Re: [OPE-L] Historical Materialism and the Capitalist State

["michael a. lebowitz" <mlebowit@xxxxxx>]

At 08:44 01/01/2005, jerry wrote:
> http://marxists.org/archive/mandel/1980/xx/hismatstate.htm
>
>
> Ernest Mandel's "Historical Materialism and the Capitalist
> State",
> 1980,  has been translated by Jurriaan and is now available for
> the *first time in English* at the MIA (Marxists Internet
> Archive).
>
>
> Excerpt:
> "Every attempt to deduce the character and essence of the
> capitalist
> state directly from the categories of Marx's _Capital_ -- whether
> from 'capital in general', from the exchange and commercial
> relations
> at the surface of bourgeois society, or from the conditions of the
> valorization of capital -- overlooks that this state, as an
> institution
> separated from society and transformed into an autonomous apparatus,
> was not created by the bourgeoisie itself."

A very quick comment in between trips:

        

Really? Is
that how we are to understand 'the character and essence of the
capitalist state'? According to the conditions of its 'becoming'--- ie.,
its historical origins?

        

yours for a red new year,

        

michael

> In solidarity,
> Jerry

Michael A. Lebowitz

Professor Emeritus

Economics Department

Simon Fraser University

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