Date: Mon, 9 Sep 1996 20:53:38 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: The State



Mullen confuses the questions:

	1. What is the origin of the state
	2. What is its function in capitalist society, and
	3. Whether it is possible to get rid of it in a large complex
pluralistic society.

	These are distinct and only tangentially related.

	As to (1), Marx claims the origin of the state, very roughly, is explianed by
the rise of class society, in particular, by the functiona role of
political authority in managing exploitation. That's probably true in part.
	As to (2), Marx claims that in bourgeois society the sttate is the
executive committee of the bourgeous class. This in the Manifesto. He
qualifies this rather narrow instrumentalist claim elsewherem at least
under special conditions, and allows that in times of high class conflict
the state can act in its own interests. Insofar as the instrumentalst
claim is construed tomean that in bourgeois sociery the state tends to
act, or attempts to act, in the long term interests of the bourgeoisie as
the ruling class, I have no dispute.

	But as to (3), Marx concludes, erroneously,, from (1) and (2) that
absent class divisions and class domination of the state, there will be no
need for a state; it will have no function, since there is no exploitation
to manage. This is a fallacy because however the state arose and whatever
its class charcter in a particular form of class society, the state has
other functions as well. These include the making, implementation, and
enforcement of collective decisions, which, as I argue and millen does not
dispute, requires specializing, hierarchy, bureaucracy, and
coercion--especially in a large, complex and pluralistic society. The only
way to get rid of these requirements is, as Rousseau observed, to get rid
or the large size, complexity, and pluralism of a modern society. That is
a price neither Marx nor we would be willing to pay.

--Justin Schwartz 
	

On 27 Aug 1996, jc mullen wrote:

> The contributor who thinks that Marx wrote hogwash about the state has the right
> to his opinion. But the question was "What is the state, where does it come from
> and what is it for ? " Marx has an explanation as to why it comes into existence
> and maintains itself, as "the central committee of the bourgeoisie" and as the
> personification of concentrated capital, and theguarantor of the general
> conditions of capitalist accumulation.
> 	I have seen some other theories : psychological ones (the State fulfils
> our need for a father) which I consider nonsense.  But it is more honourable to
> have a nonsensical theory like my Freudian friends than no theory. 
> John Mullen
> S.I. France
> 	
> 
> 
> 
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