File spoon-archives/aut-op-sy.archive/aut-op-sy_2001/aut-op-sy.0101, message 18


From: "Karl Carlile" <dagda-AT-eircom.net>
Subject: AUT: Re: Miliband and state theory
Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 11:46:53 -0000



> I am trying to think this through very carefully because I find the
> dicsussion good. You want to take it to a deep level, so I have a
proposal:
> What if we don't think of this polemically?  I do not think we are going
to
> agree, so I do not think we should argue with each other in a way that
> closes discussion off (I don't think we have done that yet, but as we all
> know, it is easy to go there.)  I propose that we continue to try to get
> deeper into our respective ideas patiently.  I hope my response encourages
a
> probing critique of each other's positions that makes each of us think
> through each level more carefully.  So far, so good.  Thanks for the great
> stuff to think through, hope this adds to the process.
>

Karl: I appeciate what you are saying Chris. On the whole your argument is
essentially the same as that advanced by Holloway, and I believe others, in
the debate on this list that took place some time ago. It is also going in
the same direction too. Consequently it is growing increasingly abstract.
This is because it proceeds increasingly towards fundamentals or axiomatics.
This is because underlying our differences, despite apparent similarities,
there is a difference on fundamentals.

The problem is that as the debate gets progressively more abstract it
correspondingly shifts away from the concrete. This leads increasingly to
precisely the problem I raised concerning the problem of abstraction in
state theory. Ultimately, as you suggested, the debate gets blocked and
silence follows. Like you I dont want this to happen. I am not interested in
engaging in a contest to establish who is the more clever etc. I have made
just one, I think, comment on your actual response. I could say more.
However I think it may be wiser and more appropriate not to go any further
with it. Perhaps I am wrong. If you think so be free to educate me.

However, and this is important, I would like to develop discussion on the
subject of the state with you in such a way that it proves fruitful
particularly in relation to the application of state theory to  more
concrete political developments. In this regard I found you observations on
the capitalist state in relation to the US etc interesting.

Part of the reason why I have not succeeded in winning  you over to my
criticism of your joint position on the state is because, despite my
critique, I myself have not succeeding in advancing a theory of the state
myself. I cannot subcribe to any of the theories that are about. There can
be valuable aspects to some of these theories. I have become increasingly
aware of the supreme importance of the state for capitalism. Consequently I
have been giving more attention to the question of the state. Even though I
drew on Poulantzas I am not a subscriber to Poulantzas conceptions and
analyses of the state. However I do draw from him what I believe to be of
value.

Unlike you I still believe that communists lack an adequate theory of the
state much more than they lack an adequate theory and critique of Capital.
There has been  nothing to compare with Das Kapital in the area of politics.
You may recall that Marx had intended to include a book on the state in his
original work of which Das Kapital was to form a part. My view is that Marx
was unable to elaborate an adequate theory of the state.

I hastily thumbed through your initial posting to autopsy in which you
introduced yourself. You mention, if I remember correctly, your trotskyist
background. Like you I come from a trotksyist background too. I have moved
away from all forms of Leninism. I am of the view that Lenin and Trotsky
were left counter-revolutionaries. When I first arrived on this list I was a
Trotskyist and very Leninist. In the mean time partly as a result of the
influence of this list and Bob Miller (Bob introduced me to the argument
that Lenin was a left counter revolutionary). I abandoned Leninism. However
I do still believe in the necessity of revolutionary communist party that
organised along democratic centralist lines. But this is not a Leninist
organisation. Lenin was not a democratic centralist. His party was organised
along essentially undemocratic autoritarian and centralist lines.

Concerning continuing to discuss the theory of the state: It might be a good
idea if we jointly discussed Poulantzas. I have in mind his book Political
Power and Social Classes. Perhaps if we structured our comments around this
book we might be both able to learn from each other and yet develop our
understanding of Poulantzas views on the state while developing our own
understanding and even developing jointly towards a similar conception of
the state. If you can come up with a better suggestion that I can go along
with there is no problem. We dont necessarily have to discuss the book in
detail. Perhaps focusing on the main points.

My experience of mailing lists is that they have been  of little value as a
forum for jointly developing ideas. Very often discussion is reduced to
logomachy, ad hominem attacks, one-upmanship, silence. Instead I would like
to see them being used as a forum in which ideas and theories are developed
and in which the conditions for growing unity on a principled basis take
place --through discussion and the sharing of experiences. I also think they
can be used as a device to organise and develop political organisation and
action.


Regards
Karl Carlile
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> > Chris: Its form and determination flow from its constitution as both a
> form
> > of existence of the capital-labour relation, but also called into
> existence
> > practically by the class struggle.
> >
> > Karl: You claim that the " state's form is a mode of existence of the
> > capital-labour relation". The state as a capitalist political form
cannot
> > consequently constitute a form of existence of what you call the
> > capital-labour relation. As you yourself have stated the capitalist
social
> > formation is unique in that under it the economic and the political
> preserve
> > an independence from each other. Given this to be the case then the
state,
> a
> > patently political form, cannot logically be a form of the economic, so
to
> > speak.

Chris: Let me clarify, since I was not being precise enough.  I think the
apparent
separation of the economic and the political (understood as the totality of
states within capital, as well as all 'political' processes) is unique to
capital because the state both appears to be, and is in some respect IS
separate from the economic.  At the same time, the separation of the
politcal and the economic is radically false.  The economic and the politcal
are also united.  We could not refer to capitalist states if they were not.
The state as we know it cannot exist outside the capital-labor relation, in
other words, it cannot exist outside the toality of social relations which
arise from the capital-laboe relation.  I do not consider the capital-laboe
relation to be an economic relation.  That would reify (fetishize) the
capital- labor relation.  The state takes its shape as a product of the
capital-labor relation, understood as a form of relation between human
beings mediated by 'things' that appear outside the capital-labor relation,
outside the relation of exploitation unique to capital.

You say that the totality of social relations arise from the capital-labour
relation and that the state cannot exist outside this totality. You then
conclude that this means that the state cannot exist outside the
capital-labour relation.

Karl: The capital-labour relation has to be an economic relation. It is by
definition a form of reification. The very fact that the form capital is
contained in the relation renders it economic -a fetished form. The only way
in which capital can relate to labour is in a fetishised or economic form.
The economic is by definition a fetishised form. This is why communists
seeks to abolish the economic.

The capital-labour relation entails the valorisation and circulation
processes. Both of these forms of capital accumulation are economic.

You write that "the capital-labor relation, understood as a form of relation
between human beings mediated by 'things' that appear outside the
capital-labor relation, outside the relation of exploitation unique to
capital."

The capital-labour relation has to be reified if it is as you say the state
exists outside " the capital-labour relation"  which is "the relation of
exploitation unique to capital".



> > The "capital-labour relation" is a relation that is centrally located
> within
> > the valorisation process. The "capital-labour relation" forms a
> constituent
> > part of the valorisation process. Consequently to argue that the
> state-form
> > is an aspect of the valorisation process makes no logical sense.
> I think we disagree here on the all-encompassing nature of the
capital-labor
> relation.  The capital-labor relation involves distribution, consumption,
> and even leisure (because leisure, non-productive time, becomes nothing
> other than the consumption of commodities or commodified activities.)  The
> state form is a part of the valorisation process, since the state engages
in
> the consumption of commodities, the maintenance of the conditions of
> commodity production, and the obeisance to exploitation.  The state form
> appears outside that relation, however, (and is to some extent outside in
so
> far as it provides the conditions of reproduction outside the production
> process proper.)  The state, as a fetishized form of the relation between
> human beings, turns the relations of exchange into the relation of ALL
human
> intercourse.  Therefore, we appear as indivdual equals in the political
> realm, in relation to the state (citizens before the law) much as we
appear
> as equal buyers and sellers of commodities in the market.  I hope that
makes
> sense.
>
> is


> I would simply say that the form of value itself is regulated by the
> relations of production in practice, by class struggle.  The 'law' of
value
> does not exist outside of the class struggle, the contradictory,
conflictual
> actual process of the extraction of surplus value.  The state form is not
> THE mode of existence of capital, but a mode of existence of the
> capital-labor relation, in so far as we understand it to be a relation
based
> on alienation of human creativity in a certain way, a way which fragments
> the whole of social life.  I think you still tend to accept the separation
> of the economic and the political as real, without recognizing that it is
> also radically false.  The real separation of the economic and the
political
> relies on the fetishized relation between human beings constituted by the
> capital-labor relation, in which human being appear to be controlled by
> things outside us.  john Holloway, et al, attempt to grasp how the
> fetishized relations of capitalist society flow from our alienate
> creativity, our alienated labor.
>

> Hmm, let me try to be clearer.  When I say that the state is a form, a
mode
> of existence of the fetishized relations engendered by the capital-labor
> relation, I am pointing to the social relation the state gets its form
from.
> It could not get its form from feudal relations or slave relations, but
only
> from the capital-labor relation.  When I point to the class struggle
> concretely, I simply mean that the capital-labor relation is realized
> historically in very particular ways, in relationship to how the
> capital-labor relation manifests itself concretely, as a relation of
> struggle.  So we cannot understand any particular state outside the
> particular history of class struggle, outside the actualized, particular,
> concrete manner in which the capital-labor relation has manifested itself.
> The state inthe U.S. has a different form than in France in part because
the
> U.S. had a massive slave population within its boundaries, and the
> exploitation of slave labor as a particular form of human relation through
> which capital developed, meant a different structure to the capitalist
> state.  On an even more 'micro' level, the particular issues faced by the
> development of valorization int he context of specific struggles gave the
> U.S. state a unique form.  So anti-monopoly laws come into being in the
U.S.
> at the turn of the century, but did not exist in Japan until U.S.
occupation
> after WWII.  This has to do with the particular history of struggles in
the
> same period, struggles which were not the same.  In that sense, each
> capitalist state has to be understood in relation to the concrete course
of
> class struggle it is a part of.  The class struggle is not uniform
> everywhere.  However, the relation of exploitation we call the
capital-labor
> relation is, therefore, we can call both states capitalist because they
> derive their unique existence in relation to a common dominant social
> relation.

> In my opinion, the capital-labor relation does this, not the state,
because
> we each appear to come to the market as individual sellers of a commodity,
> whether 'goods' or labor power.  The state form regulates and gives
> structure to it, but that is different from producing its form.  It is a
> particularization of the form in concrete circumstances.  In fact, part of
> what the state does is keep the contradiction between private
appropriation
> and social production from manifesting itself by keeping labor from
> presenting itself collectively, or collectively is form under its control.
> But the contradiction here is that the state cannot always perform that
> function.  The success of the state is not a given because the state is
> trying to regulate a relation it itself grows from.




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