Re: Thomas Fergusson

[djones@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (rakesh bhandari)]

Re:  Doug's critical comments on Thomas Ferguson's work. Ferguson's work
takes us to the heart of the marxist debate in state theory (reviewed in
this issue of *Science and Society* by Raju Das).  While I think Ferguson's
work probably is an extreme version of the instrumentalist theory, I also
don't think it would be accurate to say that money simply *follows* the
poll leader.

That is, Ferguson is arguing that candidates must always circumscribe their
agenda in such a way that money will flow to them and some bloc of capital
will support them both in order to commence a campaign  and to carry the
campaign through to the end.

So even if money begins to flow after some electoral success, the candidate
always has had "at the back of his mind" the interests of money or some
bloc of capital. Of course Ferguson shows the connection to be much more
explicit in many cases--hence, "the investment theory" of electoral
politics.

I don't think it would be accurate therefore to claim that those with money
are simply investing in the politician who has already most successfully
expressed the will of the people. Isn't this how several historians
rationalize capitalist support for Hitler?

By the way, Ferguson's first book begins with Bertolt Brecht's famous poem:

Would it not be easier
...for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?

"The Solution"

Of course this post is nothing more than bare assertions; what
distinguishes Ferguson's work is its exhaustive archival work.  It is
first-rate empirical social science, though the underlying state theory
needs to be debated IMHO.

Rakesh


>Ferguson has done a lot of useful work, but I have my doubts about his
>"investment" thesis of U.S. politics, under which changes in the political
>preferences of the ruling class are reflected in changes in their campaign
>contributions, which then lead electoral changes. In the 1994 U.S.
>elections, the contributions *followed* the shift towards the Republicans,
>and in my interviews of people (like the Center for Responsive Politics)
>who follow the matter intensely, they all say that money often follows the
>polls, rather than leading them. Ferguson's view seems very mechanistic,
>deterministic, and several other bad words signifying...undialectical.
>
>Doug



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