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Nicos Poulantzas: For Gramsci

Kardaxas, Basil P., Ph.D.

The American University, 1989

Copyright ©1989 by Kardaras, Basil P. All ri^ts reserved.

UMI 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Arbor, Ml 48106

NICOS POULANTZAS: FOR GRAMSCI

BY Basil P. Kardaras

submitted to the

Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences

of The American University

in Partial Fulfillment of

The Requirements for the Degree

of

Doctor of Philosophy

in

Sociology

Signatures of Coirpittee:

Chairperson:

Dean ofofithe Ithe CollegeDean College

24 April 1989 Date

1989

The American University

Washington, D.C. 20016

THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY © COPYRIGHT

BY

BASIL P. KARDARAS

1989

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED For Eleni and Katherine NICOS POULANTZAS: FOR GRAMSCI

BY

Basil P. Kardaras

ABSTRACT

Nicos Poulantzas' work makes a major epistemological contribution to the study of the production and reproduction of the social relations of existence. This work is an in-depth exegesis and analysis of Poulantzas' views on the capitalist State, social classes, ideology, and the democratic transition to democratic socialism.

Poulantzas' relational or articulation theory is systematically developed with regard to the political, ideological, and economic practices. It is shown that these practices are fundamental ensembles whose particular form of articulation establishes the morphology of concrete social formations.

There is also an examination of the work of Antonio

Gramsci and Louis Althusser. The linkages between

Gramsci's problematic and Poulantzas' problematic are revealed on a variety of levels through a symptomatic reading. Poulantzas makes wide use of Gramsci's concepts, e.g., hegemony, historical bloc/power bloc, etc., which he articulates with the structural concepts of Althusser to

ii form a new and more powerful epistemology. It is further noted that Althusser's work on ideology, like that of

Poulantzas, is heavily overdetermined by Gramsci's problematic.

Ill ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to thank the members of my dissertation committee: Professors Samih Farsoun, the chair of my committee, Ken Kusterer, and John Scott for their support and encouragement throughout my whole project. I am especially indebted to these individuals for their epistemologically powerful courses, and for allowing me to pursue topics of special interest. The content of their courses was instrumental in my intellectual development, and is reflected in the morphology of this work.

Professors Farsoun's and Kusterer's courses in political economy/macrosociology, and Professor Scott's courses in social inequality coupled with Professor Kusterer's and

Professor Gert Mueller's social theory courses were of paramount significance for me.

I am grateful to the Department of Sociology for providing a vibrant and stimulating atmosphere for me to learn and teach. The department's members, my students, and the unfolding character of historical conjunctures were forces in my own intellectual development. I would like to thank Robert David, as chair of the department during this tenure, for his support. I would also like to thank Helen

Koustenis, the department's administrator, for her kindness

iv and support. In addition, I would like to thank The

American University for granting me a one year University

Doctoral Fellowship to pursue my research and writing.

I wish to thank my parents, Peter and Helen, and my wife, Dessie, for their support. My father was instrumental in tracing some of the Greek bibliographic material, and my wife was very helpful on the French translations. I could not have done it without them. TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Chapter

I. THE PROBLEM...... 1

Introduction to the Problematic ...... 1 The Value of the S t u d y ...... 5 Methodology...... 15 Chapter Contents ...... 18

II. BIOGRAPHICAL AND INTELLECTUAL NOTES ...... 20

The Greek Context...... 20 The French C o n t e x t ...... 22

III. FROM STRUCTURALISM TO STRUCTURAL MARXISM . . . 27

The Specificity of Structuralism ...... 27 Ferdinand de Saussure ...... 31 Sigmund Freud ...... 33 Claude Lévi-Strauss ...... 35 The Rise of Marxist Study in France: The Antecedents to Structural Marxism ...... 38 Structural Marxism ...... 47 Maurice Godelier ...... 49 Louis Althusser...... 52 Epistemological Break and Problematic .... 53 The Genealogy of Marx's Epistemological B r e a k ...... 56 Overdetermination: The Negation of Economism...... 58 Causality, Empiricism, and Historicism . . . 65 Contradiction, Conjuncture, and Transition: The Unity of the Concepts . . . 68 Economism/Humanism ...... 72 Economism...... 74 H u m a n i s m ...... 77 Class Struggle: The Denial of the Bourgeois Fetishization of M a n ...... 80

VI IV. THE GRAMSCIAN PROBLEMATIC...... 88

The Metamorphosis...... 88 Economism...... 91 P o s i t i v i s m ...... 94 H e g e m o n y ...... 98 The Specificity of Hegemony...... 105 Hegemony and Ideology ...... 109 Civil Society and the S t a t e ...... 117 War of Position and War of Maneuver .... 125 The Crisis of Hegemony ...... 130 Organic Intellectuals ...... 136

V. THE ARCHITECTONICS OF AN EMERGING PROBLEMATIC...... 143

The Articulation of the Practices...... 143 Mode of Production and Social Formation . . 149 Specification of the Practices ...... 157 The Economic Practice ...... 158 The Political Practice ...... 164 The Ideological Practice ...... 168

VI. PROLEGOMENA TO THE STUDY OF THE STATE .... 174

Social Relations of Production ...... 174 The Specificity of the Power B l o c ...... 184 H e g e m o n y ...... 194 Relative Autonomy ...... 199 The Poulantzas-Miliband Debate ...... 215

VII. THE MATERIAL SPECIFICITY OF THE CAPITALIST STATE ...... 233

The Problem with Economism ...... 233 Characteristics of the Capitalist State . . 238 The Dominant and the Dominated Classes . . 241 Authoritarian Statism ...... 247

VIII. SOCIAL CLASSES ...... 259

The Structural Determination of Social C l a s s e s...... 259 The Wage Question and C l a s s ...... 274 The Taxonomic and Topographical Existence of the Petty B o u r g e o i s i e ...... 279

IX. THE MATERIALITY OF IDEOLOGY...... 302 The Ideological Practice ...... 302 Ideology and State Apparatuses ...... 311

Vll The Ideological State Apparatuses ...... 318 Interpellation ...... 328 The Juridico-Political Region of Ideology . 335 The Juridico-Political Discourse and the Monopoly of Force-Violence ...... 340 The Juridico-Political Discourse of Law . . 345

CONCLUSION...... 352

The Edifice...... 352 The Crisis of/in Marxism ...... 362 Crisis in Conjunctures ...... 363 The Transition to Democratic Socialism . . 371

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 390

Vlll CHAPTER I

THE PROBLEM

Introduction to the Problematic

The oeuvre of Nicos Poulantzas represents a major epistemological break^ with former conceptualizations of the capitalist State, social classes, ideology, politics, and the social relations that constitute the capitalist social formation. Poulantzas' problematic^ makes valuable

^An epistemological break describes a leap, a rupture, i.e., "...a radical break with the whole pattern and frame of reference or previous theoretical notions, the construction of a new pattern (problematic)." Louis Althusser, For Marx (London; NLB, 1977/Verso, 1979), p. 249. Althusser borrows the term, epistemological break, from Gaston Bachelard, and uses it to imply a mutation in a theoretical problematic leading to the foundation of a new problematic— new scientific discipline or approach in posing and studying problems.

^The concept of problematic was adopted by Althusser from Jacques Martin. It is used here "...to designate the particular unity of a theoretical location." Ibid., p. 32. A problematic can be said to be a theoretical or ideological framework for organizing the relationship of concepts, and in determining the nature and function of these concepts. Concepts can, thus, only be properly understood within their problematic. Even though there are different problematics which appear to use similar concepts, they are fundamentally different in the way they articulate and give meaning to those concepts. According to Althusser, a problematic is not a world-view, however, it specifies what will fall within its theoretical constitution. It should be noted that if a problematic is theoretically powerful, it has the potential to make major epistemologcial and ontological contributions. 2 contributions in the fields of social theory, political sociology, political economy, macrosociology, social stratification, etc. My objective in this dissertation is to present a developed analysis, exegesis, and elaboration of Poulantzas' problematic and epistemological contributions. My analysis will also examine the significance that the Gramscian and structural Marxist^ problematics have in Poulantzas' work. In so doing, I hope to encourage more American sociologists to study

Poulantzas' oeuvre, and at the same time make a contribution to the corpus of sociological and political theory.

The Gramscian problematic contains concepts such as hegemony, war of position, historical bloc/power bloc, ideology as "cement," etc. The structural Marxist problematic is characterized by such conceptual formulations as social formation, relative autonomy, articulation of the modes of production, mode of production, structure in dominance, concrete historical conjuncture, disarticulation of the modes of production.

^Structural Marxism may be defined as the blending of structuralism with Marxism. Marxism is used here as an epistemological and heuristic device in studying and assessing the character of the social relations under which we live. Structuralism here refers to the study of structures that are not directly visible or observable realities. The object of structural Marxism is to reveal the content and character of these hidden structures as they effect the surface relations of existence. 3 the political, ideological, economic practices/* etc. The strength of Poulantzas' problematic is founded on the synthesis that he articulates between these two problematics. I will thus be dealing directly with the character of these two problematics in Poulantzas' work.

The result of this synthesis is that it enables Poulantzas to transcend to new terrain;^ to new theoretical

*The political, economic, and ideological practices, levels, instances, or relations constitute the social totality for structural Marxists. This unity of the totality is complex given the uneven development and the relative autonomy that these practices exercise vis-a-vis each other. Althusser defines the character of these practices as follows; "Each of these different 'levels' does not have the same type of historical existence. On the contrary, we have to assign to each level a peculiar time, relatively autonomous and hence relatively independent, even in its dependence, of the 'times' of the other levels. ...Each of these peculiar histories is punctuated with peculiar rhythms and can only be known on condition that we have defined the concept of the specificity of its historical temporality and its punctuations (continuous development, revolutions, breaks, etc.). The fact that each of these times and each of these histories is relativelv autonomous does not make them so many domains which are independent of the whole; the specificity of each of these times and each of these histories— in other words, their relative autonomy and independence— is based on a certain type of articulation in the whole, and therefore on a certain type of dependence with respect to the whole." Louis Althusser and Etienne Balibar, Reading Capital (London; NLB, 1970/Verso, 1979), pp.99-100.

^This implies "...the adoption of a new problematic which even if it did integrate a certain number of the old concepts, did so into a whole which confers to them a radically new significance." Althusser, For Marx, p. 47. To illustrate this point, Althusser uses an example from Greek history which he claims Marx also used. This illustration also holds for Poulantzas. "After serious set-backs in the war against the Persians, Themistocles advised the Athenians to leave the land and base the future of their city on another element— the sea." Ibid. In the 4 conceptualizations; and to new political strategies. This new theoretical synthesis has tremendous epistemological and heuristic power. It is able to specify the character of the capitalist State, establish the complex linkages between the three relatively autonomous practices, designate the formation of class alliances, and delineate the role of hegemony and ideology in a more sophisticated fashion than Althusser's structural Marxism or Gramsci's

Marxism could do separately.

The development of this synthesis was not a product which found its gestation in a vacuum. It was a product that grew out of the strategic political events and theoretical debates unfolding in Europe since World War II.

These events exercised a profound intellectual and political influence on Poulantzas. Some of these events are; 1. the military dictatorship in Greece (1967-1974); 2. the May 1968 uprising in France; 3. the fall of the dictatorships in Portugal, Spain, and Greece; 4. the critical political debates in France, Italy, and Greece; and 5. the theoretical and political debates within the PCF

(Communist Party of France), the PCI (Communist Party of

Italy), and the KKE (Communist Party of Greece— Exterior® case of Poulantzas, this means an articulation of Gramsci's work with the structural Marxism of Althusser giving rise to the emergence of a new more sophisticated theoretical problematic and discourse.

®The KKE-Exterior is linked with Moscow. 5 and Interior)?' These major socio-political events were instrumental in shaping Poulantzas' theoretical, political, and ideological positions. They enabled him to make major theoretical and epistemological advances with regard to the

State, social classes (particulary with regard to the genealogy of the different forms of bourgeois capital, and the character of the new petty bourgeoisie), the juridico- political practice, ideology, law, and the democratic transition to democratic socialism.

The Value of the Studv

My reasons for selecting Nicos Poulantzas as the central topic of my dissertation are as follows:

1. It is extremely important, in the interest of theory and political discourse, to take notice of

Poulantzas' theoretical, and epistemological contributions.

2. Poulantzas is still relatively unknown in the

United States. Some sociologists might recognize his name, but they know very little about his work.

3. The relatively difficult nature of his writings have prevented many American sociologists and other social scientists from taking full advantage of his insights.

4. There has been no complete examination of

Poulantzas writings in the United States.

?The KKE— Interior is Eurocommunist, and has recently undergone several internal splits leading to the formation of other parties. 6

5. This study aims to fill the above lacunae, while also making a valuable contribution by noting Poulantzas' problematic.

Given the above, my aim here will be to bring

Poulantzas' work and his contribution to sociology and to the other sciences to the attention of a larger body of

American scholars. In so doing, I hope to elevate our sociological knowledge to a higher dimension by noting

Poulantzas' contribution, along with that of Gramsci and

Althusser, in opening up new epistemological and ontological vistas that provide social scientists with new heuristic means for acquiring a better understanding of how our social reality is constructed.

Nicos Poulantzas is a major figure in the field of neo-Marxist thought. His work has spawned international debate,® and intellectual advances. According to Bob

Jessop, Poulantzas has become "...the single most important and influential Marxist theorist of the state and politics...."9 Abercrombie, Turner, and Urry point out that "... it is now impossible to study social classes, monopoly capitalism and fascism without confronting

®One of these debates is referred to as the Poulantzas-Miliband debate. It was carried on for a number of years in the pages of the New Left Review. There were interventions into the debate by Ernesto Laclau, Nicos Mouzelis, Erik 01in Wright, and others.

9Bob Jessop, Nicos Poulantzas; Marxist Theorv and Political Strateqv (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985), p. 5. 7

Poulantzas' work."!® Poulantzas' impact outside the

Francophone, Grecophone, and Anglophone is considerable; with his influence being felt throughout Europe and Latin

America.!! His work is of major significance in the social sciences, particularly in the areas concerned with the study of social formations,!2 the capitalist State, social classes, social relations of production, class alliances, power, hegemony, and the democratic transition to democratic socialism.

Poulantzas' theoretical contribution is profound.

He resurrects Marxist thought from the doldrums of orthodoxy and dogma. These epistemological obstacles have had the effect of creating a sclerosis in Marxist thought by preventing the dialectical essence of Marxism from being realized. In this sense, Poulantzas, like Gramsci before him, seeks to transcend the limitations of orthodox and dogmatic Marxism by restoring to Marxism its dialectic and theoretical power. In order to accomplish this task,

Poulantzas constructs a new problematic, a new frame of

!®Nicholas Abercrombie, Bryan Turner, and John Urry, "Class, State, and Fascism: The work of Nicos Poulantzas," Political Studies 24, no. 4 (1976), 519.

! !see Richard Harris, "Structuralism in Latin America," Insurgent Sociologist 9, no. 1 (Summer 1979):62-73,

!^a social formation in the structural Marxist sense denotes a social totality that is constituted by the articulation of two or modes of production with one of the modes being dominant, and hence setting the pace for the whole social formation (e.g., the ancient, feudal, capitalist, etc.). 8 reference, that is theoretically and heuristically powerful. It is the creation of this new epistemological problematic that makes Poulantzas a leading theorist. In the past many social scientists have been concerned with classical and neo-classical Marxist thought; what makes

Poulantzas' contribution different is that he is able to articulate the different strands of Marxist theory, e.g.,

Marx, Engels, Lenin, Gramsci, Mao, and Althusser, among others into a new and more powerful problematic.

Poulantzas' significance as a major social theorist is predicated on the fact that he works towards developing a scientific theory that reconceptualizes subjects that were formally theoretically and politically neglected: the

State, social classes in advanced capitalism, the juridico- political practice, etc. It is in this regard, that

Poulantzas' work sets the foundations for the establishment of a theory of politics, the State, social classes, and the study of concrete social formations. Poulantzas' conceptualization of social classes has nothing in common with liberal views, or with the views of economistic and dogmatic versions of Marxist thought. He defines social classes as being the effects of structural ensembles: the political, the economic, and the ideological practices.

His theory of the State breaks with elite theory, pluralist theory, and traditional Marxist theory. He conceives of the State as being the condensation of contradictory class 9 forces. Poulantzas' contribution to the study of concrete social formations, e.g., England, France, Germany, Italy,

Greece, Spain and Portugal, is of major theoretical and political significance. He points out that in any given society or social formation, there is one dominant mode of production that overdetermines the whole character of that social formation. The dominant mode of production functions to conserve (articulate) or destroy

(disarticulate) subordinate modes of production contingent on its exigencies, its genealogical development, and the historical conjunctures that arise.

With regard to the State, Poulantzas' primary emphasis is directed toward the development of a "regional theory" of the political ensemble, practice, level or instance. It is here that Poulantzas establishes the dominance of the political region in advanced capitalist societies. In this respect, he goes beyond the work of

Gramsci, Balibar, and Althusser, among others. In so doing, he demonstrates how the capitalist State acts to organize the internally divided bourgeoisie into a power bloc, while simultaneously acting to disarticulate/disorganize the interests of the subordinate or dominated classes. In State Power Socialism. Poulantzas argues that the capitalist State is moving toward a new type of State. He calls this form authoritarian Statism.

Authoritarian Statism is characterized by technocratic 10 forms of legitimation, concentration of power in the executive, the pervasive and expanding character of State control and domination, and the rise in the level of real and symbolic violence exercised through the ideological

State apparatuses, and the repressive State apparatuses.

It is in State Power Socialism that Poulantzas constructs a theoretical and political strategy for the democratic transition to democratic socialism by utilizing Gramsci's war of position strategy. This type of strategy involves a historical/power bloc of forces, class alliances, that is

able to articulate the popular demands of wide sectors of

the population leading them on the democratic road toward a

transition to democratic socialism.

In justifying the value of doing a dissertation on

Nicos Poulantzas, it is necessary to make some brief

remarks as to his international stature as a major European

theorist. Poulantzas was first introduced to the

Anglophone world in 1967 through the publication of

"Marxist Political Theory in Great Britain."!® it was in

!®Nicos Poulantzas, "Political Theory in Great Britain," New Left Review, no. 43 (May-June 1967);57-74. This article originally appeared in French in 1966 in Les Temps Modernes, no. 238 (1966);1683-1701. Les Temps Modernes is a leading French journal founded by J.-P. Sartre and others. The article was translated into English and published in the British journal the New Left Review. In this article, Poulantzas engages in the debate over the interpretation and periodization of English history from the 17th century to the present. The leading figures in the debate are Tom Nairn, Perry Anderson, and Edward Thompson. Poulantzas' intervention into the debate centered around his subjection of the Anderson-Nairn thesis 11

1969, however, that Poulantzas received international recognition and acclaim with his review of Ralph Miliband's book. The State in Capitalist Societv.!* for the British journal. New Left Review. This review was instrumental in initiating the Poulantzas-Miliband debate.!®

Poulantzas' reputation as a major theorist of the

State was established in France with the publication of his book, Pouvior politique et classes sociales.!® This work appeared just a few days before the May 1968 uprising in

France, and it "... sold several thousand copies to the students involved in [the] struggle against the French to criticism emanating from a structural Marxist and Gramscian problematic. Poulantzas' emphasis on the articulation of the modes of production, hegemony, power bloc, and class alliances had the effect of transforming the character of the debate. This is evident in the later work of Perry Anderson and Eric Hobsbawn. For an example of this, see Perry Anderson, Eric Hobsbawm and Douglas Bourn, "Feudalism, Capitalism and the Absolutist State," Our History, no. 66 (Summer 1976):1-18.

!4Ralph Miliband, The State in Capitalist Society (New York: Basic Books, 1969).

!®The Poulantzas-Miliband debate spanned a number of years. It was carried in the pages of the New Left Review. It spawned international debate and new research on the issues it raised.

!®This work was translated into English in 1972-1973 as Political Power and Social Classes. This landmark work raised the study of the State to new intellectual, theoretical, and political levels. The Achilles' heel of the social sciences was constituted by Poulantzas as a major region of study. This accomplishment by Poulantzas can by no means be underestimated as to its theoretical and political significance for the social sciences. It sent out a call for "bringing the State back in" as a subject of study. 12

State."17 Poulantzas' primary concern in Political Power and Social Classesl^ is directed toward establishing the

idea of the "relative autonomy"!^ of the capitalist State.

In order to accomplish this project, Poulantzas undertakes an analysis of concrete social formations in specific historical conjunctures by examining the relationship

l^Bob Jessop, Nicos Poulantzas: Marxist Theory and Political Strategy (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985), p. 5.

l®Nicos Poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes (London: NLB, 1973).

19por Poulantzas, relative autonomy constitutes a conceptual device for transcending the theoretical limitations of economism and instrumentalism. Relative autonomy may be defined as denoting the State's quasi­ independence from the dominant classes. The relative autonomy of the State has the following characteristics: 1. That the State is not regarded as being a monolithic structure. It is rather an ensemble of class relations where the class struggle reverberates throughout its apparatuses. Each apparatuses exercises relative autonomy vis-a-vis each other. These apparatuses are infused with various bourgeois interests, however, these diverse bourgeois interests represented by different forms of capital are overdetermined by the hegemonic class or fraction that asserts it own particularistic interests into the power bloc. 2. Each class-State has its own materiality, its own form of organization, its own logic, and its own internal dynamics. This is because it is overdetermined by the configuration of the class forces vis-a-vis the class struggle. 3. Even though the State is shaped by class forces, it is also a force in its own right insofar that it acts to shape the character of social classes, the class struggle, and the outcomes. 4. The State acts to organize within the unity of a power bloc the bourgeoisie, which is itself internally divided given its genealogy and modes of capitalist accumulation. Concurrently, the State also acts to disorganize the interests of the dominated classes. 5. The primary objective of the State is to sustain the capitalist social formation, i.e., to manage and avert social, political, economic, ideological, and legitimation crises. 13 between social classes and the State, specifically with reference to hegemony, ideology, class alliances, the power bloc, the genealogy of capitalism, etc. Poulantzas drew heavily on the work of Marx,20 Gramsci, and Althusser.

Both Gramsci in The Prison Notebooks and Poulantzas in

Political Power and Social Classes give extensive treatment to the workings of politics, ideology, and the State.

Their work, in effect, is overdetermined by their antipathy to Marxist dogma and economism.21 it is in response to dogmatic and non-dialectical Marxism that Poulantzas seeks to develop and advance a new problematic that can transcend the limitations of dogmatic Marxism.

Aside from Poulantzas' ground breaking work on the

State, he is the first Marxist theorist since World War II

20primarily Capital. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. The Class Struggles in France; 1848-1850. and The Civil War in France.

2lEconomism is the tendency within some variants of Marxist thought, e.g., Marxism-Leninism, Stalinism, to reduce all social activity to the economic base alone. Furthermore, it reads everything off from the economic base, as if the economic determines everything on its own without any feed-back from the articulation of the political and ideological practices. Thus, economism does not give any weight to the role of the relative autonomy of ideology, the State, and class relations. It is devoid of the dialectical character of the social relations of production that constitute the totality of social existence. The economic practice does nothing by itself. It needs to be organized through the political and ideological practices in order for it to produce. The way it is organized to produce in class societies is contingent on the character of the class forces involved, i.e., the relationship between the dominant and dominated classes, and the class struggle. 14 to reintroduce the concept of hegemony (borrowed from

Gramsci), and to give it a central place in his theory of the State. In addition, Poulantzas is one of the first theorists to acknowledge Gramsci's conceptualization of ideology as being the "cement" that binds a social formation together. It should be noted that Poulantzas' theoretical treatment of Gramsci's concepts raises them to new epistemological dimensions as he seeks to articulate them with the concepts of structural Marxism. In this sense, it can be said that Poulantzas provides a far more systematic elaboration of Gramsci's work, given the conditions under which Gramsci formulated his ideas, i.e., his imprisonment under fascism in Italy, and his deteriorating physical condition. Thus, it becomes extremely difficult to conceptualize Poulantzas' theoretical contribution to the structural Marxist problematic in general, and the specification of the capitalist State in particular without acknowledging

Gramsci's impact on the whole of Poulantzas' oeuvre.

The significance of doing a dissertation on Nicos

Poulantzas is to present the vibrant macrosociological theoretical contributions that he has made to our understanding of our social relations of existence. Not only does he open up the field of Marxist thought to sophisticated analysis; he also establishes the ground work for research in other fields such as economics, history. 15 political science, international relations, anthropology, etc. His work holds implications for our understanding of the past, present, and future.

Methodology

My aim in this dissertation is to make a

contribution to the study of Nicos Poulantzas' oeuvre. My

objective is to examine Poulantzas' work through a close

study of this writings. In the course of doing this, I will advance the thesis that it is the Gramscian

problematic, as it is welded to the structural Marxist

problematic, that overdetermines the whole of Poulantzas'

mature work. In the mid-1960s, Poulantzas made an

epistemological break from the problematics associated with

the work of Jean-Paul Sartre, Georg Lukacs, and Lucien

Goldmann, and he adopted a new problematic that he

fashioned from the problematics associated with the work of

Antonio Gramsci and Louis Althusser into the expanding

terrain of structural Marxism. In the course of presenting

Poulantzas' problematic, I will also elaborate in detail

the problematic of Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser,

structuralism and structural Marxism.

Some social researchers and social theorists dismiss

or underemphasize the significance of historical events,

historical conjunctures, and epistemological and

theoretical conjunctures in the work of a theorist. They

fail to recognize that theory does not exist in a vacuum; 16 that theory has a political, economic, and ideological

existence. In this sense, Poulantzas' theoretical and

epistemological contributions to knowledge are grounded in

the metamorphoses of the 1950s, e.g., the de-Stalinization

of Marxist thought, the 1960s, and the 1970s, i.e., the

historical conjunctures that transpired throughout the

world: the Chinese Revolution (1949), the Chinese Cultural

Revolution, the Cuban Revolution (1959), the independence

movements in Africa and Asia; the rise and fall of military

and fascist dictatorships, e.g., Spain, Portugal, and

Greece.

The nature of Poulantzas' writings is extremely

difficult in style, content, and terminology. At first

reading, his work appears as a labyrinth full of pleonasms.

My study will attempt to break through this labyrinth in

order to present the epistemological and theoretical wealth

of Poulantzas' thought. To accomplish this end, I will

utilize the following methods. The first method involves

the undertaking of a textual reading. I will follow the

hermeneutic principle of reading the text itself. The

second method involves the doing of a contextual reading

that seeks to present a sophisticated e x e g e s i s . 22 in so

doing, it should be keeping in mind that these texts are

22«There are always two worlds, the world of the text and that of the reader, and consequently there is the need for Hermes to 'translate' from one to the other." Richard E. Palmer, Hermeneutics (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1969), p. 31. 17 theoretical, political, and ideological in form, and that they were shaped in the context of unfolding historical conjunctures, and overdetermined by the imperative necessity to develop a Marxist theory separated from the physiognomy of dogmatic Marxism. Thirdly, I will further conduct a "symptomatic reading"23 of the texts. Only a symptomatic reading, which starts with the complexity of the texts, can articulate questions posed in their lacunae.

A symptomatic reading raises to the surface new knowledge, new linkages, and new insights. This method involves the deconstruction and the reconstruction of the texts producing greater interpretive analysis and more significant results.

Since 1972, five of Poulantzas' books have been published in English. The rest of his books are either in

French or in Greek. In addition, most of his articles written in French and Greek have not been translated into

23The method of symptomatic reading was developed by Louis Althusser. See Louis Althusser and Etienne Balibar, Reading Capital (London: NLB, 1970/Verso, 1979). The method of symptomatic reading is heavily influenced by the work of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan. In Freud, it acts to detect the errors, omissions, and representations in dreams and in everyday life that are symptoms of the complex and hidden structure of the unconscious or the deep structure. Lacan went on to apply Freud's discovery to linguistic psychoanalysis, which considers what is not said— the silences, the absences, the lacunae— to be just as significant as the visible text. A symptomatic reading attempts to get beneath the visible text which is impervious to an innocent surface reading. It thus follows, that a symptomatic reading is of central importance here in ascertaining the morphology of Poulantzas' writings. 18

English. My dissertation makes a valuable contribution to the body of knowledge relating to Poulantzas' work by bringing to light some of Poulantzas' Greek and French writings. One of the problems associated with this project is the difficulty in obtaining the various books and articles written by Poulantzas. I have had to trace down sources in various parts of the United States, most notably at The American University Library and through its inter- library loan department, Georgetown University, George

Washington University, Howard University, Catholic

University, Harvard University, the University of

Massachusetts-Boston, Yale University, Connecticut College, and the Library of Congress, and in Greece, with the help of family and friends, who sought out publishing houses, newspapers, personal libraries, and the National Library in

Athens.

Chapter Contents

In chapter two, I will present a brief discussion on

Poulantzas' intellectual and political influences. Chapter three deals with an extended discussion on structuralism, structural Marxism, the work of Freud, Lévi-Strauss,

Godelier, and Althusser. Chapter four involves a discussion of the Gramscian problematic and the insights it offers. Chapter five deals with the architectonics

involved in the construction of Poulantzas' problematic.

Chapter six presents the preliminary elements that are 19 necessary for the study of the capitalist State. Chapter seven develops the material specificity of the capitalist

State and the rise of a new form of capitalist State, authoritarian Statism. In chapter eight, I present

Poulantzas' novel contribution to the study of social classes on the political, ideological, and economic dimensions, the structural determination of classes, and the class positions they may take in historical conjunctures. In chapter nine, I deal with the specificity of the ideological practice, i.e., the ideological and repressive State apparatuses, interpellation, the juridico- political region of ideology, the State's legitimate monopoly in the exercise of force-violence, and the juridico-political discourse of law. In the last chapter,

I conclude my analysis of the preceding chapters. I also go on to discuss the epistemological obstacles posed by dogmatic Marxism and the efforts of Poulantzas, Gramsci, and Althusser to transcend these obstacles. In the last section of the conclusion, I deal with Poulantzas' efforts to develop a new problematic associated with the democratic transition to democratic socialism. CHAPTER II

BIOGRAPHICAL AND INTELLECTUAL NOTES

The Greek Context

As any Greek of his social position and historical context, Nicos Poulantzas^ encountered Marxism through

French philosophy, particularly through the writings of

Jean-Paul Sartre. His encounter with Marxism occurred in the years immediately following the end of the Greek Civil

W a r . 2 The end of the Civil War also marked the end of the

^Poulantzas was born in Athens, Greece on September 21, 1936 and died by suicide on October 3, 1979 in Paris, France.

2The Greek Civil War ended in the early months of 1949 with the reinstatement of the constitutional monarchy. During World War II, the monarchy had established a government in exile in Cairo, Egypt. During this period, a portion of the Greek military forces stationed in Palestine revolted against the government in 1943. This was a leftist revolt against the rightist forces and the monarchy. This revolt indicated the battle lines that were to be drawn between the left wing and the right wing in the Civil War a few years later. The soldiers established a commune which lasted for a very short number of days before it was put down by British forces in the Middle East. Among those who participated in the revolt was Arghiri Emmanuel, a Greek political economist living in France, who is noted for the influential work Unequal Exchange (New York: Monthly Review, 1972). All who took part in the revolt, including Emmanuel, were sentenced to death; however, general amnesty was granted to all who participated in the revolt in 1946. Upon his release from prison, he emigrated to France. Several important points need to be made here. First, the Greek monarchy was not really Greek, its roots are in the Danish and German royal

20 21

Greek Communist Party as an active political entity in

Greece until 1974.3 m the post Civil War period, the circulation of Marxist texts and ideas was severely restricted and curtailed by the State. French philosophy and the work of Sartre were the main legal avenues through which students of Poulantzas' generation could come into contact with Marxist thought.

In the mid to late 1950s, Poulantzas studied law at the University of Athens.4 it was during this period that he became politically active. He took part in demonstrations in Athens in support of independence for the houses. Second, the end of the Civil War marked the exit of the British forces and the entrance of the American forces into Greece. This event was precipitated by the failure of the British forces to secure Athens proper form the communist forces. This singular event marked a historical transformation in Greece. British hegemony, which had been in existence for over a century, was replaced by American hegemony.

^The Greek Communist Party was reinstated as a legitimate political entity in 1974 by the new government of Constantine Karamanlis, when it took over after the fall of the military dictatorship (1967-1974). Like Poulantzas, Karamanlis was also in self-exile in Paris during the years of the military dictatorship.

4poulantzas' father was a lawyer educated in Athens and Germany. Upon his graduation from the University of Athens School of Law, Politics and Sociology in 1957 at the at the age of 21, Poulantzas entered the Greek Navy for his normal course of military duty. The navy has traditionally been that branch of the military that the Greek upper classes generally serve in. At the conclusion of his military service in 1960, he was granted his license to practice law. For biographical details, see Christos Kiriazis, "Nicos Poulantzas: Stoichia Biographias," Anti, no. 185 (August 28, 1981):16-17. 22 island of Cyprus from British rule.® It was at this time that he joined the United Democratic Left Party (EDA). EDA was a broad based popular front organization with a wide membership base. According to Poulantzas, EDA was confronted with some major problems. Some of its members

"...were communist and some were not; [and it was] absolutely under the dominance of the Communist Party and without any real autonomy."®

The French Context

In 1960, Poulantzas left Greece to pursue further studies in Germany. He spent one semester at the

University of Munich and another semester at the University of Heidelberg where he studied philosophy. Dissatisfied with Germany, he moved to France. In the fall of 1961, he enrolled at the University of Paris in the Faculté de droit et des sciences économiques. In this period, Poulantzas

®During this period, Cyprus was seeking its independence from British rule and a union with Greece. In 1960, Cyprus received its independence from Britain, but under the new constitution imposed on it by the British, it was prevented from joining Greece as the Greek Islands under Italian rule has done 13 years earlier.

®Stuart Hall and Alan Hunt, "Interview with Nicos Poulantzas," Marxism Todav 23, no. 7 (July 1979):194. Throughout his membership in EDA, Poulantzas never joined the Communist Party. He only became a member of the Greek Communist Party just before its split in 1968. He joined the forces of those who left the Party to form the Greek Communist Party of the Interior (Eurocommunist). For an account of the Communist Party in Greece and the split, see Ilios Yannakakis, "The Greek Communist Party," New Left Review, no. 54 (March-April 1969):47-54. 23 became actively involved in French political and intellectual circles. He established a close relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvior, and others around the journal Les Temps Modernes. In 1964, The editors of the journal were unable to keep up with the demands of making regular contributions to the journal. A meeting was called to resolve the problem. Among those who attended the meeting at Beauvior's apartment

...were the budding novelists, Annie Leclerc? and Georges Perec; a professor of law, Nicos Poulantzas, who was writing important works on political economy; a number of students, particulary some who were studying philosophy— Jeannine Rovet, Sylvie Le Bon, Dolle, Peretz, Benabou, and Regis Debray. Many of these were disciples of Althusser....®

From 1964 to 1966, Poulantzas contributed four major articles to Les Temps Modernes.9 These articles dealt with

law 10 hegemony, philosophical critiques, and Marxist political theory in Britain.

?Annie Leclerc was to marry Poulantzas in December of 1966. Bob Jessop, Nicos Poulantzas; Marxist Theorv and Political Strategy, p. 10.

®Simone de Beauvoir, All Said and Done (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1972), p. 135.

®Nicos Poulantzas, "L'examen marxiste de I'etat et du droit actuels et la question de l'alternative," Les Temps Modernes. no. 219-220 (1964):274-302; "Préliminaires a 1'etude de l'hegemonie dans l'etat," Les Temps Modernes, no. 234 & 235 (1965):862-896 and 1048-1069; "La théorie politique marxiste en Grande Bretagne," Les Temps Modernes, no. 238 (1966): 1638-1707; and "Vers une théorie marxiste," Les Temps Modernes, no. 240 (1966):1952-1982.

3®in 1962, Poulantzas also began contributing articles to Archives de Philosophie du Droit, a French law journal. 24

As Poulantzas continued to develop his interest in

Marxist thought, originally derived from Sartre, he also became influenced by the writings of Lucien Goldmann and

Georg Lukacs. His dissertation in the philosophy of law,

Nature des choses et droit, developed a conceptualization of law which drew from the writings of Lucien Goldmann and

Georg L u k a c s . 12 with the publication of this dissertation in 1964, Poulantzas immediately became dissatisfied with the thought of Sartre, Goldmann, and Lukacs. He states that from that moment on he "...began to feel the limitations of that orientation within Marxism."1® It is at this juncture that Poulantzas seriously begins to encounter the work of Gramsci and Althusser.

Poulantzas' introduction to Gramsci occurred through the Italian Communist Party journal, Critica Marxista. It was in 1964 that Poulantzas made his epistemological break from the problematic associated with the work of Sartre,

Goldmann, and Lukacs, and his embarking on a new epistemological problematic. From this point on,

Poulantzas' work became overdetermined by the Gramscian problematic, which he sought to articulate into the rising new problematic of structural Marxism. Poulantzas notes

iipoulantzas received his doctorate in May 1964 from the University of Paris.

12stuart Hall and Alan Hunt, "Interview with Nicos Poulantzas," p. 194.

13lbid. 25 that his Gramscian orientation "...created a kind of agreement and disagreement, from the beginning with

Althusser and Balibar."1* It should be noted here that the

Gramscian or Italian influence also had a significant impact on Althusser's work. Although Althusser had initially held some reservations with regard to Gramsci, between 1969 and 1970, he wrote the "Ideology and

Ideological State Apparatuses essays,"1® which is strongly overdetermined by Gramsci's work on ideology. In this essay, Althusser developed Gramsci's work on the ideological and repressive State apparatuses. According to

Grahame Lock, "'Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses' caused anxiety in some circles,"1® and brought Althusser under the scrutiny of the PCF executive committee with the charge of Italian deviations among other things. It should be pointed out that Poulantzas had a close personal relationship with Althusser, and I believe that Poulantzas influenced Althusser in adopting Gramsci's problematic.

The presence of the Gramscian problematic can be found on several dimensions of Althusser's work; 1. that ideology is a lived relation; 2. that bourgeois ideology is inscribed

14ibid.

3®Louis Althusser, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses," in Essavs on Ideoloav (London: NLB, 1971/Verso, 1984), pp. 1-60.

l®Grahame Lock, "Introduction," in Louis Althusser, Essavs in Self Criticism (London: NLB, 1979), p. 2. 26 within the ideological State apparatuses and within the repressive State apparatuses; 3. that the Communist Partyl? should be an open and dialectical Party; 4. and finally the adoption of Gramsci's war of position strategy for the democratic transition to democratic socialism.

^^Althusser's views parallel those of Gramsci in many regards. For example, see Louis Althusser, "The Crisis of Marxism," in Patrick Camiller and Jon Rothschild, Power and Opposition in Post-revolutionarv Societv (London: Ink Links, 1979), pp. 225-237; "What Must Change in the Party," New Left Review, no. 109 (May-June 1978):19-45; and "On the Twenty-second Congress of the French Communist Party," New Left Review, no. 104 (July-August, 1977):3-22. CHAPTER III

FROM STRUCTURALISM TO STRUCTURAL MARXISM

The Specificity of Structuralism

The birth of structuralism, as an epistemology and theory, according to Stuart Hall, "...constitutes something like a "Copernican" revolution in the sociology of knowledge."3 structuralism emerged as an intellectual movement in the mid-1950s as a reaction to the dominant philosophical approach in post war France— existentialism.

Structuralism superseded existentialism and humanism as the new Zeitgeist of French intellectuals. It made its was to

England in the late 1960s and in the early 1970s, and eventually crossed the Atlantic to the United States in the late 1970s. Structuralism's rise in France may be attributed to the following factors; 1. the disillusionment of intellectuals with existentialism's inability to meet with the demands placed on it, i.e., the expansion of human freedom; 2. the acknowledgement by intellectuals of the problems of Soviet communism, e.g., especially reinforced through Krushechev's speech in 1956; and 3. the decay of

^Stuart Hall, "The Hinterland of Science; Ideology and the 'Sociology of Knowledge,'" Working Papers in Cultural Studies. no. 10 (1977):26.

27 28 ideological unity as constituted through "...intellectuals, labor groups, and parliamentary deputies."2

Structuralism in France, and for that matter anywhere else, has not coalesced into a monolithic movement. According to Roland Barthes, "...for most of the authors ordinarily labeled with this word are unaware of being united by any solidarity of doctrine or commitment."®

One can gage the acute diversity within structuralism by indicating some thinkers who may be subsumed under it: Karl

Marx, Sigmund Freud, Ferdinand de Saussure, Roland Barthes,

Roman Jakobson, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Louis Althusser,

Maurice Godelier, Charles Bettelheim, Nicos Poulantzas,

Etienne Balibar, Jacques Lacan, Michel Foucault, Noam

Chomsky, Jacques Derrida, those around the journal Tel

Quel, etc. It follows that structuralism cuts across many disciplines: linguistics, anthropology, politics, sociology, philosophy, psychology, philology, economics, literary criticism, art, film, etc. What unites these diverse thinkers in various fields is their quest to uncover the hidden logic behind surface reality, and to explain underlying structures through the interrelationship

2Edith Kurzweil, The Aae of Structuralism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), p.3.

®Roland Barthes, "The Structuralist Activity," in Richard de George and Fernande de George, éd.. The Structuralists: From Marx to Lévi-Strauss (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1972), p. 148. 29 of their constituent elements.4

Maurice Godelier argues that

"Structures" should not be confused with visible "social relations" but constitute a level of realitv invisible but present behind the visible social relations. The logic of the latter, and the laws of social practice more generally, depend on the functioning of these hidden structures and the discovery of these last should allow us to "account for all the facts observed."®

Similarly, Barthes defines

The goal of all structuralist activity, whether reflexive or poetic [as being the reconstruction of] an "object" in such a way as to manifest thereby the rules of functioning...of this object.®

For Barthes, structuralists take "...the real, decompose it, then recompose it...."? In undertaking this road to knowledge, structuralists delve beyond the given reality to uncover meaning, and in so doing strive to discover the

"real" structures that underlie social relations. Thus, structuralists reject positivism, which seeks to create universal historical laws based on empirical observation.

According to Miriam Glucksmann,

4Lévi-Strauss reduces structure to psychology, Freud to the unconscious, Barthes to signs, and Althusser, who is a materialist, to the economy as being determinant in the last instance with the political, the ideological, and the economic being relatively autonomous regions or practices.

®Maurice Godelier, "System, Structure and Contradiction in Capital." in Donald McQuire, ed., Marx; Socioloqv/Social Change/Capitalism (London: Quartet Books, 1978), p. 78.

®Barthes, "The Structuralist Activity," p. 149.

7Ib id . 30

The distinction between reality and the scientific description of reality is the key to the structuralist philosophy of science. For the structuralists, observed phenomena are only the raw material from which concepts may be elaborated to describe the real structures of the world. They reject that facts present themselves in their true light, and so perception is not the correct way to acquire knowledge. Knowledge does not filter through the senses but must be produced.®

The structuralist's need to create knowledge emanates from their rejection of appearance as the only level of reality. This means that they are solidly against empiricism, and the acceptance of things as they are given to the senses. Glucksmann points out that for the structuralists

...the structure has to be conceptualized from its effects and these alone are amenable to the senses; but they do not necessarily correspond with the elements of the structure. For positivism, facts and phenomena are "solid" and have an objective existence; theory depends on the accumulation and interpretation of such effects. The structuralists hold, contrary to this, that facts are socially coloured, that they will not tell us about their nature.... To paraphrase Althusser...we may scrutinize economic facts (prices, profit, rent) forever but the economic structure will never be discovered at that level, just as the pre-Newtonian physicists could not see the law of gravity form the observation of falling bodies.®

In order to expand further the discussion on structuralism, it is necessary to look briefly into the work of Saussure,

Freud, and Lévi-Strauss before advancing to the subject of

®Miriam Glucksmann, Structuralist Analvsis in Contemporarv Social Thought (Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974), pp. 139-140.

®Ibid., pp. 144-145. 31 structural Marxism. These figures are some of the foremost theorists of structuralism; and their work was instrumental in setting down some of the elements associated with this school of thought.

Ferdinand de Saussure

Ferdinand de Saussure's position is that spoken language constitutes a self contained system with each element having its own relations and place vis-a-vis other elements. Saussure's study of language and its structured underpinnings can be illustrated as follows:

Language is a system [structure] that has its own arrangement. Comparison with chess will bring out the point. In chess what is external can be separated relatively easily from what is internal. The fact that the game passed from Persia to Europe is external; against that, everything having to do with this system and rules is internal. If I use ivory chessmen instead of wooden ones, the change has no effect on the system, but if I decrease or increase the number of chessmen, this change has a profound effect on the "grammar" of the game. In each instance one can determine that nature of the phenomenon by applying the rule: everything that changes the system in any way is internal.

Saussure draws a distinction between language as a systematic totality (synchronic), and speaking which consists of particular acts (diachronic). He argues that

...speaking is what causes language to evolve: impressions gathered from listening to others modify our linguistic habits. Language and speaking are then interdependent; the former is both the instrument and the product of the latter. But their interdependence does not prevent their

lOperdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), pp. 22-23. 32

being two absolutely distinct things. Language exists in the form of a sum of impressions deposited in the brain of each member of a community, almost like a dictionary of which identical copies have been distributed to each individual.31

Here speaking can be thought of as being, according to

Saussure, "...not a collective instrument; its manifestations are individual and momentary. In speaking there is only the s u m of particular acts...."32

Saussure's conceptualization of language is one of an integrated system of syntagmatic relations constituted through various structural elements.33 Following from the above, Saussure's theory implicitly rejects empiricism.

His work is an attempt to demonstrate that there is an underlying structure to language. The discovery of this underlying structure of language implies the scientific study of language. He conceives of language as a formal system of sign relations that operate within a totality enabling the development of comprehension and meaning to occur. According to Val Burris, Saussure developed

A methodoloav which reduces the comolexitv and variation of a given structure to a series of discrete levels and elements from which the empirical permutations of the svstem can be reconstructed through the application of a limited number of basic combinatorv principles. Together these constitute the distinctive features of what

33ibid., p. 19. 32ibid.

33ibid., pp. 123-124. 33

can be described as the structuralist method.34

Language for Saussure represents a structure, a functioning ensemble constituted by different parts exercising an effect on each other. A single linguistic sign has no meaning by itself; it acquires meaning only when it is distinguished from other signs embodied in the language system.

Siomund Freud

Sigmund Freud is another significant figure in structuralism. His contribution to structuralism stems from his discovery of the unconscious as a real autonomous structure of the mind. With this discovery Freud created a new comprehensive theory,35 a new science, of the unconscious as a hidden structure that manifests itself on the surface. For Freud, the individual has a continuous and whole inner life, the subconscious, composed of a

34val Burris, "Introduction: The Structuralist Influence in Marxist Theory and Research," Insurgent Sociologist 9, no. 1 (Summer 1979):5.

35According to Althusser, "...Freud calls himself a theoretician; he compares psycho-analysis, as far as its scientificity is concerned, with the physical sciences that stem from Galileo, he repeats that the practice (cure) and analytical technique (analytical method) are only authentic because they are based on a scientific theory. Freud says time and again that a practice and a technique, even if they give results, do not deserve the name of science unless a theory gives them the right to it, not by mere declaration, but by rigorous proof. Louis Althusser, "Freud and Lacan," in Essavs on Ideologv (London: NLB, 1971/Verso, 1984), p. 151. 34 complexity of elements that constitute a totality.

According to Freud, "...psvchic realitv is a special form of existence which must not be confounded with material realitv."36 Freud's development of the psycho-analytic method enabled him to penetrate into the unconscious so as to understand the conscious— the surface reality. Freud's antipathy to empiricism becomes evident in the following

statement:

...everything conscious has a preliminary unconscious state.... The unconscious is the true psychic reality; in its inner nature it is as much unknown to us as the realitv of the external world, and it is just as imperfectly communicated to us bv the data of consciousness as is the external world bv the reports of our sense-organs.3/

In order to interpret the unconscious, Freud

develops a whole new terminology with specific concepts to

theorize his discovery. As Althusser notes,

...like all inventors, Freud was forced to think his discovery in existing theoretical concepts, i.e., concepts designed for other purposes (was not Marx, too, forced to think his discovery in certain Hegelian concepts?). This will come as no surprise to anyone at all familiar with the history of a new science.... 38

Unable to use a new language, Freud derived his terminology

from Greek mythology, physics, and other disciplines which

he shaped to fit his discoveries.

3®sigmund Freud, "The Interpretation of Dreams," in A. A. Brill, ed., The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud (New York: Random House, 1938/1965), p. 548.

3?Ibid., p. 542.

3®Althusser, Essavs on Ideology, p. 143. 35

Freud's studies show that dreams, neurosis, and psychosis are expressions of elements operating at different levels and strengths as a way of dealing with the world of surface reality. Much of this is explained in

Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents where he stresses that in order for society (civilization) to exist, human libidinal energy (sexual drive) has to be repressed or sublimated. In the course of fulfilling this societal imperative, a multitude of contradictions and conflicts are generated in the subconscious with the struggle being waged on the structural levels of the ego, and superego. The by­ product of these conflicts, compromises, concessions, condensations, repressions, and sublimations can only be discerned on the conscious level, in their effects, through psycho-analysis.

Claude Lévi-Strauss

Saussure and Freud figure as formative influences on

Claude Lévi-Strauss. Lévi-Strauss applied the principles of structuralist analysis to the anthropological study of myth, kinship, religion, and primitive societies. His structuralist analysis revolves around the denial of empirical reality as constituting meaning. His position is spelled out in The Raw and the Cooked; "I claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's 36 minds without their being aware of the f a c t s . "39

Surface reality can only be explained for Lévi-

Strauss through the revelation of the hidden social structure. He defines the "social structure" as having

"...nothing to do with empirical reality but the with models which are built up after it."20 The construction of models (ideal-types) becomes the basis of Lévi-Strauss' method in designating how elements are interwoven with each other. For Lévi-Strauss,

...a structure consists of a model meeting several requirements. First, the structure exhibits the characteristics of a system. It is made up of several elements, none of which can undergo change without effecting changes in all the other elements. Second, for any given model there should be a possibility of ordering a series of transformations resulting in a group of models of the same type. Third, the above properties make it possible to predict how the model will react if one or more of its elements are submitted to certain modifications. Finally, the model should be constituted so as to make immediately intelligible all the observed facts.23

Throughout his work, Lévi-Strauss' emphasis is in analyzing the constituent elements of social phenomena by theorizing their reconstitution into a model which represents how these various elements combine and work. He stresses that

The structuralist's task is...to recognize and isolate levels of reality which have strategic

3®ciaude Lévi-Strauss, The Raw and the Cooked (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), p. 12.

2®Claude Lévi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1963), p. 279.

23%bid., pp. 279-280. 37

value from his point of view, namely, which admit of representation as models, whatever their type.2%

Freud's distinction between the unconscious and the conscious levels of the mind parallel Lévi-Strauss' view that empirical reality acts in masking actual social relations. He, thus, proposes that the task of anthropologists should be "...to grasp, beyond the conscious and always shifting images which men hold, the complete range of unconscious possibilities."23 To understand this position better, one can look at the distinction that Lévi-Strauss makes between history and anthropology. He contends that "history organizes its data in relation to conscious expressions of social life, while anthropology proceeds by examining its unconscious functions."24 By this, Lévi-Strauss means that history, in the hands of historians, is transformed into a real object with a code: constituted through a series of past and present dates, places, events, dynasties, and individuals marked by continuity and discontinuity marching toward some unknown unilinear "civilization." Historians in their quest to establish the empirical reality of History have become myth-makers. In making History understandable, historians fail to explain the making of historv. For

22jbid., p. 284.

23ibid., p. 23.

24%bid., p. 18. 38

Lévi-Strauss and other structuralists, including structural

Marxists, Historv. in its inauthentic mvthic form, set up to portray empirical reality, has to be rejected for the knowledge of historv. e.g., where the real history is raised to the surface through structuralist analysis.

Anthropology's analytical task, according to Lévi-Strauss, is one of reducing social and cultural phenomena to their fundamental (structural) elements so that they can be examined within a combination of other elements that constitute the whole. This implies the examination of the hidden ensemble of structural relations so as to gain an understanding of the surface social relations.

The Rise of Marxist Studv in France; The Antecedents to Structural Marxism

Marxism as a field of study was slow to develop in

France. Several reasons can be given for this situation.

First, Marxism encountered strong intellectual opposition from the entrenched academic tradition of Auguste Comte and

Emile Durkheim. Throughout the latter part of the 19th century and into the twentieth century, Durkheim's functionalist theory of society had become institutionalized as the ideology of the bourgeoisie and of sociology. Second, from 1789 onward, intellectuals were being assimilated into the ranks of French bourgeois society. Their entry into bourgeois society inhibited them from aligning themselves with the working class movement. 39

Third, there was no developed tradition in the study of

Hegel and political economy in the universities. Because of this situation, the development of Marxist thought was severely restricted. By the 1930s, however, Marx's work began to gain some ground primarily through the introduction of Hegel's thought into the universities^^ by

Alexandre Kojeve^^ and Jean Hyppolite.2? The publication of Marx's early works^B in this period also contributed to an increased interest in the study of Marx and Marxist thought. It is interesting to note that a definitive

French translation of The Economic and Philosophic

Manuscripts did not appear until 1967, and the French translation of the Grundrisse did not appear until 1968.29

25por a discussion of these developments, see Mark Poster, Existential Marxism in Postwar France: From Sartre to Althusser (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975).

2®Alexandre Kojeve was a Russian emigre who taught from 1933-1939 at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes. Some of the students who attended his lectures were Maurice Merleau- Ponty, Raymond Aron, and Jacques Lacan. His lectures have been collected in Alexandre Kojeve. Introduction to the Reading of Hegel (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980).

27jean Hyppolite taught philosophy at the Sorbonne and later at the College of France. In 1941, he published the first definitive French translation of Hegel's Phenomenologv of Spirit. His other major works are Studies on Marx and Hegel (1956), and Genesis and Structure of Hegel's Phenomenologv of Spirit (1974).

28For example. The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts. The German Ideologv. and A Contribution to the Critigue of Hegel's Philosophy of Right.

29The English translation of the complete Grundrisse was published in 1973. 40

The early works of Marx became the basis for the emergence of Marxist humanism with an emphasis on alienation and praxis.30 Finally, the type of Marxism that developed between the World Wars was marked by the hegemony of

Moscow. Moscow imposed a dogmatic version of Marxism on the Parti Communiste Française (the Communist Party of

France, PCF).31 This situation contributed to the concretization of Marxist thought along one axis, thus preventing its intellectual and political advancement.

Althusser demonstrates the acuteness of this situation when he states that

Philosophically speaking, our generation sacrificed itself and was sacrificed to political and ideological conflict alone, implying that it was sacrificed in its intellectual and scientific work. A number of scientists, occasionally even historians, and even a few rare literary figures

3ÛFor example, see Erich Fromm, Marx's Concept of Man (New York; Frederick Ungar Publishing, Co., 1961); Erich Fromm, ed., Socialist Humanism (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1965) ; Richard Schacht, Alienation (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1970); Adam Schaff, Marxism and the Human Individual (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1970); Fritz Pappenheim, The Alienation of Modern Man (New York: Monthly Review, 1959); Istvan Meszaros, Marx's Theory of Alienation (New York: Harper & Row, 1970); Bertell Oilman, Alienation: Marx's Conception of Man in Capitalist Society (London: Cambridge University Press, 1971); Joachim Israel, Alienation: From Marx to Modern Sociology (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1979); Ron Eyerman, False Consciousness and Ideology in Marxist Theory (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1981); and Georg Lukacs, Historv and Class Consciousness (Cambridge: MIT, 1971).

31por detailed analyses of the PCF, see Arthur Hirsh, The French New Left (Boston: South End Press, 1981); Michael Kelly, Modern French Marxism (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982); and Ronald Tiersky, French Communism 1920-1971 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974) 41

came through unscathed or at least only slightly bruised. There was no way out for a philosopher.32

Jean-Paul Sartre in Search for A Method recounts the atrophic state of Marxism in 1925, when he was twenty years old. He states that

...there was no chair of Marxism at the University, and Communist students were very careful not to appeal to Marxism or even mention it in their examinations; had they done so, they would have failed. The horror of dialectic was such that Hegel himself was unknown to us. Of course, they allowed us to read Marx; they even advised us to read him; one had to know him "in order to refute him."33

Sartre points out that

...without the Hegelian tradition, without Marxist teachers, without any planned program of study, without the instruments of thought, our generation, like the preceding ones and like that which followed, was wholly ignorant of historical materialism. On the other hand, they taught us Aristotelian and mathematical logic in great detail.34

It was during this period that Sartre read Capital and The

German Ideologv. He states that he "...found everything perfectly clear, and...really understood absolutely nothing."35 In order to gain an understanding, Sartre immersed himself into the realities of life, as they intervened upon the actions of the working class. It was

32l o u 1s Althusser, For Marx (London: NLB, 1977/Verso,1979), p. 27.

33Jean-Paul Sartre, Search for A Method (New York: Vintage Books, 1968), p. 17. 34ibid. 35ibid., pp. 17-18. 42 through the working class that Sartre came to an understanding of what he had read.

This Proletariat, far off, invisible, inaccessible, but conscious and acting, furnished the proof— obscurely for most of us— that not all conflicts had been resolved. We had been brought up in bourgeois humanism, and this optimistic humanism was shattered when we vaguely perceived around our town the immense crowd of "sub-men conscious of their subhumanity." But we sensed this shattering in a way that was still idealist and individualist.36

Marxism began to gain some momentum and credibility with the struggle against fascism. However, it was only in the post World War II period that French intellectuals became increasingly preoccupied with Marxist analysis.

Several journals were instrumental in the advancement of

Marxist thought.

1. Les Temps Modernes (1945— ) was founded by Jean-

Paul Sartre, Simon de Beauvoir, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, among others. The journal covers a broad spectrum of critical French thought and existential M a r x i s m . 3?

2. La Pensee (1939— ) is one of the intellectual journals of the PCF. In the period after 1949, it took a

Stalinist and dogmatic approach to Marxism. It waged a

struggle against internal deviation in the PCF and against existentialism on the outside. In the 1960s, it opposed

Althusserianism and structuralism.

36Ibid., p. 19.

3?Nicos Poulantzas published several major articles in Les Temps Modernes in the 1960s. 43

3. L'Esprit (1935— ) is a progressive Catholic journal that accepts some Marxist positions.

4. Socialisme ou Barbarie (1949-1965) was founded by Cornelius Castoriadis^B and Claude L e f o r t . 3 9 The journal carried on a critique of the Soviet bureaucratic

State, arguing that a new exploiting ruling class was oppressing the Russian working classes. They sought a socialism based on self-management by workers' councils.

Their socialism

...drew its inspiration from the revolutionary myths of the heritage of egalitarian workers' movements-— the Paris Commune, the Russian soviets of 1905 and 1917, the workers' councils' movements in Italy, Germany, and Hungary following World War I, the anarchist Makhno movement, Kronstadt, and

BBcastoriadis was born in Athens, Greece in 1922. He was a university student at the outbreak of World War II. He joined the Greek resistance movement against the German occupation on the side of the Greek Communist Party. In 1944, he broke with the Stalinist oriented Greek Communist Party (KKE) and joined the Fourth International (Trotskyist). He left Greece for France in 1945. He later rejected Trotskyism for a leftist critique of the left. See, Paul Mattick, Jr., "Socialisme ou Barbarie," in Robert A. Gorman, ed., Biographical Dictionarv of Neo-Marxism (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1985). For a selection of articles by Castoriadis from Socialisme ou Barbarie, see Cornelius Castoriadis, Political and Social Writings. 2 vols. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988).

BBciaude Lefort studied with Merleau-Ponty in the 1940s. Hirsh states that "It was at Merleau-Ponty's suggestion that Lefort joined the French trotskyist organization. Parti Communiste Internationale.... When Castoriadis and Lefort met in August 1946, they found themselves to be in agreement in their opposition to the general political direction of the trotskyist movement. They finally left in January 1949 and published their own journal. Socialisme ou Barbarie, in March 1949." Hirsh, The French New Left, pp. 108-109. 44

the Spanish anarchist collectives of 1936.40

The journal also carried out a developed analysis of capitalism, and advanced the position that socialism must act as a force toward the democratization of the totality of social relations. A political party was necessary for the task, however, the role of such a party was to "assist" the working class not "lead" it. Socialisme ou Barbarie was an inspirational force for Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the

leader of the March 22nd movement, and several other

students groups that took part in the May 1968 events in

France.

5. Arguments (1956-1962) was founded by several

former PCF members: Kostas Axelos, Pierre Fougeyrollas,

Edgar Morin, Jean Duvigneaud, and Henri Lefebvre.4i The

journal's position was non-sectarian, and called for the

opening up of Marxist thought by bringing it into closer

relations with the bourgeois sciences. Kostas A x e l o s , 42

the director of Arguments. claimed in 1962 that the journal would cease publication because it had accomplished its

40ibid., p. 112.

41jbid., pp. 89-92.

42Kostas Axelos was born in Athens, Greece in 1924. He was studying law at the University of Athens when WWII broke out. During the war, he was active in the Greek resistance through the Greek Communist Party. He was expelled from the party in 1945, and in the aftermath was condemned to death by the Greek government. See Charles J. Stivale, "Kostas Axelos," in Robert A. Gorman, Biographical Dictionarv of Neo-Marxism (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1985) 45 aims. It had provided the groundwork for a critical examination of Marxism, the framework for politics that contributed significantly to the revitalization of French

Marxism and to the events of May 1968.

All of the above journals were catalysts in developing a critical analysis of Marxism and capitalism.

In so doing, they were instrumental in broadening the parameters of thought and action in France. In the 1950s, radical French intellectuals became disillusioned with the

Soviet Union, and they began to question the way communism was practiced. The journals noted above and the events that transpired in the 1950s were instrumental forces in directing French intellectuals toward the reassessment of communism and Marxist dogma. Some of the significant events in the 1950s are as follows. First, the suppression of the Hungarian Revolt by the Soviet Union in 1956.

Second, the failure of Sartre's existential Marxismes to carry forth its promise for individual self fulfillment in

43The development of phenomenological, existential, and humanist positions with regard to Marxism were in response to the dogmatism of classical Marxism as it was propagated by Moscow. The common theme that ran through these schools of thought was the idea that "man makes history," which stood heavily on the work of the young Marx, especially his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts. The young Marx was an inspirational force for formulations of historical materialism in the work of Lukacs, Herbert Marcuse, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Fromm, Lefebvre, and others. Perry Anderson notes that these theorists place a great deal of emphasis on Marxist aesthetics. See Perry Anderson, Considerations on Western Marxism (London: Verso, 1979). 46 advanced capitalist society. The rejection of Sartre's existential Marxism was further compounded by Sartre's support of the Soviet Union between 1952-1956, and his espousal of existential Marxism in the face of the repression waged within the Soviet Union. Third,

Khrushchev's apocalyptic speech at the Twentieth Congress of the Communist P a r t y 4 4 of the Soviet Union in 1956 brought to light Stalin's transgressions as they were carried out under the "cult of personality." The significance of Khrushchev's speech was to bring to the surface the deeds of Stalin, and at the same time launch a critique on Stalinist M a r x i s m . 4 5

Khrushchev's speech had the effect of casting doubt on historical materialism (especially the stages of development), and on communism as it was practiced in the

Soviet Union. Stalin's excesses of unchecked and unchallenged power were acknowledged. These conditions contributed directly to the decentering of Moscow as the

"See" of Marxist dogma. The Sino-Soviet split was to further exacerbate the crisis in the communist movement

44por a personal account of the Twentieth Congress, see Vittorio Vidali, Diarv of the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Partv of the Soviet Union (Westport, CT: Lawrence Hill & Co., 1984) .

45por a contemporary critique of Stalinism and Marxist dogmatism by dissidents such as Rossana Rossanda, Charles Bettelheim, Boris Weil, and Louis Althusser, see Patrick Camiller and John Rothschild, ed., Power and Opposition in Post-revolutionarv Societies (London: Ink Links, 1979). 47 with Beijing ascending to the status of a new contending

"See" in the propagation of Marxism. The denunciation of

Stalinism, thus, opened the flood gates to new research in

Marxist thought and historiography, e.g., analyses into the

Asiatic mode of production, and to the resurgence of

Marxist political economy.

Structural Marxism

It is with these events as a backdrop that Stalinist dogmatism, Sartre's existentialism, and Marxist humanism began to be eclipsed in the late 1950s by the ascending star of structural Marxism. Discontented and critical

French intellectuals began to accept structural Marxism.

In so doing, they rejected existentialism and humanism, and their emphases that it is individual conscious praxis that constitutes the basis of social and historical progress.

Structural Marxism challenged the very foundation on which such assumptions rested. Structural Marxism decentered^G

46According to Mark Poster, "The aim of 'decentering' human experience, or eliminating the egoistic illusion of man's location at the metaphysical center of things, was not new with structuralism. Copernicus 'decentered' man and his planet from a privileged place in the universe; Darwin 'decentered' the human species, placing it in an evolutionary chain of biological forms; Freud 'decentered' the moral concept of the ego as the autonomous agent of the personality. Continuing the line of man's detractors, structuralism decentered man from his own meanings; the conscious subject was displaced from the center of social activity." Mark Poster, Existential Marxism in Postwar France: From Sartre to Althusser, p. 318. Counter to Poster's position, it may be argued that structural Marxism "recentered" human relations on a strong edifice based on the concrete study of social ensembles and social 48 man as the conscious subject at the center of social action. The view that man makes his own history was

superseded by the view that human beings are the products

of structures, and that they constitute the supports

(Trager) or bearers of a system in an unconscious form through religion, myth, ideology, etc. Althusser discusses this position as follows:

...the structure of the relations of production determines the places and functions occupied and adopted by the agents of production, who are never anything more than the occupants of these places, insofar as they are the "supports" (Trager) of these functions. The true "subjects"...are therefore not these occupants or functionaries...despite all appearances....4?

According to Althusser,

The true "subjects" are these definers and distributors: the relations of production (and political and ideological social relations). But since these are "relations," they cannot be thought within the category subject. And if by chance anyone proposes to reduce these relations of production to relations between men, i.e., "human relations" he is violating Marx's thought, for...Marx shows in the greatest depth that the relations of production (and political and ideological social relations) are irreducible to any anthropological inter-subjectivity— since they only combine agents and objects in a specific structure of the distribution of relations, places

formations in the broadest sense. It allows for the conceptualization of human relations on the relative domains of the political, ideological, and economic practices. It demystifies orthodox Marxist dogma, and makes Marxist thought free to investigate, analyze, and develop further. Far from displacing man from the center, it establishes human existence on the "concrete" center of social activity.

4^Louis Althusser and Etienne Balibar, Reading Capital (London: NLB, 1970/Verso, 1979), p. 180. 49

and functions, occupied and "supported" by objects and agents of production.48

Structural Marxism posits the epistemological and ontological argument that what is believed to constitute reality is in actuality a contradiction unable to comprehend the "real structures" which in effect constitute reality. Marx in chapter one of Capital I demonstrates what is the "real" reality and the "false" reality through his analysis of money and the creation of surplus value.

The task of structural Marxism then is to uncover the "real relations." To this end, structural Marxism cuts new paths on the terrain of Marxist thought. At the forefront of these advances is the work of Louis Althusser, Etienne

Balibar, Maurice Godelier, Charles Bettelheim, Nicos

Poulantzas, P.-P. Rey, and John G. Taylor, among others.

These theorists view Marx's work as an attempt to uncover the inherent structural nature of the capitalist system, and in so doing, reveal its laws of motion.

Maurice Godelier

Maurice Godelier acknowledges that

For Marx, the starting point in science is not be to found in appearances— the visible and spontaneous representation which members of a society devise from the nature of things, from their own activities or from the universe. For him— and this sets him apart from empiricists and functionalists— scientific thought cannot hope to discover any real links or inner relations between things, if they start from their apparent links or

48ibid. 50 superficial relationships.49

According to Marx,

In competition...everything appears upside down. The finished configuration of economic relations, as these are visible on the notions with which the bearers and agents of these relations seek to gain an understanding of them, is very different from the configuration of their inner core, which is essential but concealed, and the concept corresponding to it.50

Hence, scientific study of these relations would be useless

if the workings of these relations were accepted on their

appearance alone. Structural Marxism seeks to formulate a

theory that captures the "real" relations, the inner

relationships, which underpin the surface relations.

Godelier presents this position very clearly when he states

how

...the essence of things is concealed behind their visible appearance, and invisible social structures are distinct from visible social relations. Hence, for Marx scientific knowledge by definition cannot take direct experience as its starting point since it would then cut itself off in advance from the essence of things by becoming immersed in their appearance.51

What Marx was able to accomplish in his analyses was to go

beyond the morphological level of social structures as they

49Maurice Godelier, Perspectives in Marxist Anthropology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), p. 3.

G^Karl Marx, Capital III (New York: Vintage Books, 1981), p. 311.

5lMaurice Godelier, "Dialectical Logic and the Analysis of Structures: A Reply to Lucien Seve," International Journal of Sociology 2, no. 2-3 (Summer-Fall 1972):265-266. 51 appear; beyond the phantasmic nature of social relations to demystify the workings of the capitalist system— money, commodities, wages, profit, interest, surplus value, etc.

These economic categories, according to Godelier,

...express the visible relations of day to day business and as such they have a pragmatic utility, but no scientific value. Once economic science bases itself on these categories it, in fact, does no more than "interpret, systematise and defend in doctrinaire fashion the conceptions of the agents of bourgeois relations. It should not astonish us, then, that vulgar economy feels particulary at home in the estranged outward appearances of economic relations...and that these relations seem the more self-evident the more their internal relationships are concealed from it....52

To begin an analysis from a reading of the everyday visible relations, as economists have done since the seventeenth century, is to engage in the mystification of the "real" relations of production.

For Marx, wages give the appearance that labor is paid totally for the work it performs. He says that

This phenomenal form, which makes the actual relation invisible, and, indeed, shows the direct opposite of that relation, forms the basis of all the juridical notions of both labourer and capitalist, of all the mystifications of the capitalist mode of production.53

The concealment of these relations gives the impression that labor is superfluous to the production process, and that, in reality, it is capital which has the power to

52Maurice Godelier, "System, Structure and Contradiction in Capital." p. 79.

53Karl Marx, Capital I . quoted in Godelier, "System, Structure and Contradiction in Capital." p. 79. 52 create. The wage relation under capitalism conceals from the worker his/her whole involvement in the production of surplus value (unpaid labor), and, in effect, elevates capital to the status of being the productive agent.

According to Godelier,

When Marx assumes that structure is not to be confused with visible relations and explains their hidden logic, he inaugurates the modern structuralist tradition.54

Louis Althusser

The work of Louis Althusser marks a major epistemological advance in theory. He advances a new form for reading Marx— a symptomatic reading. A reading that probes deeply beneath the written surface material to discover new unrevealed knowledge which is raised to the surface for examination. Althusser does not begin by taking Marx's oeuvre as given, instead he gives specificity to Marx's epistemological revolution. In carrying out this task, Althusser challenges long standing schools of thought within Marxism, e.g., humanism and economism.

Althusser regards Marx as having created "... a new science: the science of the history of 'social formations. '"55 He puts Marx's thought in a historical context as it pertains to its development as a science. He argues that

54ibid., p. 80.

55Althusser, For Marx, p. 13. 53

...Marx "opened up" for scientific knowledge a new "continent," that of historv— just as Thales opened up the "continent" of mathematics for scientific knowledge, and Galileo opened up the "continent" of physical nature for scientific k n o w l e d g e . 56

The opening up of these continents to scientific knowledge also gave an impetus for the founding of other continents.

According to Althusser,

...the foundation of mathematics by Thales "induced" the birth of the Platonic philosophy, just as the foundation of physics by Galileo "induced" the birth of Cartesian philosophy, etc., so the foundation of the science of history by Marx has "induced" the birth of a new, theoretically and practically revolutionary philosophy, Marxist philosophy.... 57

In order to gain a better understanding into Althusser's view that Marx establishes a new science, I shall begin by looking at some principle Althusserian concepts.

Epistemological Break and Problematic

The concept of epistemological break is taken from the philosopher of science, Gaston B a c h e l a r d . 58 Althusser

56ibid., p. 14.

5?lbid.

58The development of the concept of epistemological break is found in Gaston Bachelard, The Formation of the Scientific Spirit (Paris; J. Vrin, 1938/1980). For an examination of Bachelard's work, see Mary Tiles, Bachelard: Science and Obiectivitv (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Dominique Lecourt, Marxism and Enistemoloay: Bachelard. Canauilhem and Foucault (London: NLB, 1975); Terry Counihan, "Epistemology and Science," Economy and Society 5, no. 1 (February 1976):74-110; and Maria Turchetto, "Histoire de la science et science de l'histoire," paper presented at the Conference on the Althusserian Legacy, The Humanities Institute at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, September 23-24, 54 wrote his dissertation at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, The

Notion of Content in Hegel's Philosophy, under the direction of Bachelard. Ben Brewster in the glossary to

For Marx describes the concept of epistemological break as being

...the leap from the pre-scientific world of ideas to the scientific world; this leap involves a radical break with the whole pattern and frame of reference of the pre-scientific (ideological) notions, and the construction of a new pattern (problematic...).59

Althusser applies this notion to

...Marx's rejection of the Hegelian and Feuerbachian ideology of his youth and the construction of the basic concepts of dialectical and historical materialism...in his later w o r k s . G O

An epistemological break involves a break with a former epistemology, a problematic (a frame of reference or theoretical framework), and the creation/adoption of a new problematic. A problematic is composed of a set of elements or concepts which do not exist in isolation, but can only be constituted as they "... exist in the theoretical or ideological framework in which...[they] are used...."Gl In order for a new problematic to be instituted, there must first occur an epistemological break. Bachelard maintains that a break creates new

1988.

59Althusser, For Marx, p. 249. GOibid.

Gllbid., p. 253. 55 knowledge 1. insofar that it casts new problematics; and 2. that the new problematic is able to reflect on the past^^ by:

...redefin[ing] the past history of scientific and ideological knowledge by rejudging it..., thus creating a double history, a history of error, of theories ruled out by the advance of science...and a history of the progressive developments of science since the...epistemological b r e a k . . . . G3

If science is conceived of being dialectically open, its answers are never pre-established. Science dialectically constituted implies that it will go through various transformations and reconstitutions. However, its course is never pre-given. There are epistemological obstacles that intervene to prevent the establishment of new problematics. Therefore, the establishment of new problematics involves scientific revolutions.

Epistemological obstacles exist in the minds of scientists that work to prevent epistemological breaks/revolutions.

Epistemological obstacles work primarily through ideological practices rooted within a given problematic.

Thus, epistemological breaks are significant historical

G2Although on the surface there appears to be affinities here with the work of Thomas Kuhn, Kuhn's work does not take the position that paradigms may be in error or may be correct. Rather, he looks at how the paradigms are relatively constituted. Althusser, however, argues that there are correct and incorrect theories. See Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962).

G^Ben Brewster, "Althusser and Bachelard," Theoretical Practice, no. 3-4 (November 1971):27. 56 demarcations, unique historical events, and not simply mundane mental activities. Epistemological breaks, as revolutionary events in science, transcend epistemological obstacles ideologically constituted by establishing problematics that become the new bases through which scientific knowledge is derived.

The Genealoav of Marx's Epistemological Break

Althusser divides Marx's work into two periods— the

ideological and the scientific— with 1845 being the year that separates them. First, the ideological period can be

further divided into two parts: a. the liberal-rationalist period of the Die Rheinische Zeituna (up to 1842), which was characterized by a Kantian-Fichtean type of problematic; and b. the communist-rationalist period of

1842-1845, marked by the Feuerbachian problematic.

Althusser states that

...if we exclude the Doctoral Dissertation, which is still the work of a student, the Young Marx was never strictlv speaking a Hegelian, except in the last text of his ideological-philosophical period; rather he was first a Kantian-Fichtean, then a Feuerbachian. So the thesis that the Young Marx was a Hegelian, though widely believed today, is in general a myth.®4

The works in the period between 1840-1844 are: The Economic

and Philosophic Manuscripts (1844), The Critique of Heael's

Philosophy of Right (1843), and The Holv Familv (1 8 4 4 ).G5

G4&ithusser, For Marx, p. 35.

GSlbid. 57

Second, the works of the break (1845) are the Theses on

Feuerbach and The German Ideology. In these texts, Marx argues that he is settling accounts with his philosophical conscious— Hegelian idealism. Third, Marx's mature works constitute everything after 1857. These include Capital

(1867), Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875), and the

Marginal Notes on Adolph Wagner (1880). Althusser stresses that epistemological breaks do not occur in a single moment. In each case,

...words and concepts are needed to break with words and concepts, and often the old words are charged with the conduct of the rupture throughout the period of the search for new o n e s . G G

Thus, these concepts do double duty. They act in asserting the development of a new problematic while concurrently

acting to dismantle the old problematic. However in the

course of developing the new problematic, the concepts take

on new meanings articulated with new concepts. Althusser

argues

...that Marx...replaced the old basic concepts...of the philosophies of History with absolutely new, unheard-of concepts, not to be found in the old conceptions. Where the philosophies of History talked of man, the economic subject, need, the system of needs, civil society, alienation, theft, injustice, spirit, liberty— where they talked about "society" itself— Marx began to talk about the mode of production, social formation, infrastructure, superstructure, ideologies, classes, class struggle, etc.G?

GGibid., p. 36.

G^Louis Althusser, Essavs in Self-Criticism (London: NLB, 1976), p. 153. 58

This epistemological break or "dialectical leap" marked

Marx's transcendence from an idealist ontology and epistemology to a materialist ontology and epistemology.

Overdetermination; The Negation of Economism

Althusser borrows the concept of overdetermination from Freud's work, Interpretation of Dreams. In Freud's usage, overdetermination implies the coming together of different factors, operationally speaking, that fuse to constitute the overt symptoms of a patient. Althusser uses overdetermination

...to describe the effects of the contradictions in each practice...constituting the social formation... as a whole, and hence back each practice and each contradiction, defining the pattern of dominance and subordination, antagonism and non-antagonism of the contradictions in the structure in dominance...at any given historical moment. More precisely, the overdetermination of a contradiction is the reflection in it of its conditions of existence within the complex whole, that is, of the other contradictions in the complex whole, in other words its uneven development.G8

The concept of overdetermination, in contrast to determinisms (essentialisms), advances the notion that events are the products of the effects of the practices

(political, economic, and ideological), and not the products of a single factor, e.g., the economy. According to Wolff and Resnick,

...no single event can ever be considered to occur by itself, independent of the existence of the

GBaithusser, For Marx, pp. 252-253. 59

others. Events thus always occur together, in relationships with one another. It follows that Marxian theory cannot use the independent-versus- dependent variable or cause-and-effeet terminology.... It cannot do so because each is always understood to be simultaneously a cause (it adds its own influence to the creation of all others) and in effect (its own existence results from the combined influence of all others on it.GS

Overdetermination is an essential concept in Althusser's work. However, overdetermination can only be fully understood by taking into account the concepts which are embodied within it: practice, social formation, contradiction, structure in dominance, uneven development, etc.

In his work, Althusser is concerned with establishing the primacv of practice by demonstrating that all levels of social existence are the sites of unique practices: economic practice, ideological practice, political practice, and theoretical practice.70 Marx's great scientific and philosophical achievement, according to Althusser, was his epistemological break with the

ideological thinking of this youth, and in the founding of

...a historico-dialectical materialism of praxis: that is, by a theory of the different specific levels of human practice (economic practice, political practice, ideological practice, and scientific practice) [as they are articulated

G^Richard D. Wolff and Stephen A. Resnick, Economics: Marxian Versus Neoclassical (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), pp. 19-20.

^^Althusser and Balibar, Reading Capital, p. 58. 60

in]...the unity of human society.71

Each of the practices, instances, or levels has its own structural rhythm of production marked by unevenness in the genealogy of its development. Thus, each practice has its own unique rhythms of existence within the complex being of the structure in dominance. In this respect,

Althusser wants to distinguish between Marx's whole and

Hegel's whole. Marx's whole implies a unity differentiated from "...the expressive or 'spiritual' unity of Leibniz's and Hegel's w h o l e . . . . "72 Marx's view of the whole

...is constituted by a certain type of comolexitv. the unity of a structured whole containing what can be called levels or instances which are distinct and "relatively autonomous," and co-exist within this complex structural unity, articulated with one another according to specific determinations, fixed in the last instance by the level or instance of the economy.73

Although the economy is always determinant in the last instance, this should not be taken to imply that the economy is always the dominant instance. Althusser states that "the economy is determinant in that it determines which of the instances of the social structure occupies the determinant p l a c e . "74 This is also Poulantzas' position.

Poulantzas stresses that not only does the economy

7^Althusser, For Marx, p. 229.

72aithusser and Balibar, Reading Capital, p. 97.

73ibid.

74ibid., p. 224. 61 determine the other levels, it is also determined by them.

This fact needs further elaboration. He states that

...while economics plays the determinant role in the last instance (the fundamental contradiction), it is the class struggle (i.e. in the end politics and the political class struggle) which has primacv in the historical p r o c e s s . 75

Each of the relatively autonomous instances^® has its own relatively autonomous history, given their uneven development and their asymmetrical relationship to each other, the instances, practices, or levels are punctuated by their own specificity, mutations, breaks, and revolutions. The dissimilarity and asymmetry between the formal existence of these practices can be attributed to their content, or to the particular practice performed on

75Nicos Poulantzas, Fascism and Dictatorship (London: NLB, 1974/Verso, 1979), p. 40.

7GEach level is relatively autonomous from the economy as well as from the other levels. That is, the various levels are not simply reflections of the economy. They have their own specific content, and their own laws of operation and rhythms of development— their own structure and historical time. The concept of "differential historical time" is utilized to conceptualize the fact that each social level has its own rhythm of operation. Upheavals on one level need not necessarily find immediate expression in all the other levels. There is no single continuous reference time continuum common to all the histories of all the levels at once. But to say that the tempo of each instance is relatively autonomous, is not to say that they are entirely independent. Althusser points out that "The fact that each of these times and each of these histories is relativelv autonomous does not make them so many domains which are independent of the whole: the specificity of each of those times and each of those histories— in other words, their relative autonomy and independence— is based on a certain type of dependence with respect to the whole." Althusser and Balibar, Reading Capital. pp. 99-100. 62 an initial object or raw material. Thus, the distinctive character of each of the practices is grounded in the unique way that they go about transforming the raw material, i.e., shaping it and giving it form and content.

According to Althusser, each practice involves a

...process of transformation of a determinant given raw material into a determinate product. a transformation effected by a determinate human labour, using determinate means (of "production"). In any practice...the determinant moment (or element) is neither the raw material nor the product, but the practice in the narrow sense: the moment of the labour of transformation itself, which sets to work, in a specific structure, men, means and a technical method of utilizing the means.77

The economic, political, and ideological practices are essential processes of production, reproduction, and transformation in a structure in dominance, where there is a co-presence78 of the practices structured in an "ever

77Althusser, For Marx, pp. 166-167.

78Althusser points out that the different practices of the whole do "... not have the same type of historical existence." Althusser and Balibar, Reading Capital, p. 99. Each level has a different temporality which denotes its relative autonomy, relative independence, and even its dependence on the other levels. "Each of these [levels]... is punctuated with peculiar rhythms and can only be known on condition that we have defined...the specificity of this historical temporality and its punctuations (continuous development, revolutions, breaks, etc.). The fact that each of these times and each of these histories is relativelv autonomous does not make them...independent of the whole: the specificity of each of these times and of each of these histories— in other words, their relative autonomy and independence— is based on a certain type of articulation in the whole, and therefore on a certain type of dependence with respect to the whole." Ibid., p. 100. In addition, "the specificity of these times and histories is therefore differential. since it is 63 pre-given structure" of dominance and subordination, determined in the last instance by the economy. The following indicates the raw material that each practice works on:

Economic practice is the transformation of nature by human labour into social products, political practice the transformation of social relations by revolution, ideological practice the transformation of one relation to the lived world into a new relation by ideological struggle.

Althusser argues that the political practice is not spontaneous, but organized within Marxist parties on the scientific theory of historical materialism.®® The political practice is concerned with the transformation of social relations into new social relations through the juridico-political instance, the political process, the

State apparatuses, mass organizations, and through revolutions. The ideological practice may be expressed through religion, politics, law, morality, art, etc. Its primary practice is to work in transforming "...men's

'consciousness.'"81 based on the differential relations between the different levels within the whole: the mode and degree of independence of each time and history is therefore necessarily determined by the mode and degree of dependence of each level within the set of articulations of the whole." Ibid.

7®ibid., p. 316.

®®Althusser, For Marx, p. 167.

Bllbid., p. 167. 64

Economic production takes place within a totality

(social formation) constituted by the three practices: economic, political, and ideological. The manner in which these practices are articulated within any given social formation is what gives it its specificity, and thereby sets it apart from other social formations. Not taking note of these distinctions is to fall into the same trap as

"Don Quixote, who long ago paid the penalty for wrongly imagining that knight errantry was compatible with all economic forms of society."®2 To illustrate this point further, Marx argues that

One thing is clear: the Middle Ages could not live on Catholicism [ideology], nor could the ancient world on politics. On the contrary, it is the manner in which they gain their livelihood which explains why in one case politics, in the other case Catholicism [ideology], played the chief part.83

By not taking these elements into account, one cannot gain a clear understanding of how the various practices are hierarchically ordered, and how they are articulated differently in each social formation. Engels in his letter to Bloch recognized that by simply reading off a social formation from the economic element was incorrect and led

82Karl Marx, Capital I (New York: Vintage Books, 1977), p. 176. 83ibid. 65 to a mechanistic materialist view; economic determinism.®^

With regard to the political practice, which aims to transform the invariant structure in dominance by revolution, it is necessary to have precise knowledge of the effects produced by all the practices. The actual relations of domination and subordination embodied within a social formation, in the hierarchy of the practices and the contradictions embodied within them, must be calculated

(including the level of the class struggle and its articulation within the practices) in determining the conjuncture where political praxis it to take place.

Causality. Empiricism, and Historicism

Althusser's view of causality is central in gaining precise knowledge of how the practices work. Althusser states that

...classical theories of causality have only two models, linear (transitive, mechanical) causality, which only describes the effects of one element on another, and expressive (teleological) causality, which can be describe the effect of the whole on the parts, but only by making the latter an "expression" of the former, a phenomenon of its essence, Marxist theory introduces a new concept of the effects of the whole on the parts, structural, complex causality, where the complex totality of the structure in dominance is a structure of effects with present-absent causes. The cause of the effects is the complex organization of the whole, present-absent in its economic, political.

B^see Engels' letter to J. Bloch in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works. Vol. 3 (Moscow; Progress Publishers, 1966), pp. 487-489. 66

ideological and knowledge effects.®5

The argument posed here is that the occurrence of an event is the result of a multiplicity of factors. Hence, no single event can be regarded as occurring by itself, driven by its own essence, but on the contrary, it unfolds in its coexistence with the parts that constitute the whole, i.e., it is overdetermined. In overdetermination, there is a complex structure that is expressed by the way in which the economy in the last instance establishes the dominant role of a given practice, and in turn organizes the other instances in terms of the structure in dominance. Thus, the causality of any given event cannot be attributed to a single cause (mechanical causality).

Alex Callinicos states that Althusser's position is one in which the

... whole and parts are inseparable and the whole is present in the relation of its effects. Thus the economy is determinant in the last instance not because the other instances are its epiphenomena but because it determines which instance is dominant. Its role can only be grasped by the relations constituting the structure of the whole, only through the mode in which the elements of the whole are articulated upon each other.®G

As a corollary to this argument, Althusser contends that

Ideological theories (empiricism, idealism, historicism) see the historical totality as analysable in a present, a contemporaneity, in which the relations between the parts can be seen

B^Althusser and Balibar, Reading Capital, p. 310.

8®Alex Callinicos, Althusser's Marxism (London: Pluto Press, 1976), p. 52. 67 and recorded.87

With regard to idealism, Althusser contends that thought and the real are confused

...by reducing the real to thought, by "conceiving the real as the result of thought" .... [It follows that]...empiricist idealism...confuse[s] thought with the real by reducing thought about the real to the real itself. In either case, this double reduction consists of a projection and realization of one element in the other: of thinking the difference between the real and thought about it as either a difference within thought itself...or as difference within the real i t s e l f . . . .88

Thus, empiricism operates under the assumption that knowledge of "reality" can be obtained through the senses: sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing. To accomplish this aim, concepts (ideas) are concocted with regard to the study of "reality." To determine if these concepts or ideas hold any "truth," they are compared with the "facts"

(reified facts) derived though the senses. If the concepts or ideas correspond to the facts, empiricists claim to have knowledge of what "is" or to have the "truth." In this sense, according to Althusser, "empiricist and historicist problematics assume a one-to-one correspondence between concepts of a science and its real object...."89 Facts are regarded as being real since they are derived through the senses. Thus, it is assumed that the senses can ascertain

87aithusser and Balibar, Reading Capital, p. 318.

88ibid., p. 87.

89%bid., p. 312. 68 with accuracy and reliability as to what is "real." This

type of reasoning allows empiricists to reduce the object

of knowledge to a real object, thereby, negating the

articulation of the practices within the structure in

dominance, their uneven existence, and the role of

overdetermination.

When empiricism attempts to discover what is "real,"

with regard to historical time, it makes a cut or dips into

the flowing stream of historical time in an effort to

reveal the essence of a particular historical moment. For

Althusser, such an attempt cannot reveal what the "real" is

because it does not take into account the matrix under

which the practices are articulated, their uneven

development, and their rhythms of operation/existence.

Empiricism views history in a unilinear fashion as a

chronology of events. Althusser disagrees with such a view

of history. He argues that

...there is no simple unilinear time in which the development of the social formation unfolds; each level of the social formation and each element in each level has a different temporality, and the totality is constituted by the articulation together of the dislocation...between these temporalities. [Hence,] historical time is always complex and multi-linear.®®

Contradiction. Conjuncture. and Transition; The Unitv of the Concepts

According to Althusser, contradictions are

9®Ibid., p. 322. 69 constituted through a multiplicity of forces and not by any single cause. He holds that a contradiction is marked by

...its "unevenness." or "overdetermination." which reflects in its conditions of existence, that is. the specific structure of unevenness fin dominance) of the ever-pre-aiven complex whole which is its existence. Thus understood, contradiction is the motor of all development. Displacement and condensation, with their basis in its overdetermination, explain bv their dominance the Phases fnon-antaaonistic. antagonistic and explosive) which constitute the existence of the complex process, that is. "of the development of things."®^

Hence, there is no simple reduction to single causal factors, i.e., there is no simple economic contradiction between the forces and relations of production. Instead, a contradiction is overdetermined by a multiplicity of contradictions that can be found within all the practices.

Viewing the contradiction as a motor implies that there is

"... a real struggle, real confrontations, preciselv located within the structure of the complex whole..."®2 unfolding at any given conjuncture (Lenin's "current moment"). In order for a contradiction

...to become "active"...there must be an accumulation of "circumstances" and "currents" so that whatever their origin and sense..., they "fuse" into a ruptural u n i t v . . . . ®3

The contradiction in its unfolding is both determining and

®3-Althusser, For Marx, p. 217.

®2ibid., p. 215.

93lbid., p. 99. 70 determined through the hierarchy of the practices.®*

Althusser following Marx contends that the transition form one mode of production to another involves

1. historical analysis of the superseded mode of production; 2. a genealogy of the mode of production and

its constitutive characteristics; and 3. an

...analysis of the phase of transition itself, which is...a mode of production in its own right, although one in which there is a dislocation®^ ...within the mode of production and between the...other levels of the social formation. This dislocation is such that...one of the dislocating connexions transforms the other.®®

Althusser raises the point that the general contradiction,

i.e., the contradiction between the forces and relations of production, is not sufficient to induce a rupture. In this

sense, Althusser argues that a revolution is more than this. A revolution is a fusion of a multiplicity of

contradictions.®7 Thus, according to Althusser, the

®*See Mao Tse-Tung, "On Contradiction," in Selected Works of Mao Tse-Tuna (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1967), pp. 311-347.

®^Althusser states that "...relations of dislocation are staggered with respect to one another: each has its own time and rhythm of development." Althusser and Balibar, Reading Capital, p. 312.

96Ibid., p. 322.

®7Althusser cites Lenin here to illustrate this point. In his "Letters from Afar," Lenin notes: "That the revolution succeeded so quickly...is only due to the fact that, as a result of an extremely unique historical situation, absolutely dissimilar currents, absolutely heterogeneous class interests, absolutely contrary political and social strivings have merged...in a strikingly 'harmonious' manner...." Althusser, For Marx. 71 position that the general contradiction has its own unique power in inducing a revolution must be discarded because

...it cannot of its own simple, direct power induce a "revolutionary situation," nor a fortiori a situation of revolutionary rupture and the triumph of revolution.®®

However, the general contradiction is present along with other heterogeneous contradictions. The contradictions which give rise to the circumstances for a fusion are not only to be found in the practices within a social

formation; they are also present as interventions of

international conjunctures, manifesting themselves within

social formations by producing pertinent effects in the whole. In this sense, the contradictions that merge

together should not be seen as derivatives of the general

contradiction. Althusser says that

The unity they constitute in this "fusion" into a revolutionary rupture, is constituted by their own essence and effectivitv. by what they are, and according to the specific modalities of their action. In constituting this unitv. they reconstitute and complete their basic animating unity, but at the same time they also bring out its nature: the "contradiction" is inseparable from the total structure of the social body in which it is found, inseparable from its formal conditions of existence, and even from the instances it governs; it is radically affected bv them, determining, but also determined in one and the same movement, and determined by the various levels and instances of p. 99. Lenin emphasizes further that the success of the Russian Revolution can also be attributed to the geography and natural resources of the country as well as to the "sheltering" of the revolution in military and political "retreats." Ibid., p. 100.

®®Ibid., p. 99. 72

the social formation it animates....®®

This conceptualization of the transition from one mode of production to another, contradictions, and conjuncture(s) are major contributions by Althusser that go a long way toward the constitution of an epistemological break, i.e., a radical break from the positions associated with economism and empiricism.

Economism/Humanism

N. Khrushchev's speech to the Twentieth Party

Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union brought to the surface the crisis in Marxist theory. It showed that the Marxism manufactured in Moscow under Stalin was seriously flawed. In reaction to this weakness, an attempt was made in Western European CPs, primarily in France, to humanize Marxist thought. Emphasis was put on Marx's early work, e.g., Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts.

Critique of Hegel's Philosophv of Right, and On the Jewish

Question, in an attempt to counter the dogmatism that had impregnated CPs around the world. Some of the efforts to humanize Marxism came through the work of Erich Fromm,

Roger Garaudy, the intellectual leader of the PCF, and the existential Marxism of J.-P. Sartre. It is in this historical conjuncture that Althusser begins his attack on

99Ibid., pp. 100-101. 73 economism, Stalinism,^0® dogmatism, and humanism. His key essays against the couplet economism/humanism are collected under the title of For Marx. Althusser's purpose is to salvage Marxism from the idealist problematics of empiricism/humanism, as well as to designate the epistemological break in Marx's work from his idealistically loaded works to the mature writings of the materialist. Thus, Althusser's work can be regarded as a

Left critique of economism, Stalinism, dogmatism, and the humanist problematics in the post-Stalinist period.

Althusser argues that the economism/humanism pair are complementary and organically linked with each other.

They are both products of bourgeois ideology that have penetrated into Marxist thought. In this sense, humanism elevates the role of man to that of being the subject of history; while economism reduces the significance of the relations of production and the class struggle (as the motor of history) by giving primacy to the forces of production. It is through bourgeois ideology that the relations of production are camouflaged, thereby leading to the denial of the existence of classes and the class struggle. This is done

...in order to exalt not only "expansion" and "productivity" but also Man and his liberty— that is its own affair, and it is quite in order, in

l®®See Louis Althusser, "Introduction" in Dominique Lecourt, Proletarian Science? The Case of Lvsenko (London: NLB, 1977). 74

bourgeois order; because it needs this silence, which allows economism/humanism, expressing the bourgeois point of view, to work at the concealment of the relations of production while helping to guarantee and reproduce them. But when the Workers' Parties...themselves keep silent (or semi- silent) about the relations of production, the class struggle, and their concrete forms, while exalting both the Productive Forces and Man— this is quite a different matter!^®!

According to Althusser, the adoption of such views, bourgeois views, has a contaminating effect that "...can threaten or even overcome the proletarian point of view within Marxism itself."1®%

Economism

Alex Callinicos notes that economism reduces all levels

...of the social formation to epiphenomena of the economy, and consequently...politics [is operationalized through] an economic deus ex machina to produce the proletarian revolution. ^03

The class struggle is seen as emerging through the development of the forces of production. Economism does not take into account the role of the structure in dominance, and the relative autonomy of the instances.

Instead, economism is related to "...the Hegelian problematic, whose concept of totality reduces its

3®iLouis Althusser, "Reply to John Lewis," in Essavs on Ideology (London; NLB, 1976/Verso, 1984), pp. 126-127.

102 Ibid., p. 127.

l®3Alex Callinicos, Althusser's Marxism (London: Pluto Press, 1978), p. 92. 75 instances to expressions of its essence, and whose dialectic is essentially a teleological one."^®*

Economism's central shortcoming is its reductionism. This reductionism can be expressed as follows;

1. it reduces everything to the forces of production as being the primary factors in social development (the theory of the productive forces);

2 . it reduces class contradictions to being the effects of the contradiction between forces and relations of production;

3. it argues that in advanced capitalism the relations of production inhibit the development of the forces of production; thereby causing economic crises (and hence political and ideological crises) that will inevitably lead to the collapse of the system;

4. given these conditions, it instrumentally awaits for a proletarian revolution to occur.1®®

On the question of class, economism reduces class to economics. Political and ideological determinates of class are seen as emerging directly out of economic relations.

Ideological and political practices are given no weight in exercising any kind of relative autonomy from the economic relations. The class struggle is conceived in a

l®*Ibid.

i®5see Paul Gastello, "Leninist Politics and the Struggle Against Economism," Theoretical Review, no. 15 (March-April 1980):6. 76 mechanistic fashion as intervening into the process of change for the purpose of destroying the prevailing relations of production, thereby, making way for the full development and expansion of the forces of production. The class struggle is read off only as it relates to the undermining of the relations of production that inhibit the further advancement of the forces of production. In this respect, the role of class struggle, as the motor of history, ceases to carry the weight that it does for

Gramsci, Althusser, and Poulantzas. It is reduced to establishing the consciousness of the working class (class-

for-itself). For Poulantzas, the class struggle does not arise simply out of the consciousness of a class as in class-for-itself, but is ever present within the fabric of class relations. Economism/dogmatism constitutes a major epistemological obstacle to Marxist thought that must be transcended in order for Marxist theory to be liberated,

i.e., to become a dialectical and creative epistemology.

Althusser in his "Introduction: Today" to For Marx argues that

...the end of dogmatism has restored to us...the right to assess exactly what we have, to give both our wealth and our poverty their true names, to think and pose our problems in the open, and to undertake in rigor a true investigation.1®®

In this context, Althusser's work represents a major

contribution to the study of a dialectical and open

l®®Althusser, For Marx, p. 30. 77

Marxism.

Humanism

Althusser argues that Marx's scientific theory of history is the product "... of a radical critique of the philosophy of man that had served as his theoretical basis during the years of his youth (1 8 4 0 -1 8 4 5 )."307 Marx's

epistemological break in 1845 entails the rejection of the

idealist problematic found in Kant, Fichte, Hegel, and

Feuerbach. This rejection meant the replacement of the old

idealist problematic (founded on alienation, 308 negation of

the negation, and species being) by a new materialist

problematic. This materialist problematic was expressed

307jbid., p. 223.

30®It is interesting to note here what happened to the early ideological concepts in Marx's mature work. In Capital. Marx does discuss alienation, however, Althusser discounts its discussion on the grounds that alienation appears as a concept that has not been thought out in the context of the working class struggle. "The theme of alienation in Capital could thus be said to function as substitute for a concept or concepts not yet formed, because the objective historical conditions had not yet produced their object. If this hypothesis is correct, it becomes possible to understand that the Commune, in answering Marx's expectations, rendered the theme of alienation superfluous, as did the whole of Lenin's political practice. In fact alienation disappears from Marx's thought after the Commune, and never appears in Lenin's immense work." Althusser, Essavs in Self- Criticism. pp. 206-207. These are interesting arguments that Althusser raises. It appears that the historical conjuncture of the Paris Commune was able to negate the concept of alienation in Marx's early ideological work, and strip it of any validity it may have had. It was a concept that was abandoned on the basis of being tested in a real historical conjuncture. 78 through new concepts such as: social formation, productive

forces, relations of production, superstructure, ideology,

and determination in the last instance by the economy. In

addition, it put to rest the theoretical pretensions of humanism by defining "...humanism as an ideology."309

Althusser recognizes that the humanist tradition played a significant role as it was intrinsically tied to

the aspirations of the ascending bourgeoisie in Europe. He

does not deny the accomplishments of humanism in its

struggle against autocracy, the aristocracy, and the cleric hierarchy in feudalism. However, he locates this struggle

as being

...linked to the rising bourgeoisie, whose aspirations it expressed, translating and transposing the demands of a commercial and capitalist economy sanctioned by a new system of law, the old Roman law revised as bourgeois commercial law. Man as a free subject, free man as a subject of his actions and his thoughts, is first of all man free to possess, to sell and to buy, the subject of l a w . 330

Marx distances himself from humanism with such statements

as "society is not composed of individuals" fGrundrisse) ;

and "my analytical method does not start from man, but from

the economically given social period" (Marginal Notes on

Adolph Wagner).331 in statements such as these, according

to Althusser, Marx demonstrates that the real starting

309Aithusser, For Marx, p. 227.

330^1thusser, Essavs in Self-Criticism, p. 198.

33lAlthusser, Essavs on Ideology, p. 85. 79 point is not the individual, or man, but the social

relations that arise between groups of men in their social

linkage to the means of production, i.e., their material and social condition. Althusser points out that Marx is correct to argue that society is not made up of individuals because what really "...constitutes society is a system of...social relations in which its individuals live, work,

and s t r u g g l e . "312 Defined as such

...each society has its own individuals, historically and socially determined. The slave- individual is not the serf-individual nor the proletarian-individual, and the same goes for the individual of each corresponding ruling class. In the same way, we must say that even a class is not "composed" of individuals in general: each class has its own individuals fashioned in their individuality by their conditions of life, of work, of exploitation and of struggle— by the relations of the class struggle. In their mass, real men are what class conditions make of them. These conditions do not depend on bourgeois "human nature:" liberty. On the contrary: the liberties of men, including the forms and limits of these liberties, and including their will to struggle, depend on these conditions.313

Marx's negation of humanism is directed toward the denial of man as being

...an originating subject, one in whom originate his needs (home oeconomicus), his thoughts (homo rationalist, and his acts and struggles (homo moralis. iuridicus and politicus).314

To accept man as the originating subject is to fall into

312%bid.

313lbid., pp. 85-86.

31*Althusser, Essays in Self-Criticism, p. 205. 80 bourgeois ideology. Marx's refusal to begin with roan is predicated on his break with the mystification of bourgeois

social relations. Althusser indicates that

Marx starts with the given economic formation and in the particular case of Capital. with the capitalist production relation and the relations which it determines....315

It is through these forms that Marx is able to unmask the mystifying nature of bourgeois ideological relations which

begin with the atomized individual, man. Thus, Althusser argues "'Man' is a myth of bourgeois ideology...."335 What

Althusser is saying here is that man must be conceptualized

at

...the point of arrival of an analysis which starts from the social relations of the existing mode of production, from class relations, and from the class struggle. These men are quite different men from the "man" of bourgeois i d e o l o g y . 337

Hence, it is character of the social relations of

production, for Althusser, that constitute the basis for

the study of social agents, people.

Class Struggle; The Denial of the Bourgeois Fetishization of Man

Beginning with man has implications on the role of

the class struggle as the motor of history. To say that

"Men make their own history," is to fall into voluntarism

335ibid.

336Aithusser, Essavs on Ideology, p. 85. 337ibid. 81 and bourgeois idealism that casts man as the Subject and

Object of history instead of classes and the class struggle. It is to deny the rest of the sentence if one only accepts the first five words as all humanists d o . 338

Althusser admonishes Sartre for his humanism that does not expand on the work of Marx and Freud. He perceives

Sartre's work as being a hindrance in the development of

Marxist thought because it begins with the argument that

"it is men who make history." According to Althusser, this view has made no scientific contribution or brought forth

"...knowledge about the economy, the class struggle, the state, the proletariat, ideologies, etc.— knowledge which might help us to understand history.... "339

Immediately following these five words, that "Men make their own history," Marx goes on to make a major contribution that often goes unrecognized by humanists:

...they do not make it [history] under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the p a s t . 320

The idea that man makes history had its historical position established within the ideological struggle of the bourgeoisie against feudalism. Under feudalism the Church and its organic intellectuals (ideologists/priests)

338Rarl Marx, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (New York: International Publishers, 1963), p. 15.

339Aithusser, Essavs on Ideoloav. pp. 93-94.

320j^arx, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, p. 15. 82 presented History as being fashioned by the proto-mastora.

God; and if one followed God's laws, one could attain some

form of soteriology. In contrast to this position,

Althusser argues that the bourgeoisie in eighteenth century

France presented "...a 'clear' explanation of history; history is moved by R e a s o n , "321 instead of by God. He points out that

To proclaim at that time, as the great bourgeois Humanists did, that it is man who makes history, was to struggle, from the bourgeois point of view (which was then revolutionary), against the religious Thesis of feudal ideology: it is God who makes h i s t o r y . 322

This ideological position coincided with the

interests of the bourgeoisie in its struggle to counter the prevailing religious ideology upon which feudalism rested,

and in its revolution against the aristocracy. To accept

the idealist position, however, is to deny the class

struggle as being the motor of history, the process that moves history, and causes revolutions to happen. A problem

immediately arises if the idealist position is accepted.

The problem rests on the argument that classes come to be

conceived as separate entities, as being independent of the

class struggle. It is precisely on this point that

Althusser and Poulantzas want to assert classes and the

class struggle back into the equation. A connected issue

323Althusser, Essavs on Ideoloav. p. 89.

322ibid., p. 78. 83 stemming from this argument is that class-in-itself and class-for-itself are inadequate when it comes to dealing with the class struggle. The class-in-itself position does not acknowledge that the class struggle is ever present and active even if a class is not constituted into a class-for- itself. 323

To simply accept the position that classes exist is not enough as Marx wrote to Weydemeyer,

... no credit is due to me for discovering the existence of classes in modern society or the struggle between them. Long before me bourgeois historians had described the historical development of this class struggle and bourgeois economists the economic autonomy of c l a s s e s . 324

What Marx can be given credit for, is the recognition of the class struggle as the motor of history. To separate classes from the class struggle, is to deny that classes and class struggle are one in the same. They overdetermine each other: where there are classes there is class struggle, and where there is class struggle there are classes.325

323Althusser's and Poulantzas' arguments on this point move beyond the dichotomy of class-in-itself and class-for- itself.

324jçarl Marx, "Letter to J. Weydemeyer," in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works, vol. I (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1969), p. 528.

325Aithusser notes that "in order for there to be classes in a 'society,' the society has to be divided into classes: this division does not come later in the storv; it is the exploitation of one class by another, it is therefore the class struggle, which constitutes the division into classes." Althusser, Essavs on Ideoloav. p. 84

Althusser cautions his readers against falling into an idealist analysis of the above, as bourgeois theorists do, by not recognizing the material conditions upon which the class struggle is waged. According to Althusser,

The class struggle does not go on in the air.... It is rooted in the mode of production and exploitation in a given class society. You therefore have to consider the material basis of the class struggle, that is, the material existence of the class s t r u g g l e . 326

Althusser argues that bourgeois philosophy, for ideological

reasons, has created a legal-ideological image with regard

to the Subject, man, being the subject of history as its

principle philosophical category. Marxist philosophy, on

the other hand, contends that history is a process without

a Subject or Object. Thus, Althusser contends that "...the

philosophical (theoretical) myth of man [must be] reduced

to ashes,"327 a precondition to gaining real knowledge.

Viewing man as the Subject of history has the effect of

generating a mystification of history which ideologically

prevents real history from being known by leading history

"...into blind a l l e y s . "328

With the focus of idealist philosophy being on the

"...category of the 'Subject' as Origin, Essence and

82.

325%bid., p. 83.

32?Althusser, For Marx, p. 229. 328ibid., p. 230. 85

C a u s e , "329 account is taken of man as being constituted

(determined, interpellated, conditioned) through the material condition, as products of unique social relations continuously being tuned by the motor of history, the class struggle. This is not to say that Marxist philosophy does not recognize men as being subjects of history. Being subjects of history does not mean that they are the

Subjects of history. The real Subjects of Marxist philosophy, according to Althusser, are the particular social relations (materially established) which acknowledge a unique type of subject, man as a slave, a serf, and as a

"free" man. Althusser states

That human, i.e. social individuals are active in history— as agents of the different social practices of the historical process of production and reproduction— that is a fact. But, considered as agents. human individuals are not "free" and "constitutive" subjects in the philosophical sense of these terms. They work in and through the determinations of the forms of historical existence of the social relations of production and reproduction (labour process, division and organization of labour, process or production and reproduction, class struggle, etc.). But that is not all. These agents can only be agents if thev are subjects.330

That is to say, as they are interpellated to be particular types of subjects within given social relations of production (social formations). Althusser argues further that

329Althusser, Essavs on Ideologv. p. 135,

330jbid. p. 134. 86

No human, i.e. social individual can be the agent of a practice if he does not have the form of a subject. The "subject-form" is actually the form of historical existence of every individual, of every agent of social practices: because the social relations of production and reproduction necessarily comprise, as an integral part, what Lenin calls "(juridico-) ideological social relations." which, in order to function, impose the subject-form on each agent-individual. The agent- individuals thus always act in the subject-form, as subjects. But the fact that they are necessarily subjects does not make the agents of social- historical practices into the subiect or subiects of history.... 331

By denying man as being the Subject of history, it does not follow that political mass action disappears form the scene. Mass action does not disappear because the class struggle, the motor of history, is ever present and continuous, whether it is recognized or camouflaged. It is through the class struggle that the embodied unity of man takes shape within any given social formation; and as it is accentuated by the particular matrix under which the social relations are operationally acting in the process of production and reproduction. The fact of the class struggle, as the Subject of history, is denied because

Each ruling exploiting class offers [the masses] "its own" explanation of history, in the form of its ideology, which is dominant, which serves its class interests, cements its unity, and maintains the masses under its exploitation. 332

333ibid., pp. 134-135.

332jbid., p. 88. In Max Weber's work, religion is seen as being the subject in the rise of capitalism, instead of the class struggle. This is clearly demonstrated in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. 87

The explanation and understanding of history is complicated

...because between real history and men there is always a screen, a separation: a class ideology of history in which the human masses "spontaneously” believe: because this ideology is pumped into them by the ruling or ascending class, and serves it in its exploitation.133

Nevertheless, the class struggle, however, is periodically expressed in its overdetermined revolutionary character, or in its quasi-overdetermined forms as

rebellion, protest, and reform; thereby, breaking through the crusted ideological hegemony of the ruling class(es) or dominant class(es). History, therefore, casts no shadow.

It does not work through some established or pre-

established (proto-mastora. God) blueprint. History is

open ended, the ultimate outcome is never historically

given or pre-determined. It is the overdetermination (the

dialectic of people coming together in a myriad of social

relations) of the class struggle unfolding, as the mass

struggle of human beings, that casts the shadow.

133&ithusser, Essavs on Ideology, p. 89, CHAPTER IV

THE GRAMSCIAN PROBLEMATIC

The Metamorphosis

Since the late 1960's, there has been an unprecedented interest in the work of Antonio Gramsci.

Several reasons can be attributed for this phenomenon: 1. the de-Stalinization process begun in 1956; 2. the initial efforts of Palmiro Togliatti, Gramsci's friend and successor as head of the PCI, who established Gramsci as

Italy's most significant Marxist thinker; 3. the events of

1968, and the intellectual responses to them;^ 4. the search for a theory that was able to explain the unfolding and evolving nature of capitalism, i.e., its ability to recalibrate itself in the face of systemic crises; 5. the insights he offers regarding the possibilities for revolutionary change in the period of advanced capitalism, and the necessary prerequisite of establishing hegemony on the road to socialism; and 6. the availability of translations primarily selections from his prison notebooks and his political writings. Gramsci provides original and

^See Chantai Mouffe and Ann Showstack Sassoon, "Gramsci in France and Italy— A Review of the Literature," Economy and Society 6, no. 1 (February 1977):31-68.

88 89

insightful ideas in a syntagmatic way to the above exigencies. Stuart Hall regards Gramsci's work as being

...a genuinely "open" marxism, which develops many of the insights of marxist theory in the direction of new questions and conditions. Above all, his work brings into play concepts which classical marxist theory cannot adequately explain the complex social phenomena which we encounter in the modern world.%

Perry Anderson contends that

No other thinker in the European working-class movement has to this day addressed himself so deeply or centrally to the problem of the specificity of a socialist revolution in the W e s t . 3

Gramsci's problematic was in marked contrast to the

"official Marxism" of his d a y . 4 Official Marxism can be

described as being a fixed and rigid system of principles

founded on "the laws of historical development" that

ascribe to history a sequential process of stages, being marked by the positivism-scientism of the Second and Third

Internationals, and overdetermined by Stalin's orthodoxy.

Gramsci's work stands apart from this petrified system of

thought that has fettered the development of Marxist

^Stuart Hall, "Gramsci's Relevance for the Study of Race and Ethnicity," Journal of Communication Inouirv 10, no. 2 (Summer 1986);7.

3perry Anderson, "The Antinomies of Antonio Gramsci," New Left Review, no. 100 (November-January 1976-1977):50.

4por an excellent biographical and political synopsis of Gramsci, see Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Noweel Smith, "Introduction to Antonio Gramsci," in Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks (New York: International Publications, 1971), pp. xvii-xcvi; and the biography of Gramsci by Guiseppe Fieri, Antonio Gramsci: Life of a Revolutionarv (London; NLB, 1970). 90 thought. Gramsci's problematic holds the vision of a vibrant and creative Marxism that connects the dialectic, history, theory, and praxis into a unified non-dogmatic, non-sclerosis totality. Louis Althusser regards Gramsci as being one of those few Marxists who has followed up on the discoveries of Marx and Engels.5 John Merrington echoes

Althusser when he states that Gramsci's work constitutes

...the most wide-ranging and sustained attempt to renew Marxism, reformulating old categories and inventing new concepts through the confrontation of contemporary social and cultural developments.... Gramsci's work represents above all a model of that type of critical development, as opposed to blind exegesis, of Marxism, which "actualizes" theory in relation to each specific conjuncture, locating the changing centres of contradiction in the capitalist world and elaborating the appropriate strategy.®

Thus, Gramsci's work is focused on the development of a theoretical and strategic problematic founded on a relational theory of politics which takes into account the indeterminacy of history by shedding light on "the ensemble of relations which each of us enters...."? In this sense,

Gramsci is an iconoclast of the highest order. He breaks with all icons (Plekhanov, Kautsky, Bukharin, and Stalin), and with all dogmas (economism, positivism, etc.) embodied

®Louis Althusser, For Marx (London: NLB, 1977/Verso, 1979), p. 114.

®John Merrington, "Theory and Practice in Gramsci's Marxism," in New Left Review, ed., Western Marxism: A Critical Reader (Verso, 1978), p. 141.

?Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks (New York: International Publishers, 1971), p. 352. 91 in Marxism.

Economism

Gramsci's view of economism can be summarized by giving one of Althusser's famous statements: "From the first moment to the last the lonely hour of the last instance never comes."® The last instance is the economic instance. What Althusser is saying here is that the structure in dominance exists in its "real" unity through an articulation of the political, economic, and ideological instances with each instance retaining its relative autonomy. The economic instance cannot operate alone, separated from the other instances. Gramsci is keenly aware that the economic instance alone could not explain social and political reality, nor could it develop a vision of socialism other than that which only conceived of socialism as being a different economic system. Gramsci,

Althusser, and Poulantzas hold a vision of Marxism that is not limited to economic reductionism, but one that encompasses a greater totality: ideology, politics, and social classes that are more than simply economic entities.

It is a vision of Marxism founded on the ensemble of social relations.

By rejecting economism in all its forms, Gramsci departed from the conventional views of the impending

®Althusser, For Marx, p. 113. 92 catastrophic fatalism of capitalism, i.e., its inevitable collapse due to its internal contradictions. He argues that

The claim, presented as an essential postulate of historical materialism, that every fluctuation of politics and ideology can be presented and expounded as an immediate expression of the structure [economy], must be contested in theory as primitive infantilism, and combated in practice....9

Economism is a one-dimensional interpretation linked to a mechanistic, and deterministic approach that is unable to take note of the intrinsic complexity of history. It is limited as to its ability to capture the heterogeneity of concrete historical conjunctures or social-historical movements. Hence, it is a poor predictor of future events, and an inaccurate interpreter of temporal emerging possibilities. Gramsci holds that economism

...makes no distinction between what is "relatively permanent" and what is a passing fluctuation.... In other words, it does not take economic class formations into account, with all their inherent relations....1®

He contends that economism places greater emphasis on the forces of production, i.e., "...economic development is reduced to the course of technical change in the instruments of work."11

According to Gramsci, a major short-coming of

^Gramsci, Selections from Prison Notebooks, p. 407.

lOlbid.

lllbid. 93 economism can be attributed to its

...iron conviction that there exist objective laws of historical development similar in kind to natural laws, together with a belief in a predetermined teleology like that of a religion; since favourable conditions are inevitably going to appear, and since these, in a rather mysterious way, will bring about palingenetic events, it is evident that any deliberate initiative tending to predispose and plan these conditions is not only useless but even harmful.1%

This implies that all one needs to do is to hope

...that events will mature in favour of the working class without the active, conscious intervention of that class led by its party. The party is thereby consigned to passivity to await the automatic evolution of the situation.

This is what the Social Democratic Party of Germany did

under the leadership of Karl Kautsky. Along these lines,

Gramsci faults economism for conceiving, in a simplistic

manner, that all that needs to be done in advancing society

from one mode of production into another is to replace one

economic system with another economic system. By holding

such a position, economism is unable to put forth a

comprehensive policy of social reconstruction other than a

reconstruction based on the imperatives of the new economic

system that is installed.

Economism falls far short in its tactics, strategy,

engagements, and correspondingly in the conclusions it

draws. In order to effectively intervene in a "real

IZlbid., 168.

l®Ann Showstack Sassoon, Gramsci's Politics (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1980), p. 188. 94 crisis" to change it, an exact analysis of the relationship of forces, i.e., state and non-state apparatuses, political relations, economic relations, cultural practices, religious practices, and popular beliefs, must be precisely ascertained and understood. According to Gramsci,

...all these elements are the concrete manifestation of the conjunctural fluctuations of the totality of social relations of force, on whose terrain the passage takes p l a c e . ...14 from one social formation to another social formation.

Being a myopic view, economism is severely restrained in coming to a comprehensive understanding of the complex materiality of the above social forces, and the exigencies of each in the constitution of an organic crisis. Only the science of dialectics "...within which the general concepts of history, politics and economics are interwoven in an organic unity..."1® can provide accurate knowledge of social realities. Hence, the denial of dialectics leads to poor Marxist theory, to poor results, and to a poor understanding of social formations and social relations.

Positivism

Gramsci's rejection of economism is also tied to his rejection of positivism that objectifies atomistic data by destroying the totality of social existence into fragmented

14Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, p. 185,

ISibid., p. 431. 95

"social facts" that are declared to be universal categories. He argues that Nickolai Bukharin's The Theorv of Historical Materialism (1921) is a prime example of this form of theorizing where economism and positivism are jointed together. Gramsci contends that this is vulgar materialism; bent on applying the principles of positivism to a Marxism predicated on the "iron laws" of historical materialism that seeks to forecast future events with the exactness of the natural sciences. He characterizes

Bukharin's work as

...an attempt to drive "experimentally" the laws of evolution of human society in such a way as to "predict" that the oak tree will develop out of an acorn.

Gramsci insists that the question of predictability cannot take into account the intrinsic variability that exists between human beings and their relations to nature. These complex relations are dialectical in form, never given, and extremely difficult to predict. Hence, any quest for "laws of historical development" and "human nature" can only be conceived of as tendencies and not as universal absolutes.

The appropriation of positivism by Marxism merely acts to reproduce the reified categories of bourgeois science, and contributes to the destruction of the dialectical form of the Marxist totality. Gramsci states that

l®Ibid., p. 426. 96

In reality one can "scientifically" foresee only the struggle, but not the concrete moments of the struggle, which cannot but be the results of opposing forces in continuous movement, which are never reducible to fixed quantities since within them quantity is continually becoming quality.^?

Gramsci argues further that

Prediction is therefore only a practical act which cannot, at the risk of being an utterly futile waste of time, have any other explanation than that given above. It is necessary to pose in exact terms the problem of the predictability of historical events in order to be able to criticise exhaustively the conception of mechanical causalism, to rid it of any scientific prestige and reduce it to a pure myth....!®

Gramsci's epistemology in predicated on the rejection of economism, positivism, and evolutionary determinism associated with the work of Plekhanov, Kautsky, and

Bukharin. He poses instead a new problematic that is able to articulate the complexity of social relations into a

Marxist totality.

Gramsci's essay, "The Revolution against "Capital," is an affirmation of his hétérodoxie problematic. He writes that

In Russia, Marx's Capital was more the book of the bourgeoisie than of the proletariat. It stood as the critical demonstration of how events should follow a predetermined course: how in Russia a bourgeoisie had to develop, and a capitalist era had to open, with the setting-up of a Western-type civilzation, before the proletariat could even think in terms of its own revolt, its own class

l?Ibid., p. 438.

l®Ibid. 97

demands, its own revolution. ^9

But human action, Lenin and the Bolsheviks, could not wait for a bourgeois revolution to happen. They acted upon history to make history by negating the mythically given stages of historical evolution. Gramsci continues by saying that

Events have exploded the critical schema determining how the history of Russia would unfold according to the canons of historical materialism. ...The cannons of historical materialism are not so rigid as might have been and has been thought.20

For Gramsci, the Bolsheviks

...are not "Marxists"...; they have not used the works of the Master to compile a rigid doctrine of dogmatic utterances never to be questioned. They live Marxist thought— that thought which is eternal, which represents the continuation of German and Italian idealism, and which in the case of Marx was contaminated by positivist and naturalist encrustations.21

Gramsci goes on to disclose the dialectical/relational

character of Marxism. He states;

This thought sees the dominant factor in history, not raw economic facts, but man, men in societies, men in relation to one another, reaching agreements with one another, developing through these contacts (civilization) a collective, social will; men coming to understand economic facts, judging them and adopting them to their will until this becomes the driving force of the economy and moulds objective reality, which lives and moves and comes to resemble a current of volcanic lava that can be

19Antonio Gramsci, "The Revolution Against 'Capital,'" in Selections from Political Writings 1910-1920 (New York; International Publishers, 1977), p. 34.

2°ibid.

21 ib id . 98

channelled wherever and in whatever way men's will determines.22

Given the nature of economism and positivism, Gramsci concludes that

It is therefore necessary to combat economism [and positivism] not only in the theory of historiography, but also and especially in the theory and practice of politics. In this field, the struggle can and must be carried on by developing the concept of hegemony.... 23

One can thus conclude that the work of Althusser and

Poulantzas is directly tied to Gramsci's founding of an epistemology that breaks with any Marxism that is nomologically oriented. These writers are united on their perception of history as being dialectical, ever changing, and without its outcomes ever being pre-established. For them, history does not follow some pre-determined evolutionary course. Historical conjunctures do not unfold as they are construed by positivism, economism, and dogmatism. Social relations are by their nature dialectical and overdetermined. Only by comprehending this fact can one arrive at an understanding of the constitution of the complexity of the social relations of existence.

Heaemonv

Hegemony is Gramsci's master dialectical concept.

Through this concept Gramsci is able to articulate a

22%bid., pp.34-35.

23cramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, p. 165. 99 dynamic, creative, dialectical, and analytical problematic that establishes a gnoseology that is able to capture the essence of the ensemble of social relations. In this sense. Hegemony, as conceptualized by Gramsci, is a major breakthrough for Marxist thought. Hegemony^* is a Greek term which means: to lead the way, to lead in war, to rule, to command, to have or take command, to be ruled, have authority, have the primacy, going first, leading the way by example, political supremacy, political leadership, authoritative, guiding, one who does a thing first, shows the way to o t h e r s . 25 Gramsci's usage embodies all of the above dialectical notions of hegemony. Hegemony as elaborated and developed by Gramsci becomes a very powerful concept because of its immense epistemological and heuristic value. Gramsci remarks that Lenin is responsible

for "...the philosophical importance of the concept and the

fact of h e g e m o n y .... 25 This attribution of the concept by

Gramsci to Lenin does not hold since the origin and use of the concept can be traced back to H o m e r . 2? it should be pointed out here that Gramsci's knowledge of the concept is

24Hoare and Smith claim that Gramsci uses the Greek term egemonia interchangeably with the Latin term direzione. For a detailed analysis of this, see footnote 5 in Gramsci, The Prison Notebooks, p. 55.

2®Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, A Greek- English Lexicon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1843/1961),

2®Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, p. 381,

2?Liddell and Scott, A Greek-Enalish Lexicon. 100 not derived from Lenin. I believe that Gramsci's knowledge of hegemony can be attributed to his extensive philological studies, Greek and Latin, as a student in Turin.2® The idea of hegemony can be found throughout history, e.g.,

Athenian hegemony in 5th century Greece. However, a more direct paradigmatic figure for Gramsci's conceptualization of hegemony, I believe, is Machiavelli.29 This is clearly evident in Gramsci's notebooks on Machiavelli. It is through Machiavelli's Prince and centaur®® that Gramsci is

2®See Paul Piccone, Italian Marxism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983); Alastair Davidson, Antonio Gramsci: Towards and Intellectual Bioaranhv (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1977); and John M. Cammett, Antonio Gramsci and the Origins of Italian Communism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1967).

29civen Gramsci's intimate knowledge of Machiavelli and the political and historical meanings of the notion of hegemony, it is inappropriate to attribute Gramsci's appropriation of the concept of hegemony as being derived from the Comintern tradition as Anderson claims: "Yet there is no doubt that Gramsci started from certain constant connotations of the concept, which he derived from Comintern tradition." Anderson, "The Antinomies of Antonio Gramsci, pp. 18-19. After making this point, Anderson goes on to state on the next page that "Gramsci...employed the concept of hegemony for a differential analysis of the structures of bourgeois power in the West. This was a new and decisive step. ...The result was an apparently formal sequence of propositions about the nature of power in history. Symbolically, Gramsci took Machiavelli's work as his starting-point for this new range of theory." Ibid., p. 20.

3®Gramsci's usage of Machiavelli's centaur as the hegemonic way of The Prince is stated as follows by Machiavelli: "You should understand, therefore, that there are two ways of fighting: by law or by force. The first way is natural to men, and the second to beasts. But as the first way often proves inadequate one must...have recourse to the second. So a prince must understand how to make a nice use of the beast and the man. The ancient 101 able to fully and clearly ascertain the dialectical nature of hegemony. He translates Machiavelli's Prince into The

Modern Prince— the communist party.As to Machiavelli's centaur, Gramsci translates its half-human and half-animal being as representing

...the levels of force and consent, authority and hegemony, violence and civilisation, of the individual moment and of the universal moment..., of agitation and of propaganda, of tactics, and of strategy, etc.®®

Through Machiavelli, Gramsci is able to discover that hegemony and hegemonic ideas are products of human creation that come to exercise enormous power over social relations. In this sense, hegemonic ideas have to be understood and developed bearing in mind that the hegemonic content of these ideas has to be raised to the surface as the means of counteracting the dominant order, while working toward establishing a new hegemony based on the subaltern classes. Following Poulantzas in this sense, the writers taught princes about this by an allegory, when they described how Achilles and many other princes of the ancient world were sent to be brought up by Chiron, the centaur, so that he might train them his way. All the allegory means, in making the teacher half beast and half man, is that a prince must know how to act according to the nature of both, and that he cannot survive otherwise." Quoted in Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks. p. 170.

®lGramsci separates the prince of the past with the modern prince of today when he states that "...the protagonist of the new Prince could not in the modern epoch be an individual hero, but only the political party." Ibid., p. 147.

32 Ibid., p. 170. 102 exercise of hegemony has "pertinent effects" on what

Gramsci calls the institutions of "civil" and "political society," i.e., in their organization and transformation

(schools, the State, politics, the economy, etc.).

Hegemony is an extremely difficult concept that has often been used incorrectly. What follows is an attempt to indicate the misappropriation of hegemony that denies its true dialectical qualities. First, hegemony is often associated with the functionalist view of working toward the establishment of consensus in society. This consensual view is expressed through a functionalist paradigm that is unable to present hegemony in any concrete way without negating its most significant qualities. It therefore sees hegemony as an imperative of a system without addressing itself to counter-hegemony. This is because of its inability to deal with the conflictuel nature/relations of force through which hegemony is continually being negotiated. Hence, functionalism cannot give any specificity to hegemony because of its denial of conflict even when it posits a conflict-functionalist approach. In this view, hegemony is stripped of its content, and operationalized as one of the instrumental mechanisms necessary to the maintenance of a homeostatic system.

Thus, the functionalist view is unable to recognize that hegemony is never a pre-given quantity; but rather an antagonistic relationship that is challenged and contested 103 by subaltern groups. What appears to be consensus/hegemony for functionalism is, in reality, the effect of negotiations between unequal social forces that confront each other in a series of short-term compromises leading to the establishment of a contradictory equilibrium, and not a consensus equilibrium that sustains the status quo. The status quo is always being contested and re-negotiated.

Second is the conflation of hegemony with Weber's concept of legitimacy. Here hegemony becomes the vehicle for the establishment and maintenance of Weber's legitimate forms of domination. Hegemony treated as legitimacy can only play this role if it is drained of its counter- hegemonic elements becoming encased in Weber's ideal- typical, non-dialectical, forms of domination— traditional, charismatic, and legal-rational.®®

Finally, hegemony is equated with the dominant ideology. Here a class is said to exercise hegemony when it is able to impose its own ideology on a whole social formation. Hegemony exercised by a dominant class, through its ideology, is conceived as being an organically constituted ideology by that class for its own interests that permeates the whole of social relations. This is an instrumentalist view of hegemony, which has much in common with Lukacs' conception of ideology/hegemony as being a

®®For an attempt toward a Weber-Gramsci convergence, see Robert Bocock, Heaemonv (New York: Tavistock Publications, 1986), pp. 83-102. 104 class conscious Weltanschauung that is imposed by a dominant class over subordinate classes. The argument follows that the proletariat, when it seizes power, will be able to assert its own ideology/hegemony on a whole social formation.

All of the above positions suffer from an inability to come to grips with the limited and incomplete theorization of the concept of hegemony. They are unable to deal with the idea that hegemony exists in tension; and thus, they cannot specify that hegemony must be fought over on the terrain of civil society. Gramsci's concept of hegemony is operative on the economic, political, and ideological levels as well as on the relations between and within classes. The above positions lack the theoretical power to theorize and operationalize hegemony on these levels.

The organic qualities of Gramsci's definition of hegemony retain their complete fidelity to their original

Greek meanings. Gramsci states that

...the supremacy of a social group manifests itself in two ways, as "domination" and as "intellectual and moral leadership." A social group dominates antagonistic groups, which it tends to "liquidate," or to subjugate perhaps even by armed force; it leads kindred and allied groups. A social group can, and indeed must, already exercise "leadership" before winning governmental power (that indeed is one of the principle conditions for the winning of such power); it subsequently becomes dominant when it exercises power, but even if it holds it firmly 105

in its grasp, it must continue to "lead" as w e l l . ® *

An earlier draft of the above addresses specifically the idea of "leading" and "political leadership" as well as the interchangeability between hegemony, domination, and leadership. Gramsci points out that

...a class is dominant in two ways, i.e. "leading" and "dominant." It leads the classes which are its allies, and dominates those which are its enemies. Therefore, even before attaining power a class can (and must) "lead"...as well...there can and must be a "political hegemony" even before the attainment of governmental power, and one should not count solely on the power and material force which such a position gives in order to exercise political leadership or hegemony.®®

The Specificitv of Heaemonv

Hegemony is never a given product, rather it is constructed/articulated through a series of confrontations with opposing interests in conjunctures which manifest themselves on a variety of levels. Once hegemony is established within a given relation of forces, it must be continuously active in its sustainment and development.

Stuart Hall defines hegemony as

...the struggle to articulate the position of "leadership" within a social formation, the attempt by the ruling bloc to win for itself the position of leadership across the entire terrain of cultural and political life. Hegemony involves the mobilization of popular support, by a particular social bloc, for the broad range of its social projects. In this way, the people assent to a

®*Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, pp. 57-58.

®®Ibid., p. 57. 106

particular social order, to a particular system of power, to a particular articulation of chains of equivalence by which the interests of the ruling bloc come to define the leading positions of the people. It is a struggle over "the popular," a matter of the articulated relations, not only within civil society...but between the State (as a condensed site of power), the economic sector and civil society.®®

Hegemony must be multi-dimensional working on a variety of fronts/positions. Once it is established, it still must look toward sustaining the interests of subordinate groups as a means of gaining their consent, which involves an organizational ability that extends beyond the economic- corporate interests of a social group into a myriad of institutions and social activities— ethical, moral, religious, political, economic, ideological, cultural, intellectual, educational, etc. Gramsci argues that

...the fact of hegemony presupposes that account be taken of the interests and the tendencies of the groups over which hegemony is to be exercised, and that a certain compromise equilibrium should be formed— in other words, that the leading group should make sacrifices of an economic-corporate kind. But there is also no doubt that such sacrifices and such a compromise cannot touch the essential; for though hegemony is ethico-political, it must also be economic, must necessarily be based on the decisive function exercised by the leading group in the decisive nucleus of economic activity.®?

Along these lines Gramsci notes that

Critical understanding of self takes place

®®Lawrence Grossberg, "History, Politics and Postmodernism; Stuart Hall and Cultural Studies," Journal of Communication Inquiry 10, no. 2 (Summer 1986);69.

®?Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, p. 161. 107

therefore through a struggle of political "hegemonies" and of opposing directions, first in the ethical field and then in that of politics proper, in order to arrive at the working out at a higher level of one's own conception of reality. Consciousness of being part of a particular hegemonic force (that is to say, political consciousness) is the first stage towards a further progressive self-consciousness in which theory and practice will finally be one.®®

Gramsci adds that

...the unity of theory and practice is not just a matter of mechanical fact, but a part of the historical process.... This is why it must be stressed that the political development of the concept of hegemony represents a great philosophical advance as well as a politico- practical one. For it necessarily supposes an individual unity and an ethic in conformity with a conception of reality that has gone beyond common sense and has become, if only within narrow limits, a critical conception.®®

Returning to two of the definitions of hegemony given earlier, one who does a thing first, and shows the way to others, it can be noted that the bourgeoisie, in its bourgeois revolutions, acted as a paradigmatic agent. It led the way into a new social formation— capitalism. It established a hegemonic principle enabling it to articulate a Weltanschauung and a Zeitgeist that were new and original in their content, policies, and aspirations. It is in this respect that Gramsci argues that the proletariat must assert itself: leading the way for others into a social formation with a uniquely new Weltanschauung and Zeitgeist

®®Ibid., p. 333.

®®Ibid., pp. 333-334. 108 that transcends all former social formations by establishing new ensembles of social relations and production. Hegemony, however, is not something imposed after a revolution. Hegemony must be constructed and articulated prior to a social groups' ascendancy. For

Gramsci, there must

...be hegemonic activity even before the rise to power, and that one should not count only on the material force which power gives in order to exercise an effective leadership.*®

Here Gramsci wants to expand the notion of hegemony beyond its restricted interpretations. He conceives of hegemony as taking into account various social relations: political, ideological, cultural, and economic. In order for a social group to exercise hegemony, it must be able to manifest its hegemony in multi-dimensional domains that will enable it to establish some level of social, moral, ethical, intellectual, political, and productive authority.

The exercise of leadership is not constituted through the auspices of a monolithic "ruling class," but rather through a historic bloc. According to Hall, a historic bloc

...has its critical reference to "class" as a determining level of analysis; but it does not translate whole classes directly on the political- ideological stage as unified historical actors. The "leading elements" in a historic bloc may be only one fraction of the dominant economic class— e.g., finance rather than industrial capital; national rather than international capital.

40 Ibid., p. 59. 109

Associated with it, within the "bloc," will be strata of the subaltern and dominant classes, who have been won over by specific concessions and compromises and who form part of the social constellation but in a subordinate role.*®-

Hall adds that

The "winning over" of these sections is the result of the forging of "expansive, universalizing alliances" which cement the historic bloc under a particular leadership. Each hegemonic formation will thus have its own, specific social composition and configuration. This is a very different way of conceptualizing what is often referred to, loosely and inaccurately, as the "ruling class."*®

Heaemonv and Ideoloav

In the context of the above, it is important to discuss the role that ideology plays for Gramsci. He holds the view that "ideology serves to cement and to unify"*® a

social formation, and that hegemony works through ideology.

The content of ideology is neither true nor false, rather

it is its power to articulate, i.e., elaborate, combine,

cement, glue, bind, etc., together classes and interests

into positions of subordination and domination, by

providing a particular view of "reality." For Gramsci,

..."ideology" [is] a conception of the world that is implicitly manifest in art, in law, in economic activity and in all manifestations of individual and collective life.**

*®-Stuart Hall, "Gramsci's Relevance for the Study of Race and Ethnicity," p. 15.

*®Ibid.

*®Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, p. 328, **Ibid. 110

Ideological hegemony may be conceived of encompassing a whole range of social artifacts— beliefs, values, attitudes, norms, culture, law, etc.— that permeate the whole of society, constituting it as a cemented class structure through a myriad of dominational apparatuses/mechanisms. The transmission belts of ideological hegemony transverse the whole of social relations including the State, legal system, schools, churches, bureaucracies, cultural activities, the media, the family, politics, voluntary associations, etc.

According to Gramsci,

...men become conscious of fundamental conflicts on the level of ideology [which] is not psychological or moralistic in character, but structural and epistemological...*®

The articulation of ideological elements into a certain form has "historical validity" and power because "...they

'organize' human masses, and create the terrain on which men move, acquire consciousness of their position, struggle, etc."*® Articulation, then, can be regarded as a complex historical process of establishing particular practices where there is an ongoing struggle to construct a structural unity within a historical context loaded with contradictions, differences, and exigencies. Hall defines articulation as a "...connection that can make unity

*®Ibid., p. 164.

*®Ibid., p. 377. I l l of...different elements, under certain conditions."*? The form of unity that is established depends on how the elements are constituted, and how they will be reconstituted to fit the exigencies of certain conditions.

In this respect, there

...is a linkage which is not necessary, determined, absolute and essential for all time. You have to ask, under what circumstances can a connection be forged or made? So the so-called "unity" of a discourse is really the articulation of different, distinct elements which can be re-articulated in different ways because they have no necessary "belongingness." The "unity" which matters is a linkage between the articulated discourse and the social forces with which it can, under certain historical conditions...be connected. Thus, a theory of articulation is both a way of understanding how ideological elements come, under certain conditions, to cohere together within a discourse, and a way of asking how they do or do not become articulated, at specific conjunctures....*®

Religion can be used here to illustrate the point.

Religion has been articulated in different ways within the slave, feudal, Asiatic, capitalist, and socialist social formations. In each case, religion demonstrates a morphology constitutive of the particular imperatives of a social formation. Under feudalism, religious ideology held hegemonic power throughout the whole social formation by establishing the practices of the economy, politics, ideology, culture, education, family, church, etc. Under

*?Stuart Hall, "On Postmodernism and Articulation," Journal of Communication Inouirv 10, no. 2 (Summer 1986);53

*®Ibid. 112 successful bourgeois revolutions, e.g., in the United

States and in France, religion lost its hegemonic totalizing power in politics and the economy, but it did not cease as a social practice. It was re-articulated in a different way to the exigencies of capitalism.*9

Gramsci argues that "...'hegemonic principles' meet and confront each other..."50 in the field of ideological struggle. In order for a hegemonic bloc to sustain itself, it must be able to assert "... its articulating principle which will always be provided by the hegemonic class."51

^^Articulation theory has also been widely used in the study of social formations. A social formation is constituted through an articulation process where two or more modes of production are operational with one mode of production being dominant. For a detailed examination of this view, see Louis Althusser and Etienne Balibar, Reading Capital (London: NLB, 1970/Verso, 1979); Nicos Poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes (London: NLB, 1973) ; V.I. Lenin, The Development of Capitalism in Russia (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1956); John G. Taylor, From Modernization to Modes of Production: A Critique of the Sociologies of Development (London: Macmillan, 1979); Joel S. Kahn and Joseph R. Llobera, ed., The Anthropology of Pre-Capitalist Societies (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1981); David Seddon, ed.. Relations of Production (Totowa, NJ: Frank Cass, 1978); Barry Hindess and Paul Q. Hirst, Pre-Capitalist Modes of Production (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975); Barry Hindess and Paul Q. Hirst, Modes of Production and Social Formation: An Autocritique (London: Macmillan, 1977) ; Harold Wolpe, ed., The Articulation of the Modes of Production (Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980); and Charles Bettelheim, Economic Calculation and Forms of Property (New York: Monthly Review, 1075).

50chantal Mouffe, "Hegemony and Ideology in Gramsci," in Chantai Mouffe, ed., Gramsci and Marxist Theory (Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979), p. 186.

51ibid., p. 193. 113

Within any ideological struggle, there is a continuous

"...process of disarticulation-re-articulation of given ideological elements in a struggle between two hegemonic principles to appropriate these elements..."52 under its own rubric of hegemony. Chantai Mouffe points out that

Ideological ensembles existing at a given moment are, therefore, the result of the relations of force between the rival hegemonic principles ...undergo[ing] a perpetual process of transformation.53

The specificity of this process is given by Mouffe as follows:

1. The unifying principle of an ideological system is constituted by the hegemonic principle which serves to articulate all the other ideological elements. It is always the expression of a fundamental class. 2. The class character of an ideology or of an ideological element stems from the hegemonic principle which serves as its articulating centre.54

A hegemonic principle need not have any intrinsic virtue or logic in order for it to prevail. What, then, is the basis for one hegemonic principle to succeed over another?

Following Gramsci, Mouffe points out that it is its ability to articulate itself into a "popular religion," i.e., becoming linked to some "national-popular" (conscious or unconscious) way of life that is embodied in the "people- nation." Mouffe states that

52ibid.

53ibid., p. 194.

54%bid. 114

A successful hegemony is one which manages to create a "collective national-popular will," and for this to happen the dominant class must have been capable of articulating to its hegemonic principle all the national-popular ideological elements, since it is only if this happens that it (the class) appears as the representative of the general interest. This is why the ideological elements expressing the "national-popular" are often at stake in the fierce struggle between classes fighting for h e g e m o n y . 55

Given the complexities of hegemony and ideology, the monistic notion, which reduces the ruling class ideology to a "dominant ideology," cannot be sustained.

The cementing of an ideology involves an articulation process that brings together elements of common sense that are historically unattached, disjointed, contradictory, fragmented, and even false.' According to

Gramsci, common sense is a morphology of

. .. Stone Age elements and principles of a more advanced science, prejudices from all past phases of history at the local level and institutions of a future philosophy....56

Gramsci further defines common sense to be

55ibid. For Gramsci, these "national-popular" beliefs are also the terrain of contention because they "...are themselves material forces." Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, p. 165. Gramsci adds further that "The conception of a historical bloc in which precisely material forces are the content and ideologies are the form..., the material forces would in inconceivable historically without form and the ideologies would be individual fancies without the material force." Ibid. p. 377. For a comparison between Gramsci and Mao on hegemony, see Nigel Todd, "Ideological Superstructure in Gramsci and Mao Tse Tung," Journal of the Historv of Ideas 35, no. 1 (January-March 1974);148-156.

56cramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, p. 324. 115

...the "philosophy of non-philosophers," or in other words the conception of the world which is uncritically absorbed by the various social and cultural environments in which the moral individuality of the average men is developed. Common sense is not a single unique conception identical in time and space. It is the "folklore" of philosophy, and, like folklore, it takes countless different forms. Its most fundamental characteristic is that it is a conception which, even in the brain of one individual, is fragmentary, incoherent, and inconsequential, in conformity with the social and cultural position of those masses whose philosophy it is.5?

To escape from all this involves the construction of an edifice that allows the power of criticism to intervene.

As Gramsci put it

To criticise one's own conception of world means therefore to make it a coherent unity and to raise it to the level reached by the most advanced thought in the world. It therefore also means criticism of all previous philosophy, in so far as this has left stratified deposits in popular philosophy. The starting-point of critical elaboration is the consciousness of what one really is, and is "knowing thyself" as a product of the historical process to date which has deposited in you an infinity of traces, without leaving an inventory.58

It is in this sense that a hegemonic bloc attempts to sustain its power by justifying the existing constitution of the ensemble of social relations— wealth, power, class, ideology, nationalism, religion, etc.— as being "natural" aspects of the system, the sedimented residuals of common

5?ibid., p. 419.

58ibid., p. 324. The establishment of a particular world-view is shaped by the fact that hegemony is erected through consent stemming from an edifice of private and non-private institutions and organizations. 116 sense, popular culture, and folklore, that spontaneously manifest themselves in a conception of the world. It is through the operationalization of the "natural" that popular consent is voluntarily secured thereby sustaining a hegemonic bloc's prerogative to rule.

For Gramsci,

Every relationship of "hegemony" is necessarily an educational relationship and occurs not only within a nation, between the various forces of which the nation is composed, but in the international and world-wide field, between complexes of national and continental civilisations.59

What Gramsci is saying here is that the relationship of hegemony has broad parameters whereupon the terrain of struggle can be waged. It is a struggle over the articulation of social relations within civil society into particular forms, establishing unique ontologies, informing people's consciousness, and everyday activities. The dialectical nature of hegemony is captured in the following passage from The Prison Notebooks:

The "normal" exercise of hegemony on the now classical terrain of the parliamentary regime is characterised by the combination of force and consent, which balance each other reciprocally, without force predominating excessively over consent. Indeed, the attempt is always made to ensure that force will appear to be based on the consent of the majority, expressed by the so-called organs of public opinion— newspapers and associations.... Between consent and force stands corruption/fraud (which is characteristic of certain situations when it is hard to exercise the hegemonic function, and when the use of force is too risky). This consists in procuring the

59ibid., p. 350. 117

demoralisation and paralysis of the antagonist (or antagonists) by buying its leaders— either covertly, or, in cases of imminent danger, openly— in order to sow disarray and confusion in his ranks.GO

Gramsci concludes that in the aftermath of World War I, the edifice of hegemony began to crumble: "...cracks opened up everywhere in the hegemonic apparatus, and the exercise of hegemony became permanently difficult and aleatory."Gi The ultimate effect was a crisis of hegemony which saw the rise of fascism in Europe, and the restructuring of the capitalist system in the United States through the New

Deal. This restructuring involved the implementation of political and economic reforms, i.e., a passive revolution

from above. Hence, the hegemonic ideology was shaken but

it did not collapse.

Civil Societv and the State

The modern State rests on a very complex and

developed edifice with the power to organize and wield hegemony. It is at the same time the site for contesting

the social arrangements as well as the terrain for its

transcendence. Gramsci points out that

In the ancient and mediaeval State alike, centralisation, whether political-territorial or social...was minimal. The State was, in a certain sense a mechanical bloc of social groups...within the circle of political-military compression, which was only exercised harshly at certain moments, the

GOibid., p. 80.

Glibid. 118

subaltern groups had a life of their own, institutions of their own, etc., and sometimes these institutions had State functions which made of the State a federation of social groups with disparate functions not subordinated in any way....G2

Under feudalism, individuals were part of different associations— estates, guilds— that contained within them structured relations, which also separated them socially

(positionally) within the mechanical bloc of the State. As

feudalism began to break down,G3 e.g., by revolutions, so did the relations which were associated with it. It was through the rise of bourgeois societies that civil society began to emerge. Civil society saw the severing of the bonds which held individuals to the social relations of the

feudal social formations of production. The old bonds of

rank and privilege were replaced by the actualization of needs through the formation of new bonds of social

organization. Under civil society, individuals became

atomized, separate entities, with the political identity of

free agents, free citizens, free labor, i.e., free from the bonds of feudal organization. It is in this context of the

emergence of bourgeois society, i.e., civil society, that

Gramsci comes to characterize the modern State as being a pervasive entity that penetrates the ensemble of social

relations. In contrast to the feudal State, Gramsci claims

62Ibid., p. 54,

G3see Rodney Hilton, The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism (London: NLB, 1976). 119 that

The modern State substitutes for the mechanical bloc of social groups their subordination to the active hegemony of the directive and dominant group, hence abolish[ing] certain autonomies, which nevertheless are reborn in other forms, as parties, trade unions, cultural associations.G4

The modern S t a t e ^ S becomes a new more powerful terrain through which hegemony can be exercised. Gramsci argues

...that the general notion of State includes elements which need to be referred back to the notion of civil society (in the sense that one might say that State = political society + civil society, in other words hegemony protected by the armour of coercion).G6

The modern State does not just help in the organization of hegemony/consent, it is also protected by the hegemony organized in civil society. It also reinforces and fortifies the hegemony of the dominant classes through

The apparatus of state coercive power which "legally" enforces discipline on those groups who do not "consent" either actively or passively. This apparatus is, however, constituted for the whole of society in anticipation of moments of crisis of command and direction when spontaneous

G4cramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, p., 54.

G5in the case of exceptional forms of regime, e.g., dictatorships, fascism, etc., the State attempts to subsume all the relations of civil society under its suzerainty. These regimes use whatever means at their disposal (legal or illegal) to "...abolish these new forms of autonomy..., [political parties, trade unions, etc.] and strive to incorporate them within State activity: the legal centralisation of the entire national life in the hands of the dominant group becomes 'totalitarian.'" Ibid.

GGibid., p. 263. 120

consent has failed.G?

The State only falls back to the coercive State apparatus of power (the Repressive State Apparatus of Althusser and

Poulantzas) when it is unable to obtain "spontaneous" consent organized through the institutions of civil society

(the Ideological State Apparatuses of Althusser and

Poulantzas) . "Spontaneous" consent arises through the approval of the masses of

...the general direction imposed on social life by the dominant fundamental group; this consent is "historically" caused by the prestige (and consequent confidence) which the dominant group enjoys because of its position and function in the world of production.G8

As Gramsci put it, it becomes quite evident that

...the State is the entire complex of practical and theoretical activities with which the ruling class not only justifies and maintains its dominance, but manages to win the active consent of those over whom it rules....G9

Ultimately for Gramsci, the State is "...not only the apparatus of government, but also the 'private' apparatus of 'hegemony' or civil society...."^0 The exercise of ideology/hegemony in the modern capitalist society is mediated through the ability of the State to preserve and protect the whole complex ensemble of private and public

G?lbid., p. 12.

G8ibid.

G^ibid., p. 244.

7°Ibid., p. 261. 121 institutions, which legitimize the power of the bourgeoisie by establishing its values and definitions of reality, as the universal absolute values, which the whole society must ascribe to and execute within established parameters. In this context, the modern State, then, has expanded exponentially into manifold social relations inconceivable in the past.

Schematically, it can be shown that the State carries out several functions that enable it to sustain the above relations. First, the "...State tends to create and maintain a certain type of civilisation and citizen.In this respect, the State is able to elevate the collective life of individuals by establishing certain patterns of thought, attitudes, values, customs, education, law, etc.

However, these functions are carried out so as to meet the exigencies of the dominant classes. The primary apparatus that is able to elevate the collective life of individuals is the school. It is through mass public education, higher education, and specialized education that the posts of the

State are filled with all sorts of accountants, clerks, administrators, ambassadors, police, higher and lower military officers, teachers, professors, lawyers, medical practioners, and all other sorts of professionals and non­ professionals filling the slots of the tertiary sphere, in other words, priests of all sorts. Second, the State

71lbid., p. 246. 122 establishes the ethical functions under which it operates.

In effect, it defines how people must behave within given relations of production. For Gramsci,

...every State is ethical in as much as one of its important functions is to raise the great mass of the population to a particular cultural and moral level, a level (or type) which corresponds to the needs of the productive forces for development, and hence to the interests of the ruling classes.

The bourgeois class advances its ethics by asserting the belief that its ethics are universal and must be perpetuated in order to sustain the system. Hence, bourgeois ethics exercise a tremendous amount of ideological power by saturating civil society, thereby, enabling the bourgeoisie to organize consent on its behalf.

Gramsci holds that the whole bourgeois class aims toward the absorption of the whole of society "...to its own cultural and economic l e v e l . To this end, the school has the function of educating the masses. Education raises the masses to fit into the slots of the system given the exigencies of the system. Finally, there are repressive functions, e.g., the courts, which also educate the masses as to what is acceptable and not acceptable. The courts educate the masses to the negative sanctions they will encounter if they deviate from what is given. According to

Gramsci, these are important State activities. However,

72lbid., p. 258.

73lbid., p. 260 123 these are not the only mechanisms through which the

interests of the dominant classes are promoted. He points

out that in reality there are

...a multitude of other so-called private initiatives and activities which form the apparatus of the political and cultural hegemony of the ruling classes.

There is, then, a myriad of practices through which the bourgeoisie materializes and reproduces its view of

history. In contradistinction to the bourgeoisie, Gramsci

states that

The previous ruling classes were essentially conservative in the sense that they did not tend to construct an organic passage from the other classes into their own, i.e. to enlarge their class sphere "technically" and ideologically: their conception was that of a closed caste.?5

The bourgeoisie is able to saturate the whole

society with its ideological, political, and economic

imperatives by establishing law (juridico-political) as its

primary mechanism, in contrast, to the inherited privileges

of the former ruling classes under feudalism. The dominant

class, the bourgeoisie, is able to win the active consent

over the dominated classes through the State, given that

the State "... is an instrument of 'rationalisation,'...and of Taylorisation."76 The State operates through the

establishment of politics, laws, etc., that solicit.

74ibid., p. 258.

75lbid., p. 260.

76ibid., p. 247. 124 incite, urge, and punish. In this context, the State is not only the night-watchman,77 but also the day-watchman.

In a single stroke, the State accomplishes two functions: l. it facilitates the interests of the dominant class, organizing and articulating its interests, thereby, sustaining its hegemony; and 2. it undermines and disarticulates the interests of the dominated classes, thereby, maintaining their lack of hegemony, reducing them to a perpetual state of subordination and weakness. In this sense, the State becomes the very basis through which class compromises are negotiated without touching the essential. Thus, the State constitutes the terrain for inter-class and intra-class struggles. It must be pointed out that the State and civil society are riddled with contradictions on the inter-class and on the intra-class levels (Gramsci's historic bloc, or in Poulantzas' usage the power bloc). What intervenes to upset this structure of relations? Ultimately, in the last analysis, it is an

"organic crisis" which disarticulates the whole system preventing i t from attaining its imperatives. 78

77ibid., pp. 261-262.

78It should be noted that the repressive and ideological functions of the State are ubiquitous. The repressive and ideological State apparatuses are always mobilized. The repressive apparatus operates sectorally through the law, the courts, the police, etc., in the affirmation of the hegemony of the dominant classes. The release of the repressive apparatus in the fullest sense, e.g., the army, the national guard, the police, etc., only arises when the hegemony of the dominant classes is in 125

How do people understand the State? The argument

that Gramsci makes holds equally well for primitive

capitalist societies as well as for advanced capitalist

societies. He says that "the peasant, and even the smaller

farmer, hates the civil servant; he does not hate the

State, for he does not understand it."79 This incapacity

of people to comprehend the State transverses the whole of

civil society. People are unable to understand the

policies of the State because they do not understand the

class nature of the State; compounded by its ability to mystify and camouflage its class nature. In the examples

that Gramsci gives, the peasants and the smaller farmers

are basically kept at a distance from the State and its

policy formation. Their only confrontation is with the

functionaries of the State, those in uniform, and behind

the bureaus, who confront the common citizen. In their

quest for an amelioration to their problems, the peasants,

small farmers, and common citizens only find frustration,

red tape, protocol numbers, and hours of public admittance

in their confrontation with the "civil servants"— the

State.

War of Position and War of Maneuver

A central feature underpinning Gramsci's problematic

"deep" crisis, or when the system is confronted with an "organic" crisis.

79cramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, p. 272 126 is the transformation of social reactions founded on bourgeois hegemony by subaltern groups. He advances the thesis that the strategy applied in the East, the war of maneuver, a frontal attack on the State, was successful because civil society was atrophic. This same strategy, however, cannot be utilized in the West due to: l. the highly developed and complex nature of civil society; and

2. because the State is syncretic, organized, and rational. Gramsci's position advances beyond any mechanistic, instrumentalist, and economistic forms of the

State. He argues that the political struggle between classes is carried out on the terrain of civil society, and on the terrain of the State,®® where the "State = political society + civil society." In these formulations, Gramsci recognizes the true form of the State as a mechanism that exercises power through ideological hegemony i.e., the ideological and repressive State apparatuses in civil society. Orthodox Marxism conceptualizes the State as an instrument of the ruling classes wielded in their interests. Thus, the State is conceptualized as being devoid of the interests of the subordinate classes with no need to plug into the emerging relations in civil society.

Orthodox Marxism, then, is unable to deal with hegemony in its dialectical sense— the exercise of hegemony by the

®®This is Poulantzas' position also in State Power Socialism. 127 dominant classes and the development of counter-hegemony by the subaltern classes. According to Buci-Glucksmann,

Gramsci's theoretical epistemological positions were conditioned by the

...crisis of the workers' movement, in the face of fascism, the defeat of the proletarian revolution in the West, and the historical turning-point of the nineteen-thirties.®1

These crises, however, pointed to the lacunae in Marxist

theory. The crisis within Marxism was "...the crisis of a

certain...[brand] of Marxism, the crisis of a false and

unilateral analysis of the State."®2 These formulations

undertheorize the State by conceiving it only as a

"...repressive instrument in the hands of a class-subject

who wields it...."®® Such a view underestimates the role

of classes, ideology, politics, the economy, and the

ability of capitalism to recalibrate/reconstitute itself as

a system. These positions of a deformed Marxism are unable

to develop and theorize a subaltern counter-hegemonic

strategy built on forged alliances in civil society. The

failure of Marxism, in this period, can be attributed to

1. its misunderstanding of the nature of advanced

capitalist society, and 2. by advancing an incorrect

strategy of a war of maneuver, or a frontal attack on the

®^Christine Buci-Glucksmann, Gramsci and the State (London; Lawrence and Wishart, 1980), p. x.

®2lbid.

®®Ibid., pp. x-xi. 128

State. Gramsci illustrates this weakness of Marxism in a superb exegesis.

The superstructures of civil society are like the trench-systems of modern warfare. In war it would sometimes happen that a fierce artillery attack seemed to have destroyed the enemy's entire defensive system, whereas in fact it had only destroyed the outer perimeter; and at the moment of their advance and attack the assailants would find themselves confronted by a line of defense which was still effective.®4

This military analogy demonstrates the strength of civil society attacked either in the periphery or in the center through a frontal attack on the State. The failure of the

KPD to take power in Germany in the aftermath of WWI can be attributed to the inappropriateness of the frontal attack type of strategy that it employed. Gramsci's comparison between the Russian Revolution and revolutions in the West speaks directly to the nature of the State and civil society in both cases.

In Russia the State was everything, civil society was primordial and gelatinous; in the West, there was a proper relation between State and civil society, and when the State trembled a sturdy structure of civil society was at once revealed. The State was only an outer ditch, behind which there stood a powerful system of fortresses and earthworks: more or less numerous from one State to the next....®5

Since each form of State and social formation is different, it becomes necessary to study "...'in depth' which elements of civil society correspond to the defensive systems in a

®^Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, p. 235.

®5ibid., p. 238. 129 war of position."®® Gramsci makes a very significant point when he says that "... it goes without saying [that]...an

accurate reconnaissance [must be undertaken] of each

individual country."®? This view corresponds to

Poulantzas' position that no general theory is appropriate

for dealing with the State in all cases. Such a theory is

not possible because it cannot capture the specificity of

each social formation. This is because each State, like

each social formation, requires a concrete analysis that

will disclose its unique characteristics. A concrete

analysis of a concrete social formation, and the type of

State embodied within it, must take into account the

historical development of the given social formation, the

genealogy of its classes, its articulations to different

modes of production, ideology, culture, etc.

For Gramsci, the war of position is the appropriate

"strategic form of praxis" in the case of advanced

capitalist countries with developed civil societies. This

is because

The massive structures of modern democracies, both as State organizations and as complexes of associations in civil society, constitute for the art of politics as it were the "trenches" and the permanent fortifications of the front in the war of position: they render merely "partial" the element of movement which before used to be "the whole" of

®®Ibid., p. 235.

®?Ibid., p. 238. 130

war, etc.®®

It is quite evident that in democratic societies there is no "Winter Place" to be charged and seized. The struggle must be waged progressively (with setbacks and successes) in the "trench" system of civil society. A war of position seeks to capture not the terrain of a single fortress, but the whole field of the ensemble of social relations.

The Crisis of Heqemonv

As noted earlier in the discussion of economism,

Gramsci's position is to assert that economism does not have the analytical power to predict or deal with economic crises. The shortcomings of economism are rooted in its reading off everything from the economic base. It postulates the thesis that once there is an economic cataclysm, the collapse of the whole system is immanent.

Sassoon,points out that

Economism limits the field of battle because it underestimates the concrete importance of the terrain of ideology, and...it does not understand the State because it does not possess the concept of hegemony.®®

Gramsci shows that in advanced capitalist States where civil society is highly complex "...catastrophic

'incursions' of the immediate economic element (crises.

®®Ibid., p. 243.

®®Sassoon, Gramsci's Politics, p. 188. 131 depressions, etc.)"®® are not strong enough to bring down a hegemonic structure. Although such crises do shake up a system, they do not, however, lead to its destruction. The reason that the system does not break apart can be attributed to the strength of the political, ideological, and even economic hegemony of the bourgeois class in cementing it together. Economism is unable to deal with the realities it is trying to explain. The same holds true for political crises. Political crises in themselves are also unable to cause a system to fall apart. Political and economic crises, in and of themselves, are like an artillery attack that does not destroy the defensive system. The reason is that

...the defenders are not demoralised, nor do they abondon their positions, even among the ruins, nor do they lose faith in their own strength or in their own future.®1

The ideological hegemony of the dominate class, its penetration into the "common sense" view of the masses, and its strength throughout the ensemble of social relations, acts as a strong adhesive which shows fractures but no breaks.

Since these crises raise to the surface structural problems as to the nature of the capitalist system, procedures can be implemented through a passive revolution

®®Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, p. 235, ®llbid. 132

(revolution from above) to restructure the system, thereby, preventing the collapse of a whole social formation. The passive revolution is a technique of reform which the bourgeoisie adopts to limit the fracturing of its hegemony.

This has been done in the implementation of fascism, in

Germany and Italy between the two World Wars, and in the depression of the 1930's in the United States through the

New Deal. According to Gramsci, the passive revolution in its fascist form in Italy was implemented

...through the legislative intervention of the State, and by means of the corporative organization— relatively far-reaching modifications...being introduced into the country's economic structure in order to accentuate the "plan of production" element; in other words, that socialisation and co-operation in the sphere of production are being increased, without however touching...individual and group appropriation of profit.®2

In effect, such crises have led to the restructuring and strengthening of the historical bloc,®® the State, and bourgeois hegemony in general.

In "Americanism and Fordism," Gramsci demonstrates the power of the State in its ability to intervene not only on the political and ideological dimensions, but also on the economic dimension to reorganize a capitalism in crisis along Fordist and Taylorist lines. The outcome of such a reorganization of capitalism challenges the power of the

®®Ibid., p. 120.

®®The historical bloc is equivalent to Poulantzas' power bloc. 133 working class to counteract it. In effect, the working class is out maneuvered. In Italy, working class organizations were either subsumed within the apparatuses of the fascist State or just destroyed. Given these developments, Sassoon argues that one cannot dismiss the

"...progressive element to a passive revolution in reorganizing bourgeois rule...."®^ This fact cannot be

ignored in any concrete study of the State. She argues

further that fascism through the power of the State was able to "...provide the conditions for the expansion of the productive forces in a period..."®® when the fractions of the bourgeois class had cancelled each other out, thereby,

leading to a lack of a unified policy, and a crisis in their hegemony. Gramsci develops this point further when he speaks of the role of the interventionist State.

The Concept of the interventionist State is of economic origin, and is connected on the one hand with tendencies supporting protection and economic nationalism, and on the other with the attempt to force a particular State personnel, of landowning and feudal origin, to take on the "protection" of the working classes against the excesses of capitalism (policy of Bismarck and Disraeli).®®

The imperatives of the interventionist State are to subsume under its domain the working classes through reforms from

above for the sole purpose of diffusing their interests.

®4sassoon, Gramsci's Politics, p. 215.

®®Ibid.

®®Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, p. 262, 134 thereby, declaring itself to be their "protector."

Passive revolutions, on another level, have the ability to establish in the common sense mind of the subaltern classes the view that the bourgeois class is able to cope with crises, and is, therefore, competent in re­ establishing the social formation on sure footing. Fascism in Italy, according to Sassoon, "...did not simply restore the status quo..., it changed the way in which masses of people related to the State...."®? The reason that the bourgeoisie was able to install a passive revolution speaks directly to the inability of the proletariat to assert its own alternative— counter-hegemony.

Gramsci recognizes this problem when he states that

The same thing happens in politics, during the economic crises. A crisis cannot give the attacking forces the ability to organise with lightning speed in time and space; still less can it endow them with fighting spirit.®®

This argument demonstrates the complexity that economism is unable to grasp in making a distinction between organic crises and common endemic crises of the capitalist system.

The primary problem of the economism, according to Gramsci,

is that it hinders "historico-political analysis" by confusing

...what is organic with what is conjunctural. This leads to presenting causes as immediately operative which in fact only operate indirectly, or to

®?Sassoon, Gramsci's Politics, p. 209.

®®Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, p. 235. 135

asserting that the immediate causes are the only effective ones."®®

In reality, neither economic nor political crises are

sufficient to cause a social formation to break apart.

They are only factors in a complex equation of social

forces. An organic crisis must fundamentally also embody a crisis of the hegemonic ideology.

The crisis of the hegemonic ideology is, for

Gramsci,

...the crisis of the ruling class's hegemony, which occurs either because the ruling class had failed in some major political undertaking for which it has requested, or forcibly extracted, the consent of the broad masses (war, for example), or because huge masses (especially of peasants and petit- bourgeois intellectuals) have passed suddenly from a state of political passivity to a certain activity, and put forward demands which taken together, albeit not organically formulated, add up to a revolution. A "crisis of authority" is spoken of: this is precisely the crisis of hegemony, or general crisis of the State.®®®

Gramsci adds that

If the ruling class has lost its consensus, i.e. is no longer "leading" but only "dominant," exercising coercive force alone, this means precisely that the great masses have become detached from their traditional ideologies, and no longer believe what they used to believe previously, etc.®®®

This means that the dominant class can no longer exercise

its leadership and domination. The hegemonic ideology

ceases to sanction the power of the dominant class because

®®Ibid., p. 178.

®®®Ibid., p. 210.

®®®Ibid., pp. 275-276. 136 it cannot claim the consent of the dominated classes. The hegemonic ideology is no longer strong enough to cement the social formation together. It can no longer serve as the motor that produces, operationalizes, and materializes the raison d'etre of the social formation. It is an ideology that cannot fulfill its hegemonic function, i.e., it cannot advance the dominant class nor the social formation in history. An organic crisis, therefore, is one in which the dominant class in unable to advance its hegemony— politically, economically, and ideologically. It should be noted that organic crises or hegemonic crises just do not happen nor do they just fall out of the sky, they are the culmination of contending classes— the products of class struggle.

Organic Intellectuals

An organic crisis necessitates the need of an ascending class to be in a position to assert its own hegemony. This function is accomplished by the ability of its organic intellectuals to fashion a new Weltanschauung.

The ascendancy of a social class is conditioned and implemented through the power of its organic intellectuals. According to Gramsci,

Every social group, coming into existence on the original terrain of an essential function in the world of economic production, creates together with itself, organically, one or more strata of intellectuals which give it homogeneity and an awareness of its own function not only in the economic but also in the social and political 137

fields.102

For Gramsci, then, intellectuals are the carriers,

formulators, transmitters, and administrators of the

ideological, political, and economic hegemony of a class.

They are, in effect, the producers and reproducers of

social relations which bind the subordinate classes to the

superordinate class. Intellectuals cannot, therefore, be

conceived of as being independent, free floating, in

society. They are not an independent and an amorphous

social category. Instead, they are a social category with

class linkages. Gramsci says that intellectuals constitute

... in general the entire social stratum which exercises an organisational function in the wide sense— whether in the field of production, or in that of culture, or in that of political administration.

Gramsci's definition of intellectuals is very original, and

full of heuristic p o w e r . ^04

The creation of organic intellectuals for the

working class is a very difficult and complex process.

Unlike the organic intellectuals of the bourgeoisie, the

Jacobins, the modern organic intellectuals of the working

lOZibid., p. 5.

103lbid., p. 97.

a developed elaboration of traditional intellectuals and clerics, and their differences in Northern and Southern Italy, see Antonio Gramsci, "Some Aspects of the Southern Question," in Selections from Political Writings 1921-1926 (New York: International Publishers, 1978), pp. 441-462. 138 class must fight inside and outside the trenches in the developed structures of civil society. The Jacobins were successful in organizing the interests of the bourgeoisie because the terrain of confrontation was marked by weak and collapsing fortresses of power: a non-syncretic State, ideological crises, and a crumbling economic and political system.

Marx and Engels in The Communist Manifesto give some insights as to the formation of organic intellectuals from traditional intellectuals. They state that

... in times when the class struggle nears the decisive hour, the process of dissolution going on within the ruling class, in fact within the whole range of old society, assumes a violent, glaring character, that a small section of the ruling class cuts itself adrift, and joins the revolutionary class, the class that holds the future in its hands. Just as, therefore, at an earlier period, a section of the nobility went over to the bourgeoisie, so now a portion of the bourgeoisie goes over to the proletariat, and in particular, a portion of the bourgeois ideologists, who have raised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movement as a whole. 3-05

The formulation of the above argument is developed further by Gramsci in that he recognizes the need of an ascending class to work toward the creation of its own organic intellectuals as well. He states that

One of the most important characteristics of any group that is developing towards dominance is its struggle to assimilate and to conquer "ideologically" the traditional intellectuals, but

lO^Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Communist Manifesto (New York: International Publishers, 1986), p.19. 139

this assimilation and conquest is made quicker and more efficacious the more the group in question succeeds in simultaneously elaborating its own organic intellectuals.

In order for an ascending class to create its own organic intellectuals in the fullest sense, it is imperative that a political party be founded. The political party thus becomes "the nomenclature for a class" conveying to the ascending class the means of expressing its aspirations, while also becoming the means for the class to achieve hegemony, to actualize itself as a hegemonic class. The role of the party and its organic intellectuals implies a unity of purpose, yet such a party must be open to impulses from below. The organic intellectuals in the party may be compared to the priests of the Catholic Church as Gramsci does. The priests are agents, who act to preserve and convey the ideological unity of the Church. They are the practioners, elaborators, and disseminators of the ideology throughout the whole social formation. What speaks to the strength and vitality of the Catholic Church? According to Gramsci, the answer is found in the fact that the higher intellectuals are not separated from the lower intellectuals: those in the field, the priests in the villages and countryside. The linkage of the higher and lower intellectuals allows the ideology to be conveyed to

lOÔGramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, p., 10. 140 the masses, and, thereby, constructing an organic link with them. Gramsci envisioned that the organic intellectuals of the proletariat would also be able to make an organic link with the masses along the lines of the priests and the

Church. Like the Catholic Church, the party has

To work incessantly to raise the intellectual level of ever-growing strata of the populace...to give a personality to the amorphous mass element. This means working to produce elites of intellectuals of a new type which arise directly out of the masses, but remain in contact with them to become, as it were, the whalebone in the corset.

Gramsci's modern prince, the party, must act to proclaim, organize, and elevate the intellectual and moral/ethical level of the whole social formation. This

...means creating the terrain for a subsequent development of the national-popular collective will towards the realisation of a superior, total form of civilisation. 3-08

This is exactly what the Jacobins did for the bourgeoisie

in France. Gramsci says that the Jacobins represented

"...a 'categorical embodiment' of Machiavelli's Prince."109

What the Jacobins were able to accomplish for the

bourgeoisie in the French Revolution was monumental. They were able to articulate the interests of the bourgeoisie with the interests of the subaltern classes. Gramsci notes

that the Jacobins did not only articulate

lO^Ibid., p. 340. lOOjbid., p. 133.

lO^Ibid., p. 130. 141

...the immediate needs and aspirations of the actual physical individuals who constituted the French bourgeoisie, but they also represented the revolutionary movement as a whole, as an integral historical development. For they represented future needs as well, and, once again, not only the needs of those particular physical individuals, but also of all the national groups which had to be assimilated to the existing fundamental g r o u p .

The Jacobins were the force behind the organization of a bourgeois government, i.e., casting the bourgeoisie as the dominant class.

They created the bourgeois State, made the bourgeoisie into the leading, hegemonic class of a nation, in other words gave the new State a permanent basis and created the compact modern French nation.

Poulantzas complements Gramsci's view of the French

Revolution, and the role of the Jacobins. He states that

...the French Revolution, more than any other, achieved its original hegemony and forged the unity of the nation by establishing close links with a corps of licensed intellectuals.^^2

These licensed intellectuals were the organic intellectuals of the bourgeoisie. Gramsci proposes that the party, and its organic intellectuals must follow the path of the

Jacobins. They must seek to fashion through an articulating principle ideological elements from diverse discourses into a unified world-view. This can only be accomplished if the working class can assimilate to itself

llOlbid., p. 78.

llllbid., p. 79.

112Nicos Poulantzas, State Power Socialism (London: NLB,1978/Verso, 1980), p. 61. 142 the general interests of the whole social formation, by in turn universalizing its hegemony until all classes are eliminated, and "...the State's goal is its own end, its own disappearance, in other words the re-absorption of political society into civil society."113

113Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, p. 253 CHAPTER V

THE ARCHITECTONICS OF AN EMERGING PROBLEMATIC

The Articulation of the Practices

Poulantzas' architectonics are oriented toward the creation of a new problematic which he lays out in the

"Introduction" and in "General Questions" in Political

Power and Social Classes.1 His efforts are directed toward establishing the architectonics of a historical materialism that breaks with all forms of dogmatism. He argues that

The object of historical materialism [should be]...the study of different structures and practices (the economy, politics, ideology), which are connected and yet distinct, and whose combination constitutes a modes of production and a social formation. These theories can be characterized as regional theories. Historical materialism also includes particular theories (theories of the slave, feudal, capitalist and other modes of production).2

This definition opens up historical materialism as a field of s t u d y , 3 freed from the epistemological obstacle of

^Nicos Poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes (London: NLB, 1973).

2lbid., p. 12.

3This project is extremely difficult and complex. The work of Althusser, Balibar, Bettelheim, Rey, Godelier, and Terray, among others is directed toward providing the architectonics of a problematic that deals in a non- dogmatic fashion with the object of historical materialism.

143 144 dogmatism. Such theorization makes historical materialism a viable problematic with heuristic power to explain, analyze, and describe. This approach provides a framework for understanding our existence by stripping away all masks, and by probing beneath the surface as a means of comprehending and changing the surface relations.

Following Althusser, Poulantzas wants to distance himself from any forms of history that conceptualize history as being some form of linear development. Thus, he advances the view that social formations must be specified.

This specificity is constituted by taking into account the structures and practices, i.e., their

...relative autonomy and particular effectiveness inside the unity of a mode of production and...a historically determined social formation... [recognizing that] their time sequences have different rhythms and m e t r e s . 4

The necessity of recognizing time, rhythms, and meters bears directly on the study of social formations.

Poulantzas states that

The various levels of a social formation are characterized by (i) an uneven development (which is an essential feature of the relation"Taetween these differential time sequences in the structure), and (ii) dislocations which are the basis for understanding a formation and its development. To this extent, transformations of a formation and transition are grasped by the concept of a history with different time s e q u e n c e s . 5

In order to fully grasp the enormous theoretical

4poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes, p. 41.

^Ibid. 145 power of historical materialism, it is essential that regional theories of the various practices, levels, or instances be developed. Poulantzas' project is to develop a theory of

...the political in general, the particular theory of the CMP, the regional theory of the political in this mode of production and examination of concrete capitalist social formations.&

The need for a regional theory of the political, and for that matter, of the economic and ideological practices, arises from the need to fill the lacunae in Marxist scholarship which fails to develop sophisticated analyses pertaining to the practices. According to Poulantzas,

Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Gramsci "...did not specifically discuss the region of the political at the level of theoretical systematicity."? These theorists were not able to provide a systematic theory, or develop exegeses of the political practices and, more directly, of the capitalist

State.

Although Poulantzas' primary concern is to develop a regional theory of the political, it must be stressed that the object of political practice cannot be addressed in

isolation from the economic and ideological practices and vice versa. There can be no advanced form of analysis without taking into account the relative significance of

Gibid., p. 23.

?Ibid., p. 19. 146 the political and economic on the ideological practice, and the political and ideological on the economic practice.

This sort of relationship between the practices becomes evident given that "the relations which...constitute each level are never simple, but overdetermined by the relations of the other levels."® In effect, each of these practices or levels constitutes its own region of study with given

"formal parameters."9 Each of these practices exercises relative autonomy from each other as practices and as regions of study. However, all of these practices are united/constituted in a whole matrix which establishes their relative autonomy and gives them their specificity

(regional status) vis-a-vis each other. Poulantzas defines this relationship as follows:

The general theory of historical materialism defines a general type of relation between distinct but united instances (the economic, the political, the ideological), and so defines the relatively abstract concepts of these instances at its own level in a necessary relation with its concepts of mode of production, social formation, dominant structure, etc.^®

In order to establish a regional theory of an instance, e.g., the political instance, within any given mode of production, it must first be "isolated" so as to establish its topology, i.e., "...its place and function in

®Ibid., p. 14.

9lbid., p. 16.

lOlbid. 147 the particular combination which specifies this mode of production.Given that the topology of a practice is based in a matrix, it must be discerned as to how it is articulated with the other practices. To ascertain this articulation process is to disclose "...the extension and limits of this regional instance..."12 vis-a-vis the other instances in the matrix. The constitution and distinct topothetesis. place, or setting of each instance, within a mode of production, is the product of an articulation process that is peculiar to the totality of a given mode of production, which establishes the specificity and content of each instance. Poulantzas notes that

...the specificity and proper efficacy of a particular level...does not depend on its nature, but on its place and function in the type of relations of the levels at the interior of a complex unity.13

The point here is that an instance is not constituted through its nature or its essentialism, but is on the contrary the outcome of

...the structure in dominance [which] governs the very constitution (the nature) of the regional structures, by assigning them their place and by distributing functions to them. The relations which thus constitute each level are never simple, but overdetermined by the relations of the other

lllbid., p. 17.

12ibid.

13Nicos Poulantzas, "A propos de la théorie Marxiste du droit," Archives de Philosophie du Droit 12 (1967): 150-151. 148

l e v e l s . 14

These relations are by no means one-dimensional or follow some form of linear causality, they are, in fact, the products of a structure that

...is always the co-presence of all its elements and their relations of dominance and subordination.... This means that determinance in the last instance by the economy... does not indicate that there will be some ultimate time or ever was some starting-point when the economy will be or was solely determinant, the other instances preceding it or following it....15

The economy does not precede or follow the other instances, but is co-present with the other instances in the structure of the whole. This form of analysis breaks with all forms

of economism, i.e., establishing the economy as the basis

from which the other instances are read off as

concrete/solid by-products with no intrinsically

constituted dynamism and relative autonomy of their own.

Poulantzas elaborates the role of the economic instance as

follows:

...the fact that the structure of the whole is determined in the last instance by the economic does not mean that the economic always holds the dominant role in the structure. The unity constituted by the structure in dominance implies that every mode of production has a dominant level or instance; but the economic is in fact determinant only in so far as it attributes the dominant role to one instance or another, [and] in so far as it regulates the shift of dominance.... 3-6

14poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes, p. 14,

ISlbid. IGlbid. 149

from one instance to another.

Mode of Production and Social Formation

To fully elaborate on the relationship of the

instances noted above, it is imperative that mode of production and social formation be concretely defined. By

so doing, we are able to go beyond mere appearances to discover the various components of the practices, and the

forms of production which mark the various epochs of history. Such an analysis discloses the morphology of

social relations and social structures. Poulantzas defines mode of production as follows:

By mode of production we shall designate not what is generally marked out as the economic (i.e. relations of production in the strict sense), but a specific combination of various structures and practices which, in combination, appear as so many instances or levels, i.e. as so many regional structures of this mode. A mode of production, as Engels stated schematically, is composed of different levels or instances, the economic, political, [and] ideological....1?

A mode of production form of analysis has the power to

disclose the processes of production and appropriation as

they are manifest through the economic, political, and

ideological practices. According to Balibar, "...every

mode of production determines modes of circulation,

distribution and consumption as so many moments of its

l^Ibid., p. 13, 150 u n i t y . ''3-8 The unique power of the mode of production, as an analytical concept, lies in its ability to specify concretely the means that are used in different epochs of history to extract surplus-labor from the direct producers.

Thus, it is able to show the means through which surplus- value is constituted; and how social production is to be distributed among the primary agents of production and the non-producers. A mode of production can, therefore, be characterized as a complex whole of social ensembles of production and reproduction of Department I (production of the means of production) and Department II (production of products for consumption).

To demonstrate the full complexity of a mode of production we can use Marx's example of the feudal mode of production. In the feudal mode of production, the

ideological practice, manifest through its religious form, exercises the dominant role in establishing the function of the economic practice operationally. That is, it establishes how production is to be carried out, and it discloses the mechanisms of the appropriation process.

This form of specificity clearly demonstrates the true nature of feudal society in contrast to historical

explanations that characterize feudal society in Europe as

the Dark Ages where only the succession of kings and popes

l®Louis Althusser and Etienne Balibar, Reading Capital (London; NLB, 1970/Verso, 1979), p. 266. 151 is revealed. What then are the factors that would allow one to differentiate one mode of production from another mode of production? Poulantzas provides the following answer to this complex question. He states that

...what distinguishes one mode of production from another and consequently specifies a mode of production is the particular form of articulation maintained by its levels: this articulation is henceforth referred to by the term matrix of a mode of production. So to give a strict definition of a mode of production is to lay bare the particular way in which determination in the last instance by the economic is reflected inside that mode of production: this reflection delimits the index of dominance and overdetermination of this mode.19

For Poulantzas, mode of production is an

abstraction, an abstract theoretical object,20 what really

exists is a concrete social formation. He defines a social

formation as being "...a real-concrete object

[which]...presents a particular combination, a specific

overlapping of several "pure" modes of production."21

An example of a social formation is demonstrated by Lenin

in his study of the Russian social formation under the

title of The Development of Capitalism in Russia.22 &

social formation, then, is a complex unity

19poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes, p. 15.

2®See Nicos Poulantzas, "La dialectique Hegelienne- Marxiste et al logique Juridique Moderne,: Archives de Philosophie du Droit 8 (1966).

21poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes, p. 15.

22y. I. Lenin, The Development of Capitalism in Russia (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1956). 152

...correspond[ing] to the ideological notion of "society." It designates a complex structure of social relations, a unity of economic, ideological and...political structural levels in which the role of the economy is determinant [in the last instance]. It is determinant in the sense that the conditions of existence of the dominant relations of production assign to each of the levels a certain form of effectivity and mode of intervention with respect to the other levels.23

Poulantzas' example of a social formation is one that is

...always original [and] singular, present[ing] a particular combination...historically determined by a given mode of production: Bismarck's Germany is a capitalist social formation, that is, one dominated by the capitalist mode of production.... The dominance of one mode of production over the others in a social formation causes the matrix of this mode of production...to mark the whole of the formation.24

A social formation is historically constituted/specified by the way in which the economic, political, and ideological levels or instances are articulated "... through an index of dominance and overdetermination...."25 The index of dominance and overdetermination can be delineated with regard as to: (1) which of the instances is dominant; and (2) which mode of production is dominant over the others in a given social formation, thereby, overdetermining the nature, form, and operation, in short, the constitution/dislocation of the

23Barry Hindess and Paul Q. Hirst, Pre-Capitalist Modes of Production (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975), p. 13.

24poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes, p. 15, 25ibid. 153 weaker modes of production vis-a-vis the dominant mode of production, e.g., the capitalist mode of production. To elaborate further, the capitalist mode of production has in the course of its development/expansion destroyed/dislocated and articulated/re-articulated modes of production to its exigencies. For example, elements of the feudal mode of production or the latifundia mode of production (in Latin America) are allowed to exist by the dominant capitalist mode of production because these modes of production have been re-articulated/reconstituted,

(separated from the elements that constituted them as complete whole forms, i.e., aristocratic forms of rule united with the Church), and integrated to the imperatives of the capitalist mode of production.

How can one theorize/rationalize the existence of some subordinate modes of production, and the destruction

of others vis-a-vis the capitalist mode of production? The

answer can be found within a complex process composed of two central features: (1) the level of the class struggle;

and (2) the exigencies of the capitalist mode of production

at a certain stage of its development/expansion, e.g., merchant capital, comprador capital, commercial capital,

industrial capital, banking capital, and finance capital,

and be further elaborated as non-competitive, competitive, and monopoly forms of capitalism.

This relationship of domination by the capitalist 154 mode of production over subordinate modes of production can be explained as the application of an articulation process or articulation principle, whereby, the capitalist mode of production imposes its hegemony over a given social formation, i.e., its economic hegemony, political hegemony, and ideological hegemony. To illustrate this process of articulation further, it is important to note the power of the capitalist mode of production against all pre­ capitalist modes of production. The following succinct statements drawn form The Communist Manifesto demonstrate this process;

1. The rise of the bourgeoisie from the middle position to become the dominant class, and its expression as a class has had "a revolutionary role in history" by destroying all pre-capitalist modes of production that are a hindrance to its expansion.

2. The capitalist mode of production has destroyed the linkages which sustained the estate system by transforming social relations into "naked self-interest" and "cash payment."

3. The capitalist mode of production strips all professions from any honor bestowed upon them. It transforms the "free professionals," e.g., physicians, lawyers, professors, etc., into "wage laborers."

4. The bourgeoisie, "...has accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and 155

Gothic cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put in the shade all former migrations of nations and c r u s a d e s . "26

5. By its nature of coordination and calculation, the bourgeoisie has tied together all parts of the globe with various means of communication.

6. Furthermore,

"The bourgeoisie...has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. Subjection of nature's forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam- navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalisation of rivers, [nuclear power] whole populations conjured out of the ground."2?

The enormous power of the capitalist mode of production sweeps away one mode of production after another into the textbooks of ancient history. To fully grasp this process, it is essential to understand the articulation process and the genealogy of the capitalist mode of production. These two theoretical frameworks are powerful enough to deal with the dynamism of capitalist expansion on the levels of the political, ideological, and economic practices; and the transitional relations that transpire when modes of production confront each other. In order to analyze the conditions which underpin an articulation process within any given social formation, it is necessary

2®Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Communist Manifesto (New York: International Publishers, 1986), pp. 11-12.

27 Ibid., pp. 13-14. 156 to delineate the genealogy of the capitalist mode of production.

The genealogy of a mode of production involves the historical unfolding

... of those particular elements which combine to form a specific mode of production. Its field is the history of the transition from the previously dominant to the contemporarily dominant mode of production within a given social formation. Its object is to analyse how the elements of the existing combination emerged from the process of dissolution of the previous mode of production.2®

The specification of the capitalist mode of production is an essential element in undertaking any genealogical study.

One of its central characteristics is the separation of the direct producer from his ownership and control of the means of production. A genealogical analysis would examine the history of this process of dispossession, and the transformation of the direct producer as owner/controller of the means of production into a wage laborer competing to sell his only possession, his labor power.

The genealogy of capitalist development provides the analytical framework to explain how ideological elements are combined to constitute a hegemonic ideology at one point in time, and how that hegemonic ideology is modified, given the vicissitudes of capitalist development, to meet its imperatives. The same can be said as to the

2®John G. Taylor, From Modernization to Modes of Production; A Critique of the Sociologies of Development and Underdevelopment (London: Macmillan, 1979), p. 117. 157 restructuring of the political practice and the economic practice. In the case of the economy, intervention in crises to recalibrate the system, e.g., the New Deal, stricter bank laws, stronger regulation by the Securities and Exchange Commission, etc. This form of analysis has the power to disclose the series of dislocations which are endemic to the capitalist mode of production within any given social formation. These dislocations are present with respect to the: (1) existing relations within a social formation— political, economic, and ideological practices;

(2) subsumption, articulation, and disarticulation by the capitalist mode of production over other modes of production; and (3) restricted and uneven development of the practices of the subordinate modes of production.

Specification of the Practices

Following Althusser and Balibar, Poulantzas begins his analysis by accepting the complex totality which constitutes a social formation and the practices embodied within it. Each practice is conceptualized as having an invariant structure in which a determinate raw material is transformed into a specific product. In order for the raw material to be constituted into a particular form, it must first be worked upon by a particular means of production.

This transformation for each process is as follows. The

...economic practice requires a transformation of nature into several products through methodologically organised use of means of human 158

labour (means of production); ideological practice exists as a transformation of subjects' lived relations to the world through means of ideological [interpellation and] struggle;29 and political practice involves the production,

reproduction, and transformation of social relations. Each of these practices, given their relative autonomy, act on a particular form of raw material shaping it in certain ways through a determinate type of labor within a complex totality.

The Economic Practice

Poulantzas designates the general invariant elements which constitute the economic instance as being:

1. The labourer, the "direct producer," i.e. labour-power. 2. The means of production, i.e. the obiect and means of labour. 3. The non-labourer who appropriates to himself the surplus labour, i.e. the product.®®

The way in which these elements are combined, articulated,

or constituted indicates the type of mode of production

that exists, epochically, in history. This combination,

articulation, or constitution, according to Poulantzas, is

further characterized by the relations of production as

defined through the relations of possession/property. He

outlines these relations as follows:

a. A relation of real appropriation (which Marx sometimes designates by the term "possession"): it

29ibid., p. 106.

3®Poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes, p. 26 159

applies to the relation of the labourer to the means of production, i.e. to the labour process, or again to the system of productive forces, b. A relation of propertv; this relation is distinct from the first, since it makes the non­ labourer intervene as owner either of the means of production or of labour-power or of both, and so of the product. This is the relation which defines the relations of production in the strict sense.

Poulantzas impresses upon us that these two relations of production are distinct, and are demarcated by the type of combination, articulation or svntaomazation that takes place. He says that the relation of property

...belongs strictlv to the region of the economic and that it should be clearlv distinguished from the juridical forms with which it is invested, i.e. from juridical propertv.

This means that in class societies there is a "separation" process whereby the direct producer is divorced "... from the means of labour, which are the property of the non­ labourer who, as owner, appropriates to himself the surplus labour."3®

Poulantzas argues that in class societies the relation of real appropriation

...can set up either a union of the labourer with the means of production (this is the case with "precapitalist" modes of production), or a separation of the labourer from these means: this is the case with the CMP, in which a separation occurs at the stage of heavy industry and which Marx designates by the expression "separation of the direct producer from his natural conditions of

31lbid.

32lbid.

3®Ibid., p. 27. 160

labour."®4

Marx develops these arguments in chapter 26 of Capital I under the title of "The Secret of Primitive Accumulation."

He states that

The capitalist system pre-supposes the complete separation of the labourers from all property in the means by which they can realise their labour. As soon as capitalist production is once on its own legs, it not only maintains this separation, but reproduces it in a continually extending scale. The process, therefore, that clears the way for the capitalist system, can be none other than the process which takes away from the labourer the possession of this means of production; a process that transforms, on the one hand, the social means of subsistence and of production into capital, on the other, the immediate producers into wage- labourers. The so-called primitive accumulation, therefore, is nothing else than the historical process of divorcing the producer from the means of production. It appears as primitive, because it forms the pre-historic state of capital and the mode of production corresponding with it.®5

Poulantzas further specifies the above relations by noting that the two relations, union and separation, are part of

... a unique and variable combination which constitutes the economic in a mode of production, the combination of the system of productive forces with the system of relations of production. In the combination characteristic of the CMP, the two relations are homologous. The separation of the relation of property coincides with the separation in the relation of real appropriation. While that of "precapitalist" modes of production consists of non-homo1ogv of the two relations: separation in the relation of property, union in the relation of

34%bid.

35Karl Marx, Capital I (New York: International Publishers, 1967), pp. 714-715. 161

real appropriation.® ®

In the feudal mode of production, the relations of appropriation/extraction are so constituted as to allow a non-producer (the feudal lord) to extract surplus labor from the direct producers (the serfs) by extra-economic means (traditional political and ideological alignments).

In the case of the capitalist mode of production, the capitalist controls the means of production, and exercises control over the production process. The worker is

"separated" both from the ownership and control of the means of production and the production process. Following from the above, this relationship is regarded as being homologous because the union of the direct producer with their own means of production is marked by the dissolution/separation of the direct producer from the means of production. It follows from this example that in the capitalist mode of production the process of production determines the system of production, distribution, exchange, and consumption. It is essential to note that regardless of the mode of production under consideration, the process of production fulfills certain imperatives.

According to Bettelheim,

This process of production not only ensures the production/reproduction of products but also a process of reproduction of the relations of

36 Poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes, p. 27. 162

production.37

This statement is a central feature which characterizes structural Marxism. The work of Althusser and Poulantzas

is grounded in the recognition that the process of production establishes agents as subjects and supports of a system of production which is sustained by the reproduction of the relations of production.38

.In a very succinct fashion, Marx describes the

relations of possession/property, their homology/non­ homology, and the constitution of a particular political

form as follows:

The specific economic form, in which unpaid surplus-labour is pumped out of direct producers, determines the relationship of rules and ruled, as it grows directly out of production itself and, in turn, reacts upon it as a determining element. Upon this, however, is founded the entire formation of the economic community which grows up out of production relations themselves, thereby simultaneously its specific political form. It is always the direct relationship of the owners of the conditions of production to the direct producers— a relation always naturally corresponding to a definite state in the development of the methods of labour and thereby its social productivity— which reveals the inner-most secret, the hidden basis of the entire social structure, and with it the political form of the relation of sovereignty and dependence, in short, the corresponding specific form of State.39

3?Charles Bettelheim, Economic Calculation and Forms of Propertv (New York: Monthly Review, 1975), p. 56.

38&ithusser develops this process further in his seminal essay "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses."

39Rarl Marx, Capital III (New York: International Publishers, 1967), p. 791. 163

This passage from Capital III parallels another passage in

Capital I where Marx notes the problem of Don Quixote in associating knightly errantry as being embodied in all modes of production, and that only by recognizing the components of a mode of production can one discern "...why here politics, and there Catholicism, played the chief part."40 Through passages such as these in Capital (and in the Grundrisse), Poulantzas is able to formulate the argument that in the capitalist mode of production there is an articulation process between the economic, political, and ideological practices with each of the practices exercising relative autonomy vis-a-vis each other. The relative autonomy of these instances, according to Poulantzas, presents

...the basis of the radical difference between the relations of these instances in the CMP and the relations which they maintain in other modes of production.41

This is not to say that these instances do not have some

level of relative autonomy in other modes of production, but that the relative autonomy which they have in other modes of production is the outcome of the particular form

of articulation that takes place in the matrix of a social

formation vis-a-vis the imperatives of the dominant mode of production. Conceptualizing the relative autonomy of the

40Marx, Capital I . p. 82.

41poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes, p. 29, 164 instances enables Poulantzas to construct a regional theory of the instances in general and of the political in particular. Hence, Poulantzas argues that the concept of relative autonomy has theoretical consequences in that

It makes possible a regional theory (in the very strict sense) of an instance of this mode, e.g. a theory of the capitalist State; it permits us to constitute the political into an autonomous and specific object of s c i e n c e . 42

What Poulantzas wants to do for the political instance is what Marx was able to do for the economic instance in

Capital. Through Capital. Marx was able to give specificity to the regional theory of the economic by establishing it as a specific object of scientific investigation.

The Political Practice

The object of the political practice is to work on the raw material which is the manifestation/transformation of the relations which bear directly on the organization of the economic practice. The constitution of the political practice is also materialized/imbued with the elements of the ideological practice. However, it exercises relative autonomy vis-a-vis these instances as to how the raw material of its practice will be constituted/transformed.

The political practice has the object of discerning the existing balance of forces and their transformation. It

42ibid. 165 discloses the dominance of a particular class(es) or class alliances which constitute politically the state apparatuses and state power. The balance of forces at any point in time are a condition of the relations of production under a particular mode of production which is dominant within a given social formation, e.g., in this case the capitalist mode of production. This is not a relationship that is marked by any kind of linear causality between the instances or one in which the economically dominant class is conflated with a politically dominant class. First, the instances exercise relative autonomy vis-a-vis each other as to the process of the constitution/transformation of the raw material within a structure in dominance. Second, political hegemony may not be exercised by a class or class fractions that are economically dominant, e.g., Bonapartism, German and

Italian fascism, etc. Political practice takes into account the ability of a hegemonic class or a power bloc to occupy the State and state power, and the aspirations of a subordinated class to take state power/political power and lead a social formation.43

Poulantzas defines the specific object of the political practice as being

43This is equivalent to the development of a political practice which is hegemonically oriented and constituted through alliances. Gramsci refers to this relationship as a historical bloc. 166

...the "present moment"..., i.e. the nodal point where the contradictions of the various levels of a formation are condensed in the complex relations governed by over-determination and by their dislocation and uneven development. This present moment is therefore a conjuncture, the strategic point where the various contradictions fuse in so far as they reflect the articulation specifying a structure in dominance. The object of political practice...is the place where relations of different contradictions finally fuse, relations which specify the unity of the structure; it is the starting point from which it is possible in a concrete situation to decipher the unity of the structure and to act upon it in order to transform it.44

Although the political is relatively autonomous, the political practice is the outcome of the relationships of the various practices as they bear upon each other. In turn, the political practice is not only constituted through its own contradiction, historicity, and uneven development, but is itself the product of the contradictions, historicity, and uneven development of the economic and ideological practices.

Poulantzas points out that

Every time Marx, Engels, Lenin or Gramsci speak of political struggle (practice) by distinguishing it from economic struggle, they are explicitly considering its specificity in relation to its particular objective, which is the state, as a specific level of structures in a social formation.45

Why is the objective of political practice the State?

Poulantzas argues that, given the dislocation and uneven

44poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes. 41.

45%bid., pp. 42-43. 167 development within a given social formation, "...the state has the particular function of constituting the factor of cohesion between the levels of a social formation."46 The

State has this function because it constitutes the factor of organization in bringing together in a cohesive fashion the complex elements of a social formation. It fulfills this role by syntagmatizing a social formation, riddled in its interior by contradictions, dislocation, and uneven development at some level of an unstable equilibrium. This unstable equilibrium, Poulantzas cautions, "... is never given by the economic as such, but is maintained by the s t a t e . " 4 7 To accept the position that the economic is the factor which constitutes the cohesive mechanism for a capitalist social formation is to fall into the trap of economic reductionism, where the State is viewed as being isomorphically related to the economic practice alone.

Only by rejecting this position can the objective of political practice be fully perceived as being the State which maintains the cohesion of the whole complex ensemble.

In this context, political practice has a dual function:

(1) the preservation of an unstable equilibrium; and (2) producing transformations leading to "...a new unity and new relations of production."48

48ibid. p. 44.

47ibid., p . 4 5 .

48ibid. 168

As indicated above, the State acts as a factor of

cohesion, however, it is also the site where the

contradictions, dislocations, and uneven developments within a social formation are "condensed." This site of

condensation is crucial in that it allows for the

"...decipherfina of] the unity and articulation of a

formation's structures."49 Theorizing the State in this

manner enables Poulantzas to establish the

...relation between the state as the cohesive factor of a formation's unity and the state as the place in which the various contradictions of the instances are condensed, [thereby contributing to the] decipher[ing of] the problem of the relation between politics and history. This relation designates the structure of the political both as the specific level of a formation and as the Place in which its transformations occur; it designates the political struggle as the "motive power of history" having as its objective the state, the place in which contradictions of instances (dislocated in their own time sequences) are condensed.50

History, in the end, is the product of political practice,

i.e., as it bears directly on the other practices, and in

the constitution and transformation of the social

relations.

The Ideological Practice

The ideological practice facilitates at the

ideological level the production and reproduction of the

relations of production. Ideological practice works on the

49ibid. SOlbid. 169 raw material of ideas as they are idealistically and materially constituted within a mode of production.

Ideological practice operates through an interpellation process which constitutes agents along the lines of possession/property relations. Bettelheim describes the ideological practice as follows;

The reproduction of the technical division of labour and the social division of labor requires not only the reproduction of the material conditions of labor but also the reproduction of the bearers of these functions and tasks. and consequently the preparation of specialized agents and the selection of these agents to conform to the requirements of the social conditions of production.51

In contrast to the instrumentalist position which holds ideology to be an illusion and false consciousness,

Poulantzas, Althusser, and Gramsci regard ideology to be a lived relation, and a relatively autonomous material practice with its own object and terrain of operation. The reproduction of the relations of production is directly founded, in Gramsci's terms, on the ideologically constituted imperatives of a hegemonic class.

Like Gramsci and Althusser, Poulantzas recognizes that ideological practice works through ideological state apparatuses, e.g., school, family, law, etc. Ideological practice has the function of constituting individuals as subjects of a given social formation. Not all ideological

51charles Bettelheim, Economic Calculation and Forms of Propertv. p. 58. 170

state apparatuses have the same weight in the

interpellation of individuals as subjects. In the case of

feudalism, the Church exercised this function. With the

coming of bourgeois society and the bracketing of

ecclesiastic power, the school became the primary

institutional structure in casting individuals as subjects

within a bourgeois order. The object of ideological

practice is to ensure that subjects/agents come to accept

their condition/roles ideologically thereby sustaining the

conditions of their existence. It is by fulfilling this

imperative that ideological practice can ideologically

convince individuals to reproduce the social relations of

production in a "naturally" given way. For example, in the

' case of the slave, the slave is interpellated as a

subject/slave, thus, producing and reproducing himself and

the relations of production for centuries as a "natural"

lived process of production.

Ideological practice is, at Gramsci demonstrates in

The Prison Notebooks, the product of an articulation

process where elements from past social formations are

elaborated/combined in a particular way with the

ideological elements of a hegemonic class' articulation

principle that is directed, in the end, toward an

ideological practice which meets the imperatives of that

hegemonic class. All ideological practices, regardless of

the mode of production under consideration, represent 171 social relations of production by concealing the nature of the production process, and by extension the class content of a social formation. In this sense, the constitution of

subjects/agents through a lived ideology which is overdetermined by a complex of different ideologies—

residuals from the past and representations of the present

— that establish particular attitudes, values, roles,

rituals, ceremonies, etc. that are materially and

idealistically derived but ideologically represented.

Ideological practice is doubled with political

practice in social formations where the ideological

practice cannot fully camouflage the true nature of the

relations of production. This is clearly evident in

Gramsci's and in Althusser's recognition of the State in

both the ideological state apparatuses and in the

repressive state apparatuses which Poulantzas also accepts.

This coupling allows for the continuation and

representation of the relations of production as being

"natural" on the ideological level, and thereby affirming

the legitimacy of a social formation on the political

level. Bettelheim summarizes this coupling as follows:

The ensemble of social relations of production, of political and ideological relations, forms a complex structure, the elements of which are reciprocally "causes" and "effects" of each other or, more rigorously, "are supported by one another...." It is the "support" that the different relations provide that enables us to understand how the existence of some of these elements, rooted in practices and in the concrete (organization of the units of production, forms of 172

political power, ideological institutions) tends to reproduce the general unity of the s t r u c t u r e . ”52

In the preceding discussion, it was noted that

Poulantzas' object is directed toward establishing a regional theory of the political, however, one can not gain a clear understanding of the political region without taking into consideration the regions of the economic and ideological practices as they are articulated with each other, given their relative autonomy, within a Concrete social formation. In this sense, articulation theory becomes a master concept through which a powerful theory can be constituted, a theory that conceptualizes in a non­ static, non-dogmatic, non-instrumental, and non­ functionalist way the complex relations between the practices. Articulation theory enables the operationalization of the ideological, political, and economic practices, modes of production, social formations, the transition from one mode of production to another, the genealogy of capitalism, the expansion of capitalism, and the articulation/dis-articulation of social formations.

Far from presenting a linear view of history and a one­ dimensional view of modes of production, articulation theory, in Poulantzas' hands, becomes the architectonic foundation for the development of concepts that tap directly into the interior of complex social formations to

52ibid., p. 60. 173 specify the structure of determinant and non-determinant modes of production and their articulation.53 Articulation theory by directly focusing on the articulation process facilitates the expansion of Gramsci's work, in Poulantzas' hands, by working on the raw material of the political, ideological, and economic practices. More particularly with reference to the ideological practice, the ideological practice can be conceived of as a process of articulation, as Gramsci does, where a hegemonic principle is applied to ideological raw material (residual elements from the past and contemporary ideological elements of the present) to formulate a hegemonic ideology. Articulation theory discloses that the process of articulation is itself the outcome of a constellation of forces in struggle. In effect, articulation theory is a powerful heuristic tool that has yet to realize its potential as a theory and methodology.

53por a developed analysis and exegesis of the capitalist mode of production, and its genealogical specification, see Taylor, From Modernization to Modes of Production: A Critique of the Sociologies of Development and Underdevelopment, pp. 123-275. For the various applications of articulation theory by Poulantzas, Laclau, Bettelheim, Hindess and Hirst, Banaji, and Rey, see Harold Wolpe, "Introduction," in Harold Wolpe, ed., The Articulation of the Modes of Production (Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980), pp. 1-43. CHAPTER VI

PROLEGOMENA TO THE STUDY OF THE CAPITALIST STATE

Social Relations of Production

In order to fully grasp and decipher the workings of a social formation, it is imperative to have a clear understanding of the social relations of production that

constitute the raison d'etre of a social formation, and

establish its specificity vis-a-vis other social

formations. The social relations of production, in any given society, are never simply present as the effects of

the economy. Although the economy is the site and space upon which the process of production is enacted, it can by

no means be regarded as operating exclusively as its own

demiourgos, i.e., as an autonomous creative force. The

economy is the terrain where a specific arrangement or

combination of agents of production are brought together with the means of production. It is on the space of the

economy that exploitation, the extraction of surplus value,

and the accumulation of capital take place. However to

attribute demiurgical power to the economy, is to fall into

the trap of economic reductionism. It is to read off of

the economy the social relations of production. Poulantzas

argues that this form of reasoning is based upon a

174 175 confusion over the terms "relations of production" and

"social relations of production." He correctly points out that these two terms are used "...without anv distinction. when in fact they cover different realities.Economism, he points out, reduces social classes, which are in reality social relations of production, to "...mere relations of production..."2 without taking into account the significance of the "social." Social relations of production are not the by-products of the economy, and neither are they devoid of political and ideological content. In order for the economic relations of production to be operational, the political and ideological "social" relations must be present to constitute the "social" nature of the economy. Poulantzas argues that

...neither in pre-capitalist modes nor in capitalism has this space [the economy] ever formed a hermetically sealed level, capable of self­ reproduction and possessing its own "laws of internal functioning."3

The economy cannot do anything by itself. It must be organized and directed toward the satisfaction of certain

imperatives pertinent to the interests of the hegemonic class(es) involved. In order for this to be accomplished,

it is necessary to acknowledge that "the political field of

^Nicos Poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes (London: NLB, 1973), p. 64.

2ibid.

3n 1cos Poulantzas, State Power Socialism (London: NLB, 1978/Verso, 1980), p. 17. 176 the State (as well as the sphere of ideology) has always,

in different forms, been present...."4 The State and

ideology have always been constitutive and organizational

forces of the economy. Once there is surplus generated in

a society, the economic, the political, and the ideological

become manifest forces in the organization of the social

relations of production (political economy).5 The

"invisible hand" of Adam Smith and the existence of a

laissez-faire economy have never existed. The State has

always been present; acting along with ideology in the

appropriation of surplus valu e . & in reality, the economy

does not exercise any absolute autonomy. It does not

4ibid.

^My equating social relations of production with political economy stems from the classical conception of the political. Here the political, i.e., social, is conceptualized as the effect of living in a polis, thereby, implying social relations of existence. However, the political (social) does not exist separated from ideology. Ideology and politics, as they work on the economy, are what constitute political economy, i.e., how people are "socially" organized to produce. Hence, since the evolution from primitive communism to surplus producing societies, the State has always been present.

®Even at the height of 1776, the publication of Smith's The Wealth of Nations, the State exercised a "visible hand" in the expansion of "national interests," and in the accumulation of capital. The State through a variety of repressive and ideological apparatuses, e.g., armies, law, etc., was able to establish a terrain favorable to the expansion of capital and in the organization of the economy. In effect, historically speaking, the armies of empires and nation-states have always been on the "cutting edge" in opening up space/terrain for the expansion of economic imperatives to the thesaurization of the hegemonic class(es). 177 produce anything by itself; it must be organized politically and ideologically through given forms of social relations which mark the history of surplus producing societies.

The way the State operates vis-a-vis different social relations of production, i.e., the ancient State, the Asiatic State, the feudal State, and the capitalist

State, establishes not only its relations to social classes, but also its place/position in the class struggle.7 Along these lines, Poulantzas notes

The function of the State primarily concerns the economic level, and particularly the labour process, the productivity of labour. On this point we can refer to Marx's analyses of the despotic state in the Asiatic mode of production, in which a centralized power is necessary to carry out hydraulic work needed in order to increase the productivity of labour.®

The same can be said for the capitalist State, which establishes the conditions under which production is to be conducted, i.e., the labyrinth of laws associated with the appropriation of surplus value. On the political level, the State exercises this function on a variety of dimensions, e.g., through the control of production inside and outside a social formation by means such as tariffs, boycotts, "free trade," foreign aid, etc. Poulantzas says

^This is poignately illustrated by Marx in The Eighteenth Brumaire and The Civil Wars in France.

Bpoulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes, pp. 52-53. 178 that

This function of the state as organizer of the labour process is only one aspect of its economic function, which also includes, for instance, the function of the juridical system, i.e., the set (ensemble) of rules which organizes capitalist exchange and provides the real framework of cohesion in which commercial encounters can take place. The state's function vis-avis the ideological consists of its role of eduction, teaching, etc.9

On the political level, the state is actively involved in the class struggle by promoting the long-term interests of the hegemonic class(es). Thus, Poulantzas, like Marx,

Gramsci, and Althusser, recognizes that the State's ideological and political activities are overdetermined by its position in the field of the class struggle. He states that

...we can establish the overdetermination of the state's economic and ideological functions by its political function, in the strict sense, in the political class conflict. For example, the state's economic or ideological functions correspond to the political interests of the dominant class and constitute political functions, not simply in those cases where there is a direct and obvious relation between (a) the organization of labour and education and (b) the political domination of a class, but also where the object of these functions is the maintenance of the unity of a formation, inside which this clsss is the politically dominant class. It is the extent that the prime object of these functions is the maintenance of this unity that they correspond to the political interests of the dominant class....10

The primacy of the social relations of production is

9ibid., p. 53.

lOibid., p. 54. 179 a central feature embodied in all of Poulantzas' work. The significance of placing such a heavy emphasis on the social relations of production as constitutive forces has major ramifications for the transition from capitalism to

socialism. As such, Poulantzas, like Gramsci, wants to point to the flaws of theorizing which gives primacy to the

forces of production— economism. Poulantzas developed his

analysis of this situation as follows:

In reality, the production process is grounded on the unitv of the labour process and the relations of production (the latter themselves consisting in the dual relationship of economic property and possession). This unity is realized through the primacv of the relations of production over the labour process— over what are often referred to as "productive forces" and understood to include technology and the technical process. The view of traditional economism, which leads directly on to technicism, is that the relations of production are ultimately nothing other than the crystallization, envelope or reflection of a technological process of the productive forces themselves....11

Poulantzas' position, then, is squarely predicated on

Gramsci's anti-economism stance. For Poulantzas and

Gramsci, economistic positions have contributed directly to

the destruction of a dialectical and creative Marxism, and

the eschatological positions of the Second and Third

Internationals on the impending collapse of capitalism have

been the major contributing forces. To argue that the

productive forces have primacy over the relations of

production, is to miss the strength of the social relations

llpoulantzas. State Power Socialism, p. 26. 180 of production (political, ideological, and economic), which establish how the productive forces will be organized within a social formation. Poulantzas correctly points out that

... it is the primacy of the relations of production over the productive forces that gives to their articulation the form of a process of production and reproduction. The productive forces do indeed have a materiality of their own that can by no means be ignored; but they are always organized under given relations of production. Thus, while the two may enter into contradictions with each other and undergo forms of uneven development, they always do so within a process that stems from the primacy of the relations of production. It is not the passage from the windmill to the steam-mill that explains the transition from feudalism to capitalism.12

It is rather the result of how the forces of production are organized under the exigencies of the social relations of production that conditions their utilization and expansion.13

Poulantzas' emphasis on the primacy of the social relations of production over the forces of production through political and ideological practices, bears directly on the relations that revolve around property and possession. All social relations of production

...find expression in class powers that are organically articulated to the political and ideological relations which concretize and

12ibid.

13por example, it is claimed that Archimedes invented a steam engine, but given that no social relations of production could be organized around it, it never made an impact on ancient society. 181

legitimize them. These relations neither represent simple additions to already existing relations of production, nor do they merely react upon them in the mode of absolute exteriority or temporal sequence. They are themselves present in the constitution of the relations of production, in ways that vary with each mode of production. 3-4

To argue that political and ideological practices only intervene from the outside on the economic relations of production, is to fall into an economic-formalist position that views the economy as being composed of elements which give it self-contained qualities. Poulantzas, however, explicitly explains away this misconception by precisely presenting the constitutive characteristics of any given social formation when he argues that

It is precisely because politico-ideological relations are already present in the actual constitution of the relations of production that they play such an essential role in their reproduction; that is also why the process of production and exploitation involves reproduction of the relations of politico-ideological domination and subordination. This elementary datum is at the root of the State's presence in the constitution and reproduction of the relations of production, as the factor which concentrates, condenses, materializes and incarnates politico-ideological relations in a form specific to the given mode of production.15

However, this "elementary datum" has been both misunderstood and mystified for different reasons and with different results in each case by Marxist thought and bourgeois thought. The effect of this misunderstanding or

14poulantzas, State Power Socialism, p. 26.

15ibid., pp. 26-27. 182 mystification has been for Marxism to conceptualize social classes as products of economic relations of production, thereby, failing to establish any clear cut strategy that is able to embody political and ideological practices as equally constitutive forces. In bourgeois thought, this means the conceptualization of social classes along income lines; dislodging them from their true position within the social relations of production. The impact of such theorizing has been to dismiss outright the social presence of the class struggle; thereby presenting a highly convoluted and mystified existence to; 1. the functioning of the economy; 2. the particular organizational characteristics of the capitalist State; and 3. the almost total exclusion of ideology (end of ideology) as a contributing force to the materialization of the social relations of production. These economistic orientations fail to adequately theorize and conceptualize the role of the State, given that the epistemological problematic out of which they operate prevents them from recognizing the constitutive nature of the State, in the production and reproduction of social class and the class struggle.

Hence, the primacy of the social relations of production over the forces of production has implications vis-a-vis the positions social classes take, not only within the relations of production, but also, and more importantly, within the class struggle in given historical conjunctures. 183

Poulantzas succinctly notes that

Just as the relations of production and the social division of labour do not constitute an economic structure outside (before) social classes, so thev do not belong to a field external to power and class struggle. There are no social classes prior to their opposition in struggle: they are not posed "in themselves" in the relations of production only to enter into struggle (become classes "for themselves") afterwards and elsewhere.

Given the fact that social classes are ever-present in all surplus producing societies, it becomes imperative that any concrete study of the social relations of production and the State must be "... chart[ed within] the original contours of ...[their] presence in the class struggle."1?

The significance of comprehending this form of analysis is that it provides a clear understanding of the State's genealogy and its operation within social formations. It should be emphasized that where there is surplus, there are class divisions, class struggle, and the institutionalized power of the State. Poulantzas says that

Right from the beginning, the State marks out the field of struggles, including that of the relations of production: it organizes the market and property relations; it institutes political domination and establishes the politically dominant class; and it stamps and codifies all forms of the social division of labour— all social reality— within the framework of a class-divided society.!®

!®Ibid., p. 27.

l? I b id .

!®Ibid., p. 39. 184

The Specificity of the Power Bloc

Poulantzas' concept of the power bloc is closely related to Gramsci's concept of historical bloc. Gramsci's historical bloc is composed of an alliance of groups, and classes coalescing around the hegemony of a group or class, e.g., the proletariat. A historical bloc is able to lead an alliance of forces toward the creation of a new social formation by combining leadership in civil society with leadership in the space of production. This is exactly how the historical bloc of the bourgeoisie, with its organic intellectuals, was able to fashion a new social formation

(bourgeois society) in France in the late 18th and throughout the 19th centuries. Thus Poulantzas' concept of the power bloc, is unmistakenly linked to Gramsci's concept of historic bloc. Poulantzas' contribution here lies precisely in the political specificity that he is able to give to the power bloc. He defines the power bloc as consisting of "...a 'plurality' of dominant classes (and fractions) characteristic..."!9 of any given capitalist social formation. The power bloc, in a capitalist social formation, is made up of capitalist classes whose capitalist genealogy is distinctly different. This difference is centered around the means/forms of accumulation through which these diverse capitalist classes

!9poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes, p. 231. 185 gain and sustain their existence—their production and reproduction. Given their diverse forms of accumulation, each form of capital which composes them seeks to pursue its own domestic and foreign policy conducive to its own narrow corporatist capital accumulation imperatives. If this form of activity were allowed to play itself out, the different forms of bourgeois capital would mutually exhaust each other, thereby contributing to a free-for-all system leading to their possible supplantation by subaltern classes, a coup d'etat, or other interventionist forces.

Louis Bonaparte represents the classic exemple of a democratically elected leader, who later intervened through a coup d'etat to sustain his power. Poulantzas notes that

if this antagonistic struggle is allowed to continue, the

result would be that these

...classes and fractions at the level of political domination are not only exhausted by internal conflicts but, more often than not, founder in contradictions which make them incapable of governing politically.20

Within the capitalist mode of production, the bourgeois class often appears as a monolithic bloc. In

reality, however, it is divided into commercial,

industrial, banking, and finance forms of capital. Each of these forms of capital are united together by a single

factor; their raison d'etre is directed toward the quest

for profit, i.e., the accumulation and expansion of capital

20lbid., p. 298. 186 and its reproduction. In short, this fracturing of the bourgeois class is a direct effect of the position they occupy vis-a-vis each other in the process of production.

Poulantzas' conceptualization of the power bloc is predicated on disclosing its unique constitution. He

states that

The concept of power bloc...indicates the particular contradictorv unitv of the politically dominant classes or fractions of classes as related to a particular form of the capitalist state. ...The concept of power bloc covers both the concrete configuration of the unity of these classes or fractions in stages characterized by a specific mode of articulation and also a specific rhythm of the ensemble of the instances. In this sense, the concept of power bloc is related to the political level and covers the field of political practices. in so far as this field concentrates within itself and reflects the articulation of the ensemble of instances and levels of class struggle in a determinate stage.21

The specification of the power bloc is often

confusing and difficult to decipher because of a

misconception arising in Marx and Engels, particularly when

they speak of several fractions in political domination as

forming a "fusion." This misconception has implications in

that it allows for the impression to arise that these

fractions/classes, which compose the power bloc, are

"equals" who "share" state power. The power bloc cannot be

thought of as constituting any kind of fusion, simply

because any kind of fusion would, in effect, mean a

coalescing of interests along one axis with no points of

21ibid., p. 234. 187 demarcation between the fractions remaining evident. The ultimate effect of conceptualizing a power bloc as a fusion is to reduce the whole idea of a power bloc to a single class (a dominant monolithic class).

A parallel argument to the fusion position is that which holds the power bloc to be an alliance. To speak of the power bloc as an alliance, is to argue that bourgeois classes/fractions out of their own volition are able to constitute a power bloc. Given their contradictory nature, this is an impossibility. Such a position allows no space for the State in constituting the contradictory unity between the bourgeois classes because it leaves the State out of the whole of social relations. Viewing the power bloc as an alliance is a voluntaristic-corporatist- economistic position which vests each of the bourgeois classes with absolute autonomy. This is not a feasible argument, given the corporatist, voluntarist, and competitive rationality of these genealogically diverse classes. They would ultimately annihilate themselves if this were the case. The idea of an alliance further rules out the region of the political, and thereby the role of the State in surplus producing social formations.

By taking such positions, it becomes, therefore, unnecessary to speak about a power bloc or giving any kind of specificity as to its constitution. According to Poulantzas, 188

The phenomenon of the power bloc...does not constitute an expressive totality of equivalent elements, but a complex contradictory unity in dominance.22

This complex contradictory unity in dominance means that the power bloc is able to exercise political, economic, and ideological dominance within a given capitalist social formation. In addition, this complex contradictory unity in dominance also calls into being the existence of a hegemonic class within the power bloc. Poulantzas says that

This hegemonic class or fraction is in fact the dominant element of the contradictory unity of politically "dominant" classes or fractions, forming part of the power bloc.23

Given the above, it should be held in mind that the class struggle is ongoing even within the power bloc itself. The class struggle marks the specific character of the classes/fractions which constitute the power bloc, i.e., the production and reproduction of their form of existence.

Poulantzas specifies the character of the relationships within the power bloc as follows:

The relation between the capitalist state and the dominant classes or fractions pushes them towards their political unitv under the protection of a hegemonic class or fraction. The hegemonic class or fraction polarizes the specific contradictory interests of the various classes or fractions in the power bloc by making its own economic interests into political interests and by representing the general common interest of the classes or fractions

22ibid., p. 237.

23ibid. 189

in the power bloc: this general interest consists of economic exploitation and political domination.24

The particular form that a power bloc takes vis-a-vis its composition, and the particular political, economic, and

ideological policies it pursues, is predicated upon the character of the class struggle and specific historical

conj unctures.

In specific historical conjunctures, there is a particular type of relationship that arises between the power bloc and the dominated classes. This relationship is

one in which the dominated classes become supporting

classes of the power bloc. Marx clearly demonstrates the

nature of this relationship in the Eighteenth Brumaire and

in The Civil Wars in France where he shows the role the

small-holding peasantry, the lumpenproletariat, and other

classes played vis-a-vis 1. the specific power bloc at a

given juncture, and 2. the character of Bonapartism. This

idea of supporting classes has major ramifications when

dealing with the class locations and the class positions

that classes take in specific historical conjunctures,

i.e., in support of the power bloc or in support of the working class.25 Along these lines, Poulantzas stresses

24ibid., p. 239.

2^In the events of May 1968 in France, the supporting classes of the prevailing power bloc displaced their support from that power bloc to the popular struggles of the working classes. Noticeable was the withdrawal of the new petty bourgeoisie's support of the power bloc and its 190 that the support given by supporting classes

...to a determinate class's domination is generally not based on anv real political sacrifice of the interests of the power bloc...in their favour. Their support, which is indispensable to this class domination, is based primarily on a process of ideological illusions. Marx demonstrates this in the case of the small-holding peasantry whose vital support for the Bonapartist state is based on a whole ideological context relying on "tradition" and on the origins of Louis Bonaparte. The Bonapartist state, supported by these peasants, did not take any appreciable political measure in favour of their particular interests. It simply took certain measures of compromise sort so as to continue to feed this ideological illusion at the base of this political support.26

The mechanics of the relationship of the power bloc to the supporting classes is rooted in the level of the class struggle, and the felt threat "real or imaginary" from the working class. Furthermore, the relationship of the supporting classes to the power bloc is filtered through the State. Thus, the supporting classes are not in contact per se with the power bloc, but lend their support to the power bloc through the State by sustaining the prevailing social relations of production, the system. Poulantzas refers to this sort of relationship as being one of power fetishism. He argues that this power fetishism is expressed through alignment with the working class. However, as the forces of the working class lost, the new petty bourgeoisie (or some of its fractions) reconstituted itself as a supporting class of the prevailing power bloc.

26poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes, pp. 243-244. 191

...(i) the belief in a state above the class struggle which could serve their interests against those in the power bloc...; and (ii) the belief in a state as guardian of the status quo, as a barrier to the conquest of power by the working class. In both these cases, the particular ideological masking of the nature and function of the state, as well as of its role as mediator between (a) the supporting classes and (b) the power bloc..., depends on the degree of political under­ determination. characteristic of the supporting classes. and on their incapacity to achieve an autonomous political organization because of their specific place in the process of production.2?

Thus the role that the supporting classes play, is one based on supporting the policies of the State and the power bloc. This support is given and sustained on the ideological conceptualization that supporting classes hold, i.e., they view the State as representing the interests of the people-nation/national interests and not the interests of any particular class. In reality, however, the supporting classes end up supporting the status guo because they are not able to constitute themselves politically, given their subordinate position vis-a-vis the power bloc and the State. In effect, this subordinate relationship is sustained because the supporting classes are outflanked, i.e., disarticulated vis-a-vis the positions of the State and the power bloc. The nature of these relationships is overdetermined by 1. the level of class struggle; 2. the ideological positions of the supporting classes; and 3. the power fetishism/ideological illusion that the supporting

2?ibid., p. 244, 192 classes hold vis-a-vis the State and the power bloc. The

State's relation to the power bloc, according to

Poulantzas, is based on the fact that "... it is the factor of the political unitv of the power bloc under the protection of the hegemonic class or fraction.”28 Thus,

Poulantzas' position goes counter to the position that holds the State to be a tool/organ of the dominant class.

In addition, his position also goes counter to Marx on the grounds that the power bloc does not constitute a fusion,

synthesis, or a sharing out of political power among the bourgeois classes. He argues that

...the power bloc constitutes a contradictory unity of dominant classes or fractions, a unity dominated by the hegemonic class or fraction. This unity of the power bloc is constituted under the protection of the hegemonic class or fraction which politically polarizes the interests of the other classes or fractions which are part of it.29

The interests of the classes or fractions within the power

bloc are polarized as a result of their genealogy, and

their differential form of existence around the relations

of production/accumulation which characterize them.

Given the above, it falls to the State, the

political region, to constitute the political unity of the

bourgeoisie

...because the political parties of the bourgeois class and of its fractions are unable to play an autonomous organization role, let alone one

28%bid., p. 299.

29lbid., p. 296-297. 193

analogous to the role of the working class's parties.30

Poulantzas develops this argument by stating that

With regard to the dominant classes and fractions, the capitalist state presents an intrinsic unitv. combined with its relative autonomy, not because it is the tool of an already politically unified class, but precisely because it is the unifvina factor of the power b l o c . 3i

What is it, then, that enables the State to constitute this unity for a social formation? According to Poulantzas,

The state derives its own unity from this plurality of dominant classes and fractions, in so far as their relation is incapable of functioning by means of a share-out of power and needs the state as the organizational factor of their strictly political unity.32

As pointed out earlier, it is on the political level, the level of the State, that the economic and ideological practices can be materialized. This materialization is effected through the State as it relates to the class struggle, and "...makes the constitution of the power bloc possible."33 In grasping this essential argument, one can clearly see the scientific revolution that Poulantzas launches on the terrain of the State, the political

30lbid., p. 299.

33jbid., p. 300,

3 2 j b i d .

3 3 % b i d . , p. 230, 194 region 34

Hegemony

Hegemony is a master concept for both Gramsci and

Poulantzas, and Poulantzas gives Gramsci credit for the concept.35 Poulantzas further notes that Gramsci uses the concept of hegemony in a practical rather than a theoretical fashion.36 This position, however, is not fully on the mark. In reality, Gramsci uses the concept of hegemony as both a theoretical and a practical concept.

Here are some examples. First, Gramsci in the Prison

Notebooks goes into great detail in discussing the

Risorgimento, and it is here that he first theorizes the elements of hegemony utilized by Piedmont in its attainment

(the practical form) of hegemony over the whole Italian social formation. Secondly, Gramsci in his discussion of hegemony (political, economic, ideological, and hegemonic

34This scientific revolution is predicated on the co­ presence/co-existence of the political, ideological, and economic practices and the relative autonomy they exercise vis-a-vis each other. Poulantzas also makes use of the concept of relative autonomy to study how the State operates via-a-vis the power bloc and the dominated classes. Hence the concept of relative autonomy and its articulation to class practices and relations is a major epistemological contribution by Poulantzas. His contribution makes it possible to gain a clearer understanding of our social relations of existence.

35ne states that the concept of hegemony "...was produced by Gramsci." Poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes, p. 137.

36ibid. 195 crises) clearly theorizes the application of this concept.

Thirdly, Gramsci clearly develops the concept by denoting the characteristics of the historic bloc,3? and the hegemonic elements of the class which leads it. A more accurate position for Poulantzas would be one in which he argues that Gramsci gives specificity to the concept of hegemony on a theoretical and practical level. Such a position would actually coincide with Poulantzas' own utilization of the concept. Be that as it may, Poulantzas states that Gramsci developed a whole new concept in contrast to the one found in Lenin's writings. He says that

...in reality [Gramsci]...produced a new concept which can account for the political practices of dominant classes in developed capitalist formations.3^

Both Gramsci and Poulantzas recognize that hegemony involves the organization and reproduction of "active consent." Active consent can only be implemented if the ruling bloc, or power bloc (and the State) is able to assert its hegemony through the exercise of ethico- political hegemony, i.e., intellectual, moral, political.

3^It should be noted here that Poulantzas transforms Gramsci's concept of historic bloc into his own concept of the power bloc.

38ibid., p. 137. Poulantzas gives a detailed exposition of his views on hegemony, its relation to Gramsci, and its misrepresentation as class consciousness in Lukacs' writings in Nicos Poulantzas, "Marxist Political Theory in Great Britain," New Left Review, no. 43 (May-June 1967):57-74. 196 economic, and ideological leadership. Once hegemony is exercised in this fashion, it penetrates into every sphere of thought and social existence. Civil society is the terrain on which hegemony becomes operational. It is here that unequal forces confront each other to negotiate compromises, and form alliances under the hegemony of a dominant class. According to Poulantzas,

The dominant classes cannot dominate the exploited classes by the monopolistic use of violence; dominance must always be represented as legitimate....39

This entails taking into account popular interests and demands; making compromises when pressured on secondary issues; and the maintenance of alliances in an inherently unstable system without in any way undercutting the essential long-term interests of the dominant class.

Ethical-political hegemony is produced through ideological practices that operate through the prevailing system of beliefs, attitudes, values, and common sense articulated in such a way that it structures the popular culture to the exigencies of the dominant class. The result is, according to Gramsci and Poulantzas, the welding together of a common national-popular world-view oriented toward the reproduction of the social relations of production.

Poulantzas defines the field of the concept of hegemony as

39n 1c o s Poulantzas, "The Political Crisis and the Crisis of the State," in J. W. Freiberg, ed.. Critical Sociology: European Perspectives (New York: Irvington Publishers, 1979), p. 397. 197 being ...the political class struggle in a capitalist formation: in particular it covers the political practices of the dominant classes in these formations. Thus in locating the relation of the capitalist state to the politicallv dominant classes, we can sav that it is a state with hegemonic class leadership....4^

This view is developed directly out of Gramsci's Prison

Notebooks and from his Political Writings. One of

Poulantzas' longest quotations, in the whole of Political

Power and Social Classes, is from Gramsci's Prison

Notebooks.41 in this passage, Gramsci demonstrates the theoretical and practical application of hegemony. Thus, by designating the relationship of the capitalist State to the politically dominant classes through its hegemonic class leadership, one can clearly ascertain the parallels between Poulantzas' and Gramsci's view on the State.

Gramsci points out that

The bourgeois class is not a unified entity outside the State. As a result of the working of free competition, new groups of capitalist producers are constantly forming to fulfil the regime's economic capacity. Each one of these groups yearns to remove itself from the bloody struggle of competition through recourse to monopoly. The State's function is to find a juridical settlement to internal class disputes, to clashes between opposed interests; thereby it unifies different groupings and gives the class a solid and united external appearance. Competition between groupings is concentrated at the point of government, of

40poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes, p. 137.

43see Gramsci, Selections form the Prison Notebooks, pp. 181-182. 198

State power. The government is the prize for the strongest bourgeois party or grouping [the hegemonic class of Poulantzas]; the letter's strength wins for it the right to regulate the State power, to turn it in any particular direction and to manipulate it at any time in accordance with its economic and political p r o g r a m m e . 42

In these passages, Gramsci clearly delineates in

Poulantzas' terms two central features of hegemony: 1. the hegemonic role of the State, and 2. the nature/role of the hegemonic class. Poulantzas' position, thus, closely parallels that of Gramsci. This is clearly evident when

Poulantzas says that the State, which is the

...political practice of the dominant classes has two functions: (i) to constitute the unity of the dominant class(es) out of the isolation of their economic struggle, (ii) by means of a whole political-ideological operation of its own, to constitute their strictly political interests as representative of the general interest of the people/nation. This is made necessarv by the particular structures of the capitalist state, in its relation to the economic class struggle, and made possible precisely by the isolation of the economic struggle of the dominated classes. It is by analysing this whole complex operation that we can establish the relation between this national- popular-class state and the politically dominant classes in a capitalist formation.43

Clearly, the concept of hegemony constitutes a relational theoretical and political application for Gramsci and Poulantzas.

The State's organizational role, as found in

42Antonio Gramsci, Selections from Political Writings: 1910-1920 (New York: International Publishers, 1977), p. 40.

43poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes, p. 137. 199 Gramsci, is expressed by Poulantzas in the relation of the capitalist State to the power bloc. He says that

The capitalist state and the specific characteristics of the class struggle in a capitalist formation make it possible for a "power bloc," composed of several politicallv dominant classes and fractions to function. Amongst these dominant classes and fractions one of them holds a particular dominant role, which can be characterized as a hegemonic r o l e . *4

Poulantzas is here not only expressing the hegemonic role exercised by the hegemonic class vis-a-vis the power bloc, but also the hegemony exercised by the State/power bloc over the dominated classes in a social formation along the lines of economic hegemony, political hegemony, and ideological hegemony. Poulantzas, like Gramsci, recognizes the dual function of the hegemonic class as representing on the political level "...the general interest of the people/nation and of maintaining a specific dominance among the dominant classes and fractions."45 These complex relations of the power bloc are materialized through its unigue position vis-a-vis the State and the hegemonic class or fraction.

Relative Autonomv

Poulantzas' development of the concept of relative autonomy marks a major scientific advance in the study of the State. The concept of relative autonomy is able to

44ibid., p. 141.

45ibid., p. 141. 200 explain, in a rather sophisticated and concrete fashion, the contradictory and confusing positions and policies that the capitalist type of State materializes. Understanding the relative autonomy of the State permits the disclosure and mapping of the very being and operation of the capitalist State within the field of the class struggle.

The utility of relative autonomy, as a heuristic concept, becomes central to any study of the State. Prior to

Poulantzas' Promethean discovery and application of relative autonomy to the State, the terrain of the State was underdeveloped, poorly theorized, and often misinterpreted. Hence, the concept of relative autonomy enables Poulantzas to give concrete specificity to the very nature/constitution of the class State. By so doing,

Poulantzas is able to explain away instrumentalist conceptualizations that conceive of the State as an instrument or tool of the dominant class. He contends that to hold the position that the State is a tool or instrument of the dominant class is 1. "erroneous," and 2.

"...particularly useless for grasping the functioning of the capitalist State."46 Accordingly, he defines the concept of relative autonomy as being "...the state's relation to the field of the class struggle, in particular its relative autonomy vis-a-vis its allies or supports."4?

46ibid., p. 256. 47ibid. 201

The instrumentalist perspective does not have the theoretical power to provide such a specificity. Since it conceives of the State as being a monolithic structure and a tool of the dominant class, it cannot speak to the contradictory nature of the dominant class, the bourgeoisie. In addition, it lacks the analytical power to address itself to the genealogy and contradictory nature of bourgeois classes, i.e., the character of the class struggle within the power bloc; and it is unable to disclose the class struggle in general as it relates to the dominant and dominated classes, and between the dominated classes themselves, e.g., the petty bourgeoisie and the working class. The instrumentalist view of the State can only provide a one-dimensional non-relational theory of the State.

Poulantzas notes that the instrumentalist view of the State is predicated on a variant of Marxism, voluntarism/economism, that regards the State as being the subject of the dominant class, i.e., a monolithic State which conducts business exclusively at the will of the bourgeois class. A major problem that stems from this position is the under-specification of the character of the dominant class(es). To speak only of a monolithic dominant bourgeois class, is to lose sight of the genealogical differences and contradictory world-views which make up the bourgeois class(es). The ultimate problem with this view 202 is that it is unable to give any kind of relative autonomy to the State; because it conflates the State with the dominant class. The instrumentalist view of the State cannot provide clear answers as to the policies the State pursues vis-a-vis the dominated classes, e.g., the granting of concessions to the dominated classes. From these grounds, it becomes extremely simple to argue that the

State is the "executive committee" of the bourgeois class.

This view ends up reducing the State to exercising the bureaucratic functions, i.e., being the "clerk," of the bourgeois class. The instrumentalist position can by no means capture the complex contradictory character that marks the very being of the capitalist State. In addition, it cannot specify the State as a political region in relation to the economic and ideological regions in surplus generating societies. Instrumentalism obscures the role that the State plays in constituting the political realities (juridico-political) under which people live. By accepting instrumentalism, one is prevented from ascertaining the differences between the ancient type of

State, the Asiatic type of State, the feudal type of State, the capitalist type of State, the socialist type of State, and the long-term amortization of the class State itself.48

48b y this I mean that the instrumentalist position has implications for positions which hold that the capitalist State, once captured by the proletariat, can be used by the socialist forces to advance society toward socialism (Right-Eurocommunism). Poulantzas argues that this 203

Poulantzas, like Gramsci, characterizes the State as being a social relation that is "...not a monolithic bloc, but a strategic field."49 By giving such specificity to the State, Poulantzas and Gramsci break with all voluntaristic/economistic positions which characterized the

Second International and the Third International.^9 In contrast to the instrumentalist view, Poulantzas cautions that

The (capitalist) State should not be regarded as an intrinsic entity: like "capital," it is rather a relationship of forces, or more preciselv the material condensation of such a relationship among classes and class fractions....^^

By specifying the State as the condensation of a relationship having a particular form, Poulantzas wants to avoid any characterization of "...the State as a Thing- instrument and the State as a Subject."52 Regarding the

State as a Thing means to perceive the State as being passive, neutral, and thus a tool to be wielded by any class in its own corporate interests stripped of any position is untenable, since the captured State is still a capitalist constituted State, i.e., marked by the imperatives of the bourgeoisie from which it gains its form. His position is that this State must be smashed, i.e., destroyed of all class content.

49Poulantzas, State Power Socialism, p. 138.

SOsoth Internationals held the State to be a repressive apparatus devoid of class contradictions.

Slpoulantzas, State Power Socialism, p. 128.

52ibid., p. 129. 204 relative autonomy from that class. Conceiving of the State as a Subject is to bestow upon the State "... an absolute autonomy that refers to its will as the supposedly rationalizing instance of civil s o c i e t y . "53 According to

Poulantzas, this is the position of Max Weber and the functionalist-instrumentalist brand of political sociology that ascribes to the State a rationalistic nature, and bestows autonomy to the bearers of power in the State— the bureaucrats and elites.54 The Weberian typology of the

State under-specifies the syncretic existence of the State.

For example, Weber says that "if the state is to exist, the dominated must obey the authority claimed by the powers that be."55 This is typical of German rationalism that gives no specificity as to the constitution of the State and the constitution of the powers that be.56 When Weber

53ibid.

54such positions are held by Mills, Domhoff, Miliband, and others.

55m s x Weber, "Politics as a Vocation," in H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, From Max Weber: Essavs in Socioloav (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946), p. 78.

56weber's position ends up conceptualizing the State in a frame of reference where the State is viewed as an independent actor devoid of class content or class oriented policies. This is commonly the position taken by political science. When studying the State, political science tends to concentrate on State to State relations as if States are independent actors devoid of class content. Overall, political science sees States, i.e., nation-States, and the State through the functionalist-instrumentalist problematic. When this approach deals with developing nations, it argues for the "modernization" of the State (instrumentalism) without addressing the social 205 does attempt to speak about the powers that be, he makes use of ideal-types that are not grounded in any social relations of production, and thereby cannot give any concrete specificity to the different types of State.

Hence, by utilizing ideal-types, Weber can transpose ideal- types of Herrschaft (domination) throughout space and time.

Such theorizing can only produce three ideal-typical forms of domination— traditional, charismatic, and legal- rational. Weber's conceptualization of domination, however, is not a powerful enough theoretical conceptualization to provide any kind of concrete

specificity to; 1. historical concrete social formations;

2. modes of production; 3. forms of accumulation; 4. types

of ideological ensembles; 5. social relations of production/class relations; and 6. types of State— ancient,

Asiatic, feudal, capitalist, and socialist. In reality,

Weber's orientation is evolutionist/historicist positing a

linear time sequence of successive stages of domination

culminating in the most advanced form of legal- rationalism.57 As a way of transcending the limitations of

Weber's linearity of stages of domination, some neo-

Weber ians, like Wolfgang Mommsen, have gone so far as to make use of the concept of relative autonomy when speaking

relations/class relations and the character/composition of this type of State and the social formation in which it exits.

57weber's ultimate ideal-typical form of domination is a charismatic/legal-rational combination. 206 of the ideal-typical forms of domination. Mommsen states the relative autonomy position in Weber's work as follows:

Systems of charismatic rule (cannot) sustain even a minimum of stability without elements of "traditional" and even "bureaucratic legitimacy," nor can bureaucratic systems survive for long without the additional support of substantial elements of both "traditional" and "charismatic" legitimacy.58

Hence, Mommsen is introducing into Weber's work a

structuralism of instances (ideal-types of domination),

where in the matrix of the combination/ensemble one form of

domination (instance) prevails over the others. Thus, the

existence of the legal-rational form of domination involves

an articulation of elements from the traditional and the

charismatic forms of domination.59 in opposing the

functionalist-instrumentalist position in all its variants,

Poulantzas proposes that

The establishment of the State's policv must be seen as the result of the class contradictions inscribed in the verv structure of the State (the State as a relationship).

58wolfgang Mommsen, The Age of Bureaucracy: Perspectives on the Political Sociology of Max Weber (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1974), p. 86.

59one may argue that the American political system embodies all three forms with the legal-rational being the dominant instance. The traditional form of domination may be thought of as being the Constitution (a historical traditional document) that people follow out of tradition. The charismatic form is expressed through charismatic political figures, e.g., presidents, who exercise significant power, however, remaining within the evolving parameters of the legal-rational— the rule of law.

GOpoulantzas, State Power Socialism, p. 132. 207

He defines the State as being

...the condensation of a relationship of forces between classes and class fractions, such as these express themselves, in a necessarily specific form, within the State itself. In other words, the State is through and through constituted-divided by class contradictions. Thus, an institution destined to reproduce class divisions is not, and can never be, a monolithic bloc without cracks.... Contrary to conceptions that treat it as a Thing or a Subject, the State is itself divided. It is not enough simply to say that contradictions and struggles traverse the State.... Class contradictions are the very stuff of the State: they are present in its material framework and pattern its organization; while the State's policy is the result of their functioning within the State.61

The functionalist-instrumentalist view of the State is unable to 1. explain how State policy is constituted in the interests of the dominant class(es) in the face of the dominated classes; and it is unable to 2. deal with the internal contradictions as they become manifest in the

State. The primary weakness of this position is that it presents the State as being external to social classes, thereby, giving the State the appearance of a monolithic structure without any fissures.

According to Poulantzas, theorizing the State through the functionalist-instrumentalist position produces theoretical weaknesses. These theoretical weaknesses are also present in the instrumentalist/economistic positions of the Second International and the Third International.

The instrumentalism/economism of these Internationals held

G llb id . 208 that there is a general "crisis of capitalism." In this economistic version, capitalism is conceived of producing its own rotting: to be in its last phase of existence as a system. Poulantzas, like Gramsci, regards all such views of the State as erroneously dissolving "...the specificity of the concept of c r i s i s . "62 He argues that

...all teleological concepts of crisis must be mistrusted: the end of capitalism does not depend on any crisis whatsoever but on the issue of the class Struggles that manifest themselves therein.63

An economistic view of the State inhibits the development of a theory vis-a-vis the S t a t e . 64 By specifying classes and the State dialectically, in a relational manner,

Poulantzas is able to work within Gramsci's war of position problematic as being the appropriate strategy for the transition to socialism. This allows Poulantzas to view social classes as fluid entities that are able to enter into class alliances. He defines classes along two dimensions: 1. the structural determination of classes, and

2. their class positions. The structural determination of class

coincides with the practices (struggle) of classes and includes political and ideological relations, [and] designates certain objective places occupied

62poulantzas, "The Political Crisis and the Crisis of the State," p. 360.

63ibid.

64%nstrumentalism/economism is unable to capture the significance of social classes on the political, economic, and ideological practices. 209

by the social agents in the social division of labour....65

Class position implies that a class or fraction of a class

"...may take up a class position that does not correspond to its interests...."66 %n other words, a class or fraction of a class, e.g., the labor aristocracy of the working class, or the middle or lower sections of the new petty bourgeoisie, may enter into political alliances

(Gramsci's historic bloc) with other classes, whereby, they support the political positions of another class, e.g., in

Nazi Germany the petty bourgeoisie was the hegemonic class with support from the dominated and the dominant classes.

By defining classes in such a way, Poulantzas is explicitly rejecting the instrumentalist/economistic distinction between class-in-itself and class-for-itself. Instead, he argues that

...social classes do not firstly exist as such, and only then enter into a class struggle. Social classes coincide with class practices, i.e. the class struggle, and are only defined in their mutual opposition. ...Classes exist only in the class struggle.67

Thus, classes cannot be understood independently of the relations of production, and their relations with other classes. In this sense, Poulantzas, like Gramsci,

65Nicos Poulantzas, Classes in Contemoorarv Capitalism (London: NLB,1975/Verso,1978), p. 14.

66ibid., p. 15.

67ibid., p. 14. 210 dismisses the positions of the Second and Third

Internationals that hold the State to be a repressive instrument in the hands of the bourgeois class. Instead, they both advance a non-instrumentalist/non-economistic approach that recognizes the State as constituting the site of class struggle, class compromises, and the place where the power bloc articulates and disarticulates the interests of the dominated classes through the contradictions embodied within its raison d'etre. For Gramsci,

The State is the entire complex of practical and theoretical activities with which the ruling class not only justifies and maintains its dominance, but manages to win the active consent of those over whom it rules....68

Gramsci's active consent is materialized, according to

Poulantzas, in

The state apparatuses [that] consecrate and reproduce hegemony by bringing the power bloc and certain dominated classes into a (variable) game of provisional compromises. The state apparatuses organize-unify the power bloc by permanently disorganizing-dividing the dominated classes, polarizing them towards the power bloc, and short- circuiting their own political organizations. The State's relative autonomy [vis-a-vis] a given fraction of the power bloc is also necessary for the organization of that bloc's long-term, global hegemony over the dominated classes: this often involves the State in imposing the material compromises indispensable for such hegemony on the various fractions of the power b l o c . 69

It follows that in order for the State to gain the active

68cramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, p. 244.

69poulantzas, State Power Socialism, p. 140. 211 consent (legitimacy) of the dominated classes, it must from time to time, given the level of the class struggle, grant

"...certain material demands of the popular masses— demands which, at the moment of their imposition, may assume a quite radical significance....70 Demands which have initially taken on radical significance in their

implementation, continuation, and expansion are civil

liberties, public education, social security, unemployment

insurance, day-care, minimum wage, etc. These forms of concessions to the dominated classes are what Gramsci characterizes as a revolution from above, a passive

revolution. For Poulantzas and Gramsci, these concessions

are aimed toward sustaining the macrochronic interests of

the hegemonic class, even though sectors of the power bloc may suffer in the short-term. It should be kept in mind, however, that the popular gains of the dominated classes

can over the long-term "...be progressively stripped of

their initial content and character in a covert and

[overt]... fashion."7i The roll back of popular gains and

their expansion is predicated on the level of the class struggle.72

70%bid., p. 185.

71ibid.

72covertly, the roll back of popular gains may occur through legislative action (creation of new programs and policy) and through executive action. Overtly, concessions may be retracted through juridical-political decisions (Supreme Court and justice departments) and through 212

Poulantzas analyzes the specific character of the hegemonic class vis-a-vis the State as one in which the hegemonic class or fraction

...can dominate effectively only if it sets up its economic interests as political interests. In holding state power it can perpetuate existing social relations only through a whole series of compromises which maintain the unstable equilibrium of the classes present, and through a whole range of political organization and ideological functioning, by which it manages to present itself as the representative of the general interest of the people and the embodiment of the unity of the nation.73

It is, however, through relative autonomy that the State is able to take charge and materialize the bourgeoisie's political hegemony and interests. It does this because the bourgeoisie is unable to do this itself, given its genealogical legacy. Thus, the State is able to intervene and arrange compromises with the dominated classes on behalf of the hegemonic class'/power bloc's economic

interests in terms of microchronic and macrochronic political compromises. Poulantzas specifies these complex class relations as follows:

... in order concretely to take on this relative autonomy which, inscribed in the play of its institutions, is what is precisely necessary for hegemonic class determination, the state is supported by certain dominated classes of the society, in that it presents itself, through a complex ideological process, as their representative: it encourages them in various ways. concrete legislative action.

73poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes, p. 283 213

to work against the dominant class or classes, but to the political advantage of these latter. In this way it succeeds precisely in making the dominated classes accept a whole series of compromises which appear to be to their political interest.74

The acceptance of these compromises involves highly complex processes which are materialized primarily through the ideological state apparatuses. The relative autonomy of the State can be clearly seen as it is expressed through its political role, where it relies on the dominated classes while simultaneously ”...play[ing] them off against the dominated c l a s s e s . "75 This is evident in its concrete

form in the Bonapartist capitalist type of State and in

fascist and dictatorial capitalist types of State. In representative forms of the capitalist type of State, this relationship is played out through the State's apparatuses/institutions which annunciate policies and programs that encourage the dominated classes to support the State overtly so that it may covertly (or even overtly) promote the macrochronic political interests of the bourgeoisie. Poulantzas argues that the relative autonomy of the capitalist type of State enables the State to be the

"... factor of political organization of the dominant classes [given their socio-economic isolation and their

74ibid., p. 285.

75ibid., p. 286. 214 constitution] into fractions...."7® The reason for this is that

...the dominant classes are more often than not unable to raise themselves by their own efforts to a hegemonic level vis-a-vis the dominated classes.77

Coincidently with the above function, the State acts to politically disorganize/dislocate/isolate the

economic/political interests of the working class from

coalescing into an "...autonomous political party."78 in

addition, the relative autonomy of the State is affirmed

through supporting classes. Poulantzas states that through

...a complex ideological process, the state benefits from these classes' incapacity to affirm themselves politically, because of their place in the process of production....79

These supporting classes, e.g., the traditional petty

bourgeoisie and the new petty bourgeoisie, are unable to

affirm their political interests because they are out­

flanked by the relative capital/political interests that

are contained within the power bloc, and by the State's

ability to frustrate, dislocate, and destroy their form of

existence. Ultimately, Poulantzas' utilization of the

concept of relative autonomy demonstrates concretely that

State power is not a machine or an instrument, a

76ibid., p. 287.

77ibid.

78jbid.

79jbid., p. 288. 215

simple object coveted by the various classes; nor is it divided into parts which, if not in the hands of some, must automatically be in the hands of others [pluralism]: rather it is an ensemble of structures.80

The Poulantzas-Miliband Debate

In 1969, Poulantzas wrote an article®^- for the New

Left Review that was an analysis and critique of Ralph

Miliband's The State in Capitalist Societv.®^ This article became the catalyst that launched the Poulantzas-Miliband debate.®® In this article, Poulantzas points out "...that

Miliband nowhere deals with the Marxist theory of the State as such, although it is constantly implicit in his work."®*

The implicitness of a Marxist theory of the State, however, does by no means disclose the specificity and form of the capitalist State. Instead of dealing with the State directly, Miliband begins his analysis by

®Oibid.

®%icos Poulantzas, "The Problem of the Capitalist State," New Left Review, no. 58 (November-December 1969):67-78.

®®Ralph Miliband, The State in Capitalist Societv (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1969).

®®There are interventions in this debate by Ernesto Laclau, "The Specificity of the Political: The Poulantzas- Miliband Debate," Economy and Societv 4, no. 1 (February 1975):87-ll0; Erik Olin Wright, Class. Crisis and the State (London: Verso, 1979); and Nicos Mouzelis, "Ideology and Politics: A Critique of Ernesto Laclau," New Left Review, no. 112 (November-December 1978):45-61.

®4poulantzas, "The Problem of the Capitalist State," 69. 216

...attack[ing] bourgeois ideologies of the State whilst placing himself on their own terrain. Instead of displacing the epistemological terrain and submitting these ideologies to the critique of Marxist science by demonstrating their inadequacy to the real (as Marx does, notably in the Theories of Surplus Value), Miliband appears to omit this step.ks The outcome is that Miliband lodges himself directly on the very epistemological terrain he is attempting to criticize.

Poulantzas notes that this epistemoligical situation leads

Miliband to accept the "...notion of 'plural elite,' whose ideological function is to deny the existence of a ruling class...."®® By accepting the notion of a plurality of elites as constituting a ruling class, Miliband fails to apply a Marxist critique on the bourgeois ideological notion of elite, thereby, neglecting to develop any sophisticated specificity of Marxist concepts such as ruling class, class fractions. State apparatuses, hegemonic class, and power bloc. Thus, Miliband's adherence to the notion of an elite prevents him from addressing

...the differences and relations between fractions of capital. The problem is not that of a plurality of "economic elites" but of fractions of the capitalist class. Can a Marxist pass over in silence the existent differences and relations, under imperialism, between comprador monopoly capital, national monopoly capital, non-monopoly capital, industrial capital, or financial capital?®?

®5lbid.

®®Ibid.

®?Ibid., p. 72. 217

Obviously, Miliband's epistemological position becomes an epistemological obstacle that inhibits him from dealing with the questions Poulantzas raises. To simply focus on the bourgeois notion of elite, one could never get a clear vision of the forms of capital: the genealogy of different types of capital, e.g., industrial, finance, etc.; their respective world views, policies, interests; and their fields of conflict within capitalism. The problem with the notion of an elite is that it conflates all of the above characteristics into a monolithic entity— instrumentalism.

Miliband's instrumentalist position is predicated on establishing the links between members of the capitalist class around their participation in the interior of the

State, i.e., the positions/offices that they hold within the government/state. As Poulantzas shows, Miliband's aim is to establish "...the relation between members of the

State apparatuses and the ruling class...."®® He does this by designating two features:

...(a) that the social origin of members of the "summit" of the State apparatus is that of the ruling class, and (b) that personal ties of influence, status, and milieu are established between the members of the ruling class and those of the State apparatus.®®

Miliband is not the first to advocate an instrumentalist position. C. Wright Mills advanced such a position in 1956

®®Ibid.

® 9lbid. 218 in The Power Elite. Mills' The Power Elite exercised a profound intellectual and political influence on a whole generation of scholars.®® The power elite model of

Miliband®! and Mills presents a vision of the State whereby the power elite forms the capitalist State. The question then arises, how can the bourgeois class, which is itself riddled through and through with contradictions, come to have the power to organize the capitalist type of State? For Poulantzas, this could not be; because of the contradictory character of the fractions of capital that are contained under the broad label of the bourgeois class.

The instrumentalist approach of Mills and Miliband draws heavily from Weber's remarks on the State in his

"Politics as a Vocation."®® Weber says that "...the state is a relation of men dominating men, a relation supported

9®For example, see the work of G. William Domhoff especially Who Rules America and Higher Circles. On the political level, see President Eisenhower's "Farewell Address to the Nation," where Mills' power elite trichotomy— corporate, executive branch of government, and the military— becomes Eisenhower's "military-industrial complex" that Americans should guard against. The notion of the power elite in the 1960's and early 1970's became popularly known as "the establishment." However, both the military-industrial complex and the notion of "the establishment" are too amorphous conceptual categories that lack the theoretical power to disclose the class content of a society.

S^Miliband dedicated his book. The State in Capitalist Societv "To the memory of C. Wright Mills."

®®It should be noted here that C. Wright Mills along with H. H. Gerth were instrumental in translating portions of Weber's work into English. 219 by means of legitimate...violence."®3 Interestingly enough, Miliband's first paragraph in The State in

Capitalist Societv echoes the general tenor of Weber's definition. Miliband states the following:

More than ever before men now live in the shadow of the state, what they want to achieve, individually or in groups, now mainly depends on the state's sanction and support. But since that sanction and support are not bestowed indiscriminately, they must, ever more directly, seek to influence and shape the state's power and purpose, or try and appropriate it altogether. It is for the state's attention, or for its control, that men compete; and it is against the state that beat the waves of social conflict. It is to an ever greater degree the state which men encounter as they confront other men.®*

Some comments are in order here regarding Miliband's statement. First, Miliband, like Weber, places a great deal of emphasis on men confronting and acting with other men. This form of theorizing conveys the impression that men make history; it by no means gives any specificity to classes and the class struggle as the motor of history.

Further, the idea that people are now more than ever living under the shadow of the State says little. Historically speaking, people have been living under the shadow of the

State ever since the development of surplus could sustain kings, priests, and a complex division of labor. Second, the view that individuals and groups depend on the State's support and sanction does not hold up historically. This

9®Weber, "Politics as a Vocation," p. 78.

®*Miliband, The State in Capitalist Society, p. 1. 220 form of reasoning is directly linked to Weber's notion of legitimacy, whereby, he argues that only through the sanction/support/legitimation of the State can individuals and groups achieve their goals and aims. This view fails to specify as to which groups really attain and sustain their own interests. Third, the idea of individuals trying to shape the direction of the State, given that the State sanctions and supports indiscriminately, parallels notions typical of pluralism in all its manifestations— veto groups, interest groups, the neutral State, etc. Fourth, the waves of social conflict do not only beat against the

State, but through the whole ensemble of social relations including the domains of the political, ideological, and economic practices. Finally, men do not only encounter the

State, but they also confront the apparatuses of the State, and the political, ideological, and economic practices that a hegemonic class installs, calibrates, and recalibrates to its own spacial and temporal imperatives.

Miliband concludes his first paragraph as follows:

It is possible not to be interested in what the state does; but it is not possible to be unaffected by it. The point has acquired a new and ultimate dimension in the present epoch: if large parts of the planet should one day be laid to waste in a nuclear war, it is because men, acting in the name of their state and invested with its power, will have so decided, or miscalculated.

These statements by Miliband are exemplary of an

95lbid. 221 instrumentalist conceptualization of the State. The point that men act in the name of the State does not lend any concrete specificity as to the nature, character, and type of State it is, i.e., he makes no allusions to the class character of the State. A central feature of this position is an over-emphasis on the rational character of the State which draws heavily from Weber. By emphasizing the rational character of the State, Weber and his epigones are unable to do an analysis of the historical conditions that contribute to the class character of the State, e.g., instrumentalism, and world-system analysis (Immanuel

Wallerstein and others). A prime example of this situation can be found in Weber's The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism, where Weber never gives any attention to the study of the capitalist State and its role in society.

Miliband, like Weber, begins his analysis of the

State at the level of the State. Neither one of them appears to ground the State in the materialization of class relations. The problem with this form of theorizing is that it does not lend itself toward discerning the types of class states that exist— the capitalist type of State, the socialist type of State, exceptional types of State, etc.

By comparison, Ernest Mandel in Late Capitalism succinctly describes the State as follows:

The State is a product of the social division of labour. It arose from the growing autonomy of certain superstructural activities, mediated to material production, whose role was to sustain a 222

class structure and relations of production.®®

Mandel specifies three main functions of the State;

1) Provision of those general conditions of production which cannot be assured by the private activities of the members of the dominant class. 2) Repression of any threat to the prevailing mode of production from the dominated classes or particular sections of the dominant classes, by means of army, police, judiciary and prison- system. 3)Integration of the dominated classes, to ensure that the ruling ideology of the society remains that of the ruling class, and that consequently the exploited classes accept their own exploitation without the immediate exercise or repression against them (because they believe it to be inevitable, or the "lesser evil," or "superior might," or fail even to perceive it as exploitation).

Poulantzas argues that

If Miliband had...established that the State is precisely the factor of cohesion of a social formation and the factor of reproduction of the conditions of production of a svstem that itself determines the domination of one class over the others, he would have seen clearly that the participation, whether direct or indirect, of [the bourgeois] class in government in no wav changes things. Indeed in the case of the capitalist State, one can go further; it can be said that the capitalist State best serves the interests of the capitalist class only when the members of this class do not participate directly in the State apparatus....®®

The problem with Miliband's position is that he conflates the members of the State apparatuses with being members of

®®Ernest Mandel, Late Capitalism (London; Verso, 1978), p. 474.

®?Ibid., p. 475.

®®Poulantzas, "The Problem of the Capitalist State," p. 73. 223 the bourgeois class. This results in the loss of specificity as to the class origins of the State personnel.

Poulantzas, instead, posits the view that the members of the State apparatuses, the bureaucracy, do not constitute a class, but are a social category. He defines a social category as follows:

This means that, although the members of the State apparatus belong, by their class origin, to different classes, they function according to a specific internal unity.®®

Poulantzas adds that the class origin of the personnel of the State apparatuses becomes displaced as they become united in the objective function!®® of the State. This internal unity is not the result of common class origins

(bourgeois), or a unity composed through close inter­ personal ties (ties formed through marriage, and by having attended certain schools) since members of the bureaucracy, including its heights, come from diverse social classes.

This apparent unity, however, is a manifestation of

...the fact that they belong precisely to the State apparatuses and that they have as their objective function the actualization of the role of the State. This in its turn means that the bureaucracy, as a specific and relatively "unified" social category, is the "servant" of the ruling class, not by reason of its class origins, which are divergent, or by reason of its personal relations with the ruling class, but by reason of the fact that this internal unity derives from its actualization of the objective role of the

®®Ibid.

!®®Ibid., p. 74. 224

State.!®!

By posing this argument in this manner, Poulantzas is able to counter the instrumentalist view that considers the

State as being a simple tool manipulated through the whims, vicissitudes, and will of the ruling class. It is at this point that Poulantzas poses the relative autonomy of the

State. He notes that the

...State can only truly serve the ruling class in so far as it is relatively autonomous from the diverse fractions of this class, precisely in order to be able to organize the hegemony of the whole of this class.!®®

The central thesis here is that the ruling class (the bourgeoisie) does not constitute a unified class, given the genealogy of capital which composes it, and the different

interests that these various capitals endeavour to pursue.

The State can only serve the interests of the bourgeoisie

if it can exercise relative autonomy vis-a-vis these forms of capital; while in the same process acting to unify through the power bloc their interests, thereby, sustaining

and perpetuating the hegemony of the bourgeoisie. The

relative autonomy of the State provides a clear

illustration of how the State can act as a hegemonic State

(nationally and internationally) by being able to make

concessions to opposing groups, e.g., labor, that go

counter to the short-term interests of the bourgeoisie as a

!®!lbid.

!®®Ibid. 225 whole or some fractions of it.

In "Poulantzas and the Capitalist State,"!®®

Miliband takes Poulantzas to task for not undertaking an exposition of concrete social formations as he claimed he would. In fact, Poulantzas does undertake to develop a typology of the capitalist State in Political Power and

Social Classes.!®* and he also develops a concrete analysis of capitalist social formations, primarily the British,

French, and German.!®® Thus, Miliband's criticism on this point is not accurate. He further criticizes Poulantzas' definition of class around the concepts of "specific presence" and "pertinent effects." These two concepts stem

from Poulantzas' position that a class is

... a distinct and autonomous class, as a social force, inside a social formation, only when its connection with the relations of production, its economic existence, is reflected on the other levels by a specific presence.!®®

By this, Poulantzas wants to dismiss the notion that a class only represents an economic category. Instead, he

!®®Ralph Miliband, "Poulantzas and the Capitalist State," New Left Review, no. 82 (November-December 1973):83-92. This article is a review and critique of Poulantzas' publication of Political Power and Social Classes in English. This article is preceded by Miliband's "The Capitalist State: A Reply to Nicos Poulantzas", New Left Review, no. 59 (January-February 1970):53-60.

!®*See Poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes, pp. 142-167.

!®®See Poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes, pp. 168-184.

106 Ibid., p. 78. 226 wants to emphasize the point that class represents a social relation. As such, a class denotes a "specific presence"

in the political, economic, and ideological practices/levels by producing "pertinent effects."

Miliband's questioning as to what constitutes pertinent effects can be answered as follows: pertinent effects are nothing more than significant results that ensue forth and

impact directly on the social relations of production and

reproduction of a class.

On another account, Miliband challenges Poulantzas' notion of relative autonomy!®? on the grounds of what does

it mean to say that the State exercises relative autonomy: how relative and how autonomous? Poulantzas responds by

specifying that

...the term "relative" in the expression "relative autonomy" of the State...here refers to the relationship between State and dominant classes (i.e.relatively autonomous in relation to the dominant classes). In other words, it refers to the class struggle within each social formation and to its corresponding State forms.!®®

There is no generalizing the relative autonomy of the

State. The relative autonomy of the State must be

specified concretely in each social formation. To create a

general notion of the relative autonomy of the State, is.

!®?See Miliband, "Poulantzas and the Capitalist State;" and his "Marxist Theory and the Modern State," Arena. no. 39 (1975): 67-73.

!®®Nicos Poulantzas, "The Capitalist State: A Reply to Miliband and Laclau," New Left Review, no. 95 (January- February 1976):72. 227 in effect, to destroy both concepts; relative and autonomy.

This would mean transforming the State into a tool, a

Thing, a Subject, a monolithic bloc, and an instrument directly under the administration and control of a bourgeois class undifferentiated historically or genealogically. The resolution to the question posed by

Miliband as to how relative and how autonomous is the

State, involves the study of the State in concrete social

formation. Hence, the relative autonomy of the State is never given or pre-constituted. The relative autonomy of the State is ever changing due to the vicissitudes of the class struggle. The relative autonomy of the State is, thus, an expression of the level of degrees of freedom that a State can exercise vis-a-vis the power bloc and the exigencies of maintaining the imperatives of the capitalist system. Poulantzas' answer to Miliband's question on the relative autonomy of the State is that

...the relative autonomy of the State can only be examined...with reference to a given capitalist State, and to the precise conjuncture of the corresponding class struggle (the specific configuration of the power bloc, the degree of hegemony within this bloc, the relations between the bourgeoisie and its different fractions on the one hand and the working class and supporting classes on the other, etc.). I cannot, therefore, answer this question in its general form precisely on account of the conjuncture of the class struggle.!®®

As noted earlier, Miliband's instrumentalism is

!0®lbid. 228 founded on a power elite view of the State. He further demonstrates his affinity with the power elite position when he says that

... it is ultimately a very small group of people in the state— often a single person— who decides what is to be done or not done; and it is only in very exceptional cases that those who make the decisions are left with no range of choice at all.!!®

Instead of defining the State as a multi-fissured structure of contradictory class relations and policies, Miliband continues the Poulantzas-Miliband debate into the 1980's still holding on to a Weberian/Millsian position that the

State is made up of a small group of people. Consequently, his position culminates in the figure of the "all-powerful" individual, who makes decisions "totally" on his own, as

Weber's charismatic leader would, as if classes, class interests, and the class struggle did not exist. The ultimate end of all this is that decisions are made either by a small group of individuals (elites), or a single individual (charismatic Herrschaft) without any range of choice. This is an untenable position because it cannot disclose the class nature of the State. It is ludicrous to argue that decisions/policies made within the State are predicated on a one-dimensional, unilateral, lack of space/range scenario. This position suffers because of its limitations, i.e., its limitations prevent it from grasping

!!®Ralph Miliband, " State Power and Class Interests," New Left Review, no. 138 (March-April 1983):61. 229 the dialectical nature of policy making, which is highly calculated toward meeting the dominant class(es)'

imperatives in the class struggle.

Miliband's form of reasoning is pure voluntarism-

instrumental ism in its highest form. Miliband appears to omit the whole class character and content that infuses the heights of the State apparatuses and the offices of the

executive, i.e., "the single individual," for example, the president of an advanced capitalist country. The decisions made by Miliband's "single person" are the products of high

calculation within the apparatuses of the State, e.g., the various departments/secretariats, and government and private think tanks whose job is to formulate policy that meets the exigencies of capitalism. To advance the

position that a "single person" determines by fiat the

policies of the State without any range of choice at all,

is to miss the mark as to what the State really is.

Miliband further compounds the limitations of this

position when he says that

Perhaps the best way to highlight the meaning of the autonomy of the state is to note that if nuclear war should occur, either between the "super powers" or between lesser powers armed with the capacity to wage such a war, it will occur because governments will have so decided, without reference to anybody else. There is no democratic procedure for starting a nuclear war.ü!

There are several shortcomings with the position that

Ü ^ I b i d . 230

Miliband advances here. First, by arguing that war is made by governments/states, Miliband gives the impression that governments/states are just simply institutional structures. This type of analysis follows a Weberian vein that begins its analysis at the level of the government/state without any specificity as to the class content that infuses/constitutes governments/States.

Governments/States are not just institutional structures, they are, in reality, constituted through manifest concrete class interests. The decisions of governments, including the decision to conduct war, are directly contingent on the nature of the class interests involved, and the level of the class struggle in specific concrete historical conjunctures.

Second, the relative autonomy of the State is totally dismissed by Miliband in favor of a voluntaristic- instrumentalism devoid of the class content of the State.

The ultimate outcome of this voluntarisitic-instrumentalism is the positing of the complete autonomy of the State.

This goes precisely counter to the whole conceptual notion of the relative autonomy of the State. By doing so,

Miliband elevates the autonomy of the State, and in the process ends up construing the State as operating through unspecified class interests, where a power elite or an executive, who rules by fiat without any regard to class(es) because he operates with "no range of choice," 231 comes to exercise authority, thereby, giving the impression that the State operates in total freedom from the class contradictions that permeate all class societies. By emphasizing the autonomy of the State without the relative side of the equation, Miliband commits an epistemological error with grave consequences. No State can be or is absolutely autonomous in any class society. All States, being class States, can only exercise relative autonomy vis-a-vis the power bloc and the dominated classes, and not total autonomy. To deny the relative autonomy of the State is to fall into an epistemological obstacle that is unable to discern the character of the decisions/policies that the

State makes vis-a-vis the dominant and dominated classes.

To speak of autonomy without relative autonomy is to error in the direction of the State becoming a State-for-itself.

There can be no such situation because the State is a manifestation of class relations riddled through and through with class contradictions and the class struggle.

Miliband's emphasis on the autonomy of the State advances the view of State power without class power.

Finally, the conclusions that Miliband draws can by no means prevent him from arguing that no democratic procedure exists for the starting of a nuclear war.

However, there is a class character to the making of war, which may (where a democratically elected body declares war) or may not involve the democratic process e.g.. 232 fascism and military dictatorships.

Miliband's criticisms of Poulantzas' concept of relative autonomy do not hold up under close scrutiny.

This is because Poulantzas' concept of relative autonomy does not imply a fixed point. Hence to capture the true significance of the concept of relative autonomy, one must think of it as an ongoing articulation process overdetermined by the class struggle. This is how

Poulantzas defines and uses the concept of relative autonomy in his work. CHAPTER VII

THE MATERIAL SPECIFICITY OF THE CAPITALIST STATE

The Problem with Economism

With rare exceptions, such as the work of Gramsci and Lenin, the study of the State and political power have been totally ignored or underdeveloped in Marxist thought.!

The neglect of the terrain of the State as a field of study can be attributed to a variety of reasons, however, two primary reasons can be delineated here. First, Marx was primarily preoccupied with developing a regional theory of the economic practice in the capitalist mode of production, thereby contributing to his lack of attention to the formulation of a theory of the State. Second, and more importantly in this century, the Second International and the Third International are equally to blame for not advancing any solid study and analysis of the State. Both of these Internationals were prevented from developing the terrain of the State. What prevented them from doing so can be directly attributed to their economistic position.

Economism, as it was theoretically elaborated by them, did

!This also holds true for bourgeois thought as well. This is especially true in the disciplines of political science, sociology, and history.

233 234 not take into account, because it could not, the other levels of social existence (including the State) as being part of the "base." It theorized the political and ideological practices as being epiphenomena of the base.

This myopia of economism severely prevented it from adequately fashioning theoretically an articulation principle that linked together the political, economic, and ideological practices. It simply read evervthing off of the base. Instead of recognizing the base as being the product of a complex articulation process involving the political, ideological, and economic practices, the economic base alone was credited with being the most significant determining factor in the constitution of society. The political, ideological, and economic practices, in an articulation process, can by no means be regarded as epiphenomena of the base, for they do not stand above anything, but they bear directly on the interior of the constitution of social organization and the production process. Poulantzas characterizes economism as

...giving priority to the "productive forces" at the expense of the relations of production. This is accompanied [further]...by an economistic- technologistic conception of the production process and the "productive forces" as being somehow independent of the relations of production. This makes it impossible to define correctly the way in which the production process is articulated with the field of the class struggle. Class struggle is outside the picture, in the sense that it is reduced to a mechanical economic process which is attributed primacy in historical development. Yet Lenin and Mao have many times stressed the fact that, while economics plays the determinate role in 235

the last instance (the fundamental contradiction), it is the class struggle (i.e. in the end politics and the political class struggle which has primacy in the historical process.®

Given the above, the State as a field of study and as a practice became superfluous under economism. The end result being that no serious theoretical and political analysis could be done in developing a revolutionary strategy by the Second International. In the case of the

Third International, it was unable to deal adequately with the rise of fascism. The Second International's lack of a revolutionary strategy contributed directly to its quiescence to World War I, and this ultimately lead to its demise. Poulantzas argues that the absence of a revolutionary strategy was also found in the theory and practice of the Third International as it was overdetermined by Stalinism. The Third International failed to provide a developed analysis to the rising tide of fascism. Poulantzas states that

...economism determined the absence of a theory of the State in the Third International, and this relation (economism/absence of a theory of the State) is perhaps nowhere more evident than in its analysis of fascism— precisely where the Comintern had most need of such a theory of the State.®

The Third International failed miserably in developing an analysis and policy toward fascism.

®Nicos Poulantzas, Fascism and Dictatorship (London: NLB,1974/Verso, 1979), p. 39-40.

®Nicos Poulantzas, "The Problem of the Capitalist State," New Left Review, no. 58 (November-December 1969):68, 236

Poulantzas gives three major reasons which clearly demonstrate the economistic-mechanistic view that renders the crises of capitalism as leading toward economic catastrophe.* First, there was an

Underestimation of the danger of fascism, plus incomprehension of its specific nature and historical role. Fascism, according to the Comintern, could not really last. This evolutionist conception of the "economic crisis" and of the abstract imminence of revolution, could only represent a turn or step in the class struggle as counter-tendencies in an overall tendency towards catastrophe. Such a conception provided no framework for any concrete historical periodization of the imperialist stage and for the pace of the uneven development of its links....®

Second, the Third International held fascism to be

...a mere passing episode in the automatic process of growing economic crisis-evolution-catastrophe- revolution, [that] was somehow supposed to crumble of its own accord. This idea was deep-rooted in the Comintern: the idea that the "internal contradictions" of fascism would lead to its imminent, automatic fall. Internal contradictions, unequivocally in this case, meant "economic" contradictions, governed by the catastrophic "economic crisis".®

Third, fascism was regarded as being

...no more than a passing episode in the economic advance of imminent, necessary revolution. This was only the beginning of the spiral in the Comintern's theoretical and political understanding of fascism. Fascism was considered a positive moment in the bad side of history, as on the side

*Like Gramsci, Poulantzas outright dismisses this kind of eschatology as being flawed from its very genesis.

®Poulantzas, Fascism and Dictatorship, p. 47.

®Ibid., p. 48. 237

of the masses in the revolutionary process.?

It was believed that fascism would further advance the

internal contradictions of capitalism, thereby, leading the proletarian masses toward revolution. Thus, fascism would

accelerate the impending economic catastrophe internal to

capitalism. Obviously, this situation did not happen.

Instead, fascism was able to restructure the crisis of

capitalism and save it from autogenetic destruction. The

Third International failed to follow Marx's analysis: the

class struggle overdetermines the economic.® The terrain

of the class struggle exercises a direct effect on the

organization of the base. The base cannot stand alone. It

is determined by the nature of the social relations of

production, which give its character and organization in

the production process. Poulantzas' work, like that of

Gramsci's, challenges all the orthodoxies of the Second

International, the Third International, Stalinism, and all

other typologies of economism. Poulantzas' efforts to

raise the study of the State to a level of prominence is a

direct response to the failure of the these positions to

present any clear understanding as to the organization and

?Ibid., p. 49.

Bpoulantzas follows Marx on this point by arguing that the "Class struggle is lodged at the very heart of the economic space, that is to say, in the relations of production, the exploitation and the extraction of surplus- value." Nicos Poulantzas, "L'etat du Capital." in Poulantzas, ed., Reperes: Hier et aujourd'hui texts sur l'etat (Paris: Francois Maspero, 1980), p. 112. 238 operation of the political practice, i.e., the political practice being a constitutive product of an articulation process that involves the economic and ideological practices within a totality.

Characteristics of the Capitalist State

Poulantzas' contribution in the development of the

political region lies in his development of a totally new

space for the study of the State. He advances the novel

position that the State acts as a cohesive factor that

holds the unity of a social formation intact. Even though

the State plays an organizational role, it is itself

overdetermined by the terrain of the class struggle.

Hence, the State operates in a matrix marked by

dislocations, displacements, condensations, in short, it is

a complex organizational/regulatory unity that is

overdetermined through-and-through by the unstable

character of class relations. The State is able to sustain

the constitutive unity of a social formation by taking on

different morphologies, historically determined, contingent

on the type of social formation under consideration. It is

further overdetermined by the prevailing dominant mode of

production. It is important to recognize that the relation

of the State to the class struggle involves a complex

articulation of the economic, political, and ideological

practices that mark the character of a social formation.

Poulantzas explains this relationship as follows: 239

The state is related to the contradictions peculiar to the various levels of a formation, but only in so far as it represents the place where the articulation of these levels is reflected and where their contradictions are condensed.®

With this in mind, the State, as an ensemble, becomes the site where one can begin to "... decipher the unity and articulation of a formation's structures."1® This being the case, the State constitutes the space where knowledge can be derived as to 1. how it sustains political order in the face of class conflict and class contradictions, i.e., preventing classes from mutually annihilating each other; and 2. the site where historical conjunctures produce

"ruptural situations''^^ that may lead to structural/revolutionary transformations. This sort of understanding facilities the accumulation of concrete knowledge as to the character of the capitalist State.

The capitalist State demonstrates a very unique characteristic lacking in all previous types of State, e.g., slave, feudal, etc. According to Poulantzas, this unique characteristic is the ability of the capitalist

State to give the impression

...that nowhere in its actual institutions does strictly political domination take the form of a political relation between the dominant classes and the dominated classes. In its institutions everything takes place as if the class "struggle"

®Poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes, p. 49

lOlbid., p. 45.

lllbid., p. 11. 240

did not exist. This state is organized as a political unity of a society of divergent economic interests and these are presented not as class interests but as the interests of "private individuals," economic subjects: this is connected to the way in which the state is related to the isolation of socio-economic relations, an isolation which is partly the state's own effect. Because of this isolation, in performing its political function the state presents a characteristic ambivalence, depending on whether it is dealing with the dominant or dominated classes."12

This ambivalence, however, to class relations is manifest through a pseudo-phenomenological presence/effect that camouflages the capitalist State's functions in sustaining the interests of bourgeoisie fractions of capital.

Overall, this class State presents itself as a "popular- class" State that represents the unity of the people- nation, while excluding from its intrinsic class character the class struggle. According to Poulantzas, these

features of the capitalist State enable it to present

"...itself as a state of the bourgeois class,"1® however, and this is extremely significant, it is able to convey the

false impression "...that all the 'people' are part of this

c l a s s . "14 This relationship becomes more evident when it comes to the question as to the role it plays toward the dominate and dominant classes.

12ibid., p. 188.

l®Ibid., p. 189. 14ibid. 241

The Dominant and the Dominated Classes

For the dominated classes, the primary function of the capitalist State, through direct and indirect means, is to prevent the political organization of the dominated classes. Poulantzas notes that the capitalist State

...assumes this function in a very particular form which allows a radical distinction to be drawn between this state and other states, such as the slave or feudal states. These latter limit the political organization of the dominated classes by institutionally fixing the classes of slaves or serfs in their very structures by means of public statutes. that is to say, by institutionalizing political class subordination in the form of estates or c a s t e s . 15

The capitalist State by its very character produces, according to Poulantzas, an isolating effect on socio­ economic relations by addressing individuals, not classes.

The result is that the political disorganization of the dominated classes is further sustained when it claims to represent "...the unity of the people-nation, composed of political-personal/private-individuals."1® However, with

regard to the dominated classes, given their inability to organize themselves (because of the different world-views embodied by the forms of capital which they represent), the capitalist State works to organize them politically, thereby sustaining their economic interests.

l^ibid., p. 188.

l®Ibid., p. 189. 242

Following Gramsci, Poulantzas defines the capitalist

State as being the political power center of the dominant classes that organizes the political struggle of the dominant classes.1? Building on these points, Poulantzas says that

...the capitalist State has inscribed in its very structures a flexibility which concedes a certain guarantee to the economic interests of certain dominated classes, within the limits of the system. To the extent that this guarantee is in accordance with the hegemonic domination of the dominant classes, i.e. with their political constitution vis-a-vis this state, as representatives of the general interest of the people, this concession is part of this state's very function.1®

By granting these concessions to the dominated classes, the

State appears to be working toward the satisfaction of the dominated classes' interests, however, it does this in such a way that the macrochronic economic interests of the dominant classes are perpetuated.1® This true/false

i?To substantiate his argument, Poulantzas quotes the following statement from Gramsci's Selections from the Prison Notebooks; "The life of the state is conceived of as a continuous process of formation and superseding of unstable equilibria...between the interests of the fundamental group and those of the subordinate groups— equilibria in which the interests of the dominant group prevail, but only up to a certain point, i.e. stopping short of narrowly corporate interest." Ibid., p. 190.

l®Ibid.

l®Poulantzas' explanation of this relationship is that although the outcome "...may happen to contain real economic sacrifices imposed on the dominant class bv the struggle of the dominated classes, [it] cannot under any circumstances call into question the capitalist type of state, so long as it operates within these limits. Ibid., p. 194. These comments clearly indicate Poulantzas' linkage and debt to Gramsci's insights. 243 relation^® sustains one central imperative feature of the capitalist State: it preserves the political power and

State apparatuses intact. As Gramsci notes, "...the interests of the dominant group prevail...."21 This being the case, Poulantzas cautions that this is not outright mystification, because it does " ...effectively satisfy some of the economic interests of certain dominated classes. Furthermore, it can do this without, however, allowing its political power to be affected."22

Poulantzas correctly argues that the form of this hegemonic domination cannot be assumed to be homologous over time:

... it depends equally on the relation between the forces in the [class] struggle, on the forms of the state, on the articulation of its functions, on the relations of economic power to political power and on the functioning of the state apparatus.23

However, one central feature must be kept in mind. Even though the State gives the impression that concessions are actually made to the dominated classes, concessions that in a particular point in time may be radical in essence, the

State over a period of time, given the changing nature of the class struggle, may work steadily overtly and covertly to strip away the concessions it once made. This is a very

2®True in that the concessions are made to the dominated classes, and false in so far as the dominant classes do not lose in the long-run.

2^Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, p. 182.

22poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes, p. 192

23ibid. 244 significant function of the capitalist State that must not be overlooked.

Following Gramsci's discussion that the State must be viewed as an unstable equilibrium of compromise, 24

Poulantzas outlines the following features of this relationship;

1. Compromise, in the sense that this power corresponds to a hegemonic class domination and can take into account the economic interests of certain dominated classes even where those could be contrary to the short-term economic interests of the dominant classes, without this affecting the configuration of political interests; 2. Equilibrium, in the sense that while these economic "sacrifices" are real and so provide the ground for an equilibrium, they do not as such challenge the political power which sets precise limits to this equilibrium; 3. Unstable, in this sense that these limits of the equilibrium are set by the political conjuncture. 25

It is imperative to note that all of these relationships are subject to and overdetermined by the class struggle in its manifold morphologies.

The capitalist State is instrumental in organizing and regulating the dominant classes' macrochronic political interests through the power bloc; a contradictory configuration of different bourgeois classes and fractions.

Not all power blocs organized by the State contain the same classes and fractions. Each power bloc mirrors the character of the hegemonic classes within a concrete social

24see Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks. pp. 182, 161.

25poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes, p. 192 245 formation. Given that each social formation is distinct, some power blocs may include dominant classes from other modes of production. This is typically the case in developing countries, whose means of production/reproduction (modes of production) are articulated in a particular configuration forming a specified social formation. In contrast, power blocs in exceptional forms of regime may contain formally non-power bloc social classes and fractions, e.g., from the petty bourgeoisie.26 Thus, the distinctive character of each social formation produces different types of power bloc arrangements. Poulantzas notes that in a capitalist social

formation the power bloc may include the following factions:

...big landowners [especially in Third World formations]...; non-monopoly capital, or its commercial, industrial or banking fraction; monopoly capital (whether predominately banking or industrial); the internationalized bourgeoisie or the domestic bourgeoisie.2?

In the end, the State is the only ensemble that can unite these contradictory class forces into a viable power

26por a discussion of this case see Poulantzas, Fascism and Dictatorship, pp. 71-88, 237-258.

2?Poulantzas, State Power Socialism, p. 133. Poulantzas gives a detailed analysis as to the place of dominant classes within different power blocs in "The Internationalization of Capitalist Relations and the Nation State," in Poulantzas, Classes in Contemporary Capitalism, pp. 37-88; and "The Dominant Classes," in Poulantzas, The Crisis of the Dictatorships: Portugal. Greece. Spain, pp. 41—67. 246 bloc. In this context, Poulantzas argues that

The (capitalist) State should not be regarded as an intrinsic entity: like "capital", it is rather a relationship of forces, or more precisely the material condensation of such a relationship among classes and class fractions....28

The State is able to deal with these contradictory forces

in an "unstable equilibrium" because it is able to resolve

these contradictions "directly" in the interior of the

power bloc through "provisional compromises" that do not

undermine the essentials. This very exceptional function

is precisely what conveys to the state its hegemonic

physiognomy. This hegemonic function is felt directly

within the power bloc, and in the organizational role that

the State plays with respect to forming the dominated

classes into supporting classes for the bourgeoisie. It

fashions this latter relation through "power fetishism"

exercised over the dominated classes. This is done through

manifold expressions of Statolatry (state worship) that are

perpetuated through transmission belts transversing the

political, economic, and ideological practices that convey

the State's hegemonic morphology.2®

As a strategic field of action where the class

struggle is waged, the State's hegemonic power can only be

28pouiantzas, State Power Socialism, p. 128.

2®For a developed analysis of the State as a fetish see David Wells, Marxism and the Modern State: An Analysis of Fetishism in Capitalist Society (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1981). 247 exercised so long as it maintains its relative autonomy from "...given fractions and components, of various particular interests."30 This central imperative feature of the capitalist State enables it not only to organize the competing bourgeois class/fractions into a power bloc, but however paradoxical it may seem, it is also able to organize the dominated classes as supporting classes for bourgeois interests— short-circuiting their organization as forces to counter the bourgeoisie.

Authoritarian Statism

The advancement and development of the capitalist

State has undergone significant transformations and modifications in the current period of advanced capitalism.

A new form of State is arising in the West. This form of

State has parallels with the State of the gulag and other totalitarian Western States, the authoritarian State or authoritarian statism. Poulantzas defines authoritarian statism as being

...intensified state control over every sphere of socio-economic life combined with radical decline of the institutions of political democracy and with draconian and multiform curtailment of so-called "formal" liberties, whose reality is being discovered now that they are going overboard. Although some of these changes have been operating for a long time, the present-day State marks a veritable turn in relation to previous state

30poulantzas, State Power Socialism, p. 127. 248

fo rm s.31

The significance of this form of State can only be fully grasped through a periodization or genealogical study of

the capitalist State. Poulantzas stresses that

authoritarian statism is linked to

...the current phase of imperialism and monopoly capitalism in the dominant countries, in the way the liberal State referred to the competitive stage of capitalism and the various forms of interventionist State to the previous phases of monopoly capitalism.

Authoritarian statism can be seen as involving structural

re-alignments in the relations of production to meet the

exigencies of capitalist development at this point in time.

It is, in short, a response to the sharpening economic

crises, political crises, accumulation c r i s e s , 33

legitimation c r i s i s , i.e., crises of the capitalist State

(representative, military, and dictatorial) as well as

crises of the Socialist State (the Soviet Union, the

31lbid., pp. 203-204. For an enlightening study of the antecedents of authoritarian statism, see Franz Neumann, "Notes on the Theory of Dictatorship," in The Democratic and the Authoritarian State (New York: The Free Press, 1957).

3 2 l b i d . , p. 204.

2®See James O'Connor, Accumulation Crisis (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1984) ; and The Meaning of Crisis (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1987).

34see Jurgen Habermas, Legitimation Crisis (Boston: Beacon Press, 1975); Alan Wolfe, The Limits of Legitimacy (New York: The Free Press, 1977); and William Connolly, Legitimacv and the State (New York: New York University Press, 1984). 249

Eastern bloc, England, etc.).

For the most part, the study of authoritarian statism has been neglected by the functionalist school of political science and sociology. This school of thought has been unable to theorize and deal with structural transformations/modifications regarding all forms of crises

(political, economic, ideological, etc). It sees crises as being simply momentary dysfunctions of an otherwise self- calibrating cybernetic system. In contrast, the Frankfurt

School, especially Erick Fromm's Escape from Freedom, has gone too far in the opposite direction, according to

Poulantzas, by presenting a "...terrifying image of a totalitarian, all-powerful Moloch-State based on manipulatory capitalism— a State which has apparently

succeeded in 'integrating' the masses...and which was

irresistibly advancing to swallow up its subjects."35

Authoritarian statism, however, is not a Moloch-State,36 an

all-powerful State, but a State that is internally caught

up with the contradictory vicissitudes of capitalist

production and accumulation. It is a State caught in a

squeeze of Keynesian deficit spending, deregulation, fiscal

35poulantzas, State Power Socialism, p. 205.

®®Moloch was a Hebrew god that was worshiped by the sacrifice of its subjects. 250 crises, and deindustrialization.3? All of these conditions are overdetermined by the tendency of the rate of profit to fall and the class struggle. Authoritarian statism does not designate an exceptional form of State, i.e., a fascist, dictatorial, or Bonapartist State. Poulantzas argues that

...the emergence of authoritarian statism cannot be identified either with a new fascist order or with a tendency toward fascism. The present-day State is neither a new form of a genuine exceptional State nor, in itself, a transitional form on the road to such a State: it rather represents the new "democratic" form of the bourgeois republic in the current phase of capitalism.3%

This form of State does not seek to totally abrogate the semblance of democracy or democratic rights, rather it seeks to alter the space of the democratic process, and to redefine democratic rights along narrow corporatist lines to meet the exigencies of advanced capitalism.

In contrast to authoritarian statism, fascism arises as a response to massive political crises, hegemonic crises of the bourgeoisie, where the power bloc has crumbled apart and the State is unable to play its role in reconstituting it. The fascist State is an "exceptional type of State" that

...corresponds to a precise conjuncture in the highly complex development of class relations, and

3?see Barry Bluestone and Bennett Harrison, The Deindustrialization of American (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1982).

3®Poulantzas, State Power Socialism, pp. 208-209. 251

to specific institutional features of the State which break with the regular forms of the reproduction of bourgeois political domination— that is, broadly speaking, with those of the "democratic republic."®®

All bourgeois (liberal) civil liberties are dismissed along with all political parties, except for the fascist party.

The fascist State dissolves civil society into the State.

Hence, the terrain of civil society is no longer the place of contestation. The bare individual cfua individual now must confront the omnipresent/omnipotent State alone. For the fascist State to exercise this unbridled power, it presupposes the defeat of all political movements and the subjugation of the working class to its imperatives. It becomes a monolithic ensemble that replaces all entities of bourgeois representative democracy with a power structure ensuing from the heights of the party with a corps of loyal cadres that carries out its commands. Thus, the fascist

State reorganizes the power bloc, by reunifying the

formally crisis ridden/dehegemonized power bloc, allowing class hegemony to be maintained and reproduced. Given the above characteristics, the fascist State comes to exercise an unfettered amount of political, economic, and

ideological hegemony.

A principle feature of the authoritarian statism is the decline of legislative assemblies and the burgeoning of

Executive power. The juridical power of the legislative

®®Ibid., p. 208 252 apparatus

...to fix norms and enact rules is shifting towards the Executive and the state administration. That legitimacy embodied by parliament [and the legislative branch] which had as its frame of reference a universal rationality is gradually passing over into a legitimacy...embodied by the Executive-administration. Indeed, the general and universal laws still enacted by parliament...are applied only after the Executive has passed them through a process of concrétisation and particularization.40

This transference of power, policy making, and juridical functions to the Executive has turned the general and universalistic character of the "rule of law" into a particularistic and general disregard for law or its application in a capricious particularistic manner. The capricious particularistic exercise of law is, in part, the procedure for coping with the burgeoning crises of structural instability: the effects of the concentration, centralization, and monopolization of capital, (the demands of fractions within the power bloc, e.g., non-monopoly capital), and the level of the class struggle. It now becomes the task of the administration to elaborate short­ term compromises within the power bloc and the popular masses as the means of sustaining an unstable equilibrium.

The decline of the legislative apparatuses further involves a decline in two important relations: 1. the political party; and 2. the interlocutor role of representatives. In the first case, political parties have

40 Ibid., pp. 218-219. 253 lost their traditional role as mediating structures between the dominated classes/popular masses and the

Executive/administration. Such a circumscription of this vital function means that they can no longer act in legitimizing the State for the popular masses. With regard to the second case, representatives have been curtailed significantly in their ability to directly intervene in the acquisition of information; the gathering of evidence; and the calling of witnesses when they seek to investigate the workings/politics of the Executive/administration.

Poulantzas describes the character of this situation as follows;

The remarkable thing today is that the decline of parliament runs parallel to a process whereby the ties of representation between deputies and State are being broken. The state bureaucracy has shut itself up in a water-tight container, almost completely blocking the access channel formerly open to deputies and political parties as legitimate representatives of the "national interest". This applies above all to the opposition, but also affects majority deputies.... 41

The concrete functioning of authoritarian statism is facilitated through the control of the upper levels of the

State bureaucracy which increasingly becomes the site where

State policy is elaborated and implemented through its varied apparatuses (secret and non-secret). According to

Poulantzas,

41 Ibid., p. 223. 254

State policy is elaborated under the sign of secrecy. now established as a permanent matter of State through hidden mechanisms and a regime of administrative procedures that almost entirely escapes the control of public opinion. This represents a considerable change in the elementary principles of bourgeois representative democracy itself. Thus, the principle of public knowledge is completely discarded in favour of an institutionally recognized principle of secrecy.... 42

The public's right to know is abrogated, unless the State decides to inform them, in a very sporadic and restricted manner as to what it decides they ought to know. However, given all this secrecy, the State often presents itself (in press releases and in the media) as being confused and struck with "genuine dumbness,"43 and perpetual aposiopesis when it comes to dealing with the mundane day-to-day micro and macro issues. It gives this impression by the policies it pursues through the language it uses to address the popular masses, a language that continuously needs to be deconstructed/decoded. Poulantzas characterizes this type of State as being "...a clay-footed colossus, fleeing ahead on treacherous ground....44 with its imperative emphasis on secrecy, it puts a "...distance between leaders and led, as well as...hermetic[ally] insulat[ing its] power from democratic control."45 Oversight committees established by

42ibid., pp. 225-226.

43%bid., p. 226.

44ibid., p. 205.

45ibid., p. 226. 255 the legislative apparatus are unable to monitor or curb its burgeoning and multivariate policy formulating and implementing apparatuses. All they can do is deal with whatever information, if it wishes to disclose it, it conveys to them. This type of State is marked by a

...series of hidden networks bypassing the traditional civil-service hierarchy and the horizontal dispersion of political decision-making centres within the State.46

It is a State pursuing its own interests in terms of domestic and foreign policies through its own governmental- administrative apparatuses.

For Poulantzas, authoritarian statism embodies within it "...the tendency of power to be personalized in the man at the top of the Executive— what...may [be] term[ed] a personalized presidential s y s t e m . "47 This personalized presidency, on the one hand, is the site where all "...administrative power centres and n e t w o r k s . .."48 converge. On the other hand,

...the man at the top of the Executive is also the hostage of a political-administrative mechanism which, to a large degree, allocates to him the pre­ eminent position. ...While the modern concentration-centralization of the State does correspond to the nature of monopoly hegemony, the process unfolds in a much more complex fashion. Contradictions between monopoly and other fractions of capital, or between the power bloc and the popular masses, are expressed right in the heart of

46ibid., p. 224.

4?Ibid., p. 228.

4®Ibid., p. 228. 256

the State, in its central regions and summits. Inevitably, therefore, they traverse the focal point represented by the top man; there is not one president, but several in one. Hesitation, indecision and blunders are due to the situation itself, rather than to the psychology of the given personality.49

This is a schizophrenic president with multiple personalities who presents different personalities (social, political, ideological, and economic) depending on the audience at hand. He gives the impression of being all things to all people, the great unifier, especially at election time, and when in office assumes the responsibility for all failures and successes. What does the assumption of responsibility, especially in cases of failure, mean? This is never specified.

Overall, authoritarian statism means an intensified centralization and concentration of power. It involves political centralization and strengthening of the State apparatuses embodied in the administration/bureaucracy with no accountability to the popular masses. "Despite all the

49ibid., pp. 228-229. This is in contrast to all psychological reductionist theories, especially those prevalent in political science and international relations that want to view the type of policies pursued by a State as manifestations of the psychological disposition of the man or woman at the top. Much is made in these fields with regard to personality traits. A great deal of emphasis is placed on creating psychological profiles of political leaders through president watching, etc. There is much attention given to monitoring and studying their every move; number of appearances made in public; the date of such appearances; the space in time between appearances, whom they sat next to, what they eat, how they dress, relationships with spouse, family members, etc. 257 decentralization reforms of a techno-administrative character, real power is shift[ed] away from t h e . . . . "50 representative assemblies of the people and political parties into a secrecy shrouded apex of power, in short, the apotheosis of the State (Statolatry), and in particular the apotheosis of the man or woman at the top. Citizens are left to hang in the wind as to their relationship with the State. This means that authoritarian statism is heavily overdetermined by the curtailment of democratic civil rights. With the exception of participation in e l e c t i o n s , 51 the popular masses are treated as apostates, presumed to be potentially guilty. The individual is created and fused to the State, a fetish of the State, practicing presidentlatry and statolatry. Poulantzas further notes that authoritarian statism has the potential of evolving into Bonapartism. He says:

We know only too well that, besides the considerable restriction of democratic liberties already incurred, this situation lays the ground for a possible evolution of power towards Bonapartism.52

The only way that this can be averted/reversed is through the direct intervention of the popular masses on all fronts

50ibid., p. 227.

51where the popular masses, according to Poulantzas, "...are generally disaffected with parties that are supposed to represent them in the state administration." I b i d . , p. 231.

52 Ibid., p. 231. 258

(Gramsci's war of position) to create a truly democratic society. CHAPTER VIII

SOCIAL CLASSES

The Structural Determination of Social Classes

Nicos Poulantzas' contribution to the study of social classes is directed toward the establishment of a new epistemological problematic that deals with classes as living realities. In this sense, he rejects 1. functionalist or bourgeois conceptualizations of class, where classes are arbitrarily and capriciously constituted heuristically by social researchers without any consideration as to how they are formed (certainly classes are more than products of researchers' arbitrary formulations); and 2. any essentialist economistic conceptualizations of class,^ i.e., classes are not economic entities alone, but political and ideological entities. For functionalists, like Kingsley Davis and

^For a critique of economic essentialism that takes into account the work of Poulantzas and Althusser, but also raises a significant edifice on Marx's distinction between "fundamental classes" and "subsumed classes," see Stephen Resnick and Richard D. Wolff, "Classes in Marxist Theory," Review of Radical Political Economics 13, no. 4 (Winter 1982):1-18; and Jack L. Amariglio, Stephen Resnick, and Richard D. Wolff, "Class, Power, and Culture," in Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg, ed., Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture (Urbana:University of Illinois Press, 1988), pp. 487-501.

259 260

Wilbert Moore,

Social inequality is an unconsciously evolved device by which societies insure that the most important positions are conscientiously filled by the most qualified p e r s o n s . 2

In contrast to the functionalist-bourgeois position,

Poulantzas argues that "...social inequalities are only the effect, on the agents, of the social classes, i.e. of the objective places they occupy..."3 within a social formation. Hence, there is nothing "unconscious" about the existence of social inequality and social classes as Davis and Moore would have us believe.4 Social inequality^ and social classes are concrete realities of class practices

2Ringsley Davis and Wilbert E. Moore, "Some Principles of Stratification," in Reinhard Bendix and Seymour Martin Lipset, ed., Class. Status, and Power (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1966), p. 48.

®Nicos Poulantzas, Classes in Contemporary Capitalism (London: NLB, 1975), p. 17.

4por a neo-Weberian view of social classes that goes counter to the work of Poulantzas see Frank Parkin, Marxism and Class Theorv: A Bourgeois Critique (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979); and also his article "The Academicizing of Marxism," Dissent 2 (1980):172-180. For a critique of Parkin's work see, for example, Anthony Giddens, "Classes, Capitalism, and the State," Theory and Societv 9, no.6 (1980):877-890; and J. M. Barbalet, "Social Closure in Class Analysis: A Critique of Parkin," Sociology 16, no. 4 (November 1982): 484-497.

5poulantzas argues that social inequalities "...can only disappear with the abolition of the division of society into classes." Poulantzas, Classes in Contemporary Capitalism, p. 17. 261 and the class struggle® respectively. Social classes and social inequality are the results of a social process of production emanating from the particular organization of the social relations of production in historically determined social formations, e.g., slave, feudal, capitalist, Asiatic, etc.

With regard to the essentialist economistic view of class, Poulantzas outrightly rejects any such notion that holds social classes to be only "purely" economic ensembles. Instead, he argues

...that a social class is defined by its place in the ensemble of social practices, i.e. by its place in the social division of labour as a whole. This includes political and ideological relations.?

Economism basically dismisses the political and ideological dimensions of class as being epiphenomenal. Poulantzas, however, demonstrates that political and ideological

®The class struggle is an ongoing process— hidden, latent, and manifest— whether people are aware of it or not. As long as social classes confront each other over the use, organization, and the appropriation of surplus value, there will be class struggle. The class struggle takes place on a variety of levels: economic struggle (waged on the economic structure); ideological struggle (played out on the ideological structure); and political struggle (conducted on the terrain of the political structure). The class struggle is in the end political struggle. That is, it is on the political terrain that the contradictions of the economic struggle, ideological struggle, and the political struggle are materialized. For a developed analysis of the class struggle along these lines, see Marta Harnecker, "The Class Struggle," Theoretical Review, no. 21 (March-April 1981):31-36; and her "Social Classes," Theoretical Review, no. 20 (January- February 1981):15-24, 39.

?Poulantzas, Classes in Contemporary Capitalism, p. 14. 262 practices are concrete dimensions/realities in the constitution of social classes. Thus, the social organization of labor, the social division of labor, can only be constituted through an articulation process that implicitly involves the presence of the political, ideological, and economic practices/ensembles. The existence of social classes, then, according to Poulantzas, is predicated on the basis that "social classes coincide with class practices, i.e. the class struggle, and are only defined in their mutual opposition.Social classes exist in and through the class struggle; they have no existence outside of the class struggle. As Poulantzas put it,

"...social classes do not firstly exist as such, and only then enter into a class struggle."9 They are the products of class societies that establish determinate relations of production for the unequal distribution of surplus, and the extraction of surplus labor/value. Social classes cannot, therefore, be classifitory schemas established by researchers. They are, in reality, products of class societies and the class struggle. Thus, they are not things in and of themselves, nor are they fixed entities that only exist on the economic level.They are, in

Bibid., p. 14.

9ibid.

lOsocial classes, as Poulantzas demonstrates, are not nominal and ontological categories, but only exist in the context of the class struggle. "The division of society 263 essence, representative ensembles of concrete social relations. Accordingly, the economic sphere does not stand alone. It is shaped by the process of production, and by the relations of production that establish where the agents

(individuals) of production will be, i.e., in which of the social classes they will be distributed. Poulantzas defines the economic as including

...not only production, but also the whole cycle of production-consumption-distribution, the "moments" of this appearing, in their unity, as those of the production process. In the capitalist mode of production, what is involved is the overall reproduction cycle of social capital: productive capital, commodity capital, money capital. In this unity, however, it is production which plays the determinant role. The distinction between the classes at this level is not, for example, a distribution based on relative sizes of income (a distinction between "rich" and "poor"), as was believed by a long pre-Marxist tradition and is still believed today by a whole series of sociologists. The undoubted distinction between relative levels of income is itself only a consequence of the relations of production.

Given that the economic sphere is shaped by the process of production, how is the process of production constituted?

The process of production involves two essential elements necessarily means class struggle. [And in this sense, Poulantzas' argument]...runs counter to official modern sociology, which is prepared to speak about classes, but never about the class struggle." Nicos Poulantzas, "The Capitalist State: A Reply to Miliband and Laclau," New Left Review, no. 95 (January-February 1976):82. This is a very significant point that needs to be acknowledged.

llpoulantzas. Classes in Contemporary Capitalism, p. 18. 264 that constitute a unity: the labor process and the relations of production. The labor process entails man's relation to nature. The relations of production involve a dual relationship described by Poulantzas as follows:

...first, the relationship between the agents of production and the object and means of labour (the productive forces); second, and through this, relations between men and other men, class relations.

The labor process is always historically determined contingent on the prevailing mode of production.

Poulantzas says that

The labour process and the productive forces, including technology, do not exist in themselves, but always in their constitutive connection, with the relations of production.13

Thus, he does not regard productive labor as being by any means a neutral object. Instead, he says that it

"...corresponds to the relations of production of the mode

in question, i.e. that which gives rise to the specific and dominant form of exploitation. "14 This means that productive labor occurs under particular forms of domination, exploitation, class divisions, class struggle, and organization in historically specific forms. The dominant role in the process of production is not held by the labor process. According to Poulantzas,

IZibid.

l l l b i d . , p. 20.

14lb id . 265

...the relations of production always dominate the labour process and the productive forces, stamping them with their own pattern of appearance. It is precisely this domination of the forces of production by the relations of production which gives their articulation the form of a process of production and reproduction.15

This argument of the relations of production

overdetermining the forces of production is of great

significance because it places Poulantzas in the interior

of Gramsci's problematic, while at the same time signaling

the significance of building class alliances. Hence,

Poulantzas' emphasis on the relations of production

parallels Gramsci's position, which is the transcendence of economism, i.e., placing greater emphasis on the forces of

production.16 By giving the dominant role to the relations

of production as against the forces of production and the

labor process, Poulantzas is able to articulate

...the constitutive role of political and ideological relations in the structural determination of social classes. The relations of production and the relationships which comprise them (economic ownership/possession) are expressed in the form of powers which derive from them, in

ISlbid., p. 21.

l®As I will show in the concluding chapter, to await the "full" development of the forces of production (economism) to raise the level of contradictions in the relations of production, is to lose sight of capitalism's seemingly infinite combinations and permutations of the productive process with no end in sight, except the annihilation of the planet. It should be stressed here, however, that "actually existing socialism" is equally fraught with the same predicament. In both systems, the social relations of production must be transcended for human soteriology, given the infinitely destructive capacity of unbridled forces of production. 266

other words class powers; these powers are constitutively tied to the political and ideological relations which sanction and legitimize them. These relations are not simply added on to relations of production that are "already there," but are themselves present, in the form specific to each mode of production, in the constitution of the relations of production. The process of production and exploitation is at the same time a process of reproduction of the relations of political and ideological domination and subordination. 3-7

It thus follows that in order for any social formation to exist, it must be able to sustain its raison d'etre through the production and reproduction of the relations of production.

In order to elaborate on this relationship further, it is necessary to note the distinction that Poulantzas makes between the "structural determination of class" and

"class positions." Poulantzas defines social classes as being "...the effects of the structure within the social division of labour (social relations and social practices)."18 Structure here means the totality, i.e., the global structure of the matrix of the dominant mode of production within a social formation, that fixes the nature of the social relations through the unique articulation of the political, ideological, and economic practices which give social formations their specificity, form, and content.

By class position, Poulantzas means the sides or

17poulantzas, Classes in Contemporary Capitalism, p. 21

IGlbid., p. 14. 267 positions a class or fraction(s) of a class may take in a specific political conjuncture, the concretization of the class struggle,

...that does not correspond to its interests, which are defined by the class determination that fixes the horizon of the class's struggle. The typical example of this is the labour aristocracy, which in certain conjunctures takes up class positions that are in fact bourgeois. This does not mean, however, that it becomes, in such cases, a part of the bourgeoisie; it remains, from the fact of its structural class determination, part of the working class....In other words, its class determination is not reducible to its class position.19

Before continuing any further on this topic, a brief detour is in order to show what Poulantzas means by two concepts germane to this discussion— fractions or strata and social categories. By making use of fractions or strata in his analysis, Poulantzas is able to demonstrate that social classes are not monolithic structures, but that, in reality, they are composed of different fractions with their own genealogy, mode of existence, world-view, interests, and policy goals. For example, the bourgeois class includes fractions such as: industrial capital, financial capital, and commercial capital, with each of these fractions having their own operational specificity within monopoly and non-monopoly relations.^0 This

19lbid., p. 15.

20fiore specifically, monopoly capital includes finance capital (big international banks, stock firms, insurance companies, etc.); industrial capital (big international industrial firms, e.g., automobile companies, steel producers, etc.); commercial capital (big national and 268 sophisticated form of analysis clearly allows Poulantzas to speak to the role the State plays in facilitating the organization of these diverse and contradictory forms of capital into a unified bourgeois class through a power bloc under the hegemony of a hegemonic class or fraction of the bourgeoisie. In exceptional forms of regime (military dictatorships and fascist regimes), however, a class or fraction from outside the power bloc may become the hegemonic class.

According to Poulantzas, social categories are

...defined principally by their place in the political and ideological relations: these include the state bureaucracy, defined by its relation to the state apparatuses, and the intellectuals, defined by their role in elaborating and deploying

international retailers, department stores, food producers, etc.); and large rentier capital (national and international). Non-monopoly capital is composed of banking capital (small banks, i.e., local or small state banks); industrial capital (small industrial firms); commercial capital (small department stores, etc.); small rentier capital (small investors, small share holders, etc.). Several common characteristics shared by all of these forms of capital are: 1. each of these forms of capital has its own history (genealogy); 2. each of these forms of capital has its own form of existence, i.e., its form of existence determines its form of production and reproduction, thereby, determining its world-view, its ideology, etc.; 3. given its ideology, each form of capital manifests particular political, ideological, and economic effects and positions within a social formation; 4. each of these forms of capital is competitive with each other and within itself overall; 5. the way each of these capitals operates is directly contingent on the organization and character of the State; and 6. if each of these forms of capital was allowed "to do its own thing," there would be mutual annihilation, hence, the presence of the State (regardless of the State's level of intervention) prevents this from happening. 269 ideology.

Social categories, like fractions, "...have a class membership, their agents generally belong to [and are drawn

from] several different social c l a s s e s . "32 Thus, all

social categories have a class membership, given that their

agents (individuals) are drawn from different social

classes. It should be noted here, that fractions and

social categories cannot be collapsed into each other to

form the popular masses or the wage earning class, the working class. Functionalists/idealists and economic

reductionists error precisely on this point by conflating

fractions with social categories. Given that some

fractions and all social categories receive a wage, this

does not mean that they can then be regarded as belonging

(their structural determination) to the popular masses (the

working class). This situation, however, does not preclude

fractions of a class or social categories from entering

into class alliances, or in taking on the class positions

of other classes. It is this form of analysis that gives

Poulantzas' theory of social classes its significant

utility and analytical power. He states that

These differentiations, for which reference to political and ideological relations is always indispensable, are of great importance; these fractions, strata and categories may often, in

31poulantzas, Classes in Contemporary Capitalism, p. 23.

32%bid., p. 24. 270

suitable concrete conjunctures, assume the role of relatively autonomous social f o r c e s . 33

Since these fractions and social categories have the potential of becoming relatively autonomous social forces, it is imperative to keep in mind their intrinsic value as heuristic conceptual formulations when it comes to any study #€ social c l a s s . 34

At this point, it is necessary to note that there is no isomorphic relationship between the objective structural determination of a class, its place in the relations of production; and the class positions that a class may take in a ^iven conjuncture. Nothing is given. Hence,

Poulantzas cautions against isomorphic reasoning, or any conflation of these two distinct categories and processes.

He says:

In stressing the importance of political and ideological relations in determining social classes, the fact that social classes only exist in the form of class struggle and practices, class determination must not be reduced, in a voluntarist fashion, to class position.35

One must be quite clear as to what these two relationships represent. The structural determination of a class is its fixing within a structure in dominance, which thereby

33ibid., 23.

34unfortunately, Erik Clin Wright's work on social classes does not bear this out. See Erik Clin Wright, Class. Crisis and the State (London: Verso 1978/1979). 35poulantzas, Classes in Contemporary Capitalism, pp.14-15. 271

establishes its objective class place within the relations

of production. Class position, in contrast, refers to the positions that a class takes vis-a-vis the unfolding of the

class struggle. Nicos Mouzelis summarizes Poulantzas' view

on this matter as follows:

...Poulantzas stresses that there is no one-to-one correspondence between structurally determined, objective class places and class practices [class positions] (such as concrete ideologies, strategies of specific parties, etc.). This is because it is not simply structural relationships and contradictions arising from within the economic sphere which determine class practices [class positions], but also contradictions and relations located in the political and ideological spheres. As the latter contradictions cannot be reduced to the former, they exercise an autonomous effect on class practices [class positions]. And it is precisely because...[the structural determination of class]is the result of an overall structural matrix, consisting of economic, political and ideological constraints, ...it is impossible to deduce class practices [class positions] from objective class p l a c e s . "36

Thus, there is no procedure for predicting the class

positions that a class or fraction(s) of a class may take.

The class positions that may be taken are polymorphically

overdetermined in concrete historical/political

conjunctures by the class struggle.

The reasons that a class or fraction(s) of a class

may take class positions that do not correspond to its

class interests are extremely complicated, involving a

myriad of factors. However, several reasons can be given

36Nicos Mouzelis, "Ideology and Class Politics: A Critique of Ernesto Laclau," New Left Review, no. 112 (November-December 1978):58. 272 here which may help to clarify this matter. Social classes do not operate in a vacuum. They are continuous entities that are "affected" by the practices of other classes and visa-versa. Their aspirations, motive, politics, ideology, economics, social and cultural conditions are not outside the space of current problems and issues confronting a social formation. Hence, given the level of the class struggle, the political climate, appeals to the dominated classes, i.e., the level of propaganda, symbols of national

identity and unity, patriotism, etc., these factors articulated with the class struggle will ultimately determine in the end the class position(s) a class or fraction(s) of a class may take. In actual practice, classes are not only swayed by the political expressions of political leaders, but they may take the class position(s) of another class for a variety of reasons. These may

include the amelioration of its structural condition of existence and reproduction in the short-run or in the long- run, or that it may be pushing particular interests that will elevate and advance its interests. Alan Hunt explains these relationships as follows:

If classes are to be identified through class practices, that is practices that express, on the one hand, the common experience of the class, and on the other, its opposition to another class, then it becomes necessary to distinguish between different levels of class practices. These levels can be indicated, not by reference to any preordained hierarchy which, for example, defines "revolutionary class struggle," as being on a higher level than "economic class struggle." 273

Rather, levels of class practice may be identified in so far as they give effect to realising the maximum potential involvement of different groups with the social relations of production as "class forces."37

The significance of Poulantzas' distinction between the structural determination of class and class position provides a uniquely powerful analytical framework for discerning the highly complex character of class relations and the class struggle. It enables one not only to look at the two fundamental classes in capitalist society, but also the character and class practices of the other classes. To

illustrate his argument, Poulantzas gives the example of the class positions that the petty bourgeoisie may take.

He says that in specific conjunctures the petty bourgeoisie may

...take up proletarian class positions.... This does not then mean that they became part of the working class. To give a simple example; production technicians often have proletarian class positions, frequently taking the side of the working class in strikes, for instance. But this does not mean that they have become part of the working class, since their structural class determination is not reducible to their class position. Moreover, it is precisely by virtue of its class determination that this grouping sometimes takes the side of the working class, and sometimes the side of the bourgeoisie (bourgeois class positions). Technicians no more form part of the bourgeoisie each time that they take up bourgeois class positions, than they form part of the proletariat

37&ian Hunt, "Theory and Politics in the Identification of the Working Class," in Alan Hunt, ed.. Class and Class Structure (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1977) , p. 107. 274

when they take up the positions of the latter.36

Thus, the objective place held by a class within the process of production is contingent not only on its

structural determination, but also on its specific place in

the ideological and political practices within the division

of labor. Alan Hunt describes this relationship as

follows:

Political and ideological practices have the effect of establishing the relations of the participants into classes. These practices can be conceived as "linking" or "tying" the participants to a class; and on the other hand of "separating" or "distancing" them from another class location.39

Poulantzas' formulations regarding social classes,

therefore, provide analytically powerful heuristic

categories that can take into account the political,

ideological, and economic practices, and their role in the

production and reproduction of the relations of production

that sustain and perpetuate all social formations divided into classes.

The Wage Question and Class

In contrast to economistic versions of social class

that define everyone receiving a wage as being a member of

the working class, Poulantzas distinctly argues that

...it is not wages that define the working class

38Poulantzas, Classes in Contemoorarv Capitalism, pp. 15-16.

39nunt, "Theory and Politics in the Identification of the Working Class," p. 105. 275

economically: wages are a form of distribution of the social product, corresponding to market relations and the forms of "contract" governing the purchase and sale of labour-power. Although every worker is a wage-earner, every wage earner is certainly not a worker, for not every wage-earner is engaged in productive l a b o u r . 30

These are significant points that must be kept in mind for they bear directly on the definition and specification of classes in society, on their class positions and in the establishment of class alliances. These relationships need to be explored further. To define the working class as encompassing everyone who is a wage-earner is, in effect, a reduction in the number and significance of social classes in capitalist social formations. This effectively means the destruction or the elimination of any kind of specificity being given to social classes in toto. For to adopt such a general definition of the working class, according to Poulantzas, means for all practical purposes the abolition of

...the problem of alliances; [thereby] the problem does not exist any more because everyone has become a worker. The whole population with the exception of a very small minority are wage earners. As a consequence the working class no longer has to play a role of principled leadership over the other classes, because all other classes have been subsumed within the working class.31

This is precisely the trap that several

30Poulantzas, Classes in Contemporarv Capitalism, p. 2 0 .

31poulantzas, "The New Petty Bourgeoisie," in Alan Hunt, ed., Class and Class Structure (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1977), p. 114. 276

Eurocommunist parties have fallen into. For example, the

Greek Eurocommunists represented by the Greek Communist

Party of the Interior (KKK-Esoteriko) held such a position.

In a lecture delivered in the mid 1980's at the American

University in Washington, DC, Mr. Banias, one of the leaders of the KKK-Esoteriko, stated the anyone who receives a wage is member of the working class.

Ironically, Poulantzas had been a member of KKK-Esoteriko up until his death, yet even his won party, it appears, failed to fully comprehend that wages are not enough to place one into the working class. To stretch this argument to its ludicrous end, it is conceivable that even members of the bourgeoisie, who receive wages, could be considered as belonging to the working class. With regard to the subject of alliances, if this position is to be accepted,

Gramsci's war of position would be unnecessary.

Poulantzas clearly demonstrates that wages are not enough to define one as being a member of the working class.

If social classes are not defined at the economic level by a gradation of incomes (rich/poor), they are still less defined by the location of their agents in the hierarchy of wages and s a l a r i e s . 32

Social classes, and the working class in particular, must be defined as to where they fit in the matrix of the division of labor. Accordingly, Poulantzas notes that the

32poulantzas, Classes in Contemporary Capitalism, p. 20 277 working class is composed only of those agents who are engaged in productive labor. To illustrate this point,

Poulantzas quotes a passage from Marx's "Appendix" in

Capital I ; "Every productive worker is a wage-earner, but it does not follow that every wage earner is a productive w o r k e r . "33 in formulating his discussion on this topic,

Poulantzas relies very heavily on Marx's "Appendix" in

Capital I entitled "Results of the Immediate Production Process."34

What does Marx's statement mean for Poulantzas? It means that in the capitalist mode of production only productive labor, i.e., labor that directly produces surplus value, valorizes capital, and is actually exchanged against capital, can be regarded as constituting the working class. Thus for Marx and Poulantzas, any labor that is done in the sphere of circulation of capital, or adds to the realization of surplus value cannot be regarded as productive labor. Thus, those who are

33ibid., p. 210.

34This work is only contained in the Penguin/Vintage edition of Capital I . Hence, the International Publishers edition of Capital I lacks this very significant piece. According to Ernest Mandrel, only with the reprinting of this piece in the late 1960's in Europe did there arise an intense concentration on it. On this point see Ernest Mandel, "Introduction to the Appendix," in Karl Marx, Capital I (New York: Vintage Books, 1977), pp. 943-947. Poulantzas was very influenced by the "Results of the Immediate Process of Production," and is, therefore, in keeping with Marx's analysis of class contrary to the criticism of his detractors, especially Erik Clin Wright. 278

...wage earners [engaged] in commerce, advertising, marketing, accounting, banking and insurance, do not produce surplus-value and do not form part of the working class (productive labour). It is only productive capital that produces surplus-value. 35

Wage earners engaged in the above enterprises simply act to process, transfer, and redistribute the surplus value

created by productive labor. It follows that managers,

administrators, accountants, etc., are purposefully

employed to seek to maximise the creation of surplus-value

from productive labor. These agents, therefore, are

regarded as constituting unproductive labor, even though,

they are themselves exploited. Just because one is

exploited as a wage earner, working in the process of

extraction and the expansion of surplus value and/or

contributing to the reproduction of labor power, it is not

enough to qualify them as productive labor/workers.

Poulantzas summarizes this position as follows;

Productive labour always refers to labour that is performed under definite social conditions, and thus is directly dependent on the social relations of exploitation of a given mode of production. The productive or unproductive character of labour does not depend either on certain intrinsic characteristics, or on its utility. It is in this sense that one should understand Marx's argument, according to which the definitions of productive and unproductive labour are "not derived from the material characteristic of labour (neither from the nature of its product nor from the particular character of the labour as concrete labour), but from the definite social form, the social relations of production, within which the labour is

35poulantzas, Classes in Contemporarv Capitalism, pp. 211-212. 279 realised."36

To expressly deny the class membership and differentiation between productive and unproductive labor by conflating unproductive labor with the working class leads directly to the concealment and relative neglect of the role that unproductive labor plays. This is especially germane when it comes to disclosing the character of the various class fractions that compose the traditional and new petty bourgeoisie. In the end, however, it is the particular configuration that the social relations of production take that define whether labor is productive or unproductive.

The Taxonomic and Topographical Existence of the Pettv Bourgeoisie

In order to fully disclose the characteristics of the petty bourgeoisie as a class, it is necessary to analyze its taxonomic and topographical particularities via-a-vis its economic, ideological, and political relations with the two fundamental classes— the bourgeoisie and the proletariat— in capitalist social formations. The petty bourgeoisie is composed of two distinct groupings, the traditional petty bourgeoisie and the new petty bourgeoisie. A central feature of the petty bourgeoisie is that it lacks any concrete unity as a class. The traditional petty bourgeoisie is composed of small business

36ibid., pp. 210-211. 280 owners, artisans, etc. In contrast, the new petty bourgeoisie is composed of non-productive employees. The heterogeneity of the petty bourgeoisie in economic relations does, however, denote common effects on the political and ideological levels. Poulantzas presents several reasons as to why the traditional and the new petty bourgeoisie can be regarded as belonging to the same class.

First, just because these two groupings hold distinct places in the relations of production, it does not mean that they form separate classes. Instead, they

...have the same effects on the political and ideological Plane. The petty bourgeoisie is thus united, in fact, in political and ideological relations.37

Second, both of "...these groupings are precisely

...polarized in relation to the bourgeoisie and the proletariat."38 Third, social classes are determined in the class struggle, and these two groupings are no exception. This can be proven by the fact that the traditional and new petty bourgeoisie constitute social forces producing "pertinent effects" at the ideological and political levels. Finally, both of these groupings form the intermediate class between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

37Nicos Poulantzas, Fascism and Dictatorship (LondonrNLB, 1974/Verso, 1979),p. 237. 38poulantzas, Classes in Contemporarv Capitalism, p. 294. 281

The traditional petty bourgeoisie is composed of the heterogeneous social strata left over from other modes of production including petty bourgeois commodity production and merchants. The primary distinctive quality, which sets it apart from the "pure" capitalist mode of production

(wage labor), is that it does not directly engage in the exploitation of wage labor. The traditional petty bourgeoisie is made up of small scale production, artisans, small family businesses, etc. They are united in the fact that they are the owners of the enterprise, i.e., they are the possessors of the means of production and they are directly involved in its operation and utilization. Thus, according to Poulantzas,

There is no economic exploitation, strictly speaking, since such forms of production do not employ paid workers, or do so only very occasionally. Labour is provided mainly by the actual owner or by the members of his family, who are not paid wages. Small-scale production of this sort draws profit from the sale of its goods and by participation in the total redistribution of surplus value, but it does not directly extract surplus value.39

Hence, the traditional petty bourgeoisie can be said to be small scale owners that are involved

...mainly [in] small-scale commerce in the sphere of the circulation of capital, in which the owner of the business, helped by his family, provides labour, and.. .occasionally employs wage labour.40

The traditional petty bourgeoisie share some unique

39poulantzas, Fascism and Dictatorship, p. 238.

40%bid., p. 238. 282 characteristics with both the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. On the one hand, they share a strong attachment to the idea of private property and to the principle of capitalism. On the other hand, they share with the working class the central feature of being direct producers. Given these characteristics, it should be noted that the traditional petty bourgeoisie is

...opposed to both the bourgeoisie, which progressively crushes them economically, and to the proletariat, as they fear proletarianization...[and the loss of their private] property.41

On the ideological level, the traditional petty bourgeoisie is against "big money," finance capital, wealthy families, monopolies, and the working class. It seeks the maintenance of an unspecified status cruo that permits its reproduction and expansion of private property against the encroaching threat of proletarianization. It wants a laissez-faire economy that would allow them to participate in "fair competition" (equal opportunity in the market) and individual rights. It lives through

...fantasies of...the past stage of competitive capitalism. What this petty bourgeoisie often seeks is change without the system changing. It aspires to share in the "distribution" of political power, in the form of a corporate state, and exhibits characteristic resistance towards the radical transformation of this p o w e r . 42

Furthermore, the traditional petty bourgeoisie holds

41lbid., p. 241. 42poulantzas, Classes in Contemporarv Capitalism, p. 295. 283 aspirations of upward social mobility. The attainment of bourgeois status is their manifest ideal. According to

Poulantzas, they ascribe to

The myth of the "ladder" [of social elevation].... With the fear of proletarianization below, and the attraction of the bourgeoisie above, the petty bourgeoisie aspires to join the bourgeoisie, by the individual rise of the "best" and "most able." This aspect therefore often takes "elitist" forms, standing for the renewal of elites, for the replacement of a bourgeoisie "not doing its job" by the petty bourgeoisie, without changing society.43

In addition, the traditional petty bourgeoisie is absorbed by what Poulantzas calls "power fetishism."44 power

fetishism can be described as follows:

Because of its economic isolation (which also gives rise to "petty-bourgeois individualism"), and because of its economic closeness and antagonism to both bourgeoisie and proletariat, the petty bourgeoisie believes in a "neutral" State above classes. It expects the State to nurture it and arrest its decline. This often leads to "statolatry": the petty bourgeoisie identifies itself with the State, whose neutrality it supposes to be akin to its own, since it sees itself as a "neutral" class between the bourgeoisie and the working class, and therefore a pillar of the State — "its" State. It aspires to be the "arbitrator" of society, because as Marx says, it would like the whole of society to become petty bourgeois.45

The general isolation of the traditional petty bourgeoisie,

i.e., its forms of production and reproduction, and its

inability to organize its own political party, inhibit it

from developing any long-term autonomous political

43poulantzas, Fascism and Dictatorship, p. 241.

44poulantzas borrows this term from Lenin.

45poulantzas, Fascism and Dictatorship, p. 241. 284 position. Finally, Poulantzas notes that the complex character of the traditional petty bourgeoisie toward the

State is to found in its ideological inculcation through

the ideological state apparatuses. He explains this

relation in the following terms:

The principle role here does not fall to the educational apparatus..., but rather to that very specific apparatus provided by the family, the family unit playing the particular role in the economic existence of these agents. This is one of the most tenacious sites of the inculcation of bourgeois ideology into this class, as a result of the decisive role in resisting a radical transformation of social relations that the family plays; it is particularly effective for those agents, who thus link up with the new petty bourgeoisie in the family-school c o u p l e . 46

At this juncture, it is essential to delineate some pertinent features regarding the traditional petty bourgeoisie. First, the traditional petty bourgeoisie, given its economic isolation, is continuously being out­ paced, and out-maneuvered the by the superior political, ideological, and economic power of the bourgeoisie. Even though it seeks a laissez-faire economic system, it fails to recognize that the historical context of contemporary capitalism makes this impossible. If this situation were to exist in the present context, it would be destroyed in the face of bourgeoisie's superior position. Simply put, it does not hold the means to compete with the financial, productive, distributive, marketing, and accounting

46poulantzas, Classes in Contemporarv Capitalism, p. 296. 285 capabilities of monopoly c a p i t a l . 4?

Second, the traditional petty bourgeoisie's fantasy of springing into the bourgeois class is continuously being thwarted by its own structural class determination and the

State. Although the State continually speaks to petty bourgeois values of honesty, hard work, etc., and makes short-term concessions to it, in the long-run, however, it contributes to its atrophy. For example, free trade policies pursued by monopoly capital and the State work hand-in-hand to undermine the extended reproduction of this grouping. For the most part, free trade means that the traditional petty bourgeoisie will lose the protection it so desperately seeks from the State to sustain itself, given that monopoly capital is the primary benefactor of such policies.

Third, although individual traditional petty

bourgeois entrepreneurs may ascend to the ranks of the

bourgeoisie, the remaining millions can never fulfill this

desire. However, the individual success of one perpetuates

4?The transformation of the traditional petty bourgeoisie to its current position and the impending threat of proletarianization can be clearly seen in the Third World. Here it is being blocked in its extended reproduction by international capital, big domestic capital, superior technology (compare the hand lathe with sophisticated computer driven robot production), and factory production (contributing to the destruction of skills, trades, craftsmanship, and petty merchants). Thus, the Third World today, in part, mirrors the past history of the transformation processes that the traditional petty bourgeoisie has undergone in the First World. 286 the ideological hope of success in others. Even if they do

not make it into the bourgeoisie, they still hold on to the hope that their children may some day make it. To enhance

the chances of their children, they attempt to provide them with all sorts of opportunities, e.g., the accumulation of

sizeable amounts of capital, extreme emphasis on education

and credentialism, and the conveyance of whatever "know-how"

they p o s s e s s . 48 This ideological ensemble provides the

traditional petty bourgeoisie with all sorts of myths and

success stories, fueling illusions of grandeur that feed­

back into its ideological reproduction.

Fourth, the traditional petty bourgeoisie's economic

isolation, coupled with its ideological principle of

individualism, forces it to seek, in the best possible

world, a neutral State that would stand above all classes

(pluralism). However, historically speaking, this is a

myth. The traditional petty bourgeoisie, inhibited by its

own ideological practice, fails to understand that the State

is a class State, i.e., that the State is a manifestation,

the political site, of the imperatives of the ideological,

political, and economic interests of the dominant

class(es).49 Clouded by these realities, the traditional

48For a developed analysis of credentialism, see Nicholas Abercrombie and John Urry, Capital. Labour and the Middle Classes (Boston: George Allen & Unwin, 1983).

49only in exceptional forms of State (bonapartism, fascism, and dictatorship), for example, fascist Germany and Italy, does the petty bourgeoisie come to run the state 287 petty bourgeoisie lacks the analytical power to survey the true circumstances of its existence. Hence, it resorts to

Statolatry, State worship, as a way of attaining its interests, and as a means of "braking" its slide into proletarianization. Through all its efforts, including

State worship, the State does occasionally put forth short­ term policies as a means of gaining its support. For example, the State may provide funds to the Small Business

Administration and low interest loans, but in a capricious fashion the State may withdraw these funds and raise the

interest rates at some later point in time. In the long- run, however, the State acts to maximize the interests of the bourgeoisie.

Finally, Poulantzas correctly notes that it is the

family that plays the principle role in perpetuating the

ideological practices of the traditional petty bourgeoisie.

The ideological inculcation of the traditional petty bourgeoisie is further enhanced by the education (school) and media ideological state apparatuses. These apparatuses on a daily basis produce symbols dear to the petty bourgeoisie: individualism, self-reliance, hard work. apparatuses. It does this, however, not by destroying the interests of the bourgeoisie, but rather by reorganizing the crisis riddled status of the bourgeoisie. One of the ways it acted to reorganize the crisis ridden bourgeoisie in Germany was by securing it in the service of a war economy. For a detailed analysis of this form of petty bourgeois hegemony see Poulantzas' Fascism and Dictatorship; and also David Abraham, The Collapse of the Weimar Republic (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981). 288 thriftiness, patriotism, success stories, "being my own boss," etc.

With regard to the new petty bourgeoisie some preliminary remarks are in order here. First, unlike the traditional petty bourgeoisie, the new petty bourgeoisie has

...neither economic ownership nor possession of the means of production. On the other hand, they do present the phenomenon of wage-labour, renumerated in the form of a wage or salary.50 In addition, the new petty bourgeoisie is not destined to follow the course of the traditional petty bourgeoisie. It is not threatened with destruction at every turn. In reality, it has expanded and developed through the extended expansion and reproduction of the capitalist system. Thus, the new petty bourgeoisie is an essential component in the rise and perpetuation of capitalism itself: capitalism can by no means do without it. It is an essential feature of its existence. The principle factor that differentiates these two petty bourgeois groupings is their objective structural determination, i.e., their material conditions of existence. Poulantzas says that

What makes it possible for the two groups to be considered as part of the same class, the "petty bourgeoisie," is that their different economic positions generally have the same effects at the political and ideological l e v e l . 51

50Poulantzas, classes in Contemporarv Capitalism, p. 209.

51poulantzas, Fascism and Dictatorship, pp. 239-240, Specifically, the new petty bourgeoisie experiences its primary form of exploitation through the wage/salary 289

Second, ideologically speaking, the new petty bourgeoisie is overwhelmingly concerned with maintaining and elevating its income position. Although they are critical of big money, their criticism revolves around their demands for egalitarian tax policies. The ultimate fear of these non-productive wage earners/salaried employees is their fall into the ranks of the proletariat. This fear is further expressed by their resistance to revolutionary situations.

They are unable "...to take into account the mechanisms of production, and the exploitative role of ownership of the means of production."52 This is evident in the corporatist character of their trade union struggles. Accordingly, they suffer from the isolationist effects of competition, i.e., seeking a position, a wage, a higher wage, a title, etc., in the capitalist labor market. Poulantzas argues that

"...this competitive isolation is the basis of a complex ideological process that takes the form of petty-bourgeois individualism."53

Third, the new petty bourgeoisie makes demands on capital to be granted greater responsibility in decision­ making processes. This is expressed through demands for rationalization (on the job and in society), and for self­ relation, therefore, they constitute non-productive wage labor.

52%bid., p. 242. 53poulantzas, Classes in Contemporarv Capitalism, p. 291. 290 management, particulary by higher fractions of the new petty bourgeoisie. 54 Although they seek a rearrangement of authoritarian structures in which they work, they do not challenge the hierarchical organization nor the power structure.

Fourth, much of the new petty bourgeoisie's efforts are directed towards the ladder of promotion. Poulantzas clearly indicates that this grouping experiences "... the highest index of social mobility in capitalist society (both upwards and still more d o w n w a r d s ) "55 on an ideological level, the new petty bourgeoisie is

Afraid of proletarianization below, attracted to the bourgeoisie above, the new petty bourgeoisie often aspires to "promotion", to a "career", to "upward social mobility", i.e. to becoming bourgeois (the ideological aspects of bourgeois imitation) by way of the "individual" transfer of the "best" and "most capable"; this is again a case of petty-bourgeois individualism.56

For the most part, then, the higher fractions of the new petty bourgeoisie form a highly specialized, qualified, and sophisticated labor force that is able to manage the

54The demand for self-management, according to Poulantzas, "...means in their eyes that they should take the place of the bourgeoisie in a new form, whereas for the working class it means worker' control." Poulantzas, Ibid., p.291.

55poulantzas, Fascism and Dictatorship, p. 243.

56poulantzas, Classes in Contemporary Capitalism, p. 292. The notion of bourgeois imitation is a very significant issue. It is clear that the dominated classes, in fact, do imitate the bourgeiosie in manifold ways. This is indicative of the bourgeoisie's hegemony in capitalist society. 291 imperative functions of capitalism and the interests of the bourgeoisie. Thus, it sees the educational system as being its means to upward social mobility.

Fifth, the new petty bourgeoisie is wrapped up in with what Poulantzas calls "power fetishism." He describes this situation as follows:

As a result of [its]... intermediate class [position], polarized between the bourgeoisie and the working class, [and] as a result also of the isolation of its agents (petty-bourgeois individualism), this class has a strong tendency to see the state as an inherently neutral force whose role is that of arbitrating between the various social classes. The class domination that the bourgeoisie exert over it by way of the state apparatus is often experienced as a "technical" deformation of the state, which can be "re­ arranged" through a democratization that would bring it into line with its own true nature. This involves demands related to the "humanization" and "rationalization" of the "administration", against the state's technocratic centralism, and [as] such [its] demands do not comprehend the actual nature of political power.57

Its desire for a neutral State and the democratization of its scope of activity goes counter to 1. the view that the

State is a class State, and 2. that it can impose a solution to the existing deformations in the system through a democratization process. In holding these views, the new petty bourgeoisie is unable to grasp the class character of the State and the imperatives of the bourgeoisie. For to conceive of State power and class power (bourgeois power) in these terms is to miss the character of the power relations

57ibid., p. 292. 292 that permeate social formations. This situation is further compounded by the new petty bourgeoisie's belief that it is the political organizer of the State (Jacobinism). Thus, it sees

The role of the state as an apparatus of class domination...as [being] a perversion of a state whose authority is to be restored by "democratizing" it, i.e. by opening it up to the petty bourgeoisie, making it respect the "general interest", it being understood that this general interest corresponds to that of the intermediate class, the mediator between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.58

Finally, the capitalist educational system plays an extremely significant role in creating new petty bourgeois agents. Poulantzas says that

The main role of the capitalist school is not to "qualify" manual and mental labour in different ways, but far more to disqualify manual labour (to subjugate it), by only qualifying mental labour. From this standpoint, the role of the educational apparatus in training the new petty bourgeoisie is a considerable one, and even quite typical: we need only mention the role of the various certificates and diplomas on the petty bourgeois market. This tendency is very pronounced today, now that "apprenticeship on the job" is replaced, for a large section of new petty bourgeoisie, by training within the educational system.59

Training and credentials become the ideological symbols and the ladder through which members of the new petty bourgeoisie are able to rise from one fraction into another higher fraction (promotion), and ideally into the bourgeois class. In practice, however, there are mechanisms in place

58%bid., p. 293.

59lbid., 266. 293 that strictly restrain the rise of this group into the bourgeois class. Be that as it may, they still feed into the illusion that they have the "opportunity" of becoming bourgeois. And if they do not make it, they still hold the hope that their children will. These ideological illusions and views, compounded with the points presented above, prevent the new petty bourgeoisie from effectively organizing itself into a political party.

It is obvious from the above discussion that the new petty bourgeoisie is not only polarized between the working class and the bourgeoisie, but it is further divided into fractions. One of these fractions, according to Poulantzas, is the civil service. This social category is composed of

State functionaries who work in the State apparatus, the State bureaucracy. GO The civil servants are united as a

GO"These are non-productive employees whose function is to ensure, through the role of the State, the reproduction of the conditions of production of surplus value. They do not produce surplus value. They too sell their labour- power, and their salaries too are determined by the cost of reproducing it, but their exploitation is accomplished by the direct extraction of surplus labor, and not by the production of surplus value." Poulantzas, Fascism and Dictatorship. p. 239. Overall, Poulantzas classifies all members of the new petty bourgeoisie as being non-productive salaried employees. More specifically, this involves "...those employed in the circulation of capital, and...those who contribute to realizing surplus value: salaried employees in commerce, banking, insurance, sales departments, advertising, etc., as well as 'service' employees. It applies, secondly, to civil servants in the various branches of the State apparatuses...." Poulantzas, Ibid. For Poulantzas, then, all non-productive employees are members of the new petty bourgeoisie, i.e., they are involved in way or another in the reproduction of the "system," whether as custodians, accountants, or civil 294 social category to perform the imperative functions of the StateGl under the command/management of heads/secretaries of the State apparatuses.it should be noted, that these service employees. This grouping, according to Poulantzas, is an instrumental force in the extraction of surplus labor, and it is not, in reality, involved in the direct production of surplus value.

G 3-Max Weber gives a precise analysis of how agents operate within civil and private bureaucratic apparatuses. See Max Weber, Economy and Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), pp. 959-1003. Poulantzas building on Marx, Engels, Lenin, Weber, and Gramsci presents some key characteristics of bureaucratism. He says that "... bureaucratism represents a hierarchical organization of the state apparatus, bv means of delegation of power, having particular effects on the functioning of that apparatus." Poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes. (London: NLB, 1975), p. 349. Poulantzas goes on to give some taxonomic qualities of bureaucratism: "1. The axiomatization of the juridical system into rule/laws, which are abstract, general, formal and strictly regulated and which distribute the domains of activities and competences (Engels, Weber); 2. The concentration of functions and the administrative centralization of the apparatus (Marx, Engels, Gramsci); 3. The impersonal character of the functions of the state apparatus (Marx, Weber); 4. The mode of payment of these functions by fixed salaries (Marx, Weber) ; 5. The mode of recruitment of civil servants by co-optation or nomination by the 'heights' or again by a particular system of competition (Marx, Weber)...." Ibid., pp.349-350. Poulantzas goes on to give additional features of bureaucratism as follows: "6. The separation between the civil servant's private life and public function; separation between 'home' and 'office' (Marx, Weber); 7. A systematic masking of knowledge of the apparatus, i.e. bureaucratic secrecy, vis-a-vis the classes (Marx, Engels, Lenin, Weber); 8 . A masking of knowledge within the apparatus itself, with the 'top civil servants' holding the keys of science (Lenin); 9. A characteristic disparity between the scientific education of the 'heights' and the subordinate strata's lack of culture (Marx, Lenin); etc." Ibid., p. 350.

G2The heads of the State apparatuses are drawn not only from the bourgeoisie, but also from the intermediate classes and the working class as well. Gramsci argues that the heads of these State apparatuses and some of those engaged within them can be regarded as "ideological functionaries" 295 agents have diverse class origins. This is an important element when it comes to the question of alliances. As such, this social category, in certain historical conjunctures, can act as a social force, i.e., it can

intervene

...in the political field and the class struggle with a weight of its own; it is not purely and simply "in tow" either to the hegemonic class or fraction, or to the class or fraction from which it originates or to which it belongs.

Thus, this fraction of the new petty bourgeoisie can play a very important role in the formation of alliances both with

the bourgeoisie, and more importantly, with the working

class.

Poulantzas goes on to indicate the character of

"mental" labor. His analysis on this topic is strongly

influenced by Gramsci's work on intellectuals, organic and traditional.G4 He delineates the fractions of the new petty

bourgeoisie which constitute mental labor as being:

...those employed in accounting, banking, advertising, marketing, insurance and the commercial sector in the broad sense, or in the work of the great majority of civil servants, "service" workers of various kinds (health service, hospitals, articled clerks, etc.), office workers such as secretaries and typists, and

or "organic intellectuals" of the upper class.

63pouiantzas, Classes in Contemporary Capitalism, p. 186.

G4with regard to this topic, Poulantzas says: "I shall base myself here on certain arguments of the only western Marxist to have gone into this question in detail, i.e. Gramsci." Ibid., p. 252. 296

clerical workers in general, in relation to the working class....G5

The significance of discerning fractions within the new petty bourgeoisie is that it becomes possible to study the existence of these fractions on the economic, political, and ideological level and their position in the forming of alliances. Although the fractions of the new petty bourgeoisie that will be dealt with here are by their structural class determination part of the petty bourgeoisie, they nevertheless indicate objective class positions in congruence with those of the working class, and thus have a propensity for taking working class position.

Some of these fractions, according to Poulantzas, are: 1. lower-level workers in the commercial sector, i.e. shopping store assistants; 2. those employees who are directly impacted upon by the introduction of machines, especially those "...belong[ing] to the sphere of circulation and realization of capital, to the service sector, or to the state apparatus..."G 6 ; 3 "...those employed in certain parts of the service sector— workers in restaurants, cafe's, theatres, cinemas, as well as lower-level health workers

(e.g. hospital orderlies), e t c . " G 7 ; 4 ^ office workers of

GSibid.

GGibid., p. 316. G7lbid. 297 civil and public bureaucracies^S ; and 5. "...technicians and subaltern engineers involved in productive l a b o u r . . . ."G9

Despite the different economic positions held by the traditional petty bourgeoisie and the new petty bourgeoisie

in the capitalist social formation, both of these groupings produce common ideological and political effects. With regard to the ideological level, petty bourgeois ideology is shaped by the class struggle between the two fundamental classes. Furthermore, the petty bourgeoisie borrows from bourgeois ideology, which it articulates to its own

structural class situation and to its aspirations. 70 on this point, it is interesting to note that every

ideological, political, and economic crisis of the

G^This fraction includes those involved in the circulation of capital; commercial capital (marketing, advertising, accounting, sales, etc.; finance capital (banking, insurance, etc.); the service sector (information processors of all sorts); and, state employees (civil servants). According to Poulantzas, this grouping places a great deal of significance on mental labor, and is opposed to manual labor. It is affected by credentials, seniority, promotion, and careerism. It experiences as high degree of circulation "...both within their own class and upwards into the bourgeoisie. Moreover, 'profit-sharing' and bonuses designated to give employees an 'interest' in the firm play a special role here." Ibid., p. 322.

G^ibid., 326. According to Poulantzas, this fraction can be regarded as belonging to the petty bourgeoisie, even though it is directly engaged in the production of surplus- value, because it "...display[s] certain objective preconditions for grasping the essential mechanisms of capitalist exploitation...." Ibid.

70However, as a dominated class, the petty bourgeoisie also borrows and articulates elements into its own ideological discourse from the working class as well. 298 bourgeoisie impacts directly within the structural determination of the petty bourgeoisie, thereby, exercising a direct influence on the class positions it may take.73-

Poulantzas notes an interesting fact that happens when sectors/fractions of the petty bourgeoisie take up working class positions: "...they often do so by investing them with their own ideological practices."72 what this means is that the petty bourgeoisie does not simply swallow working class ideology as a whole. It must not only invest the working class position it has taken with its own world-view; it must also do this with working class ideology as well. Since the petty bourgeoisie is adopting an ideology/class position that is not intrinsically constituted by it, it must, therefore, first seek to understand these practices not through the eyes of the working class, but rather through its own vision of things. Conversely, according to

Poulantzas, the working class, in its attempt to draw the petty bourgeoisie to its side, must guard against itself being swept into any kind of convergence/amalgamation between working class ideological elements and petty bourgeois ideological elements. In effect, this means that the working class must not lose sight of its own ideology

73-it may be said, then, that when the bourgeoisie sneezes the petty bourgeoisie catches a cold. The same can be said for the working class. 72poulantzas, Classes in Contemporarv Capitalism, p. 287. 299 and fall into the trap of viewing the working class struggle through petty bourgeois scopes.

On the political level, i.e., in the terrain of the class struggle, the petty bourgeoisie is unable to have or express long-term political interests. Concretely speaking, the petty bourgeoisie is unable to organize its own political p a r t y . 7 3 Thus, the petty bourgeoisie often constitutes a supporting class for the bourgeoisie. I t is, therefore, a "swing class" that can either side with the bourgeoisie or the proletariat. Its oscillation is a direct product of its precarious existence as an intermediate c l a s s . 74 Thus, the struggle on the part of the working

73According to Poulantzas, "Petty bourgeois political parties in the strict sense of the term, i.e. parties actually and predominately representing the specific long­ term interests of the petty bourgeoisie, have rarely existed. What we find most often, rather, are bourgeois parties with a petty-bourgeois (and also working-class) clientele, that is parties that predominately represent bourgeois interests, but manage to obtain the support of the petty bourgeoisie." Ibid., p. 334.

74por some developed analyses of this question and that of the boundary problem, see Richard Scase, "The Petty Bourgeoisie and Modern Capitalism: A Consideration of Recent Theories," in Anthony Giddens and Gavin Mackenzie, ed., Social Class and the Division of Labour (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 148-161; Gavin Mackenzie, "Class Boundaries and the Labour Process," Ibid., pp. 63-86; George Ross, "Marxism and the New Middle Classes: French Critiques," Theorv and Society 5, no. 2 (March 1978): 163-190; Goran Therborn, "The Rise of Social Scientific Marxism and the Problems of Class Analysis," in S. N. Eisenstadt and H. J. Helle, Macro-socioloaical Theorv. (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, Inc., 1985), pp. 135-167; C. Wright Mills, White Collar (New York: Oxford University Press, 1951); Val Burris, "Class Structure and Political Ideology," Insurgent Sociologist 14, no. 2 (Summer 1987):5- 46; and the apostasy of Erik Clin Wright, Class. Crisis, and 300 class must be precisely directed toward the winning over of the petty bourgeoisie if it is to become a hegemonic class.

The polarization of the petty bourgeoisie toward the working class must be predicated on the capacity/ability of the working class to represent the petty bourgeoisie within its own organizations. This is not a uniform process that runs uninterrupted. It is a long-term process that not only involves the granting of concession, but also works on presenting concrete proposals to the petty bourgeoisie. According to Poulantzas,

The working class cannot simply hope that on the day of reckoning that it has brought about by its own efforts, the petty bourgeoisie will leap to its side, or worst be neutralized. These petty- bourgeois fractions must not be seen as by nature and essence immutable, so that they could only be won to the cause of the working class by simple 'compromises' and 'concessions' towards them.75

The working class simply cannot drag the petty bourgeoisie

"...along like a ball and chain."76 Furthermore, it must be kept in mind that although the petty bourgeoisie or certain fractions of the traditional and new petty bourgeoisie have been won over by the working class, "...they can also be lost a g a i n . "77 Thus, the working class must be able to make

"real" concrete and meaningful compromises and provide the State (London: Verso, 1979).

75poulantzas, Classes in Contemporarv Capitalism, p. 335. 76ibid.

77poulantzas, "The New Petty Bourgeoisie," p. 124. 301

"true" concessions to the petty bourgeoisie. It follows, then, that Poulantzas' analysis of polarization and class alliances fits squarely within Gramsci's war of position, i.e., that the working class must be able to wage a protracted struggle that brings to its side not only fractions from the petty bourgeoisie, but also fractions from the bourgeoisie if it is to ascend to the status of the hegemonic class. CHAPTER IX

THE MATERIALITY OF IDEOLOGY

The Ideological Practice

The study of the ideological practice is of tremendous importance because it has its own materiality, its own specificity, its own terrain of existence, its own production of pertinent effects, and its own mechanisms through which it functions. As a region of study, ideology does not have its own autonomous existence outside of its articulation with the political and economic practices. It is only through its articulation with these practices that ideology finds its materialization, i.e., its raison d'etre. Gramsci, Althusser, and Poulantzas stress that ideology is a "lived" relation between people and their world. It is the materialization of this relation that allows Althusser to say that "...'man is an ideological animal by nature.'"3- Human beings are not only by nature ideological, they are also political and economic animals.

In short, all human beings are social animals insofar that

3-Louis Althusser, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses, in Essavs on Ideology (London: Verso, 1971/1984), p. 45. "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses" was also published in a collection of essays under the title of Lenin and Philosophy (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971), pp. 127-186.

302 303 they cannot exist without the production and reproduction of political, ideological, and economic activities or practices. The production and reproduction of these

activities/practices is not an isomorphic process. In

actuality, each practice is marked by its own

characteristic unevenness vis-a-vis each of the other practices. In this sense, each practice constitutes its

own topology of materialized practice, its own morphology,

its own imperatives, and its own time and rhythm of

operation within a given social formation. With regard to

the ideological practice, Althusser points out that St.

Paul defined it very admirably as being "...the 'Logos,' meaning...ideology, that we live, move and have our

being."2 St. John illustrates the significance of ideology

by saying that "In the beginning was the Word," meaning

that in the beginning there was ideology establishing how

the political and economic practices would be organized.

Given its relative autonomy, the ideological practice is a

materially constituted force only through its articulation with the economic and political practices.

Althusser argues that "Ideology represents the

imaginary relationship of individuals to their real

conditions of existence."3 In this sense, he says that

2ibid.

3ibid., p. 36. For an elaboration and analysis of Althusser's work on ideology, see Paul Hirst, On Law and Ideology, (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1979); 304

"ideology = illusion/allusion"^ to reality. Even though ideology is an illusion, it still

...make[s] allusion to reality, and [it]...need only be "interpreted" to discover the reality of the world behind [its]... imaginary representation of...[the] world....5

In all class societies, it is essential to maintain this masking function of ideology in order to sustain and hide the extraction of surplus value. Hence, a prevailing hegemonic or dominant ideology has the specific function of camouflaging the "real" relations of social existence in order to continue the domination and exploitation of the politically and economically dominated classes. According to Althusser,

...all ideology represents in its necessary imaginary distortion not the existing relations of production (and other relations that derive from them), but above all the (imaginary) relationship of individuals to the relations of production and the relations that derive from them. What is

Jacques Ranciere, "On the Theory of Ideology— Althusser's Politics," in Roy Edgley and Richard Osborne, ed.. Radical Philosophv Reader (London: Verso, 1985): 101-136; Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies, ed., On Ideoloav (London: Hutchinson University Library, 1977); Gregor McLennan, Victor Molina, and Roy Peters, "Althusser's Theory of Ideology," Working Papers in Cultural Studies 10 (1977):77- 105; Colin Sumner, Reading Ideologies (New York: Academic Press, 1979); Neil Eriksen, "Louis Althusser and Historical Materialism," Theoretical Review, no. 31 (January 1983):26- 37; Michel Pecheux, Language. Semantics, and Ideologv (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982); and Stuart Hall, "Signification, Representation, Ideology: Althusser and the Post-Structuralist Debates," Critical Studies in Mass Communication 2, no. 2 (June 1985):91-114.

^Althusser, Essavs on Ideology, p. 36.

Sibid. 305

represented in ideology is therefore not the system of the real relations which govern the existence of individuals, but the imaginary relation of those individuals to the real relations in which they live.G

A structural Marxist reading, however, is able to disclose the imaginary/illusionary character of ideology because it seeks to demystify the social relations of existence that prevail. It does this by going beneath the surface presentation of reality to discover the "true", relations that constitute the surface mystified/fantastic relations. The camouflage/mystification of the social relations of existence is a central characteristic of ideology in all class societies. Thus, Althusser points out that "Ideology is an essential element of every social formation, including a socialist and even a communist society."7 There is one distinguishing feature that separates the ideology present in class societies and the ideology present in socialist/communist societies (not

"actually existing socialism"); it is that ideology in socialist/communist societies manifests the "real" character of the relations of production and domination, and not their mystified character. What is essential to note here is that, following Gramsci, ideology is the cohesive force, the "cement," that holds a social formation

Gibid., pp. 38-39.

7Louis Althusser, Reading Capital (London: NLB, 1970/Verso, 1979), p. 314. 306 together. Ideology is the binding factor that cements the character of class and classless societies. Poulantzas

argues that

...ideology constitutes the way in which men, agents of production, live their conditions of existence.... In this sense, as the agents of production are the bearers of structures of production, as "men" are the bearers of the social structures as a whole, the dominant ideology in a social formation constitutes in its primordial objective function the "cement" in the unity of the various levels of social structure. This ideology necessarily also presents its own internal "unity".... 3

The internal unity of a social formation is a product of

the dominate mode of production that structures the

character of a social formation. In this regard, Poulantzas says the

ideology cements the articulation of the various levels of a formation; it expresses in a coherent universe the type of articulation specifying the "unity" of that formation. Thus, [it follows that]...the politically dominant ideology in a formation is that of the politically dominant class, this is not because it can be identified with some "political" number-plates social classes wore on their backs; it is because the dominance of this ideology is related to the set of objective co-ordinates which result in a given dominant ideology.9

Ideology, then, does not only constitute a cohesive force

for the politically dominant class(es); it also acts to

constitute the internal unity of subordinate classes within

a social formation, i.e., it shapes their imperatives and

®Nicos Poulantzas, "Marxist Political Theory in Great Britain," New Left Review, no. 43 (May-June 1967):66-67.

9ibid., p. 67. 307 conditions of existence.

Althusser and Poulantzas are clearly indebted to

Gramsci's novel epistemological advances in specifying the topography of ideology. Poulantzas states that "in the history of Marxist thought Gramsci is the first to break with the conception of ideology as a conceptual

s y s t e m . ... ”3-0 For ideology is more than a conceptual

system; it is a lived relation that penetrates the whole of

social existence. Gramsci was keenly aware of the fact

that

...ideology encompasses not merely scattered elements of knowledge, notions etc., but also the whole process of symbolization, of mythical transposition, of "taste," "style," "fashion," i.e of the "way of life" in general ll

Ideology writes on our mind, body, and nature. It imprints

us with messages, representations, and forms of existence.

There is no utopia (no topos, no place) without ideology.

Ideology is a human artifact that is omnipresent. As such.

Ideology concerns the world in which men live, their relations to nature, to society, to other men and to their own activity including their own economic and political activity. The status of the ideological derives from the fact that it reflects the manner in which the agents of a formation, the bearers of its structures, live their conditions of existence; i.e. it reflects their relation to these conditions as it is "lived" by them. Ideology is present to such an extent in all the agents' activities that it becomes indistinguishable from

l^Nicos Poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes (London:NLB, 1973), p. 201.

3 - 3 - I b i d . , p. 208. 308

their lived experience.3-2

This lived relation cannot be construed as being false, for to agents, bearers, individuals that live these relations out, it is "real." Ideology is embodied within these "real" relations; because these social relations are "real" to those who live them. Here W. I. Thomas' "definition of the situation" is absolutely correct. For if individuals define the "situation" of their existence as "real," it is

"real" to them and in its consequences. However, to leave this question only within these limits, is to lose sight of the "forces" that constitute the "real." The "real" is not enough, epistemologically and ontologically speaking, to be defined as "real." Since the "real" is only a surface rendering, an imaginary relation, an illusion, a reversed image, of the "Real" that is always present and operational beneath the surface giving substance, form, content, and dynamism to the surface "real." Thus, ideology becomes an indistinguishable element through which agents, individuals, live out their social relations. In this sense, ideology becomes naturalized, i.e., people play out their ideological class specified relations as natural.

Given these features of ideology, Poulantzas can argue that ideology

...fix[es] in a relatively coherent universe not only a real but also an imaginary relation: i.e. men's relation to their conditions of existence in

3-2lbid., p. 206-207. 309 the form of an imaginary relation.3-3

The primary function of ideology is to falsify the true character of the social relations of production and the appropriation of surplus value. Its function is to prevent people from gaining

...true knowledge of the social structure...[while it constitutes, interpellates, and] insert[s people]...as it were into their practical activities supporting this structure. 3-4

Thus, ideology constitutes a relatively coherent discourse which serves to hide the "Real" social relations of production by fulfilling the imperatives of the dominant classes. Ideology, however, does not operate in a vacuum, like the political and economic practices, it is overdetermined by the class struggle. Poulantzas notes that the dominant ideology is not a unified ensemble in its content. Following Gramsci, he states that

The dominant ideology contains features from ideologies other than that of the dominant class, incorporated as "elements" in its own structure; [however, there are present within]...capitalist formations true ideological sub-ensembles which function with a relative autonomy vis-a-vis the dominant ideology within a formation: e.g. feudal and petty-bourgeois sub-ensembles. These sub­ ensembles are dominated by the ideologies of the corresponding classes— feudal, petty bourgeois— but only to the extent that these ideologies which dominate the ideological sub-ensembles are themselves dominated by the dominant ideology.... Furthermore these ideological sub-ensembles themselves contain elements stemming from ideologies other than those which dominate them, or

3-3ibid., p. 207. 3-4ibid. 310

other than the dominant ideology of a formation. This is characteristically the case in the recurring relations between the ideologies of the petty bourgeoisie and the working class.3-5

Ideology is not the exclusive property of the dominant class.3-6 It is not a monolithic entity. It is not neutral. Ideology exercises class weight and power not only through a hegemonic ideology, whether it be political, economic, or scientific, but also through attempts to prevent and discredit other ideologies from intervening.

In reality, ideology is not a "number-plate" worn exclusively by one class. Ideology is instead an ensemble of elements loaded with historical content derived from human existence. It involves elements of common sense, historical traces of proverbial wisdom, incomplete ideas, prejudices, misinformation, false and mystified knowledge, borrowings from philosophical and political systems of thought, etc. 3-7 in practice, classes draw elements from the well of ideology, and articulate them to their

ISlbid., p. 210.

3-Gon this point, Poulantzas advances the argument that "The dominant ideology is not the only ideology in a social formation: there are several contradictorv ideologies or ideological sub-svstems. related to the various classes in struggle. The dominant ideology itself is only formed by its successful domination of these other ideologies and ideological sub-systems: it does so through the ideological State apparatuses." Nicos Poulantzas, Fascism and Dictatorship (London: NLB, 1974/Verso, 1979), p. 306.

l^For a work that directly challenges the monist and "number-plate" thesis, see Nicholas Abercrombie, Stephen Hill, and Bryan S. Turner, The Dominant Ideology Thesis (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1980). 311 imperatives. A dominant ideology does exist, however, it cannot be seen as the only shaper of visions du monde or

Weltanschauunaen.

Ideoloav and State Apparatuses

Ideology is expressed through ideological apparatuses. According to Althusser, "...ideologies are realized in institutions, their rituals and their practices, in the I S A s . " 3 - 8 in order to fully grasp the significance of this argument, it is essential to discern what is meant by institutions. In order to speak of institutions, it is also important to discuss what is meant by structure. A succinct definition of these terms will reveal their linkage with ideology. Poulantzas defines these terms as follows:

By institution will be meant a system of norms or rules which is socially sanctioned. ...The concept of structure covers the organizing matrix of institutions. Through the functioning of the ideological, the structure always remains hidden in and by the institutional system which it organizes. These remarks should be borne in mind in the use which will be made of these concepts. Yet we should add that structure is not the simple principle of organization which is exterior to the institution: the structure is present in an allusive and inverted form in the institution itself, and it is in the reiteration of these successive, hidden presences that we can discover the principle of elucidation of the institutions.3-9

This passage represents one of the principle essences of

3-SAlthusser, Essavs on Ideoloav. p. 58. 3-9poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes. 115. 312 structural Marxism's epistemology. The structure is an essential element in creating and infusing with content and function the particular ensembles, institutions or apparatuses, that will facilitate the organization of the political and economic practices. This is accomplished through ideology, which has the unique feature, as

Poulantzas notes, of hiding the imperative character of the structure. It is further important to note that

The various social institutions, in particular the institutions [apparatuses] of the state, do not, strictly speaking, have any power. Institutions, considered from the point of view of power, can be related only to social classes which hold power. As it is exercised this power of the social classes is organized in specific institutions [apparatuses] which are power centres; in this context the state is the centre of the exercise of political power. But this does not mean that power centres, the various institutions of an economic, political, military, cultural, etc., character are mere instruments, organs or appendices of the power of social classes. They possess their autonomy and structural specificity which is not as such immediately reducible to an analysis in terms of power.20

In this sense, the ideological State apparatuses, in capitalist social formations, are infused with bourgeois class power. Furthermore, "...no class can hold State power over a long period without at the same time exercising its heaemonv over and in the State Ideological

Apparatuses.”21 The infusion of the ideological State apparatuses with the ideology of a hegemonic class is the

20%bid.

2lAlthusser, Essavs on Ideologv. p. 20. 313 result of long political, ideological, and economic class struggle, where the former hegemonic class is supplanted by a new hegemonic class that manifests its class ideology within the ideological State apparatuses.

Althusser argues that

The ideology of the ruling class does not become the ruling ideology by the grace of God, nor even by virtue of the seizure of State power alone. It is by the installation of the ISAs in which this ideology is realized and realizes itself that it becomes the ruling ideology. But this installation is not achieved all by itself; on the contrary, it is the stake in a very bitter and continuous class struggle: first against the former ruling classes and their positions in the old and new ISAs, then against the exploited c l a s s . 22

Each hegemonic class decides which apparatuses will fulfill its exigencies. Not all apparatuses can uniformly perform the tasks at hand for all hegemonic classes. This has ramifications for those Marxist positions, e.g., Right-

Eurocommunist, that seek to capture the capitalist State and use it for their own interests. In such a situation, one is inheriting the same ideological and repressive State apparatuses that one is seeking to destroy. To illustrate the displacement of apparatuses vis-a-vis their role in the hands of different hegemonic classes, Althusser presents the following example:

In the pre-capitalist historical period...there was one dominant Ideological State Apparatus, the Church. which concentrated within it not only religious functions, but also educational ones, and a large proportion of the functions of

22Ibid., p. 59. 314

communications and "culture." It is no accident that all ideological struggle, from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, starting with the first shocks of the Reformation, was concentrated in an anti-clerical and anti-religious struggle; rather this is a function precisely of the dominant position of the religious ideological State apparatus.23

For the ascending bourgeoisie, the Church, an ideological

State apparatus, could not meet the imperatives and exigencies of the bourgeoisie's ideological needs. It had to be displaced through class struggle. In this respect.

The foremost objective and achievement of the French Revolution was not just to transfer State power from the feudal aristocracy to the merchant- capitalist bourgeoisie, to break part of the former repressive State apparatus and replace it with a new one (e.g., national popular Army24)— but also to attack the number-one Ideological State Apparatus: the C h u r c h . 25 Hence the civil constitution of the clergy, the confiscation of ecclesiastical w e a l t h , 26 and the creation of new

23 Ibid., p. 25.

24In the past, armies were made up of mercenaries often composed of people different from those they were paid to fight for. The American and French Revolutions were instrumental in forming national armies composed of citizens that fought for the nation-State.

2^The objective purpose of the ascending bourgeoisie was to institute its own ideology. However, the Church acted as fetter to its desires. The bourgeoisie's attempt to destroy this powerful apparatus did not culminate immediately on the day of the French Revolution. It had started centuries before; going back to the Reformation and continuing for decades after the revolution. Furthermore, the ideological ensembles of the aristocracy were not supplanted on the day of the French Revolution.

2®The confiscation of ecclesiastical wealth led to an immediate thesaurization of significant bourgeois fractions. This is another source of "primitive accumulation" that is not developed and articulated in the literature on capitalist forms of accumulation. 315

ideological State apparatuses to replace the religious ideological State apparatus in its dominant role.2?

Each new hegemonic class creates ideological State apparatuses for "its" own needs, i.e., each apparatus has specialized functions particularly suited to the affirmation of the hegemonic class' interests. Thus, the bourgeoisie in France replaced the Church as the leading ideological State apparatus, and instituted the secular school in its place as "their" number one ideological State apparatus. It is the s c h o o l , 28 the public school, and the communication apparatuses that best facilitate and perpetuate the interests of the bourgeois class(es) today.

Capitalism, as a system of production and social relations, requires highly trained individuals to carry-out its imperatives. The system cannot be run by feudal serfs; it needs accountants, engineers, lawyers, technicians, professors, teachers, physicians, physicists, financial analysts, financial planners, in short, mental and manual labor. Overall, it requires workers disciplined in the capitalist social relations of production. Althusser presents an excellent example that illustrates the above.

Although his example is specific to France, it has

2?Althusser, Essavs on Ideoloav. pp. 25-26.

28por a developed analysis of the educational apparatus, see Michael W. Apple, ed.. Cultural and Economic Reproduction in Education; Essavs on Class Ideoloav and the State (Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982). 316 parallels with educational systems throughout the world.

He points out that the school

...takes children from every class at infant-school age, and then for years, the years in which the child is most "vulnerable," squeezed between the family State apparatus and the educational State apparatus, it drums into them, whether it uses new or old methods, a certain amount of "know-how" wrapped in the ruling ideology (French, arithmetic, natural history, the sciences, literature) or simply the ruling ideology in its pure state (ethics, civic instruction, philosophy).29

In reference to the Greek educational apparatus, Poulantzas

notes that it "...allows the peasant...to pass into petty-

bourgeois strata or other strata."20 The implication of

this situation is that "...the popular masses view the

State not as power, but as a micro job."2i Thus, it ends

up being the most sought over employer by the majority of

citizen-subjects. In some social formations, the State,

represents that hypertrophic tertiary apparatus that is the

largest employer. The most sought after occupation— for

29Althusser, Essavs on Ideoloav. p. 29. It is no wonder why Emile Durkheim placed such great emphasis on this new ideological State apparatus, the public school, in promoting the reorganization of society (organic solidarity) after the destruction of the Church, as the principle ideological State apparatus which formally held the bonds of feudalism intact.

^^Nicos Poulantzas, G. Beltos, K. Vergopoulos, and K. Tsoucalas, "Krisi Exousias stin Ellada," Anti, no. 24 (August 2, 1975):37.

21lbid. Poulantzas here uses a Greek phrase, micro thoulia, micro job, which conveys the meaning of having a job that provides one with full time employment, security, and benefits. In this sense, the popular masses perceive the State as being the only apparatus that can provide them with a steady income and a life-time position. 317 educated and noneducated individuals with few occupational

options— is that of becoming a civil employee of the State.

Althusser goes on to point out that

Somewhere around the age of sixteen, a huge mass of children are ejected "into production:" these are the workers or small peasants. Another portion of scholastically adapted youth carries on: and, for better or worse, it goes somewhat further, until it falls by the wayside and fills the posts of small and middle technicians, white-collar workers, small and middle executives, petty bourgeois of all kinds. A last portion reaches the summit, either to fall into intellectual semi-employment, or to provide...the agents of exploitation (capitalists, managers), the agents of repression (soldiers, policemen, politicians, administrators, etc.) and the professional ideologists (priests of all sorts, most of whom are convinced " l a y m e n " ) . 22

In support of Althusser's position, Poulantzas notes that

the educational system "...reproduces the children of each

class, i.e., as bourgeois or as proletarian."23 There is

no other ideological State apparatus that can garner an

obligatory audience for "...eight hours a day for five or

six days out of s e v e n . "24 There is no other "total

institution," an institution where the inmates' life is

totally controlled, that has the capacity to socialize a

mandatory audience within a social formation, not even the

22Althusser, Essavs on Ideoloav. p. 29.

22n 1co s Poulantzas, "0 Stochos tou Ekdemocatismou stin Paideia," Thourios (July 26, 1975):15.

24&ithusser, Essavs on Ideology, p. 31. The number of hours and days presented here coincide with educational State apparatuses in many parts of Europe. In the United States, children are in school for less than eight hours, and they attend classes five days a week. 318 penal institution can socialize an inmate to the level of socialization that the school can. It is through the school that the hegemonic ideology is promoted in order to produce and reproduce the social relations of production.

However, the hegemonic ideology has the ability, according to Althusser, to present the school as being a neutral institution devoid of ideology.25 The role of teachers26 becomes obviously clear. They possess the power to socialize individuals. Althusser notes that the school has become "natural," i.e., it has become the natural thing to do. It has become "...indispensable-useful and even beneficial for our contemporaries as the Church was

"natural," [and] indispensable...for our ancestors...."2?

The Ideological State Apparatuses

Poulantzas credits Gramsci with the development of the concept of ideological State apparatuses.28 He goes on to say that

It must be stressed that Gramsci developed the theory that the ideological apparatuses belong to the State system.... He firstly made a series of general analyses. Stressing that the State had not

25%bid., p. 31.

26ourkheim vested teachers with extraordinary power. This is because they possess the power to socialize individuals so thoroughly.

2?Althusser, Essavs on Ideology, p. 31

28gee Gramsci's discussion of this topic in Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks (New York: International Publishers, 1971), pp. 10-13, 56. 319

only a "coercive" role but also an ideological role, that of hegemony, Gramsci repeatedly pointed out in great detail that the State should not be seen only in the "traditional" way as an apparatus of "brute force," but also as the "organizer of hegemony." The State "in the total sense" include[s] organizations "normally referred to as private," namely the Church, schools, unions, parties, and news media: "I [Gramsci] have had to reconsider the whole idea of the State which is generally understood to be a 'dictatorship' and not...the hegemony of a social group over the whole society of the nation, hegemony exercised through private bodies such as the Church, the unions, parties, schools, etc."29

It is clearly evident that Althusser and Poulantzas are

indebted to Gramsci's theorization of the ideological State apparatuses. Up until Gramsci, the Marxist theory of the

State had only been grounded on the repressive State apparatus. No social formation can be ruled by repression alone. In order for a class State to exist, the dominant class(es) must be able to attain the consent of the governed in order to sustain their rule. A structural

Marxist analysis requires that the surface relations must be explained as manifestations of hidden processes. This being the case, an analysis of the ideological State apparatuses in capitalist social formations clearly demonstrates how the mechanisms or apparatuses are infused with the ideology of the hegemonic classes, thereby enabling them to sustain their rule in the face of the class struggle without having to resort to a "State of

29Nicos Poulantzas, Fascism and Dictatorship (London: NLB, 1974/Verso, 1979), p. 299. 320 siege." Thus, Poulantzas notes

The State cannot enshrine and reproduce political domination exclusively through repression, force or "naked" violence, but directly calls upon ideology to legitimize violence and contribute to a consensus of those classes and fractions which are dominated from the point of view of political power. Ideology is always class ideology, never socially neutral.*0

Given the character of Gramsci's writings, he was unable to fully elaborate with any rigorous analysis the character of the ideological State apparatuses. Poulantzas and Althusser have made the furthest advances in signifying the character of the ideological State apparatuses and the repressive State apparatus. Poulantzas' and Althusser's work on ideology fills the lacuna in Gramsci's work on ideology. Poulantzas begins his analysis by demonstrating how the State apparatuses work. He says that the principle role of the State apparatuses

...is to elaborate, inculcate and reproduce...[the dominant] ideology— a function of considerable importance in the constitution and reproduction of social classes, class domination, and the social division of labour. This is true par excellence of those which have been termed ideological state apparatuses. whether they formally belong to the State or whether they retain a "private" juridical character (e.g., the Church or religious apparatus, the educational apparatus, the official information network of radio and television, the cultural apparatus). Of course, the dominant ideology also enters into the organization of other [repressive] apparatuses (army, police, judicial system, prisons, state administration) whose principle responsibility is the exercise of legitimate

40Nicos Poulantzas, State Power Socialism (London; NLB, 1978/Verso, 1980), p. 28. 321

physical violence.4i

Althusser defines the repressive State apparatus as being: the administration, the government, the police, the law, the courts, the army, and the prisons.42 He defines the ideological State apparatuses as being multiple "...distinct and specialized institutions."43 They are in part:44

— the religious ISA (the system of the different Churches), — the educational ISA (the system of the different public and private "Schools"), — the family ISA [essential in the production and reproduction of labor power], — the legal ISA [law and the courts, belong also to the repressive State apparatus], — the political ISA (the political system, including the different Parties), — the trade-union ISA, — the communications ISA (press, radio and television, etc.), — the cultural ISA (Literature, the Arts, sports, etc.).45

Further clarification needs to be made with regard to the

repressive State apparatus (RSA) and the ideological State

apparatuses (ISAs). First, according to Althusser,

"...there is one (Repressive) State Apparatus, [whereas]

41lbid. pp. 28-29.

42Althusser, Essavs on Ideoloav. p. 17.

43ibid.

44Althusser claims that the list of ISAs he presents is not inclusive. It may need to be corrected, amended, and reorganized. His list of ISAs is, however, given in its present form with reservations.

4 5 ib id . 322

there is a plurality of Ideological State Apparatuses. "46

Second, the RSA is "unified."4? Third, the ISAs and the

RSA are differentiated by the fact that "...the Repressive

State Apparatus functions 'by violence,' whereas the

Ideological State Apparatuses function 'bv ideoloav.'"48

Although the RSA functions by violence, it should be noted that "...administrative repression, may take non-physical

forms."49 Fourth, it can be said that although the RSA

functions mainly through repression; it also functions through ideology. It should also be stressed that even though the ideological State apparatuses function through

ideology, they also function through repression. This repression may be concealed or manifested in different

forms. Althusser's illustration of this is as follows:

Thus Schools and Churches use suitable methods of punishment, expulsion, selection, etc., to "discipline" not only their shepherds, but also their flocks. The same is true of the Family.... The same is true of the cultural IS Apparatus (censorship, among other things), e t c . SO

Ultimately, both State apparatuses are interwoven with

repression and ideology.

Fifth, Poulantzas argues that the RSA and the ISAs

46ibid., p. 18.

4?ibid.

48ibid., p. 19.

49ibid., p. 17.

SOibid., p. 19. 323 must only be thought of as purely descriptive categories and not as absolutes.Si it is on these grounds that

Althusser and Poulantzas in their later work find the

couplet repression-ideological State apparatuses as not being adequate to specify the whole character of social

relations. According to Poulantzas, the splitting of power between these two groupings leads to the underspecification

of the economic State apparatus which is subsumed within the repressive and ideological State apparatuses.52

Furthermore, the apparatuses are presented in a nominalist

fashion; thereby taking on essentialist qualities, either

repressive or ideological, without any developed analysis

as to how this happens. To illustrate this point,

Poulantzas notes that

Depending on the form of State and regime and on the phase of reproduction of capitalism, a number of apparatuses can slide from one sphere to the other and assume new functions either as additions to, or in exchange for, old ones. To take a typical example, the army becomes in certain forms of military dictatorship an ideological- organizational apparatus functioning above all as a political party of the bourgeoisie.53

In some social formations, the military subsumes within it

not only its general repressive functions, but also

ideological functions which it promotes through its role as

an educational apparatus— secondary and advanced

Sipoulantzas, State Power Socialism, p. 33

52ibid. 53ibid. 324 education.54 Althusser notes that the repressive- ideological couplet is unable "... to differentiate carefully between the political ideological state apparatus and the repressive state apparatus ."55 jjg goes on to differentiate and specify the character of the political ideological State apparatus and the political State apparatus. The political State apparatus is part of the repressive State apparatus ensemble. It is composed of the head of the State, the government, and the administration.

The head of the state represents the unity and will of the ruling class, that authority which is capable of asserting the general interests of the ruling class against the particular interests of its members.... The government...carries out the policies of the ruling class, and the administration subordinate to this government implements them in detail.56

The political ideological State apparatus, by contrast, belongs to the ideological State apparatuses, and comprises

"the 'political system' or the 'constitution' of a given

54%n some social formations, the military is the only apparatus that is able to provide primary, secondary and advanced eduction (military academies, and specialized training, e.g., civil engineering,*etc.) to its incumbents. This educational function of the military may even extend into the general public, as in military television and radio stations.

55Louis Althusser, "Note on the ISAs," Economy and Society 12, no. 4 (November 1983);457. This essay was written in 1976 and appeared in Althusser's German edition of Idéologie und ideoloaische Staatsapparte (Hamburg: VSA, 1977) .

56ibid., p. 457. 325 social f o r m a t i o n . "57

Finally, the couplet repression-ideological State apparatuses gives the impression that the dominant ideology acts to conceal the objectives of the State. This assumption is too polarized toward the concealment side of the equation. In reality, the State is Janus-faced. On the one side, it acts in secret, concealing and camouflaging its activities. On the other side, it organizes the dominant classes into a power bloc. This allows the State to further act in formulating and expressing the interests of the dominant classes enabling them to reproduce themselves. Poulantzas succinctly summaries this Janus­ faced role of the State as follows:

The State does not produce a unified discourse but several discourses that are adopted to the various classes and differentially incarnated in its apparatuses according to their class destination.58

Overall, the State exists in class society as institutionalized power. Its power is expressed through the context of a unified nation-State with diverse discourses aimed at agents and classes. Even though the

State does hide some of its activities and produces mystifying discourses, e.g., nationalism; it also does state its intentions/policies publically in the normal course of things. Regarding this point, Poulantzas holds

57lbid., p. 458.

58poulantzas, State Power Socialism, p. 32. 326 that

Not only does the State proclaim the truth of its power at a certain "real" level; it also adopts the necessary means to elaborate and formulate political tactics. It produces knowledge and techniques of knowledge which go far beyond ideology, while naturally remaining imbricated in it. Thus, "bourgeois" statistics and the state statistical bodies cannot be treated as mere mystification, but constitute elements of state knowledge to be used for the purposes of political strategy.59

Althusser's distinction between political ideological State apparatuses and the political State apparatus makes a valuable contribution insofar that it is able to demonstrate the ability of the State to penetrate the public and private spheres of social existence. It is in this regard that one can speak of mechanisms/apparatuses or agencies that the State is able to utilize in expressing its political intentions, i.e., the expression of the dominant classes' interest. It is through "public" or federal agencies, e.g., transportation, housing, health, education, environment, energy, regulatory agencies of all sorts, etc., that the State is able to articulate policies

(publically and secretly) that meet the exigencies of the dominant classes vis-a-vis the dominated classes' public demands. These agencies give the impression that they are safe-guarding the public interest. In reality, however, these agencies are basically concerned with sustaining and articulating the interests of the dominant classes in the

59ibid. 327 face of the manifold expressions of the classs t r u g g l e . GO

It should be noted that ideological State apparatuses are not the sites where ideology is manufactured. They are only the sites through which ideology is expressed and articulated. Ideology is formed in the space of the class struggle by classes vying for hegemony. It is in this vein that Poulantzas can say that

...ideological power is never exhausted by the State and its ideological apparatuses. For just as they do not create the dominant ideology, they are not only, or even the primary, factors in the reproduction of the relations of ideological domination/subordination. The ideological apparatuses simply elaborate and inculcate the dominant ideology: as Max Weber already pointed out, it is not the Church that creates and perpetuates religion, but religion that creates and perpetuates the Church. In short, ideological relations always have roots which go beyond the state apparatuses and which always consist in relations of power.G1

It is only when ideology is expressed through religion that

G^Along these lines, Poulantzas distinguishes the role that the hegemonic class or fraction plays vis-a-vis the State apparatuses or agencies. He notes that "... not only does the hegemonic class or fraction establish as dominant the apparatus that...crystallizes its interests, but in the long run, every dominant state apparatus... tends to become the privileged seat of the hegemonic fraction's interests, and to incarnate changes in the relations of hegemony. This unity of state power is established through a whole chain whereby certain apparatuses are subordinated to others, and through the domination of a particular state apparatus or branch (the military, a political party, a ministry, or whatever) which crystallizes the interests of the hegemonic fraction— domination, that is to say, exercised over the other branches or apparatuses that are the resistance centres of other fractions of the power bloc." Ibid., p. 137.

Glibid., p. 37. 328 the Church apparatus is able to formulate, organize, articulate, and advance the religious ideology. As such, the expression and advancement of ideology is predicated on solid material practices of power. Whether these material practices of power are acknowledged on the manifest level, the latent level, or they are not recognized at all; they are in the end overdetermined by the ideological relations of power.

Interpellation

Ideology, as the representation of lived material relations, involves individual participation in classes, in the class struggle, in apparatuses, in institutions, in rituals, in ceremonies, and in political, economic, and ideological practices in concrete social formations. It is through the process of participation in social formations that social agents produce and reproduce the social relations of production that sustain the continuity of social formations. If follows that in order for agents to perform the necessary tasks of sustaining a social formation, they must be interpellated,G2 i.e., they must be

G2ihe concept of interpellation is derived from the work of Freud and Lacan. As developed by Althusser, Poulantzas, among others, interpellation is conceived as being the process through which individuals are formed as subjects. Through the process of interpellation, individuals are interpellated as subjects of the nation, e.g., British subject, the State, the law, and identified further as a male subject, a female subject, a racial subject, a poor subject, a rich subject, etc. The interpellation process creates individuals as concrete. 329

"addressed," "hailed," and "signified" as subjects of ideological material power relations. This means that, in order for the production and reproduction of the relations of production to continue, ideology must interpellate individuals in two complementary ways. First, individuals must be interpellated as subjects within the diverse positions, classes, and settings of a social formation.

According to Coward and Ellis, interpellation

...sets individuals in place, in position, as diversely skilled operatives, by setting them on their "rung of the ladder," in their "rightful place."G3

Second, they must be interpellated as subjects so as to submit to the established rules, laws, and authority freely. Althusser argues that

...the individual is interpellated as a ffree) subject in order that he shall submit freelv to the commandments of the Subject, i.e. in order that he shall ffreelv) accent his subjection, i.e. in order that he shall make the gestures and actions of his subjection "all by himself." There are no subjects except bv and for their subjection. That is why they "work all by themselves."&4

Through the process of interpellation, individual-subjects free, and equal citizens under the law. It is through interpellation that the State comes to recognize and constitute individuals as its subjects. As subjects, they appeal to the State for recognition, e.g., through documentation, identification cards, tax returns, social security numbers, etc., and for the amelioration of their social conditions of existence.

G3Rosalind Coward and John Ellis, Language and Materialism; Developments in Semiologv and the Theorv of the Subject (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977), p. 72.

G4Althusser, Essavs on Ideology, p. 56. 330 perform their tasks by

...occupying the posts which the socio-technical division of labour assigns to them in production, . exploitation, repression, ideologization, scientific practice, etc.GS

This is accomplished in such a way, through the masking function of ideology, that they are prevented from realizing their subjection/submission to the system. Thus, they go about producing and reproducing the social relations of production as free "conscious," i.e.,

"unconscious" of what they are really doing, individuals in a "natural" way. By interpellating individuals as subjects, ideology is able to camouflage and distort the class character of the creation and appropriation of surplus value. Class ideology is instrumental in misrepresenting the "Real" social relations of production that individuals are engaged in. That is, individuals conceive of the surface relations as being real, however, these real surface relations are only manifestations of the

"Real" relations that operate beneath the surface.

The following summarizes the characteristic features of the interpellation process noted above. According to

Althusser, these are:

1. the interpellation of "individuals" as subj ects; 2. their subjection to the Subject; 3. the mutual recognition of the subjects and Subject, the subjects' recognition of each other, and finally the subject's recognition of

GSibid. 331

himself; 4. the absolute guarantee that everything really is so, and that on condition that the subjects recognize what they are and behave accordingly, everything will be all right....G®

Regarding point one, Poulantzas argues that

...this process of individualization is nothing other than the outlining of the terrain on which classes and the class struggle are constituted in their capitalist specificity. Unlike caste-classes or slave and medieval Estates— "closed" classes to which agents belonged once and for all by their very nature— classes under capitalism are "open:" they are grounded on the distribution and circulation of individualized agents among the bourgeoisie, the working class, the petty bourgeoisie, and classes based in the countryside. These open classes give rise to a previously unheard-of state role: that of apportionina- distributinq individualized agents among the classes.G7

It falls to the State, in capitalist social formations, to condition, train, and educate individuals to fill the class positions in society. The primary institutions which accomplish these functions are: the schools, the army, the prisons, the State administration, etc. Interestingly enough, these institutions can be classified as being

"total institutions," i.e., the life of the inmates is totally controlled. Poulantzas sees these institutions as being "disciplines of normalization-individualization."G8

Their primary functions are "... in training-apportioning-

GGibid., p. 55.

G7pouiantzas, State Power Socialism, p. 75. GGibid. 332

distributing agents-individuals among the c l a s s e s . "G9

With regard to point two, the subjection of individuals to the Subject involves their interpellation as individual-subjects, who are citizens of the modern nation-

State. In a religious context, this involves the interpellation of subjects to the Subject, e.g., to Shiva,

Allah, God, Buddha, Jupiter, Krishna, Zeus, etc. Point three illustrates that if the reproduction of the relations of production are to continue, subjects must recognize not only themselves, but also others as subjects of the reigning interpellating apparatus: the Subject, e.g., a deity, the Church, the State, the family, etc. Thus, point

four refers to individual-subjects obeying the powers that be. This means remaining loyal subjects to the ideological discourses that interpellate them.

Ideological discourses of interpellation address,

signify, define, and constitute individual-subjects.

Ideological discourses of interpellation are themselves articulated and disarticulated ideological discourses that are overdetermined by the class struggle. This means that

ideological interpellations are not homologous in all

social formations. In feudal society, some subjects are

interpellated as aristocrats, some are interpellated as

serfs, and yet some others are interpellated as merchants, etc. All of these interpellations are along class lines,

G9ibid. 333 however, there are other ideological discourses that interpellate individuals-subjects on other dimensions. For example, it is impossible in a feudal social formation for individual-subjects to be interpellated as holders of democratic rights. This is because the dominant ideological practice/discourse in feudalism does not embody an interpellating discourse based on democratic rights. If it did, it could not go about producing and reproducing the social relations of production that overdetermine it. It would cease being a feudal social formation.

It follows from the above, that there are different types or modes of interpellation, e.g., religious, familial, political, etc. Religious interpellation involves one's subjectification to the Subject, e.g., the

Judaic, Christian, and Islamic God. According to

Althusser,

God thus defines himself as the Subject par excellence, he who is through himself and for himself ("I am that I am"), and he who interpellates his subject, the individual subjected to him by his very interpellation....?0

In this mode of interpellation, subjects of the Subject are interpellated as subject to the commands of the Subject.

As religiously interpellated subjects, individuals are transformed into subjects who worship the Subject. It is through the Subject that they are called into being. In

Christianity, baptism becomes the means of subjectifying

^^Althusser, Essavs on Ideology, p. 53. 334 one to the Subject.

In the Middle Ages, the Church was the major interpellator in creating subjects of the Subject. This mode of interpellation subsumed the family, the political practice, the economic practice, and other social and private aspects of life to the authority of the Subject.

The authority of the Subject was expressed through the

Subject's lesser subjects, the priests and the aristocracy.

In this case, a single ideological discourse, the religious discourse, was articulated as a distinct interpellation process. Ernesto Laclau notes further that "...one interpellation [the religious, for example,] becomes the main organizer of all the others.In some social formations, e.g., Greece and Israel, where there is no separation between Church and State, the Church is still the primary ideological apparatus that interpellates subjects as both religious subjects and citizen-subjects of the nation-state.72

7iErnesto Laclau, "Class Interpellations and Popular- Democratic Interpellations," in James Donald and Stuart Hall, ed.. Politics and Ideology (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1986), p. 29.

72in the case of Greece, the "socialist government"— being different from a socialist social formation— passed a law in the mid-1980s that legalized civil marriage. However, this did not mean that the Church was no longer the apparatus that created married subjects and civil- subjects. Because of the strength of the Church, the government could not fully institute civil marriage as an autonomous practice from the Church. This means that the children of a civil marriage are not recognized by the State unless they have been first interpellated by the 335

The Juridico-Political Region of Ideology

The juridico-political region is that region which exercises the dominant function in bourgeois society. As noted above, ideology is divided into various regions such as the "...moral, juridical and political, aesthetic, religious, economic, philosophical...,"73 etc. Thus in any given social formation, the dominant ideology is expressed through one of these regions. In addition, the other regions of ideology manifest themselves by borrowing elements from the dominant ideology. In short, the dominant ideology overdetermines the other ideological

Church, i.e., baptized. The baptismal certificate is a necessary prerequisite in order for the State to recognize one as a civil subject. The baptismal certification is required by the State as evidence before it interpellates one as a political/legal entity through the issuance of a mandatory national identity card. In the case of Catholics, the Vatican does not recognize them as being properly interpellated unless they have been married in the Church. And in the end, it is the Church that can desubjectify them from the bonds of matrimony. Civil divorce does not mean, in the eyes of the Church, that the bonds of matrimony have been dissolved unless it also issues a decree of divorce. In the case of Israel, the question revolves around the interpellation of who is a Jew. Orthodox Judaism regards only those interpellated as orthodox Jews as being Jewish. On the question of marriage, only an orthodox rabbi can perform a marriage ceremony. No conservative or reformed marriages are permitted by the Church or the State. In all of these examples, it is the religious discourse that plays the primary role in interpellating individual-subjects. In other social formations, the political and/or ideological discourse may play the dominant role in interpellating individual-subjects. 73poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes. p. 210. 336 regions, and further supplies elements to

...ideological sub-ensembles which function with a relative autonomy vis-a-vis the dominant ideology within a formation; e.g. feudal and petty bourgeois sub-ensembles.74

The region through which the dominant bourgeois ideology is expressed is not an arbitrary manifestation.

It is precisely that region of ideology that best

...reflects the unity of the structure, i.e. its index of dominance and over-determination, with the characteristic ideological effects of inversion and masking. It could be said that the role of ideoloav here is not simplv that of hiding the economic level which is alwavs determinant, but that of hiding the level which has the dominant role and hiding the verv fact of its dominance. The dominant region of ideology is precisely that one which for various reasons best fulfils this particular function of masking.75

Thus, the juridico-political region of ideology best meets the imperatives of the bourgeoisie's interests. It was this juridico-political discourse that the bourgeoisie fought the feudal nobility and the Church to install. This discourse is best able to mask the character of bourgeois class relations, the bourgeois State, and the extraction of surplus value. Some of the elements embodied within the juridico-political discourse are: liberty, equality, duties, rights, universal suffrage, political representation, civil liberties, due process, the rule of law, the general will, the nation, individuals/persons/

7 4 ib id .

75%bid., pp. 210-211. 337 monads, etc.

Given the above, the capitalist State presents itself as a popular-class State, i.e., it masks and obscures the class relations contained within a capitalist social formation. It gives the appearance that political class domination is absent from its institutions.

According to Poulantzas, the State gives the impression that

Its institutions are organized around the principles of liberty and equality of "individuals” or "political persons." Its legitimacy is no longer founded on the divine will implied by the monarchical principle, but on the ensemble of formally free and equal individuals-citizens and on the popular sovereignty and secular responsibility of the state towards the people. The "people" is itself erected as a principle of determination of the state, not as composed of agents of production distributed in social classes, but as an accumulation of individuals-citizens, whose mode of participation in a national political community shows itself in universal suffrage, which is the expression of the "general will."7°

Although the "people" is erected as constituting the apex of power in society, they are, in actuality, interpellated by the juridico-political discourse as atomized and privatized individuals, i.e., as equivalent individual- monads before the law.77 These juridico-political equivalent individual-monads are bestowed with certain prescribed freedoms, rights, duties, etc. Thus, the

76ibid., p. 123.

77Nicos Poulantzas, "Preliminaries a 1'etude de I'hegemonie dans I'etat," Les Temps Modernes, no. 234 (November 1965);873. 338 juridico-political discourse performs two vital functions;

1. through the effect of isolation, it sets the "people" up as individuals-subjects free and equal; and 2. it cements these formally constituted individual-monads into a unified social formation, the nation-State, where the State presents itself as representing the social formation's general interests, and as being the protector of individual-monad interests.

In contrast to the religious region of ideology that bonded individuals together within the feudal relations of production, the effect of isolation has the unique function of separating and isolating individuals from these bonds.

Poulantzas defines the effect of isolation as follows;

Its functions include setting up political "individuals-persons," "subjects of the law," who are "free" and "equal" one to the other; this allows the functioning of those juridico-political structures which permit the labour contract (buying and selling of labour power), capitalist private property (N.B. the role of this ideology as the condition of existence of the juridical relation of property), the generalization of exchange, competition, etc.78

The effect of isolation has the precise function of concealing from the agents of production the class character of the social relations of production they are engaged in. Poulantzas notes that the

...effect of isolation is terrifvinalv real; it has a name; competition between the wage-earning

78poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes, p . 214. 339

workers and between the capitalist owners of private property. It is in fact only an ideological conception of the capitalist relations of production which conceives them as commercial encounters between individuals/agents of production on the market.79

The effect of isolation casts individuals-subjects as monads in competition, and in all sorts of other individualized social relations. In this sense, individuals can now "freely" compete with each other as separate individuals, i.e., as competitors in the market.

The competitive process appears to individual-monads as a natural process. This means that they are free to enter into competitive relations with other individual-monads in order to pursue the attainment of their own goals. In this context, the individual-monad's

...own success or failure to achieve his pre- established objective appears to him to be a function wholly of this capacity to judge and calculate correctly and to be in no way due to the external social determinants.80

Thus, the interaction of individual-monads in the public sphere gives them the impression that they are operating as free agents, i.e., as if the social relations of production that they are engaged in are devoid of classes and the class struggle. In the end, it is the class struggle that

79ibid. p. 130.

OORoula Hellos, "State and Ideology in Advanced Capitalism," in Raymundo de Andrade, Paul-Normand Dussault, Koula Hellos, and Roberto Higuelez, ed., L'ideoloaie et la reproduction du capital (Ottowa: Editions de 1 'université d' Ottowa, 1986), p. 30. 340 marks the terrain and space of the production and reproduction of the social relations of production. In effect, these individual "free" agents of production, who have been severed from the statutory bonds of feudalism, go about conducting their social relations under the unifying juridico-political discourse of bourgeois ideology that bonds them to the nation-State. They are, thus, interpellated as subjects of the bourgeois nation-State.®^

The capitalist State is able to do this because it presents itself as the representative of the general interest of the whole social formation and the "people." It does this by concealing from the individual-monads its class character and the competing and divergent economic and political interests that overdetermine it.

The Juridico-political Discourse and the Monopolv of Force-Violence

The modern State holds the legitimate monopoly in the exercise of force-violence in society. Machiavelli,

Marx, Engels, Lenin, Gramsci, Weber, Althusser, and

8^In the modern nation-State, the State acts to "...constitute the modern nation in its economic dimension by homogenizing, under the aegis of commodity capital, the space of the circulation of commodities and capital. Indeed, this is supposed to be the essence of its activity in forging national unity. ...Thus, the State's specific materiality is held to derive from the fact that it establishes the exchanges of commodities and owners of capital as formally free and equal political individuals- subjects; and that it represents-crystallizes the unity of these individuals." Poulantzas, State Power Socialism, p. 95. 341

Poulantzas all take account of this fact. Max Weber sees the modern State as possessing the ability to use violence and coercion in society. In 1918, he stated that

...today...we have to say that a state is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopolv of the legitimate use of phvsical force within a given territory. ...Specifically,...the right to use physical force is ascribed to other institutions or to individuals only to the extent to which the state permits it. The state is considered the sole source of the "right" to use violence.82

One problem arises from this very insightful definition that links the State with violence: Weber's definition of the State as a human community. It can be granted that the

State is an organizational structure, however, Weber's definition does not penetrate into the core,of the problem, i.e., 1. that the State is a region of the political practice; and 2. that the State, in all surplus producing societies, is a class-State. This is the only major drawback to Weber's otherwise succinct and poignant definition.

In contrast to Weber's position, V. I. Lenin agues that "...every state is a "special repressive force" for the suppression of the oppressed class."83 Poulantzas' definition of the State combines Weber's view with

82Max Weber, "Politics as a Vocation," in H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, ed.. From Max Weber: Essavs in Sociology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958), p. 78.

83v. I. Lenin, State and Revolution (New York: International Publishers, 1969), p. 18. 342

Gramsci's emphasis on the need of the State to have the consent of the people in order to sustain its monopoly over the use of force-violence. Poulantzas goes on to specify the character of this relationship as follows:

...monopolization [of force-violence] by the State induces forms of domination in which the numerous methods of establishing consent play the key role. In order to grasp this point, we must go beyond the notion of a simple complementarity of violence and consent, modelled on Machiavelli's image of the Centaur that is half-human, half-beast. Physical violence and consent do not exist side by side like two calculable homogeneous magnitudes, related in such a way that more consent corresponds to less violence.84

Given that consent is granted to the State by the

interpellated subjects of the State, it does not follow

that the level of force-violence held/exercised by the

State decreases. In reality, force-violence infuses the whole materiality of the social relations of production,

i.e., it is inscribed in the mechanisms of power and the

techniques of power that exist. Thus, the State is not

continuously forced to manifest the "full" strength of its

legitimate use of force-violence. It holds much of its

force-violence in reserve, and opens it up in its manifest

forms under specified cases and in "critical" conjunctures.

In contrast to other social formations where

seigneurial power, the monarchy, the Church, etc.,

exercised a monopoly of force-violence, the modern State

presents itself as the only "constitutionalized" apparatus

84Poulantzas, State Power Socialism, pp. 80-81. 343 that can hold this "right to power." Hence, its legitimate use of force-violence is inscribed within the matrix of its constitutionalized existence. As such, it

...derives its principle of leaitimacv from the fact that it presents itself as the unity of the people-nation, understood as an ensemble of homogeneous entities, identical and disparate, which it establishes as political individuals- citizens. ...It is here that it differs radically from other forms of "despotism," for example from the "absolute" political power, which is formally similar, but which is carried on by forms of tyranny founded on divine-sacred legitimacy. 85

Thus, it can be said that its "...actual 'political' relations of domination...[are] 'armour-plated' [by its] 'constitutionalized' [exercise of] violence...."86 m this

sense, the State's monopoly of violence can be expressed as

operating on two distinct but related dimensions: namely, the mechanisms of fear, and the monopoly of war. The

State, as noted above, need not always manifest its

capacity for violence. It can operate by instilling fear

in the people-nation. This is ultimately expressed in its

constitutionalized monopoly of war. Only the State can declare and conclude wars, i.e., the class-State.

Poulantzas discusses the genealogy of the State's monopoly

of war as follows:

The state's monopolization of war... corresponds to the pacification of social forces ("private wars")

85poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes, p. 291.

86poulantzas, "Preliminaries a 1'etude de I'hegemonie dans I'etat," p. 892. 344

which it had been accomplishing since the sixteenth century, and which prepared it for success in that first great war which bore it to the baptismal font: the bloody process of primitive accumulation of capital in favour of the bourgeoisie.®7

The State's monopoly of war was inscribed in the interior of the founding of the nation-State. The State, thus, always seeks to maintain its legitimate monopoly of war 1. by remaining a legitimate State; and 2. by destroying all competitors who may be engaged in private wars that undermine its legitimacy. In the first case, the

State works to sustain its legitimacy through a myriad of techniques including the solicitation of consent and funds

(taxes) from the popular masses. Regardless of all the

State's beau gestes, mesmerizing, and enchanting activities, it is still overdetermined by its class based character, and by its ability to exercise force-violence in society. In the second case, the State always seeks to intervene and destroy micro-power centers of war wherever it can. It seeks to suppress all small private wars ranging from liberation movements to drug gang wars, and organized crime wars, etc.8® If these micro-power centers of war are allowed to continue, they may come to pose a

87poulantzas, State Power Socialism, p. 91.

88a notable exception here is the case of the Lebanese State. The precarious existence of the Lebanese State was only a manifestation of the precarious character of the sectarian handshakes that led to its establishment. Once these sectarian groups (the power bloc) that composed the State decayed into their formally fiefdom morphologies (micro-powers), the State crumbled. 345 real threat to the State's legitimacy, and to its economic, political, and ideological hegemony.

The Juridico-Political Discourse of Law

The capitalist State is composed of an axiomatic system of law®^ "...comprising a set of abstract, general, formal and strictly regulated n o r m s .80 in order for this axiomatic system of law to function, everything must be written down. Bourgeois law cannot exist and function without the written word.91 Poulantzas points out that

89poulantzas' early writings predominately dealt with law, and he returns to this subject in his last book. State Power Socialism. His early writings on law are: "Notes sur la phénoménologie et l'existentialisme Juridiques," Archives de Philosophie du Droit 8 (1963):213-235; "L'examen Marxiste de l'etat et du droit actuels et la question de l'alternative," Les Temps Modernes, no. 219-220 (1964):274-302; "La critique de la raison dialectique de J.-P. Sartre et le droit," Archives de Philosophie du Droit 10 (1965):83-106; Nature des choses et droit (Paris: R. Pichon et R. Durand-Auzias, 1965); "La dialectique Hegelienne-Marxiste et la logique juridique moderne," Archives de Philosophie du Droit 11 (1966): 146-169; and "A propos de la théorie Marxiste du droit," Archives de Philosophie du Droit 12 (1967): 145-162.

90poulantzas, State Power Socialism, p. 86.

91poulantzas states that "...nothing exists for the capitalist State unless it is written down— whether as a mere written mark, a note, a report, or a complete archive. In the pre-capitalist States, writing was simply a matter of transcribing the (real or supposed) utterances of the sovereign.... By contrast, the anonymous writing of the capitalist State...plots a certain path, recording the bureaucratic sites and mechanisms and representing the hierarchically centralized space of the State. ...The massive accumulation of paper in the modern state organization is not merely a picturesque detail but a material feature essential to its existence and functioning.... Unlike the pre-capitalist States or the Church, this State does not retain a monopoly of writing: 346

The modern juridical system, as distinct from the feudal system of rules based on privileges. bears a "normative" character, expressed in a set of systematized laws which starts from the principles of liberty and equality; this is the reign of "law."92

In the reign of law, the "rule of law" permeates all spheres of society and prevails above all, i.e., individual-subjects cannot stand above the law. It is through bourgeois law that individuals are interpellated as juridico-political subjects-persons, who are free and equal before the law. Law is that remarkable apparatus that calls into being individual-subjects. These individual- subjects are identified as legal subjects from the day of birth by the birth certificate to the day of death by the death certificate.93 it spreads it (in schools) in response to the highly concrete necessity of training labour-power. But it thereby reduplicates writing, the...spoken word of the State must be heard and understood." Ibid., p. 59.

92poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes, p. 123.

93%ndividual-subjects do not exist without a birth certificate, an instrument of interpellation, in the eyes of the State. However if a birth certificate is unavailable, the State will accept a baptismal certificate, the interpellation document of a former interpellating See, the Church, as proof of one's existence. On the question of death, Poulantzas stresses that "Even when it [the State] does not execute people, kill them or threaten to do so, and even when it prevents them from dying, the modern State manages death in a number of different ways; and medical power is inscribed in present-day law." Poulantzas, State Power Socialism, p. 82. The linkage between the State and medicine is profound, especially when it comes to the question of defining when individual-subjects are legally dead. The State only recognizes the signed death certificate of a physician as interpellating the death of 347

Like Gramsci, Poulantzas recognizes the linkage between the coercive and cohesive character of law. He notes that

...in every State, law is an integral part of the repressive order and of the organization of violence. By issuing rules and passing laws, the State establishes an initial field of injunctions, prohibitions and censorship, and thus institutes the practical terrain and object of violence. Furthermore, law organizes the conditions of physical repression, designating its modalities and structuring the devices by means of which it is exercised. In this sense, law is the code of organized public violence.94

Law also acts as the cement that binds together, under the

aegis of the dominant classes, the whole social formation.

It becomes encoded within all the ideological and

repressive apparatuses of the State.

The prevailing axiomatic juridical system takes its particular morphology from the exigencies of the classes

that installed it; and for whom it fulfills the necessary

functions of sustaining their hegemony, bourgeois hegemony.

It thus gives order to class relations interior to the

State, the power bloc, and the public sphere. It

establishes public order enabling the production and

reproduction of the capitalist relations of production. It

often works without individual-subjects being aware of its

power of organization and control.

According to Poulantzas, capitalist law manifests a

an individual-subject.

94ibid., p. 77. 348 unique feature unparalleled in other modes of production. It "... damps down and channels political crises, in such a way that they do not lead to crises of the State itself."95

Given its relative autonomy from the power bloc, it is able to operate in such a way as to defuse potential and existing crises. It moves at high speed to intervene when the interests of the State and the dominant classes are challenged in the course of the class struggle on the political, economic, and ideological levels. Furthermore, capitalist law organizes the topology of compromise in the face of the class struggle. It does this because of its axiomatic character, and because of the power vested in it.

However, it cannot operate without taking into account the liberties conquered by the popular masses, the resistance of the popular masses, and the demands of the popular masses. Capitalist law is always on the move. Judges dispense it; legislatures work day and night formulating, revising, and repealing it. Capitalism demands this. It cannot work without this ongoing process. The ongoing processes expressed in and through law are indicative of capitalism's own dynamism as a constantly changing mode of production propelled by internal forces, e.g., competition and accumulation, the vicissitudes of the class struggle, and the concrete character of historical conjunctures.

It is said that justice is blind. However, the

95ibid., p. 91. 349 juridical-political discourse of bourgeois law overdetermines the workings of law. One imperative stands above all with regard to law: obey the law. As such, the discourse of law is not only manifest on paper; its written text finds its fullest expression on the surface of the body and in the mind of the individual-subjects. The interpellated subject-persons' bodies are inscribed in law.96 Franz Kafka "In the Penal Colony," presents the human body as a "writing surface," the recipient of law.

In the dialogue between the explorer and the officer, Kafka has the officer saying:

"Our sentence does not sound severe. Whatever command the prisoner has disobeyed is written upon his body by the Harrow. This prisoner, for instance"— the officer indicating the men— "will have written on his body: H O N O R THY SUPERIORS ! "97

The written law must be obeyed even by those interpellated individual-subjects who cannot read it or understand it.

This is especially clear in the case of colonialism.

Colonial empires established "their" law on subjects unable to read and understand "their" law. In the case of Islamic

law, those who violate the law may be executed in public, depending on the offense. Here the body becomes a memory of the power of law for the living. Hence, the ultimate

96por an analysis of the use of writing on the human body in primitive societies, see Pierre Clastres, Societv Against the State (New York: Urizen Books, Inc., 1977), pp. 128-186.

97pranz Kafka, "In the Penal Colony," in The Complete Stories (New York: Schocken Books, 1983), p. 144. 350

form of writing is the one which destroys the mind and body together; leaving an indelible imprint on the mind of the

living.

In modern society, capitalist, socialist, fascist,

etc., the only monopoly that can legally execute, in peace and war, is the State. As Poulantzas notes,

...even the most dictatorial of States is never devoid of law; and the existence of law or legality has never forestalled any kind of barbarism or despotism.98

Poulantzas, however, qualifies all of the above pertaining

to law when he states that

No-one should be ignorant of the law— that is the fundamental maxim of the modern juridical system, in which no-one but state representatives are able to know the law. This knowledge required of every citizen is not even a special subject of study at school, as if everything were done to keep him in ignorance of what he is supposedly obliged to know. The maxim therefore expresses a relationship whereby the popular masses, whose ignorance of the law's secrets is built into the law and juridical language itself, remain dependent upon, and subordinated to, state functionaries as the makers, protectors and appliers of the law. Modern law is a state secret which grounds a form of knowledge monopolized for reasons of State.99

Ignorance of the law is not a defense. How are individual-

subjects to defend themselves before the defenders of the

"rule of law:" the State? It remains, as Poulantzas,

98Poulantzas, State Power Socialism, p.85.

99ibid., pp. 89-90. In democratic Athens, the law was not a State secret. All laws were put on public display for all citizens and non-citizens to examine. For the operation of law and politics in Athens, see Aristotle, The Athenian Constitution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967). 351 clearly notes for the cadre of legal experts, the

functionaries of the law, to defend the offenders of the myriad of unknown laws. In all modern States, regardless of the social formation under consideration, law is

shrouded and inscribed within the halls of the administrative State's bureaucracies/apparatuses in the

"official language" as "official secrets." Given the pace

of law generation in advanced social formations, even the

framers lose track of the law. Hence ignorance of the law does not mean that law does not exit, its written expression and interpellation of individual-subjects remains even when it is not enforced.100

lOOjn specific historical conjunctures, however, past laws and unenforced laws may be raised to the level of full enforcement. CONCLUSION

The Edifice

In the preceding chapters, I have presented a developed analytical treatment of Poulantzas' problematic; its epistemological foundations and consequences, and the theoretical and heuristic power it offers for the study of social formations, social classes, the capitalist State, authoritarian Statism, and the transition to democratic socialism. In the first chapter, I posed my reasons for undertaking my study of Nicos Poulantzas' work. I indicated his significance as a great modern social theorist; and his relationship to Gramsci and Althusser.

In chapter two, "Biographical Notes on Poulantzas," I presented a biographical sketch of Poulantzas that touched briefly on his intellectual and political development.

Poulantzas held a strong position within French academic and political circles. This is quite notable for a Greek emigre. As to his academic status, he held a prestigious position as Professor of Sociology in one of France's most avant-garde universities, the University of Vincennes-

University of Paris VIII. He was one of France's leading intellectuals with a world-wide reputation. Regarding his political position, he was aligned with the forces of the

352 353

Left. This placed him within a unique milieu that was politically and intellectually charged, given the unfolding events in France, e.g.. May 1968;^ Maoism and the Chinese

Cultural Revolution; the rise of Eurocommunism; and the defeat of the United Left at the polls in France.

Furthermore, Poulantzas' location in France enabled him to monitor from a close distance the unfolding events in his native Greece, e.g., the rise and fall of the military dictators, and the transformations in Spain and Portugal, i.e., the fall of the dictatorships.2

Ipor an examination of the May 1968 events in France, see Michael Kelly, Modern French Marxism (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982; Henri Lefebvre, The Explosion: Marxism and the French Upheaval (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1969); Maria-Antonietta Macciocchi, Letters from Inside the Italian Communist Partv to Louis Althusser (London: NLB, 1973); Daniel Singer, Prelude to Revolution: France in Mav 1968 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1970); Alain Touraine, The Mav Movement: Revolt and Reform (New York: Random House, 1971); and George Katsiaficas, The Imagination of the New Left: A Global Analysis of 1968 (Boston: South End Press, 1987.

2Dictatorships, according to Poulantzas, are just one form, of what he terms, exceptional forms of regime. His views on exceptional forms of regime are presented in the following works: The Crisis of the Dictatorships: Portugal. Greece. Spain (London: NLB, 1976); Fascism and Dictatorship (London: NLB, 1974/Verso, 1979); Problimata tou Svnchronou Kratous kai tou Fasistikou Phenomenon (Athens: Ekdosis Themelio, 1984); "Oi Politikes Morphes tou Stratiotikou Praxikopimatos," 0 Politis 29 (October 1979):14-17; "A propos de l'impact populaire du fascisme," in Maria- Antonietta Macciocchi, éd.. Elements pour une analyse du fascisme (Paris: Union Generale d'Editions, 1976); and "Note a propos du totalitarisme," Tel Quel, no 53 (1973):74-81. For an analysis of Poulantzas' work on exceptional forms of regime, see Antony Cutler, "Fascism and Political Theory," Theoretical Practice, no. 2 (1971):5-15; Anson G. Rabirbach, "Poulantzas and the Problem of Fascism," New German Critioue. no 8 (Spring 354

In chapter three, "From Structuralism to Structural

Marxism," I delineate the epistemological character of structuralism and structural Marxism. I show the significance that structuralism has had in its articulation with Marxism. The articulation of these two highly powerful schools of thought has had a great deal of impact on Poulantzas' and Althusser's work. The epistemological significance of structural Marxism lies in its ability to raise to the surface the hidden character of the social relations of production. In so doing, it is able to reveal how these hidden structures and social relations determine the character of the manifested surface relations.

Given the epistemological and heuristic power of structural Marxism, Poulantzas is able to disclose how the political, economic, and ideological practices, which exercise relative autonomy vis-a-vis each other, operate within a structural matrix that defines the character of a social formation. This form of analysis enables Poulantzas to deal with such topics as the articulation of the modes of production, the social relations of production, classes, ideology, the State, the class struggle, and the study of

1976): 156-170; Rhonda Levine, "A Review of Poulantzas: The Crisis of the Dictatorships." Review of Radical Political Economics 9, no. 4 (Winter 1977):94-96; Tobias Abse, "Structure and Conjuncture: Poulantzas and Natoli on Italy 1918-1922," Ideas and Production, no. 6 (1986): 142-158; and Jane Caplan, "Theories of Fascism: Nicos Poulantzas As Historian," in Michael N. Dobkowski and Isidor Wallimann, Radical Perspectives on the Rise of Fascism in Germany. 1919-1945 (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1989), pp.128-149. 355 concrete social formations. The conceptualizations of structural Marxism stand in marked contrast to all sorts of determinisms, i.e., essentialism, economism, and dogmatism, that Gramsci, Althusser, and Poulantzas so strongly fought against. These forms of determinism have contributed to the formation of a non-dialectical or dogmatic Marxism that has blocked its own dialectical development. Structural

Marxism restored to Marxism its dialectical, epistemological, and heuristic power, making it a leading problematic. I could not have advanced any kind of analysis of Poulantzas' work without first indicating the character of structural Marxism, and the overdetermining role it exercises in his work.

Chapter four, "The Gramscian Problematic" deals with

Gramsci's efforts to develop a genuine non-dogmatic and dialectical Marxist theory that sought to transcend the limitations of economism by establishing the prerequisite

"road-signs" for a transition to democratic socialism.

These "road-signs" become significant building conceptualizations as they become articulated with structural Marxism in Poulantzas' work. For example,

Gramsci's concept of war of position becomes one of those

"road-signs" that Poulantzas regards as being of strategic significance in the transition to democratic socialism.

Poulantzas' grounding is not only based on the appropriation of key Gramscian theoretical formulations. 356 e.g., hegemony, but also in his efforts to advance

Gramsci's theoretical and strategic problematic in the fashioning of a relational theory of politics. A relational/articulation theory of politics takes into account the indeterminacy of history, i.e., the dialectics of human activity, social relations, the class struggle, and the prospects for the establishment of democratic socialism, etc.

Like Gramsci, Poulantzas holds a vision of Marxism that departs from positivistic, functionalist, voluntaristic, economistic, and monolithic positions.

Gramsci, Poulantzas, and Althusser seek to develop a

Marxist discourse that deals with the ensemble of social relations in a structured totality. In this sense, they seek to transcend the limitations embodied in reductionism and determinism. Their discourse is oriented toward the development of a relational/articulation theory that is able to deal with the totality that encompasses the political, ideological, and economic practices through which individuals and social classes live out their social relations of existence.

By utilizing Gramsci's concept of hegemony,

Poulantzas is able to develop a relational/articulation theory of power that is able to take into account the 357 specificity of the State, the power bloc,3 social classes, the class struggle, and the transition to democratic socialism. Applied to the specificity of the State, relational/articulation theory allows Poulantzas to advance the novel position that the State is a social relation, and not some sort of object, instrument, or tool that can be manipulated at will by the dominant classes. In so doing,

Poulantzas shows that the State is riveted through and through with class contradictions and the class struggle.

These contradictions and class struggles are present within the power bloc; within the State apparatuses; within the

State's representative and juridical bodies; the social relations of production; and within and between social classes.

In chapter five, "The Architectonics of an Emerging

Problematic," I present the theoretical problematic that

Poulantzas constructs with regard to the relative autonomy of the political, ideological, and the economic practices.

It is essential to capture the character of these practices because they take on added significance as they are combined with Gramsci's theoretical conceptualizations. It

is here that I specify the epistemological and heuristic power that these practices hold for Poulantzas and for

^This concept is Poulantzas' transformation of Gramsci's concept of a historical bloc. Both concepts, however, hold much conceptual/theoretical terrain in common. 358 structural Marxism. The conceptualization of these practices permits Poulantzas to develop an analysis of

social formations, overdetermination, the articulation and disarticulation of the modes of production, the genealogy

of the modes of production, the genealogy of capitalism,4

etc. It is through these conceptual formulations that

Poulantzas can construct a relational/articulation theory

of the State, social classes, the social relations of

production, etc.

In chapter six, "Prolegomena to the Study of the

Capitalist State," I bring together the insights Poulantzas

offers on the capitalist State drawing on the theoretical

contributions of Gramsci, Althusser, and Marx. It is in

the study of the capitalist State that Poulantzas applies

Gramsci's master concept, hegemony, to its fullest

heuristic ends. In so doing, Poulantzas is able to

demonstrate how the State exercises its hegemony vis-a-vis

4Each form of bourgeois capital has its own genealogy. Monopoly capital (large commercial capital, large industrial capital, large financial capital), non-monopoly capital (small commercial capital, small industrial capital, small banking capital), and all forms of petty bourgeois capital have their own genealogy; their own visions of the world; their own modes of accumulation; their own views as to the type of policies the State should follow, etc. Given the genealogical character of these forms of capital and the competitive force within capitalism, these forms of capital if left on their own, would mutually annihilate each other, or monopoly finance capital would swallow them up. In order to prevent this from happening, the State acts to guarantee the long-term capital accumulation process for the whole social formation. 359 the dominant classes (in the power bloc) and the dominated

classes. His theory of the State is predicated on

establishing a theoretical basis for the study of the

political practice, and the relational character of the

capitalist State: its organizational power; its relative

autonomy; and its ability to articulate the interests of

the dominant classes and to disarticulate the interests of

the dominated classes.

In this chapter, I go on to explain why Poulantzas

gives primacy to the social relations of production over

the forces or production. By giving primacy to the social

relations of production over the forces of production,

Poulantzas, like Gramsci, recognizes the imperative need of

transforming the social relations of production embodied in

capitalism in order to advance on the road to democratic

socialism. In so doing, Poulantzas captures the dialectic

of the social relations of production and the class

struggle as being the motor of history instead of the

forces of production as being the motor of history.

In this chapter, I also present a developed analysis

around the Poulantzas-Miliband debate. This is a debate

about the two leading theories of the State:

instrumentalism and structural Marxism. In a comparative

fashion, I point out the strengths of Poulantzas'

structural Marxist relational theory of the State over the

limitations of Miliband's Millsian and Weberian 360 instrumentalist theory of the State.

In chapter seven, "The Material Specificity of the

Capitalist State," I present Poulantzas' elaboration and articulation of Gramscian and Althusserian theoretical conceptualizations as they are applied in disclosing the material specificity of the capitalist State. In doing so,

I note the short-comings of the Second and Third

Internationals' economism, and the positions they took vis- a-vis capitalism.

In addition, I discuss the rise of a new type of capitalist State, authoritarian Statism. Authoritarian

Statism involves an intensification, concentration, and centralization of the State's power. It further entails the political strengthening and centralization of the State apparatuses, the curtailment of democratic rights, and the lack of accountability for its actions.

In chapter eight, "Social Classes," I develop the unique and innovative epistemological insights that

Poulantzas offers with regard to social classes. By giving the primacy to the social relations of production,

Poulantzas is able to articulate the constitutive role that the political, economic, and ideological practices/relations have in the structural determination of social classes. By defining social classes on the economic, political, and ideological dimensions, Poulantzas is able to draw a distinction between a class' structural 361 determination in the social relations of production and the class positions a class may take in a specific historical conjuncture. This specificity of social classes allows

Poulantzas to advance Gramsci's views on the war of position as it pertains to class hegemony, and the

formation of class alliances. I also present a developed analysis on the character of the traditional and new petty bourgeoisie, and their significance in the formation of

alliances with the dominant classes and the working class.

Chapter nine, "The Materiality of Ideology,"

presents a developed analysis of the ideological

practice/relation. Here, I give an articulated discussion

that brings together the work of Poulantzas, Gramsci, and

Althusser. My primary focus is directed toward

demonstrating the character of ideology as a "lived"

relation between people and their world; but a "lived"

relation that is overdetermined by the class character of

its content. In the course of dealing with the ideological

practice/relation, I indicate the morphological

physiognomic character of ideology; and the significance it

holds for our understanding of the State, the State

apparatuses, the law, and the presentation of reality.

All the preceding chapters would not be complete if

I did not deal with the fundamental question that

confronted Poulantzas, and for that matter Gramsci and

Althusser, the transition to democratic socialism. 362

Dogmatic Marxism and its economistic position posed serious obstacles to the development of a theory dealing with the transition to socialism. In addition, given its self-

imposed limitations, dogmatic Marxism could not also develop a strategy regarding the transition to democratic socialism. In this section, I shall first deal with the crisis of/in Marxism, and then I will proceed to deal with

Poulantzas' strategic visions for the transition to democratic socialism.

The Crisis of/in Marxism

Poulantzas' work goes a long way toward the demolition of the distortions perpetuated by the licenced

guardians of Marxist dogma, i.e., Stalin, Stalinism, and

the adherents of economistic positions, especially those who work within the wall of Kremlin City.5 The

dogmatization of Marxist theory has meant the destruction

of the dialectical essence embodied in the theory. By

^The creation of Marxist dogma within the walls of Kremlin City has parallels with the creation of dogma in other walled cities, e.g., Vatican City, and the Forbidden City. In all cases the results are the same: stay close to the "established line." Any deviations from the "established line" will be dealt with through a variety of means: 1. excommunication or expulsion form the Party; 2. exile to a retreat, a monastery, to the closed city of Gorky, a Siberian gulag, or to a Chinese labor camp; 3. censorship, e.g., Galileo, Gramsci, Bukharin, Trotsky, etc.; 4. inquisitions and Party trials resulting in restrictions (as in the case of Galileo), or death (as in the case of Bukharin, and Trotsky); 5. reprimands from one's bishop, pope, (as in the case of Father Ernesto Cardenal), or from party official(s) (as in the case of Louis Althusser and the PCF). 363 suppressing the dialectical essence of Marxist theory, the self-proclaimed guardians of the dogma closed off the dialectical flow so fundamental to the vitality of the theory. In so doing, they, in effect, limited the epistemological, theoretical, and heuristic power that is embodied in classical and neo-Marxist theory. This situation was instrumental in not only creating a crisis of

Marxism, but also a crisis in Marxism.

Poulantzas notes

...that dogmatic Marxism is not only unable to devise a new strategy for the conquest of or participation in state power...that is, to find a way to the democratic transition to democratic socialism— but is also completely incapable of creating new insights into contemporary reality.®

The crisis of/in Marxism can be attributed to two related factors; 1. the formulation and codification of Marxist theory into an ironclad dogma; and 2. because of its myopic economistic position, dogmatic Marxism cannot differentiate between crises; furthermore, it cannot develop an appropriate strategy in dealing with economic crises, political crises, ideological crises, and hegemonic structural or legitimation crises.

Crises in Conjunctures

Poulantzas, like Gramsci, argues that "the expansion of democracy must be a continuous act especially in

®Nicos Poulantzas, "Is There a Crisis in Marxism?" Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora 9, no. 3 (Fall 1979):12. 364 conjunctures."^ This means that historical conjunctures must be seized to advance the expansion of democracy.

However, the strategy of the Second and Third

Internationals failed to understand the unfolding historical conjunctures, and thereby failed to take advantage of them. Gramsci fought throughout his life to transcend and transform the economistic positions that overdetermined the Third International's definition of crisis. The Third International, like its predecessor the

Second International, theorized that the demise of capitalism was predicated on the unfolding of economic crises. The problem with this form of analysis is that capitalist economic crises have come and gone, yet capitalism, as system, is still intact. The Third

International, because of its economistic tendency, was unable to deal or act on the economic crises of its time.

Poulantzas' work on crises is directly indebted to

Gramsci. Poulantzas, like Gramsci, recognizes that economic crises do not translate into political crises,

ideological crises, hegemonic crises, or structural crises,

Accordingly, Poulantzas notes that the

...ongoing general economic crisis of imperialism...does not manifest itself at the heart of each capitalist country in a crisis of the

?Nicos Poulantzas, "O Stochos tou Ekdemocratismou stin Paideia," Thourios (July 26, 1975):15. 365

State....8

The reason that an economic crisis does not turn into an ideological crisis, a political crisis, or a crisis of the

State can be attributed to the displacements that transpire between the ideological practice, the political practice, and the State. Given that each of these practices has its own rhythm of operation, its own relative autonomy vis-a- vis the other practices within the matrix of the structure in dominance, a crisis in one does not imply a crisis in the other. The articulators of Marxist dogma could not grasp the character of this relationship. Their dogma forced them to wait for the pre-forecasted impending economic catastrophe to arrive. When the economic catastrophe did arrive, in the form of the Great

Depression, they had no developed theoretical position or strategy to deal with it. In this economic crisis, the edifice of capitalism trembled, however, it did not collapse as the dogmatists believed. There was no hegemonic crisis.

The capitalist ideological practice, the political practice, and the State were strong enough to withstand the economic crisis that besieged them. The dogmatic Marxists could not deal with this situation. Their theoretical position prevented them from recognizing that the dynamic

^Nicos Poulantzas, "Questions sur la pouvior," in Reperes; hier et aujourd'hui texts sur I'etat (Paris: Francois Maspero, 1980), pp. 149-150. 366 strength of capitalism does not only reside in its economic practice alone, but also resides in its political and

ideological practices. The capitalist political and

ideological practice held its ground. There was no

legitimation or organic crisis. The only real crisis of

legitimation was the organic crisis present in dogmatic

Marxism. For Gramsci and Poulantzas, this organic crisis

of dogmatic Marxism led to the hegemonic crisis of Marxism between the two World Wars.

Given the above, Poulantzas argues that the crisis of/in Marxism can be precisely located in its presentation

...as a complete and perfect system of "laws" (mainly the famous laws of "dialectical materialism" institutionalized during the Stalinist period) which are really nothing but dogmas formulated in the crudest way and backed up with quotations from the so-called "classics" of Marxism.9

This physiognomy of Marxism can be attributed to its

formulation as "Marxism-Leninism" by the guardians within the walls of the Kremlin, who turned it into

...a universal dogma... [by] codifying it and raising it to the status of a religion, they [then went on to] impose it upon the world working class movement for entire decades, excommunicating every other voice, objection, or question.10

Given this state of affairs, Althusser points out

9lbid.

lOibid. It will be recalled that Gramsci was one of those voices that challenged the "universal dogma" only to be silenced in the non-publication of his writings until the 1960s and 1970s. 367 that "...Marxist theory became an international State dogma...."11 In the Communist Party of France (PCF), there was an "...abandonment of Marxist theory...[that led to] theoretical blindness and thus [to] political blindness...."12 In the PCF, Marxism underwent a sclerosis that inhibited its dialectical nature from being realized.

The Party failed to fulfill the precepts that Gramsci ascribed to it:

To work incessantly to raise the intellectual level of evergrowing strata of the populace, in other words, to give personality to the amorphous mass element.... [To]... remain in contact with [the masses]...to become, as it were, the whalebone in the corset.13

Instead, the Party decayed to a "total institution" run by

"...the life-long full-timer who, riveted to the Party by an iron law, has to show unconditional obedience in return

for his daily bread."1* This full-timer, according to

Althusser, "...most of the time...does not even come into any real contact with the masses, since he is too busy controlling them."15 For Althusser, all of this

...rest[s] on an arbitrary "theory" tailor-made to

llLouis Althusser, "What Must Change in the Party," New Left Review, no. 109 (May-June 1978);35.

l^lbid.

l^Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks (New York: International Publishers, 1971), p. 340.

l^Althusser, "What Must Change in the Party," p. 33.

ISlbid. 368

serve a pre-established political line, scorning real theory and concrete analysis of the concrete situation, this ideology is reduced in practice to the following caricatural function: to "cement" Party unity at any price around a leadership which holds not only the power to order men, but the power to order truth according to a "line" fixed by itself alone.1®

Althusser notes that the Party, in the May 1968 conjuncture, "...deliberately cut itself off from the student and petty bourgeois masses because it did not have control over them!"1?

The formulation of Marxist theory into an

international State dogma found its ultimate realization within the actual workings and raison d'etre of the PCF.

The Party's leadership, according to Althusser, holds

"...contempt for concrete analysis and for the theory."18

This is always the case where dogma prevails: "believe and don't question." For to do any kind of sophisticated concrete analysis, there must be a concrete examination of the theory itself. Not to question the theory is to remain within the bondage of dogma. Dogma bears no fruit, only theory with its dialectical essence intact bears fruit.

The dogma formed within the walls of the Kremlin penetrated directly into the interior of the PCF. As in all cases where dogma prevails, the PCF acted accordingly. It sought

l®Ibid., p. 39.

l?Ibid., p. 41.

18ibid., p. 38. 369 to control its membership by making sure they were obedient to the principles established by the dogma, i.e., keeping to the Party line.

Given these conditions, Althusser argues that the

Party (the PCF) must undergo fundamental structural changes

if it is to become, in Gramsci's terms, "the whalebone in the corset." This means that the Party must be transformed

into an "open Party" infused with a creative dialectical

Marxism devoid of all forms of dogmatism and despotism.

Thus, the Party structure must cease being an external

force that crushes its members. It must be transformed and

infused with freedom. It must become the new source of dialectical praxis.

Poulantzas' work seeks to give back to Marxism its dialectical, epistemological, heuristic, and scientific power. This means that Marxist theory itself must be open,

i.e., dialectical. Furthermore, Marxist theory must be in

touch with theoretical advances in other disciplines so that it may remain dialectical and open in grasping the

complexity of human existence.

Poulantzas stresses that Marxist theory itself is

not to blame for faults of dogmatic Marxism. Thus, he notes that

...the philosophers of the Enlightenment are not "responsible" for the totalitarianism of the West, [and] Marxism is not "responsible" for the 370

totalitarianisms of the East.19

It is in this context that he goes on to say that

...one cannot ask any theory, however scientific it may be, to give more than it possess— not even Marxism, which remains a genuine theory of action. There is always a structural distance between theorv and practice, between theorv and the real.20

Theory is only as powerful as its practitioners.

Dogmatizied theory leads to poor practitioners and to poor

results. Thus, Poulantzas states that

The blame, then, does not lie with Marx, nor for that matter with Plato, Jesus, Rousseau or Voltaire. The distance between theory and the real always persists despite the effort to fill it. Stalin is not Marx's "fault," any more than Napoleon I was the fault of Rousseau, Franco of Jesus, Hitler of Nietzsche, or Mussolini of Sorel (even though their thoughts were employed, sometimes in their original purity, to give cover to these totalitarian systems).21

Even the best theory cannot act as an eschatological

text. For theory is practiced by human beings, and when

human beings come together, i.e., enter into a myriad of

social relations, anything can happen. It is in the course

of human praxis that the discourse of the positive and

negative dialectic of theory reveals itself. This is

because the articulation of a theory does not happen in a

vacuum. Theory has a political, ideological, and economic

l^Nicos Poulantzas, "L'apport de intellectuels," Le Monde (October 29-30, 1978):2.

2®Nicos Poulantzas, State Power Socialism (London: NLB, 1978/Verso, 1980), p. 22.

21lbid., p. 23. 371 existence. Thus, it follows that Marxist theory holds no guarantees. In this sense,

...we cannot ask Marxism.. .to provide an infallible formula, purged of all deviations, with which to ensure a genuine transition to democratic socialism. For it is no more able to give this kind of answer than it has been to plot the course of events in the E a s t . 22

Only a creative dialectical Marxism that exercises its uninhibited theoretical power can provide meaningful road- signs on the road to democratic socialism.

The Transition to Democratic Socialism

The transition to democratic socialism is a complex question. Nonetheless, it is of central concern to

Poulantzas, infusing his whole problematic. Poulantzas' strategy for the transition to socialism is predicated upon his adoption of Gramsci's war of position. The war of position, as put forth by Gramsci, involves the building of a historical b l o c , 23 and the gradual transcendence to

22ibid.

2 3Poulantzas states that it is "Gramsci [who].. .created the concept of the historical bloc...." Nicos Poulantzas, "Taxis kai Kratos," in Kentro Marxistikon Meleton kai Ereunon, Marxismos kai Eoisteme (Athens: Ekdosis Themelio, 1966), p. 337. Taking Gramsci's concept of the historical bloc, Poulantzas reformulated the concept as power bloc. Poulantzas' concept of power bloc is used to denote the framework in which the dominant classes are organized under the hegemony of the State. The State undertakes this organizational role in order to promote the long-term interests of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie is internally divided into different forms of capital; with different genealogies; different world-views; different forms of accumulation; and contradictory interests vis-a- vis each other, e.g., the competition between monopoly 372 democratic socialism. The historical bloc or the power bloc is composed of broad popular democratic alliances opposed to the capitalist relations of domination or subordination.

These alliances represent a coalescing around a variety of issues and movements for the expansion of democracy and democratic socialism. Some of the issues and movements are: the ecological or environmental movements, womens' rights, student movements, health movements, citizen movements, workers' movements, disarmament movements, anti-racist movements, anti-sexist movements, housing movements, the expansion of democratic rights movements, etc. According to Poulantzas,

These movements are.. .organically tied to the contradictions [political, economic and ideological]...inherent in the expanded reproduction of capital.24

The historical bloc/power bloc involves an articulation of demands and issues that transcend traditional proletarian and traditional socialist demands of seizing the State and the means of production. The forces embodied within the historical bloc/power bloc "...condense and reverberate capital and non-monopoly capital and the struggles within each of these forms of capital. Given these conditions, Gramsci concludes that "The bourgeois class is not a unified entity outside the State." Antonio Gramsci, Selections from Political Writings 1910-1920 (New York: International Publishers, 1977), p.40.

24poulantzas, "La crise des Partis," in Reperes: hier et aujourd'hui texts sur I'etat (Paris: Francois Maspero, 1980), pp. 174-175. 373 class conflict without always being reduced to class

c o n f l i c t . "25 Nonetheless, the condensation and displacement of the class struggle is always present in a myriad of morphologies. The class struggle traverses the whole of class societies in manifest and latent forms. The class struggle, regardless of the forms it takes, penetrates directly into the interior of the molecular/genetic structure of all living things. Thus, the process of capital accumulation, in capitalist and in

"actually existing socialist" (pseudo-socialism) social

formations, has a direct impact on the conditions under which food is produced, and the relations of production and reproduction, in short, the conditions under which we 1ive.26

25ibid., p. 175.

2®The class struggle has a direct impact on the quality of food, water, and air. The proliferation of chemicals, drugs, pesticides, insecticides, herbicides, toxins of all sorts, the pollution of the environment, and wars are the products of the process of the capital accumulation. These activities are all expressions of the class struggle in action, i.e., the process of capital accumulation, whether one recognizes it or not. These struggles penetrate directly into our molecular/genetic composition. The class struggle has found its ultimate expression in wars, genetic engineering, and cancers of all sorts. These conditions are not endemic to capitalist forms of accumulation alone. They are also present within the forms of accumulation in "actually existing socialism" in its Eastern and Western varieties. The movements noted above seek transformations on all levels that compose the social relations of existence. They seek to transcend existing patterns of domination: technocratic and bureaucratic domination; political domination; economic domination; racial and gender inequalities; etc. For a critique of "actually existing socialism" in the East, see 374

The transition to democratic socialism must be built on a programme that engenders the expansion of the democratic process among the forces in the historical/power bloc. It is essential that the hegemonic character of the historical/power bloc be grounded in the expression of popular interests, compromises, and the struggle against counter-hegemonic forces. Compromises, however, should not undermine the fundamental goals: the organization, articulation, propagation, and implementation of democratic principles, rights, and the socialization of society.

Poulantzas' relational/articulation theory of power, the State, and social classes brings us back to the terrain that Gramsci attributed a great deal of significance to: civil society. This is the terrain that provides the site for the organization and realization of democratic socialism. The democratic road to socialism is not a priori given. There are no "models" or national examples on which to build. According to Poulantzas,

History has not yet given us a successful experience for the democratic road to socialism: what it has provided— and that is not insignificant— is some negative examples to avoid and some mistakes upon which to reflect.2?

There are, however, some road signs, e.g., the Paris

Rudolf Bahro, The Alternative in Eastern Europe (London: NLB, 1978); and From Red to Green (London: NLB, 1984).

2 Poulantzas, State Power Socialism, p. 265. 375

C o m m u n e , 28 paris 1968, etc. The transcendence to democratic socialism is not an immediate result. Just like the transition from feudalism to capitalism, it did not happen in a single day. Along these lines, Gramsci notes that

Socialism is not established on a particular day— it is a continuous process, a never-ending development towards a realm of freedom that is organized and controlled by the majority of citizens— the proletariat.29

Poulantzas adds, that "...the democratic road to socialism refers to a long process...."30

The long road to democratic socialism is an unfolding dialectical process that involves the challenging of bourgeois hegemony; the transformation of the social relations of production; the harnessing of the destructive and creative power of the forces of production; the ceasing of environmental violence; and the maintenance and expansion of formal and political bourgeois liberties. For

Poulantzas, the accomplishment of the above aims can only to realized through

...political (party) and ideological pluralism, recognition of the role of universal suffrage, and extension and deepening of all political

28see Hal Draper, ed., Karl Marx and Friedrich Enoels; Writings on the Paris Commune (New York: Monthly Review, 1971) .

29&ntonio Gramsci, "The Russian Utopia," in Selections form Political Writings 1910-1920 (New York: International Publishers, 1977), p. 55.

30 Poulantzas, State Power Socialism, p. 197. 376

freedoms....

In short, there must be a combination, according to

Poulantzas, of "...the development of popular movements, the mushrooming of democratic organs at the base, and the

rise of centres of self-management."32 Furthermore,

representative democracy must be expanded along with forms

of direct, rank and file, democracy.

Poulantzas calls for the establishment of direct and

representative democracy. He states that

Direct democracy means a compulsory mandate, for instance, with instant recall of the delegates, etc. If you want to preserve political and formal liberties, I think that implies keeping certain institutions which embody them, and also a representative element; that is centers of power, assemblies which are not directly modelled on the pattern of direct democracy.33

Poulantzas' position is, thus, not exclusively oriented

toward direct democracy alone. Direct democracy involves

the actual self-governing activity of the masses. Direct

democracy breaks with all formalistic and corporatist

notions and tendencies embodied within bourgeois democracy.

It is interesting to note that Poulantzas rejects the

implementation of democracy only along the pattern of

direct democracy. He insists that "...formal and political

31ibid., p. 261.

32%bid., p. 260.

33n 1c o s Poulantzas, "The State and the Transition to Socialism," Socialist Review, no 38 (March-April 1978), p. 20. 377

liberties.. .can only be guaranteed by maintaining forms of

representative d e m o c r a c y . "34 it is fine for Poulantzas to

insist on the maintenance of representative democracy, but what kind of representative democracy does he have in mind?

This he never specifies or defines. As to direct

democracy, where and how is this direct democracy supposed

to function? By withdrawing the instant recall procedure

of delegates from being an essential element of

representative democracy, Poulantzas is placing limitations

on democracy itself. These are points that Poulantzas does

not address. However, these are questions that need to be

addressed if there is really going to be a democratic

socialist society.

The realization of democracy involves the "real"

transcendence of bourgeois democracy, i.e., the obstacles

to democracy it poses, e.g., the actual workings of

bourgeois representative democracy itself. The realization

of democratic socialism means the completion and expansion

of bourgeois democracy, i.e., the development of the

democratic process to its maximum ends and beyond.

Democracy must be an active process, dialectically

unfolding and expanding. According to Chantai Mouffe,

Democratic discourse extends its field of influence from a starting point, the equality of citizens in a political democracy, to socialism, which extends equality to the level of the economy and then into other social relations, such as sexual, racial

34ibid., p. 22. 378

generational, and regional. Democratic discourse questions all forms of inequality and subordination. ...Democracy is our most subversive idea because it interrupts all existing discourses and practices of subordination.35

In this sense, democratic discourse expressed through direct democracy must overdetermine representative democracy and not the other way around. Direct democracy is the guarantee that assures the proper functioning of representative d e m o c r a c y . 36 The existence of direct democracy, through its referendum and instant recall procedures, provides real accountability; and goes on to assure the proper workings of representative democracy.

Only by direct democracy overdetermining representative

35chantal Mouffe, "Hegemony and New Political Subjects: Toward a New Concept of Democracy," in Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg, Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988), pp. 95-96. An interesting result associated with the advancement of democracy, is that authoritarian Statism seeks to circumscribe the elements of democracy to its own exigencies. According to Mouffe, it seeks "...to redefine democracy in a restricted way to reduce its subversive power." Ibid., p. 97. In this context, formal and political liberties, and bourgeois rights are curtailed or redefined in light of unfolding historical conjunctures by the forces that be, i.e., legislative, juridical, and State.

36por the functioning of direct democracy and its overdetermination of representative democracy, see the classical work on the subject: Aristotle, The Athenian Constitution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967) ; also Karl Marx on the Paris Commune in Hal Draper, ed., Karl Marx and Friedrich Enaels: Writings on the Paris Commune (New York: Monthly Review, 1971); and the ideas of Gerrard Winstanley in Norah Carlin, The First English Revolution (London: Bookmarks, 1983); and T. Wilson Hayes, Winstanlev the Digger: A Literarv Analvsis of Radical Ideas in the English Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979). 379 democracy can "...a committee of Public Safety or some

Dictator of the proletariat... "37 be avoided. I am sure that Poulantzas recognizes this; but his emphasis on representative democracy casts a shadow on direct democracy, and it may even lead to the abridgement of democracy and socialism. By giving primacy to representative democracy over direct democracy, he loses sight of the fact that representative democracy, through its legislative power, can enact legislation that can abrogate democratic rights and democracy itself by fiat.

This is a real possibility. 38 As Gramsci emphasizes, the practice of democracy is "...a magnificent school of political and administrative experience and would involve the masses down to the last m a n . ..."39 in this sense, democracy is an essential process in any transition to democratic socialism. Therefore, representative democracy does potentially posses the capacity to restrict the democratic process. Thus, it is imperative that direct democracy acts as a check on representative democracy, overdetermining it in all its activities.

A central feature of the transition to democratic

3*7Poulantzas, State Power Socialism, p. 265.

38gee, for example, the restriction and redefinition of bourgeois democratic rights in authoritarian Statism and in exceptional forms of regime.

39cramsci, "Workers Democracy," in Selections from Political Writings 1910-1920. p. 67. 380 socialism involves the long-term amortization of the class-

State. However, this cannot happen in a single day.

Poulantzas' theory of the State presents some interesting insights into this problem. It should be pointed out that the Class-State has existed ever since there has been surplus in society. Thus, wherever there is surplus there are social classes, class struggle, class power, and the

Class-State. Historically, the State has played a fundamental role, as the political practice, in all class societies. Poulantzas points out that

Right from the beginning, the State marks out the field of struggles, including that of the relations of production: it organizes the market and property relations; it institutes political domination and establishes the politically dominant classes; and it stamps and codifies all forms of the social division of labour— all social reality— within the framework of a class-divided society.4®

As the expression of the political practice, the State acts to organize the political interests of the dominant classes. In this regard, Gramsci points out that the capitalist

...State's function is to find a juridical settlement to internal class disputes, to clashes between opposed interests; thereby it unifies different groupings and gives the class a solid and united external appearance. Competition between groupings is concentrated at the point of government, of State power. The government is the prize for the strongest bourgeois party or grouping; the letters strength is for it the right to regulate State power, to turn it in any particular direction and to manipulate it at any time in accordance with its economic and political

40 Poulantzas, State Power Socialism, p. 39. 381

programme.41

For Poulantzas and Gramsci, the transition to democratic socialism involves the long-term amortization of the State, i.e., the capitalist State and the "actually existing socialist" State as well, through a long process of praxis, active action. In order to attain this end,

Poulantzas and Gramsci deny the utility of using a Leninist or vanguardist frontal attack type of strategy on the advanced capitalist State. The modern advanced capitalist

State is not the Russian tsarist State of 1917. It is a capitalist State with developed ideological, political, and economic trenches/apparatuses. It is able to exercise political, ideological and economic hegemony through a myriad of ideological and repressive State apparatuses.

Hence, a frontal attack type of strategy on the modern advanced capitalist State would not only be unsuccessful, but it would also fail to present any meaningful transformation of the State itself. As Poulantzas put it;

"A change in state power is never enough to transform the materiality of the state apparatus."42 The point here is to change the ideological and repressive State apparatuses that express bourgeois interests, not simply to seize them.

This means that the State itself, as a political practice.

4lGramsci, "Class Intransigence and Italian History," in Selections from Political Writings 1910-1920. p. 40.

42poulantzas, State Power Socialism, p . 131. 382 must also be transformed and superseded.

Gramsci and Poulantzas recognize that the Leninist frontal attack type of strategy is inappropriate in dealing with the advanced capitalist State. The problem here is that this type of strategy does not put an end to the bourgeois class relations that overdetermine this type of

State. If such a strategy were to be applied, one, in effect, would be attempting to capture a bourgeois State without transcending the class relations that are manifested within its very raison d'etre, the organization and perpetuation of bourgeois interests. Poulantzas' strategy, then, is predicated on making changes within the capitalist State through the democratic process. Instead of just capturing the State, it is also imperative to transform its class character. This is because the capitalist State is not just a fortress devoid of class content; it is full of class content. Poulantzas' strategy calls for the organization of popular democratic forces that penetrate directly into the interior of the State; modifying and transforming the class relations that it embodies. This process entails the transformation of the

State apparatuses; and the eventual amortization of the

Class-State through the active democratic participation of these popular masses on all its fronts.

In order to accomplish this task, Poulantzas proposes that Gramsci's war of position be applied on two 383 levels: within the State and at a distance from the State.

This war of position strategy requires that the historical bloc/power bloc articulate and coordinate political struggles within the ideological and repressive State apparatuses. The intent here is to intensify the class contradictions embodied within these apparatuses. In so doing, Poulantzas hopes that significant classes and class fractions, e.g., fractions of the new petty bourgeoisie.

State employees, the army, etc., a la Paris 1968 and

Portugal in the early 1970s, will become polarized to the side of the historical/power bloc that is poised on the democratic transition to socialism. According to

Poulantzas, this type of action involves waging

...a struggle enclosed within the physical confines of the state. ...A struggle situated...on the strategic terrain constituted by the state. A struggle, in other words, whose aim is not to substitute the workers' state for a bourgeois state...but a struggle...designated to sharpen the internal contradictions of the state, to carry out a deep-seated transformation of the State.43

In addition, the historical/power bloc must also wage a struggle at a distance from the State. This involves waging political, ideological, and economic struggles in civil society. The aim here is to change the balance of the existing class forces. This is to be accomplished through the building of direct rank and file democracy, popular democratic grassroots movements, and

43Nicos Poulantzas, " The State and the Transition to Socialism," pp., 13-14. 384 democratic institutional structures. The ultimate purpose of all this is to expand and advance the course of democratic participation throughout the whole society.

This is a complex and difficult long-term process that seeks to establish full democracy, while at the same time seeking the long-term amortization of the class-State. In short, this type of strategy involves a war of position on all levels. In order for this type of strategy to succeed, it must not only be able to deal with the counter- hegemonic strategy posed by the bourgeoisie through its ideological and repressive State apparatuses; it must also be able to present its own counter-hegemony. Hence, the transition to democratic socialism does not involve the eliminating of bourgeois forces. Instead, these forces are to be challenged and debated in civil society.

Thus, the transition to democratic socialism is not just a simple physical transition from one set of affairs to another set of affairs, or the transition from one type of State (capitalist) to another type of State (socialist); it involves an intellectual, political, economic, and ideological metamorphosis. The unfolding of this process finds its ultimate expression in Gramsci's civil society.

Civil society is the terrain on which this contestation takes place; and where the flowering of democracy manifests itself. The expansion of democracy in civil society requires an "educated public." A public that is able to 385

"think" and articulate in a "critical" manner its social existence. This type of public is one that is not easily swayed by rhetoric, demagoguery, Statolatry, and symbols of political expediency away from its goal of maximizing democracy. This type of public implies a public that is not interpellated as citizens-subjects of a class-State, but one in which individuals are interpelled as "public citizens." This form of public citizen has its proto-type in the Greek polis and in the Paris Commune. It is a public citizen who is actively, critically, analytically, and creatively engaged in the workings of his/her society.

Furthermore, any democratic transition to democratic socialism must also address itself to the question posed by

Rosa Luxemburg: socialism or -barbarism. Poulantzas' response to this paradox is that "...socialism will be democratic or it will not be at all."44 This answer does not resolve the problem that socialism may itself lead to barbarism. "Actually existing socialism," pseudo­ socialism, which claims to be democratic, has not held back its progress towards barbarism. There must be greater specificity given as to what is meant by democratic socialism. There is no doubt that the transition to democratic socialism involves the transcendence of both the capitalist relations of domination and the "actually existing socialist" relations of domination; but more than

44poulantzas, State Power Socialism, p . 265. 386 this, the democratic transition to socialism must address itself to the transformation of how we live, work, and think about our material base of existence, i.e., the environment/Nature.

In For Marx. Althusser notes that the economic, the material base/Nature, is determinant in the last instance, but "...the 'last instance' never comes."45 The last instance has arrived! The environmental degeneration of the planet is the result of rationally oriented capitalist and "actually existing socialist" relations of production.

Both of these systems of production share the same blue print, the rational exploitation and destruction of our material base/Nature. If all of the rationally oriented productive activities of capitalism and "actually existing socialism" are taken in their totality, they represent nothing less than total irrationality, i.e., the barbarization of the material base of existence/Nature. On this point, Poulantzas notes that, in the current state of affairs, there has been rising "...a new type of rationality which tends to invade the whole of the social tissue: the rationality and technocratic logic of experts...."46 This pursuit of rationalistically

45Louis Althusser, For Marx (London: NLB, 1977/Verso, 1979), p. 113.

46Nicos Poulantzas, "Le deplacement des procedures de legitimation," in Pierre Dommergues, ed., Le nouvel order interior (Paris: Editions Alain Moreau, 1980), p. 140. 387 calculated activity by capitalism and "actually existing socialism," according to Castellina, makes them

...incapable of taking account of damage and destruction, of their economic and social costs to nature and humanity, or of the unsustainable wastefulness that they entail. In this sense it is quite true that the ecological movements have understood...that the present crisis discloses something more radical than those which have preceded it, something which allows us to glimpse the ending of an entire historical p e r i o d . ...4'

The ultimate historical conjuncture has arrived! It

is not an economic crisis, political crisis, ideological crisis, legitimation crisis, hegemonic crisis, a crisis of the State, a crisis of Marxism, a crisis of capitalism, or a crisis of "actually existing socialism". It is a crisis of human civilization that has been exponentially manifesting itself since the transition from the feudal and

Asiatic modes of production. Hence, the whole "idea of progress" must be re-thought. What is progress? Progress to where? Is it progress when the forces of production are unleashed by the capitalist and "actually existing socialist" relations of production to conduct violence on our material existence, e.g., the cutting down of forests, and the building of nuclear power plants (that blow-up as

in the case of the Soviet Union dispersing radioactivity throughout the world, or undergoing melt-downs as in the case of Three Mile Island in the United States). Is this

47i,upiana Catellina, "Why 'Red' Must Be 'Green' Too," in Nikolic Milos, ed., Socialism on the Threshold of the Twenty-first Century (London: Verso, 1985), p. 44. 388 progress, or is it progress to the ultimate Telos? This form of developing eschatology must be challenged and reversed. It is no longer a question of socialism or barbarism; it is the question of the survival of Nature, the source of all material wealth as Marx points out in Capital I. It is imperative that the forces organized in a historical/power bloc, seeking a transition to democratic socialism from capitalism and "actually existing socialism," must address themselves to the last instance that has arrived, our material existence.

It should be noted that Poulantzas does recognize that there is a coalescing of forces around ecological movements, however, he devotes no analysis to these forces, nor to their agenda and material/Nature concerns.

Nonetheless, given Poulantzas' project of establishing the edifice for a democratic transition to democratic socialism, I believe that he would have wholeheartedly given his support to the German Green Party P r o g r a m m e , 48 to

Green Peace, and to other grassroots democratic ecological movements, if he were alive.

It should be noted that the democratic transition to democratic socialism holds no thaumaturgies1 solutions.

Whatever therapeutic solutions are embodied in the transition from capitalism and "actually existing

48see Die Grunen, Programme of the German Green Party (East Haven, CT; LongRiver Books/Heretic Books, 1983). 389

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