Re: Public/Private

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

I don't think that "civil society and State are one and the same." Rather, they are two highly interconnected parts of the larger capitalist class society. (In other class societies, the distinction is much weaker.)

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

-----Original Message-----
From: Forstater, Mathew [mailto:ForstaterM@xxxxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, May 30, 2003 10:01 AM
To: PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Public/Private

The ideas of the Free Trade movement are based on a theoretical error whose practical origin is not hard to identify; they are based on a distinction between political society and civil society, which is made into and presented as an organic one, whereas in fact it is merely methodological. Thus it is asserted that economic activity belongs to civil society, and that the State must not intervene to regulate it. But since in actual reality civil society and State are one and the same, it must be made clear that laissez-faire too is a form of State "regulation", introduced and maintained by legislative and coercive means. It is a deliberate policy, conscious of its own ends, and not the spontaneous, automatic _expression_ of economic facts. (Gramsci)