had the capacity to intervene successfully. the question was not State intervention, but the quality of State intervention.

the question that was not asked, however, is how State capacity gets built. the argument, when it was made, was as simple as, well, politicans built it (Peter Evans' book is a partial answer—you need good bureaucracy and good ties to the private sector. But even here the answer is not given as to the origins).

in vivek's book, there were two cases: India and Korea. in the former, it was a failure; in the latter, a success. difference was capacity. why?

easy answer: gift of long historical process. determined at the outset, in a sense.

but neither country had much of a developmental apparatus, when it started out. that means that there was a punctuated period of State building. in Korea, this was successful. in India, not.

the answer that vivek gives is that it has to do with the reaction of the capitalist class to State-building. this was novel because it was assumed, prior to this, that capitalists don't matter, because these were poor countries. but in fact, vivek shows that the opposite was true.

what it shows, then, is that the developmental State was constrained by bourgeois power because the caiptalist class was able to forestall State-building. the attempt, then, was to bring

why did the Indian capitalist class rebel?

- - - - - - -

remember, the two theoretical arguments re: the State

1. instrumentalist accounts
2. structuralist account, the most important of which has to do with 'business confidence'

theda skocpol offers an account of 'full autonomy' – that the State can ride roughshod over the capitalists, if it will.

in dev. state literature, the notion of State-centeredness was at its height in the late 1980's, mid-1990's. it was a counter to the neoliberal arguments that had been dominant, at this time, after the Latin American collapse in the 1980's (those countries where States had intervened, in the past). the only way, it was said, to accelerate the pace of Capitalist development was for it to become a 'nightwatchman State'.

Amsden and Wade upset this apple-cart. it was not the fact of State intervention that determines the outcome, but rather the quality.

well, what conduces high-quality State-intervention? the answer that emerged was: States with adequate capacity. if the State has this ability, then, it can overcome the obstacles people pointed to (obstacles were rent-seeking on the part of private agents, and State predation).

KEY--one argument could have been about the 'social setting'--a kind of Marxist account, about the history of the two countries, etc. in Left literature, there had been this notion that in the Third World, classes are underdeveloped (Hamza Alavi). the idea, here, being that States are much more powerful, viz-a-viz social classes. the only actor that was seen as being capable of upsetting the State's agenda was the landed class. this literature in Latin America, and elsewhere, always points to the absence of land reform. as an economic fact, certainly, but as a political fact (the power of landlords). this, however, was an inference; it wasn't an argument. nowhere was the industrial bourgeoisie seen as being capable of blocking the State's agenda. [a subsidiary argument was that, even if industrialists do matter, why would they care? it's going to be a State, for them—capitalists were thought to be natural allies of the developmental State.]

a very powerful argument at the time was that Korea succeeded, at the time, because it was an authoritarian State. vivek's argument is that the opposite was the case, in fact (to be developed, later) – in an authoritarian state, a class that you should find that is unable to impose its will on the political process, in fact, is labor, not capital. it's true, maybe, that your control over labor might make capitalists more amenable to a partnership. four countries: taiwan, korea, france (45-68), japan (54-mid 1980's)--'successful capitalist planning'. the latter two were democratic states].

the argument in the Korean State is that, even when the State controls finance, it is subservient to capital. example being given is the switch to heavy industry in Korea in 1973. control of finance is only a weapon when capitalists have a high demand for finance, which presupposes 'business confidence'.

[if military takes on capital, workers may lose jobs. if workers take on capital, capital loses its power of the 'investment strike,' because work is already stopped]. think through this.

in both India and China, Nehru and Park have political hegemony. Nehru could have pursued his agenda, but political elite pointed to the go-slow. In Park the political rivals didn't have the support of the capitalist class. this is key, clarifies the impotency of a 'within-state' argument.

the question of land reform—if the book had been about growth, then land reform would have had to be in the book. what vivek is looking at is one part of what explains growth, which is State capacity. [key--absence of land reform increases the incentives for capitalists to ignore plan directives. planning, remember, is premised on the notion that capitalists pursue industries that have high private returns but low social returns (luxury good sectors, niche sectors, etc.). highly unequal income distributions, which follow from failed land reform, give rise to these kinds of sectors. so land reform does matter, in this sense.]

[thinking about brazil, chile, etc., and the transition of the 1920's/1930's/1940's] what about the landed class? it wipes out the dominant, landlord class. the immediate reason is because the evidence didn't show any landlord influence (found one petition from landlords). all of the two-dozen business organizations expressed their opposition to this legislation. what that said was that they're just not a factor. why? what about latin america, and the supposition that landlords didn't like developmental state (remember, this is not about economic growth)? the commitment to build developmental states is really a phenomenon of the post-1930s; the commitment to industrialization starts in the Great Depression, mostly as a necessity (because third world countries are cut off from their markets). when you compare the two threats, is it not the switch to rapid industrialization, rather than the switch to the developmental state that threatens them? industrialization, remember, threatens to wipe out the landed class. the supposition is that industrialization rendered them politically helpless—how do you get the onset of developmental states/industrialization without land reform? the explanatory task, here, would be to understand how the power bloc shifted in the 1930's and the 1940's.

from 1960-1975, India was far less corrupt than Korea. today, the most corrupt state in the world is also the world's fastest growing economy. [cf. Mushtaq Khan]

Japanese multinationals in Korea were using the country as an export platform; European and American multinationals used India as a home market, blocking Indian access to the American market.

size of the domestic market (domestic demand) does not produce an export-led strategy (China, DR/PR). export markets are not more attractive because they're highly competitive (they're used as places to dispose of excess inventory at firesale prices, sometimes).

two counterfactuals

1. you use the labor movement, as in France, to push a developmental State, then you push them out. labor has a role in state installation, but nothing in State reproduction.
2. you would have had a social-democratic developmental State. so it's important not to think of ISI as mal-development, ISI is a world-historical success. but, of course, pound for pound, India could not have matched Korea. [yes, ISI carries internal contradictions—but so does ELI. this happens in the mid-90's in Korea, they cease to be interested in a developmental state.]

- - - -

KEY, the question of the 'flying geese'--what Japan did with Korea, remember, is give them low-value niches, so that they themselves would have room for capital good exports. Korea and Taiwan do the same thing, later, with South East Asia (and this helps the book's argument—Indonesia and Malaysia don't have developmental States, so they're not nearly as successful as Korea and Taiwan).

also, let's remember that Japan's strategy, re: Korea, is greased by the executive branch in the US (Congress is more ambivalent).

Two contingencies, in this book:

1. Opening created by the arrival of the Japanese
2. Park Chung-Hee's taking advantage of opportunities granted him by the Japanese.   

javeed alam, caste and left politics April 2010

what makes Left practice increasingly difficult in India? and not worried about leaving a pessimistic impression.

here discussing the failure of the Left to win over its core constituency (the 'peasantry').

the Left has seen a relative decline amongst this population [here, it seems, quite clear that the Left means the CPI-M].

the question of the worker-peasant alliance—and its importance, not just for the seizure of state power, but also for buidling the foundations of social democracy.

revolution, let's be clear, is not predicated on the depth of knowledge about a society.

here, then, speaking of the specificity of the class formation, in India. new classes are forming within peasant communities in India—you have a big growth of poor peasants, for example. but because of stregnth of 'caste', you have fragmentation—poor peasants are not coming together.

the way to understand this phenomenon is to begin to look at international differentiation within caste communities

1. a long period of capialist development, followed by land reforms, moderniztion, education, etc. after independence, the backward castes all became proprietary peasants, where they were, before, tenant farmers. new modern classes have emerged amongst the castes.
2. where land did not often go to the direct tiller (in the land reform), many dalits were forced to remain agricultural laborers. if the land reforms had been of a different nature (gone to the tiller), the pattern of development would not have come about in the way that it did.

within the class formation, the middle class (largely drawn from the rich and middle peasants) has also been in the course of formation within these caste communities. these are central to the process.

many larger/intermediate caste formations have been breaking up (the dravidian movement, for example, is breaking up)

a new, white-collar middle class, which is seen as the only path to success. and this unification under these classes is, simultaneously, the domination of the rich peasants.

this is a kind of absence of freedom which is forced, collectively, by one jat on another.

and also, the reality that the call for caste social justice (for dalit justice) is a bourgeois demand—there is hardly any economic agenda in the demand. whether it is a democratic advance is not germane, right now. but this shows a shift, in the conception of democracy.

major argument, in sum: casteism has emerged as a major phenomenon because of the decomposition of the consciousness of the middle classes.

caste has typically been thought of as a 'superstructural' pheonemon. here contesting that—the development that I have traced are conditioned by a historically-grounded material force (what has been the nature of the bondage of the direct producer? by asking the question, you shift the terms of debate from the earlier discussions. this is central, even today. because what you call the 'dailt', today, were actually the producing classes in india, either in agriculture or secondary manufacture. pre-capitalist social relations linger on, in the current mode of production. all these sections of society were made up of dependent jatis on the upper-castes—what is important to note is that the dependence was of a collective nature, which has long-term implications for the form of struggle that emerged later. the nature of the unfreedom of the producer was of a collective kind, which was different than the unfreedom of the european serf.)

[here, starting to say something absolutely absurd—the degradation of manual work, here, explains why indian immigrants come to the US and become white-collar!]

Chandresekhar at Columbia, April 2010

collapse of actually-existing socialism 'has to do' with the collapse of finance—the increasing exposure of hese countries to finance. [?]

an 'informational inadequacy' that confronts central planning, it is argued (hayek's fatal conceit). planners working at cross-purposes.

the danger, also, of 'bureaucratization' (irfan habib: when socialism is established, there is no economic law pushing it in advance.)

the argument is premised on the proposition that the alternative has to be fully elaborated. you can only elaborate these mechanisms in practice.

what we do need to recognize is that the 'collapse of actually-existing socialism' has delayed the Left alternative. with this in mind, there need to be 'reformist'/'welfarist' measures in the interim (without making us sound like those who call for a 'human face')

in Latin America, neo-liberalism is thoroughly discredited. in Africa, it destroyed the State. but in Asia, you have 'successful' engagement with international capital (E. Asia). you have countries like China and India, as well. the point is that these are 'successes'. (crisis of 1997 was because of a more definite shift to neoliberalism, loss of financial controls, etc.). Asia as the region on which the reputation of neo-liberalism depends.

this 'working' (in a growth and balance of payments sense) means two things

1. there exist a group of people who can sustain this kind of growth trajectory—you have a section of the upper middle-class which (1) has additional incomes; (2) generates a situation where you expand the univers of borrowers because of the freedom you give to investors (you relax the requirements on financiers) [the 'feel-good' factor: confident lenders and confident borrowers are both necessary if you want a debt-financed trajectory to work]. today you're in a situation where you have double-digit inflation, but not seen as a threat. this used to be fatal. now not so much, because vocal classes have been co-opted. in other words, the 'middle-classes' are separated from the Left.
2. as part of your 'success', you are the 'flavor of the season'-- you need foreign capital and footloose productive capital. you're caught, then, in a situation where pushing against the status quo, you're confronted with the exit of capital. you can't even find your way to a reformist line.

you use all of these arguments, at an ideological level, to discount all alternatives.

the obvious implication is that you have to pursue different tactics, which the Left is doing. basically, we are talking about the need to be innovative.

in addition, fundamental structural constraints:

1. the organized working class is 6 or 7% of the total working class; and you're anyway confronting growth of informal and casualized labor (you're not progressing amongst the vanguard class, but in fact progressively seeing the undermining of the vanguard class). even within the formal sector, you're getting a lot of informal workers.
2. when employment increases, most of it is amongst self-employed workers. you have workers who don't have an 'enemy' in their productive life. who do you organize these workers against?
3. stagnation in real wages, but a rise in productivity-- you have a collapse of the shares of wages in value-added. those who are outside this citadel of formal workers have to come to terms with the fact that what set the standard is something that, itself, is eroding.

so you have what seems, almost, like a conspiracy. an attack all-round.

this is not to say that there is no Left, that the Left has disappeared. it is simply to say that this is a long and arduous struggle.

- - -

anwar's questions

1. neoliberalism as a global phenomenon?

what is it about capitalism that in the US, for example, one of the most tightly regulated financial sectors in the world was demolished. why did capitalism 'allow' for this trajectory? now, ruling classes pursue the path of 'international' financial credit, rather than public expenditure (taxation, etc.)

2. success as growth and employment?

success, the real argument, is growth, resolution of balance of payments problems, and the attenuation of inflation.

3. multiplier effects of public and private investment?

- -

it doesn't make any sense to argue that we need growth before we can re-distribute surpluses, precisely because the form of growth that is pursued has the effect of incapacitating the State (the State's ability to do anything in the long-term, certainly, but also its ability to attenuate short-term deprivation). and I would add,in fact, that this is entirely unscientific and politically backward—who, exactly, is going to demand and push the redistribution of that surplus at the end point?

Capitalism, Development and Democracy, RSS (1992)

(2): capitalism is necessary, but not sufficient for democracy

(4): working to make sense of the cross-national finding that democracy is correlated to development, in specific, historically-robust terms (pg. 30—the veto of the empirical generalization)

(5): considering three balances of power

1. classes and class coalitions
2. the State and its relationship to civil society
3. impact of transnational power relations

(6): summary of argument—urban working class as most frequent proponent of the extension of democratic rights.

(6): capitalism does a few things to push this process forward—brings workers together, urbanization, improving means of communication increases literacy (tending towards a 'dense civil society')

(7): it is not the protagonists of capitalism (the market, and the capitalists) that are at the vanguard of the push toward democracy; rather, it is an unintended result of its contradictions (the working class and the middle class growing stronger, the landed elite being weakened)

(8): class profiles

1. working-class, most consistently democratic (except where co-opted by charismatic authoritarianism)
2. landed upper-class, most consistently anti-democratic
3. bourgeoisie, generally supportive of constitutional and representative gov't, but not the extension of suffrage
4. middle classes were ambiguous, pushed for their own inclusion but otherwise contingent on the threat they faced, and available alliances
5. peasantry also was variable—independent family farmers were pro-democratic, but where dominated by large landholdings they were more authoritarian

(8): note that in L. America, the middle-classes played the leading role, but democratization was consistently of a restricted form as a result.

(21): Weber on Russia—hangs bourgeois reform on 'ideals'.

(22): summary of O'Donnell's work on ISI, and dependent development/authoritarianism, which undercuts the modernization thesis

(23): critique of Moore for evacuating the working-class

(36-37): outline of the methodological strategy--'analytic induction'

(43): certainly, they are critical of democracy, but see in it the important role it plays in advancing the interests of the working-class—even the long-term interests, they think [this is being done via a misreading of the Marxist position, I would argue]

(46): central thesis is that democratization can be explained by class interest; fundamentally shaped by the balance of class power ('relative class power')

(54-55): the 'inherent ambiguity of collective action', re: the working class

(59): relative size and density of organization of working class are of critical importance (discussion of impact of uneven development, etc.)

(60): the more landowners rely on state-backed coercion, the more anti-democratic they will be

(61): the bourgeoisie is caught between the formal liberalism of bourgeois democracy, and the substantive demands made by subordinate classes.

(63-64): the thesis of potential, variable autonomy of the State [hmm...]

(66): not too much State dependence on dominant classes, but not so much autonomy that it can't be tamed.

(68): absolutism towards bureaucratic universalism?

(72): dependent capitalist development has two unfavorable effects: attenuates decline of large landowners, doesn't strengthen working-class as much as it should

(82): early vs. late industrialization—effects on position of bourgeoisie viz-a-viz the State

(83): argument is that other classes were prominent in the early phases, and even though the working class took the lead later in the game, it needed allies. Where the large landowners were available and politically powerful, this was a problem for democratization.

(87): Switzerland – no opposition from bourgeoisie to full democracy, because there was no developed labor movement. Demonstrates importance of small-holders.

(87-90): France – Moore neglects the continuing influence of agrarian elite into the 19^th century; key, of course, was that they were disenfranchised and not part of the State apparatus after the Revolution.

(91): WWI effect on democratization

(92): Sweden—exhibits German patterns, as late industrialization; but it had no large landed upper class that lorded over the peasantry. This meant that the Swedish bourgeoisie didn't have the option of allying with the landed elite, as its German counterpart did.

(96): summary of these cases, thus far

(96): Moore ignored the Chartist movement

(98): again, working class as dominant force

(105): Italian Fascism was not a mass electoral movement

(106): Key amendment to Moore's account of Germany—the bourgeoisie and the alleged 'weak impulse' (it was in their economic interest to do what they did, in other words)

(108): again, comparison with Sweden

(125): Comparing the US North and West with Switzerland—in both places, democratization pushed by small farmers. And the landlords, in the US—not worried about the political process.

(126): Tilly's critical amendment, to the question of State and labor control—it was not necessarily for control, it was for guaranteeing that the control wouldn't be challenged.

3/25/10

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.  

PPIGS: EU's Internal Periphery, Left Forum 2010

Are the Germans going to drive the continent into recession to maintain their own fiscal health?

- - - - - -

Jeffery Sommers

Latvian economy gone from celebrated as Baltic tiger, to the poorest performing economy in Europe.

Burning up of its currency reserves to rescue its banks—those are not available, anymore, for rescuing its economy.

A serious demographic crisis that verges on the euthanizing of the population (the young generation is streaming out of the country). The 'exit' option—some 10,000 people on the streets in January, but this didn't go anywhere.

As early as the 1980s, there was great interest in Latvia—the crisis of the 70's had given rise to a desire to acquire raw materials located in the old Soviet Union. Latvia had warm water ports to facilitate this. An entrepreneurial class was well-positioned to take advantage of this; moreover, offshore banking/etc. saw an opportunity in this trade, as well (the money that was being used to purchase this raw materials was eventually being returned to the West, of course).

We see the beginnings, in short, of a highly corrupt offshore infrastructure.

With the fall of the Soviet Union, there was a need/desire to cement this arrangement—attract FDI, etc. (turned out to be largely speculative)

Simultaneous to this, the EU was launching its currency project (Maastricht) – one way to mitigate the unemployment in W. Europe was to dump goods in the old Soviet bloc (we see a reversal of trade flows, which served the interests of Germany and France; strong currencies in this regions served the interests of exporters in those W. Countries).

Despite political changes, there has been great consistency in the country's finance policies for the past 20 years. They have been resolute in their defence of the policies that have led to today's crisis.

25 banks for 2.3 million people, most of which are serving these offshore interests.

Latvia has reached a point where the legitimacy of the neoliberal paradigm is finally under question. We do see the possibility of some of the political parties in the country demanding some change in economic policy. Not enough mobilization from below, of course.

Biggest steps that need to be taken.

1. Introduce industrial policy.
2. Tax policy revision (high on labor, low on capital thus far) – this has made Latvia uncompetitive, when coupled with its high currency
3. Development of the agricultural sector (Lativa historically a major producer of grains, but neglected in the neoliberal era, completely)

- - - - - -

Mark Weisbrot

Latvian Central Banker pursuing a 'pro-cylical' policy – i.e., making the recession worse until wages fall enough to 'fix' the economy.

This will be a record loss of output for a cyclical downturn (slated to be greater than US depression in 1929-1933; comparable to destruction of Argentinian economy, where they tried to adjust the economy without adjusting the exchange rate. Defaulted, their currency collapsed—retracted for three months, and then grew 63% in the ensuing years)

The IMF has a fair bit of money, again. Alas. (In Latvia, the main thing that enforces these policies is the European Commission—a very powerful material interest, since European banks have loaned in excess of $1.4 trillion dollars to central and E. Europe. They stand to lose tremendously. A lot of money has been given to the IMF by major countries to 'save' Europe, in effect)

The economics of this crisis, then: when you have a situation like Latvia's (or the PIIGS), there are three macro policies

1. fiscal policy (as has been used, a little bit, in the US)
2. monetary policy (interest rate policy; 'quantitative easing')
3. exchange rate policy (let your currency fall in order to stimulate your exports and cut down your imports)

Latvia and Greece are in a situation where all of these policies are basically off-limits. If Greece, or Spain, could devalue their currencies, they may be on the road to recovery. Part of this would be the trade impact, but not all. When you have a fixed, overvalued exchange rate, you are in a situation where you can't use the other two policies, either—you can't use monetary policy, because you are afraid that when you do that, you will get a run on the currency (and then you've lost your precious peg, which they're holding so they can get the Euro).

The other problem with a fixed currency, like this, is the great loss in investor confidence (they're borrowing at 6.5 percent due to the fear that the economy might collapse; Greece is facing a similar problem).

To generalize to Europe, at large, is that they're all start with an overvalued currency, which prohibits them from pursuing expansionary policies that would be used to get out of their crisis.

So what is the ultimate lesson? Neo-liberalism has failed, yes. Economic integration is not a bad notion, but it took place under a neoliberal framework. They are not going to be able to take commonsense measures to escape the recession.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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