Sawant's victory revives the debate on the capitalist state

[North Star]

---------- Forwarded message ----------

From: Dario Cankovic <dario.c...@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Jan 1, 2014 at 2:21 PM
Subject: Socialist electoral orientation and strategy

The North Star will be hosting a debate on socialist electoral orientation, between Nate Hawthorne (author of this piece: http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=11739) and Gavin Mendel-Gleason and James O'Brien (authors of this: http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=11746). 

"Socialist Electoralism and the Capitalist State" excerpt (http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=11739): 

[T]he capitalist state is a set of institutions that organizes the capitalist class and the working class as interest groups within capitalism, that regulates the specific forms of social relations in capitalist society, and that maintains society as capitalist society. The capitalist state is only ever going to produce some version of capitalist society. Individual state personnel having radical ideas will not change that. If anything, state personnel with radical ideas might ultimately improve capitalism, because those radical ideas will help state personnel disregard any particular capitalists’ interests, but the result will be only a different capitalism.

"The Strategy of Attrition: Conquest or Destruction of the State?" excerpt (http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=11746): 

It seems obvious that an adroit mixture of the strategies, one which combined the strength of labour, the potential wealth of co-ops and the leverage of mass parties, is the goldilocks of political strategies and indeed that is the position we advocate. However, once we get into the details the obvious quickly becomes very blurry indeed. It’s hardly surprising that socialists have lacked the clarity of the right-wing since they, unlike us, are in driving seat and don’t need to change a whole lot while we are searching for a way to achieve our goals.

 

And it turns out that a combined arms strategy of unions, co-ops, and political party is not, in fact, the dominant orientation on the radical left, and has not been since 1917, at least in the English speaking world. There are, for example, proponents of an exclusively non-state orientation and there are supporters of political means, but who both deny that co-operatives can play a meaningful role before the working class has seized power and that tightly knit revolutionary groups are the key to success.

 

In this essay we are going to focus on the political arena and make case for a robust mass party strategy that aims to win political power via democratic elections, and only touch upon the role of trade unions and co-ops.

[Chris Cutrone]

The legislature -- to which Sawant was elected -- was not the definition of the "state" that Marx, Engels or Lenin used, which was self-consciously and politically deliberately limited to "bodies of armed men," i.e., the executive authorities. The emergent, new (19th and 20th century) "bureaucratic" state (as a form of executive administration) is not the legislature but rather those officials who continue to serve despite whomever is elected, especially the police and military.

Traditionally, Marxists used the legislature as a platform for propagandizing socialism. That is Sawant's purpose. There's nothing new or especially problematic regarding "the state" in that.

-- Chris

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[North Star]

You should read the articles in question. When Marx and Lenin wrote that we must smash the state apparatus, they weren't talking about the Dept. of Health and Human Services or Veterans Affairs which are unquestionably bureaucratic and whose "officials who continue to serve despite whomever is elected" with the exception of the principals at the very top.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/left-unity/1388759753.53041.YahooMailNeo%40web121102.mail.ne1.yahoo.com.

[Chris Cutrone]

Yeah, they were talking about smashing the "bodies of armed men," and subordinating the bureaucrats to democratic control. 

-- Chris

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/left-unity/CAH588t-aqOk4vcT2UCyHXF7V%3D5cUU_ed6Po%2BC2VQS%2B-1sppXrg%40mail.gmail.com.