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28 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW No. 73 POULANTZAS A N D MARXIST THEORY

By Peter Beilharz Nicoa Poulantzas

For Athol — u>ho dialogues with me still was swept by the new trend in marxism initiated by Louis Althusser. Poulantzas

— Peter Beilharz followed in the wake of this wave without conspicuously joining the Althusserian entourage. Nicos Poulantzas died on October 3, 1979 Unlike the others (e.g. Balibar), he did not in Paris, aged 43. He was the author of six co-write or co-publish with Althusser, but books, theoretical works which most people nevertheless came to be thought of as one of could not afford, let alone understand. them. Poulantzas’ distance from Althusser Socialists should not feel obliged to mourn was an important one, because those directly the dead simply because the world — or associated with Althusser later found it Parisian fashion — tells us they were Great. difficult to modify their positions. So why mourn Poulantzas? Other recent Poulantzas did not publicly proclaim himself deaths, such as that of Marcuse, have not to be an Althusserian, and thus was more been unexpected. The entire generation of readily able to cast off the Althusserian shell socialists which has survived two wars is when it became uncomfortably restricting. now disappearing; we can expect many more theoretical obituaries in the next decade. Most English-speaking marxists came Though older than some of us, Poulantzas upon Poulantzas in the early ’seventies. was of our generation. He spoke to those of us Poulantzas had written a moderately now in our twenties and thirties. And as Paul scathing review of Ralph Miliband’s book Patton pointed out in his obituary (Tribune, The State in Capitalist Society in New Left Review. New Left Books then translated November 7) Poulantzas served as a point of Poulantzas’ own book on the state, Political introduction to the classics of marxism, or at Power and Social Classes. Other least to a particular view of them. translations followed, notably Fascism and What was it that Poulantzas had to say to Dictatorship and Classes in Contemporary us? Why was it important? What was his Capitalism. These works witnessed a certain effect on the Australian left? We can proceed gradual development in which Poulantzas to these questions through the necessary became progressively less structuralist. The historical context. The young Poulantzas left main limitation of his study of fascism was Athens for Paris where he examined law as a that the living histories of the Italian and follower of Lukaca. By 1965 Paris, renowned German working classes were forced into for its vulnerability to theoretical fashion, inadequate structuralist schemes. The most POULANTZAS & MARXIST THEORY 29 notorious of these schemes was the so-called an important factor in explaining the great “new petty bourgeoisie” . NPB in popularity of Althusser in the English­ structuralist jargon. The “NPB” was a speaking world. It is comforting to feel that strawman category which soaked up we have all the answers, and anyone knows problem cases which could not be that Althusserians have all the answers. incorporated elsewhere in the set of Like strangers overseas they find all solved structures. But Poulantzas was nevertheless in a phrase-book which closely resembles the able to distance himself from Althusser, and Glossary to Reading Capital. It is still particularly from Althusser’s mechanical something of a heresy to suggest that position on the state (again constructed in Althusserian marxism has had a negative terms of RSA’s, ISA’s, CMP’s and other effect on the Australian left. The new kinds of BS). Australian left was taken to the cleaners by Althusser but nevertheless took out Poulantzas ’ study of class and his analysis of dictatorships in crisis saw further franchise for the exclusive sale of his wares. Anyone looking up back numbers of developments in the historidsation of Australian Left Review or Intervention will marxist politics. In his last years this growing realism meant that Poulantzas see clear evidence of this. It remains a real rejected his structuralist standoffishness and living problem, for a reformed and became a left euro-communist. His final Althusserian has about as much credibility book, State, Power, Socialism contains many as a humanist stalinist. indicators of substantial developments yet to Structuralist-marxists rarely paused to come. Poulantzas came to the conclusion consider the real nature of their project that the leninist theory of revolution was not Structuralism began in France in the study only obsolete but was also inadequately of linguistics. People like Saussure argued thought out in the first place. He came to that language was like a game of chess, there rej ect the structuralist notion of the state as a were rules to its system and basic units in its monolithic bloc free of contradictions, composition. Saussure, however, did not arguing instead that it was an ensemble of believe that these understandings could be relations between people and other people, transferred to the study of history or of and between people and things. The economics. The originator of structuralism, ritualistic references to class struggle in his it seems, was one of the few who understood earlier work became more concrete. that the study of society could not be reduced If the state was not a 4 ‘thing” and could not to the study of its structures. In contact with therefore be “smashed” some alternative the Prague school another Frenchman, Levi* response to everyday politics must be arrived Strauss, denied Saussure and applied at. In standard marxist terms Poulantzas structural linguistics to the study of anthropology. Levi-Strauss claimed that his was arguing for “revolution from within” , not precluding the possibility of violence but system had "practically unlimited capacity avoiding the old argument that a vanguard for extension” , Levi-Strauss’ own work was, would seize state power on behalf o f a however, quite productive; his studies were, passive majority who would of course remain still relatively “innocent” in terms of what passive under the new regime. But this last was to follow. Other Parisians such as book was not free from elements of despair Barthes also displayed that structuralism either. Poulantzas was casting off the could do much to enlighten us as to the security which structuralist-marxism had to meaning of social signs. offer and therefore had to admit that after all But people like Althusser could not the prospects for socialism were not good. No enlighten us much, for they wanted to doubt such elements of political despair universalise structure into what they participated in Poulantzas’ eventual understood as Science, i.e. Historical decision to take his life. Materialism. A long, long way from Saussure, Althusser sought to explain the world as a set of structures which speak through humans. Althusser’s project was Marxists have always had a soft spot for based on the death or denial of the subject science, for certainty. We can sleep better if and the theorisation of the world as an we believe that history is on our side. This is immovable object. After the failure of May 30 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW No. 73

1968 such a theory had an obvious appeal to politics of bourgeois consensus then moves disillusioned marxists. Structuralist into focus. Poulantzas was able to w ork marxism had a peculiar appeal to the his way out o f the Althusserian Scheme Engl'' speaking left because of its because he chose to focus on the “ level” funda i' ital positivism. Like any other of politics. theory with a claim to strict scientificity, structuralist-marxism rested on a belief in Notions that the world reduces to sets of absolute scientific truth. History could be immovable or self-moving structures cannot known, and known objectively, known theorise the transition from one social without reference to us as particular formation (capitalism) to another participating subjects. Such claims to (socialism), Thus Althusser’s appeal for objectivity unite the entire history of sociologists: structuralist marxism explains bourgeois thought. If the world of objects is not how we can overcome capital but on the in permanent control of the worldof subjects, contrary how it is eternal. In the the project of changing the world is structuralist scheme capital quietly impossible. . reproduces itself unless a non­ correspondence between forces and relations How can it be that the Australian left was of production occurs. Need the futility of this taken for such a ride. Perhaps it can be kind of automatic marxism still be pointed explained this way. Structuralist marxism out? How long will ittake for us to accept that was never much more than a sophisticated socialism only makes sense in terms of the variation on the Comintern base- conscious struggles which we and other superstructure schema. We should know the progressive forces take up? tune well enough: rub any Althusserian up the wrong way and you hear it with the order Poulantzas’ work was a long process of and precision of a juke-box. A social dialogue from within the Althusserian formation is a combination of three levels (?), framework with Gramsci and Lukacs. It is the economic, the political and the this dialogue which enabled Poulantzas to ideological. The economy is the primary work his way out of the structuralist determinant (?) i.e. the last instance (?) and labyrinth. Gramsci is important for the other levels are relatively autonomous (?) Poulantzas because he was the first marxist and capable of overdetermining (?) the other to give serious reflection to politics as the levels. On the economic level forces of decisive realm. For Gramsci the problem was production break through relations of one of facilitating the unity and autonomy production and the Great Day arrives. If it which might allow people to take hold of arrives, it has been explained; if it fails to their futures. Any rallying point which arrive then we can blame relative autonomy. emerged in spontaneous struggles should be The alternative outcomes of the scheme are the contact point for marxists; the world either the reduction of everything to the could be responded to only in its own terms, economy, in which case the last instance “common sense” could be transformed into comes all the time and revolution is “good sense” . The working class could come automatic; or the severance and absolute to understand how it had made the world of autonomy of levels. Nothing has been capital which in turn made it. People could explained except that society exists of three come to understand the world in the process building blocks which might lie directly one of changing it. on the other or which might be cushioned by Lukacs has a different importance for layers of relative autonomy. marxism. For Lukacs, as for Gramsci, the What kind of marxism is this? What can be world is a world in motion. There can be no the place of class struggle here? What is the point in inquiring into its origin, into what place of the subject (Le. people) in its series of comes first chicken-and-egg style. Men and architectural structures? This is politics women have never known the world in itself, made easy: but not so if marxism is a politics they have only known it as they have which seeks to actively change the world so constituted it. As Marx first understood in that people can become more autonomous or the Theses on Feuerbach, politics begins free from domination. If the capitalist social with the world as it is. Both materialism and formation is built of bricks, it is held together idealism in the old sense fire transcended, by the living mortar 'of hegemony. The because neither material forces nor ideas can POULANTZAS & MARXIST THEORY 31

be elevated to the status of prime mover if we Poulantzas began within this are to maintain this focus on the framework but was able to work his combination of object and subject. way out of it by focusing on politics and on the subjective moment. He was thus Marxism’s point of departure then is not able to achieve something of a balance, a the sham objectivity of Althusser but the theoretical perspective in which we, the practices of real subjects in the world. For subjects of bourgeois society, can become marxism there is but one order of reality conscious of its objective structures and be which can be understood in different ways. able to respond to these structures with a There is no room in marxism for nonsense view to transforming them. Poulantzas’ about the “real world” and the “thought transition was slow and painful. Its most world” . The world can be understood in its grating symptom was Poulantzas’ difficulty subjective or everyday manifestations, or it in explaining class. Poulantzas began can be understood critically or objectively. explaining class with the structuralist This means not that there are two worlds but categories of structure and bearer. He that there are two ways of understanding one misused the productive-unproductive labor world, understanding it gut-wise or debate to determined the working class as intellectually. Marxist politics is about the that class which produces material everyday world and the problems involved in commodities. Only later did he see that changing it; marxist critique is concerned whatever the situation in terms of objective with decoding the chaos of everyday so that class structure, class exists politically only in it can be systematically understood. Taken class struggle, when people take up as a whole marxism is the project in which positions regardless of whether they changing the world and understanding it produce commodities as things or services. can be combined. The development of Poulantzas only realise late that class is marxist politics has been delayed for so long therefore crucially subjective for marxist because people like Althusser have blurred politics. In returning to these this distinction. They have acted as though it political/subjective interests he again ran were enough for marxist intellectuals to the risk of becoming one-sided, of arguing as understand the world; but we know well that though the world were a world of subjects our object must be to understand and without objective structural limits and change it. characterisations. He made the mistake of theorising class separately from capital, of Lukacs also made mistakes; in particular abstracting from the objective moment, he read the unity of subject and object as an mode of production and labor-process. identity. He thought that the subject, the working class, could come to understand and His work on the state likewise avoided the overcome its object, capital, simply by accumulation process and the state’s role in coming into contact with it in the labor* it. But what developments we witness herein ' process. This was a different kind of comparison to the drone of the automatic marxism, one based on the Althusserians! Poulantzas came to reject the misconstruction of the correct principle of classical reform-revolution dichotomy combination of subject and object. precisely because of the one-sidedness of Structuralist-marxism in comparison only these positions, which presume that ever attempted to explain the objective world revolution is either a concrete objective of structures, assuming that its subjective seizure of power or that socialism is the aspects were either silenced or alternatively gradual internal accumulation of were the mere consequences of structures. improvements. The subject here could only be reduced to Needless to say, not only Gramsci and victim or to Pavlovian outcome. In Lukacs but also the “ Italian Road” lurks exaggerating the strength of the objective behind these developments. Poulantzas world the Althusserians reproduced the logic came to argue that the autonomous of the fetish of commodities, allowing the movements were central to the struggle for reproduction of a world view in which obkscts socialism, that agitation and participation or structures are treated as the insuperable was necessary in all aspects of contemporary commanders of their producers, who must political life. In this context the Historical toil on endlessly beneath them. Compromise must be seen as a compromise 32 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW No. 73

with established powers at the expense of Interviews with Poulantzas can be found in autonomous struggles. Whatever the case Socialist Review 38 (1978), Marxism Today, with the PCI, Poulantzas was moving July 1979 and Eurored 6. beyond the traditional dualism of parly Responses to Poulantzas’ work on fascism communism and council communism, include A. Rabinach, “Poulantzas and the beginning to visualise the struggle for Problem of Fascism”, New German Critique 6; socialism as a systematic exercise in J. Caplan, “Poulantzas as Historian”, History prefigurative pluralism, a struggle in which Workshop 3 (1977); A Cutler, "Fascism and Political TTieory”, Theoretical Practice 2 (1971); only the particular victims of an oppression and M. Kelly “Dos Santos and Poulantzas on could respond to it by articulating their Fascism”, Insurgent Sociologist 7/2 (1977), interest. On Poulantzas and class, see G. Carchedi, On Poulantzas indeed introduced us to the the Economic Identification of the New classics of marxism. But this in itself does Middle Classes (London 1978); E. Wright, “Class not set Poulantzas apart as a man who dared Boundaries”, New Left Review 98; B. Hindess, to think. Pteople like Mandel, for example, “Classes and Politics in Marxist Theory”, in G. introduce many to Trotsky, but do little more Littlejohn et al (editors) Power and the State (London 1978); A. Hunt (editor) Class and Class as neither the originator nor the Structure (London 1977); P. Walker (ed.) contemporary have much to say to us. Between Labor and Capital (Boston 1979); T. Poulantzas’ great merit was to reintroduce Johnson, “The Structural Determination of Social the present generation not only to the Class”, Economy and Society 6/2 (1977); E. classics of marxism-leninism but also to the Laclau, “The Specificity of the Political”, innovative theorists o f marxism’s political Economy and Society 4/1 (1975); G. Ross, tradition, Gramsci and Lukacs, and in the “Marxism and the New Middle Classes”, Theory process of this introduction to contribute and Society 5 /2 (1978). many new insights himself. Poulantzas’ own On Poulantzas and the State, good overviews uneven development was the development and contexts can be found in B. Frankel, Marxian from structure to subject. His last writings Theories of the State: A Critique of suggest that he was beginning to combine Orthodoxy (Arena Monograph 3,1978), and in B. them in a way which marxism has always Jessop, “Recent Theories of the Capitalist State”, Australian Left Review 68 (1979). Specific pursued. like many great forerunners critiques can be found in A. Bridges, “Poulantzas Poulantzas has passed us the baton. If we and the Marxist Theory of the State”, Politics believe that we must both understand and and Society 4/2 (1974) and S. Clarke, “Marxism, criticise and respond to and change the Sociology and Poulantzas’ Theory of the State”, world, then the real struggle still remains Capital and Class 2 (1977). See also J. Holloway before us. Poulantzas1 place in the history of and S. Picciotto, The State and Capital (London marxist theory was that of a rare educator 1978). who understood that in these senses the Other Critiques of Poulantzas are P. Hirst’s majority of marxists still need educating. review of “State, Power, Socialism” in Eurored 9; and M. Plaut, “Positivism in Poulantzas”, Telos Further Reading 36. On the important relationship between Books by Poulantzas include The Right o f Hot structuralist-marxism and Gramsci, see in general Pursuit in International Law (The the relevant papers collected in the volume edited Netherlands, Sijthoff 1969); Political Power by the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, and Social Classes (1973), Fascism and Oti Ideology (London 1978). The most thorough Dictatorship (1974). Classes in Contemporary critique of Althusser is E.P. Thompson’s The Capitalism (1975), The Crisis of the Poverty o f Theory (London 1978); Thompson Dictatorships (1976) and State, Power, fails to confront the development in Althusser’s Socialism (1978). The last five books were positions, which are laced with Gramsdan published by New Left Books of London. insights in his Essays in Self-Criticism Articles by Poulantzas include “.Marxist (London 1976) e.g. pages 160,72 and following, 78 Political Theory in Great Britain”, New Left and following, 36,47,49. A. Davidson, in a review Review 43. The debate with Miliband conducted of the new Italian edition of Gramsd’s “Prison in New Left Review 58/59 is reprinted in R. Notebooks”, Telos 32, makes some fascinating Blackburn (editor) Ideology in Social Science comments on Gramsd’s relation to Structuralism, (London 1973); the initial debate was continued in comments which should be taken up in any New Left Review 82 and 95. Several other of discussion of the problems involved here for Poulantzas’ articles were incorporated into the marxist politics. books listed above.