Re: Re: Foucault, Marx, Poulantzas

[Jim Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> > You said it Justin:
> > >  Primarily the social relations of production, i.e., the class
> > >  relations whose structure ****primarily explains the nature and
> > >  development of the mode of production, the state, and, less directly,
> > >  ideology.**** This is elementary. Surely you knew this is the historical
> > >  materialist view? L&M attack it (wrongly) as monocausal, narrowminded
> > >  class reductionsim and bad essentialism. --jks
> >
> > It is essentialist. Relations of production DO NOT, in all case, in all
> > historical epochs, explain the nature of the state. War has been in
> > many instances far more important.

I don't see why the phrase bracketed by asterisks is "essentialist."
Instead of saying that the structure of class relations _completely_
explains the nature and development of X, so that any differences among
different concrete examples of X represent mere epiphenomena, Justin says
that the structure of class relations _primarily_ explains the nature and
development of X. In the latter case, we can see the nature and development
of X as being overdetermined, as having its character determined not only
by class relations but by other social relations such as those within the
family, between ethnic groups, etc.

Part of the problem with the post-modern vs. "orthodox" debate is that the
former often confuse different levels of abstraction (or even deny the
importance of such or miss the distinction altogether). This is merely a
mirror image of the ultra-"orthodox," who want to explain everything in the
concrete, empirical, world by reference to abstractions. But there's a
difference between the abstract theory of how capitalism works (its laws of
motion, which Marx tried to figure out) and how the concrete social
formation -- actual empirical reality -- operates.

One of the things that's going on is that capitalism is imposing its
abstract laws on concrete social formations more and more these days (as
part of the neoliberal policy revolution), but it has conquered the world
yet, so we can't assume that simply looking at the abstract laws of capital
gives us enough understanding of what's going on. Further, there is
resistance to the capitalist juggernaut.

BTW, I think it's wrong to say that the class relations structure primarily
explains the nature and development of the mode of production, the state.
Capitalist class relations _involve_ the mode of production (which isn't
merely technical: it's social relational) and also the nature and
development of the state. One of the key parts of full-blown capitalism is
the development of a specialized state sector which tries to monopolize the
everyday use of violence (and mostly succeeds at doing so). Instead of
hiring goons to beat up strikers (the direct application of force), the
capitalist mostly calls on the police, the national guard, the lawyers &
courts, etc. Instead of beating the individual worker who doesn't obey, the
reserve army of the unemployed (or milder financial punishments) is used as
a threat.

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine