Date: Tue, 19 Mar 96 12:32:48 GMT
From: Adam Rose <adam-AT-pmel.com>
To: marxism-AT-jefferson.village.virginia.edu
Subject: Re: Tax, state borrowing, etc


 
The state plays what could be considered a triple role
in relation to its role in the economy.

Firstly, it must provide the framework within which capitalists
can operate. This consists first and foremost of "armed bodies of
men" , but also things like a legal system etc. Its dealings
on the money markets have as an objective the basic viability
of the monetary system.

So, according to its financial health, it may act as a "lender
of last resort" by pumping money into the the banking system,
or banging heads together to organise a takeover of an essentially
bankrupt bank. [ Although I think it should be pointed out that 
the bigger companies also sometimes act in this way with little
prompting, since the damage done by a tiny bank going bankrupt could
be greater than the cost of taking on its debt.]

This "framework" role, which is all the Thatcherite ideologues would
like the state to be, merges into another, which is the provision of
products which individual capitalists cannot or do not want  to provide
 - health, education, communications ( goods, people, information ).
The financial aspects of this can contradict the state's role as the
guarantor of the monetary system - hence all the conflict between the
treasury and central banks. It may well be in the collective interests
of the  capitalists in a particular country to keep money circulating.
On the other hand, the state is viewed as an organisation like any other
multinational corporation or state by the money markets, which
may well impose the normal rigours of the market upon it. States
in this respect are in direct fiscal competetion, as well as general
"whole economy" / military / strategic competition.

This clearly involves the exploitation of large numbers of workers, and
is measured by the relative success in accumulating capital. I 
cannot see how this can be resolved without seeing the state as a
capitalist responsible for capital accumulation in its national
territory.

Then there is a third role, which merges into the second, which is
the ownership by the state of standalone companies which could just
as easily be in private hands [ eg British Telecomm, Mexican banks,
which seem to move in and out of private hands, etc etc ]. If such
a company is profitable, its profits can be used to finance its
other roles. On the other hand, such a company may provide that country
with a strategic advantage eg the nuclear power industry, and therefore
the British role in the UN security council.

[ I don't have any theoretical issues to think about here - but views
of the state as something other than capitalist would, I would
have thought. ]

The state ends up as an aglomeration of many different competing interests,
some ruling class individuals responsible for its overall interests and
others more interested in particular aspects of it. There is continuous
negotiation and conflict between these people and of course between them
and "their" workforces which they are in charge of exploiting. In this
respect, there is little difference between a large multinational corporation
and a modern state, although of course the people in charge of the state
have different responsibilities.


Adam.

PS There is an excellent but extremely dry book, "Rival States, Rival Firms",
which looks at this sort of stuff. I can't tell you the author or publisher,
but I have it at home if you want me to dig out further details. It's a sort
of business / strategic studies book, not written by a Marxist at all.

Adam Rose
SWP
Manchester
UK


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