Marxism and the State

Marxism and the State

Also by Paul Wetherly Marx s Theory of History: The Contemporary Debate (editor, 1992)

Marxism and the State An Analytical Approach Paul Wetherly Principal Lecturer in Politics Leeds Metropolitan University

Paul Wetherly 2005 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2005 978-0-333-72478-1 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2005 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-40554-1 ISBN 978-0-230-51461-4 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9780230514614 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wetherly, Paul. Marxism and the state : an analytical approach / Paul Wetherly. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. State, The. 2. Historical materialism. 3. Capitalism. 4. Communism. I. Title. JC131.W47 2005 335.4 119 dc22 2005042517 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05

For Barbara, Rebecca and Laura

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Contents Preface ix 1 Introduction: The Theory of History and the State 1 2 Marx, the State and Functional Explanation 10 Introduction 10 The state of The Communist Manifesto 13 Primary and secondary themes? 15 A theoretical synthesis? 25 3 The Instrumentalist Thesis A Restatement 27 Introduction 27 The instrumentalist thesis 28 The state as a power container 30 Social forces and interests 38 Class structure and class interests 41 The possibility of a general theory 47 The interests of capital in general 49 State power 63 4 Structure and Agency in State Theory 72 Introduction 72 Agency and structure aren t all there is 72 The strategic-relational approach 78 The structural constraint thesis 83 Block and business confidence 90 The structural power of capital 94 Structure, agency and the state 102 5 Base and Superstructure 109 Introduction 109 The nature of the economic structure 110 The circuit of capital 116 Class interests and needs of capital 122 Classification of the interests of the capitalist class 128 6 A Theory of the Needs of Capital 130 Introduction 130 vii

viii Contents The concept of need 130 Needs of social systems 133 Capitalism, the market and competition 135 Accumulation and legitimisation 138 Summary 151 7 State Autonomy A Conceptual Framework 156 Introduction the relative autonomy of the state 156 The potential for state autonomy 158 Functionalism and determinism 163 State autonomy a conceptual framework 169 Possible constraint types 172 8 Constraints on the State Mechanisms of Economic 174 Determination Introduction 174 Mechanism 1 internal/personal 175 Mechanism 2 internal/impersonal 180 Mechanism 3 external/personal 185 Mechanism 4 external/impersonal 189 Summary 194 9 Globalisation, History and the State 196 Introduction the challenge of globalisation 196 What is globalisation? 197 Globalisation and the theory of history 201 Globalisation and the state 210 Notes 219 Works cited 235 Index 242

Preface This book offers a restatement of an old-fashioned Marxist theory of the state. According to that theory the character of the state, in so far as it is part of the legal and political superstructure of a society, is determined or explained by the nature of the prevailing economic structure. More specifically, it is claimed that the state is functionally explained by the needs or functional requirements of the economy for example, that the state in capitalist society is functionally explained by the extraeconomic conditions that must be secured if capitalist relations of production are to be maintained and reproduced, or stabilised. What this means is that certain state actions (laws, policies) are explained by their having a functional (stabilising) effect on the economy. Or it can be said that such actions are explained by the disposition of the economy to be stabilised by them. It is this functionality that the concept of the capitalist state is intended to capture. The characterisation of Marxism as a functional theory is not new, but has for long figured in discussions of Marx s writings on the state. But by far the most rigorous and convincing statement of this view is found in the contemporary stream of analytical Marxism and, more specifically, the book that was one of the primary sources of that stream: G.A. Cohen s Karl Marx s Theory of History: A Defence. Cohen s functional interpretation of the theory of history provides the theoretical framework for this book, whose purpose can be summarised as to elaborate the relatively neglected second stage of the theory the functional connection between the economic structure and the legal and political superstructure. 1 This book is concerned with the capitalist state and does not deal with the base-superstructure connection or the theory of history in more general terms. Thus it does not deal with pre-capitalist societies, the origins of capitalist relations of production and the capitalist state, or the possibility of a post-capitalist society and the implications for the state. It should be noted that the plausibility of the functional explanation of the capitalist state does not depend on the plausibility of the theory of history in total. It could be true in capitalist society that the nature of the economic structure functionally explains the character of the legal and political superstructure even if this is not true for any other kind of society. ix

x Preface It should also be noted that the theory of history deals with the capitalist state only in so far as it is part of the legal and political superstructure. The terms state and superstructure are not to be treated as synonymous. This means that there is more to the Marxist theory of the state than the theory of history, as a wider range of political phenomena may be explained in terms of class interests and struggle than are relevant to the theory of history. The theory of history contains a partial theory of the state within Marxism, and Marxism should probably be seen as a partial theory of the state within the wider field of state theory. A functional theory or explanation of the state appears vulnerable to a range of criticisms, such as these: Functional explanation is inadmissible in the social sciences. In particular, one event cannot be explained in terms of its effect or consequences, unless the functional explanation is restated as an intentional explanation where actions are explained by their intended outcomes. Functional explanation depends on a concept of system needs, whereas in fact social systems have no needs and no interests in their own survival. Such needs must really be the wants of actors. Functional explanations can only be accepted in the company of plausible mechanisms (or elaborations) showing how the effect of some event explains its occurrence. Functional explanation involves economic reductionism or determinism since features of the economic structure (its needs, or disposition to be stabilised by certain state actions) are seen as sufficient or privileged explanations of non-economic (legal and political) phenomena. This denies the multiple causes that may combine to explain such phenomena. More specifically, the structural cast of the functional explanation explaining legal and political phenomena in terms of the nature of the economic structure seems to deny the role of agency. These criticisms are countered in this book by arguments to show that: A capitalist economic structure can be analysed in terms of system needs or functional requirements. In fact this idea is widely accepted in the form of recognition that there are certain crucial extra-economic conditions for a capitalist economy to function and be reproduced.

Preface xi Instrumentalist and structuralist arguments can be adduced to provide plausible mechanisms of functional explanation of the state. The inter-relationship between these mechanisms can be understood in a way that makes sense of the structure-agency dilemma. Functional explanation as a form of economic determination is compatible with a notion of the relative autonomy of the state. This involves an understanding of economic determination as a strong tendency. Chapter one sets out the overall approach of the book in more detail and, in particular, clarifies the relationship between Marx s theory of history and the theory of the state. Chapter two is a commentary on the apparently diverse approaches to the state in Marx s writing. These approaches can be analysed in terms of answers to these questions: what is the state? what is the purpose or role of the state? and, how is this role explained? Marx is often interpreted as advancing two views of the state primary and secondary according to whether it is seen as an instrument in the hands of the capitalist class or as autonomous with respect to class interests. However a more fruitful approach replaces the either-or dichotomy with a view of the state as both an instrument and as operating within structural constraints, and as both largely explained by the economic structure and possessing a capacity for autonomy. Chapters three and four examine the nature of instrumentalist and structuralist (or class- and capital-theoretical) accounts of the state and their interaction. It is mistaken to counterpose these causal mechanisms since instrumentalist explanation in terms of class interest has a crucial structural dimension. Instrumentalist accounts rely on a theory of the shaping of objective class interests by positions or roles in the economic structure, whereas structuralist accounts rely on a theory of the shaping of actions of state managers by structural constraints arising from their dependence on the healthy functioning of the economic system. Chapter five analyses the base-superstructure distinction. Cohen s presentation of the theory of history defines the economic structure only in terms of positions or roles in relations of power over economic resources, and not as a way of producing. Structure, in this way, is distinguished from process. But this conception is too narrow for the purpose of functional explanation of the legal and political

xii Preface superstructure. This is because what needs explaining is the stabilisation of relations of production as forms of development of the productive forces. But it is only as a way of producing the circuit of capital and accumulation that capitalist production relations perform this progressive role. Therefore the state must secure the extra-economic conditions of capital s self-expanding circuit. This leads to a more expansive concept of the needs of capital, understood as a subset of the interests of the capitalist class. Chapter six provides an analysis of the needs of capital, defined as functional requirements or conditions that must be met for capitalism to continue. Doyal and Gough s theory of human need provides a conceptual framework for understanding system needs in terms of an ultimate system need, basic needs, intermediate needs, and specific satisfiers. The ultimate goal or system need is defined as the maintenance of capitalism, that is, the maintenance or stabilisation of the relations of production which comprise the economic structure. This is understood not narrowly in terms of the ownership positions of capitalists and proletarians but in the wider sense of the renewal of the circuit of capital. The needs or functional requirements of capital constitute the point of reference for functional explanation of the state: in this view some actions of the state are as they are because of the way such actions satisfy these functional requirements. Chapter seven considers the apparent tension between economic determination as a principle of explanation and the notion of the relative autonomy of the state. The misleading dichotomy of determinism versus autonomy is rejected in favour of an understanding of economic determination as a strong tendency, or the primacy of economic determination. The notion of relative autonomy is analysed using Lukes s conceptualisations of autonomy and freedom, as the non-constraining of the purposes of an agent (i.e. the extent to which such purposes are the agent s own) and the non-constraining of the agent s ability to realise these purposes. In chapter eight four types of constraint are analysed as mechanisms of economic determination these are the possible combinations of internal or external and personal or impersonal constraints. In other words, economic determination is conceived as working via the ways in which state autonomy is constrained by the nature of the economic structure. The four constraints are characterised as: ideological dispositions of the state elite, the rationality of the state system, pressure from above, and structural constraints.

Preface xiii Chapter nine examines the implications of the globalisation debate for the central themes of this book. In essence this introduces a spatial dimension that is largely absent from Cohen s interpretation of the theory of history. The question here is: is there a plausible account of economic globalisation that is consistent with the central claims of the theory of history and, more specifically, the theory of the state? I am very grateful to my editor at Palgrave, Alison Howson, for the opportunity to write this book, and for the patience and understanding she showed when I missed a succession of extended deadlines for completion of the final manuscript. I am also grateful to Leeds Metropolitan University for the support I have received for this work, particularly the award of a one-semester sabbatical that helped me finally to meet a deadline for Alison. Two anonymous referees provided very helpful comments on the book at different stages of its completion and made me think again about my approach. The book is better as a result of their efforts. As the writing of this book progressed a large number of people contributed to the development of my understanding and thinking in smaller and larger ways by providing helpful comments and criticisms, and I won t try to name them all here. Some of these comments have come in various conferences at which some of the arguments in the book have been presented. The Political Studies Association Marxism Specialist Group, convened by Mark Cowling, has been a particularly helpful forum and I am grateful to members of that group. The original proposal for the book was based on my PhD thesis, and some of the chapters from that thesis are reproduced here in revised form. I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Mark Cowling, who was the supervisor for my PhD at the University of Teesside and who has continued to support and influence my work as a close friend and colleague. Alan Carling has been a constant source of advice and support over many years and I have benefited from many discussions with him about some of the themes of this book. If Alison Howson has found it necessary to apply some gentle pressure to get me to complete the manuscript, she has had an ally in my 12-year-old daughter Laura who has often asked you know that book you re writing, when are you going to get it finished?. Laura is a great writer and, if she decides it is what she wants to do, I am sure she will write many books. This one is dedicated to Barbara, Laura and Rebecca.