Marx has hinted at the possibility of the State becoming relative autonomous of the social relations and the base or the infrastructure. If so, then the State also becomes an arena where revolutionary potential or possibilities could be found. Instead of the base only catapulting revolutionary change, the superstructure can also become a means to bring revolutionary change. In this view, it is felt that the class struggle should not be fought in the arena of base alone but also at the level of superstructure. We may briefly analyse the views of Gramsci, Miliband, Poulantzas and Althusser in the following discussion.
Antonio Gramsci was an Italian born neo-Marxian theorist who has given the theory of ‘hegemony’. His Prison Notebooks (1971) contains his ideas. He is, in fact, identified by some as a ‘theoretician of the superstructure’93 due to his overwhelming focus on the role of the realm of superstructure and its revolutionary potential. It has been felt that the orthodox Marxian position has failed to fully capture the role of the State and other forces that determine revolutionary potential. Gramsci focused more on the role of the human will and cultural and intellectual ideas. He sought to give prominence to ideas and human consciousness and how these shape the revolutionary potential. Marx has maintained that material condition of life shapes human thought. Gramsci somewhat inverted this and stressed that ideas and human consciousness have their effect on the economic base of society.94 Thus, Gramsci changed the relationship between the base and the infrastructure. From this inversion, Gramsci’s two main contributions emerge.
Gramsci, as a theoretician of the superstructure, distinguishes two levels of the superstructure: (i) society or the civil society and (ii) state or the political society. Though at many a time, Gramsci holds that the civil society and the state are the same and that State = political society + civil society, the difference between the two is important to understand his perspective on the state. In brief, the State or the political society represents state power and uses force for exercising domination—structures of coercion. On the other hand, society or civil society uses a more subtle way of domination. This is achieved by the use of various means including educational, religious, intellectual and moral agencies—structures of legitimation. Thus, according to Gramsci, the superstructure consists of two levels—civil society corresponding to which is structure of legitimation and political society corresponding to which is structures of coercion. For Gramsci, civil society is different from what Marx understood. It does not refer to economic relationship as in Marx, but to superstructure and generally includes the organizations and means by which hegemony is diffused in all domains of culture and thought. These means and organizations include educational, intellectual, moral, religious and political and not merely economic. Thus, coercion and consent are two elements of domination, which prevail in the superstructure and determine the base. As such, for Gramsci the state is not an instrument being determined by the base. The State is relative autonomous and is a key area of struggle.
While the state uses coercion (police, army, court, intelligence), it cannot maintain domination only on the basis of force. Civil society provides the means of legitimation and what Gramsci calls hegemony. Civil society represented in organizations and institutions such as family, schools, church etc., provides the basic rules of behaviour, respect and moral deference to authority. By the help of educative, religious, familial, cultural means, hegemony is achieved. Hegemony95 stands for ‘intellectual, moral and political leadership and not merely economic domination’.96 Hegemony, thus is not only economic domination or coercive domination, but is based on consent generated in a subtle manner. Gramsci uses hegemony to define ‘the ability of a dominant class to exercise power by winning the consent of those it subjugates as an alternative to the use of coercion’.97 The State, in collaboration with civil society, interweaves consent and coercion as a hegemonic political strategy and takes leadership.
Through his concept of hegemony, Gramsci showed the role ideas and ideology play in helping the economic domination of the dominant class. A hegemonic power controls economic power + coercion + consent. Accordingly to Gramsci, hegemonic power leads to emergence of what he called ‘common sense. Common sense is explained as the philosophy of the masses who accept the morality, customs and institutionalized behaviour of the society in which they live.98 In short, people accept the social and economic order as legitimate. It is this legitimation that creates over all condition of hegemony and domination.
The solution then is to fight it out in the arena of civil society and ideas. Gramsci valued the intellectual and the ideological as much as Marx did the economic. His analysis of the organic and inorganic intellectuals in his Prison Notebooks is an example of his focus. Organic intellectuals are those who emerge from the situation and inorganic those who look at something from outside. Commentator like R. Simon (Gramscis Political Thought) have maintained that ‘Gramsci’s theory of civil society and its complex relations with the state provide a perspective for the transition from capitalism to socialism.’99
Ralph Miliband has recognized the central position of the State in the Western societies. He sought to evaluate class–State relationship and liberal democratic view of State–society relationships. In his The State in Capitalist Society (1969) and Marxism and Politics (1977), Miliband has analysed the role and nature of the State in capitalist and other societies. According to Miliband, the view that the state in the Western societies is a neutral arbiter amongst social interests is misplaced. He concludes that the State is not able to separate itself from the ruling class factions. Thus, the State is not relative autonomous. This conclusion is based on the following factors100—(i) in contemporary Western societies there is a dominant or ruling class which owns and controls the means of production, (ii) the dominant class has close links to powerful institutions, political parties, the military, universities, the media, etc. (iii) the dominant class has disproportionate representation at all levels of the State apparatus especially in dominant positions. This leads Miliband to infer that the State, though can achieve independence in certain times like war or national crisis, by and large, is not relative autonomous.
Miliband’s approach has been termed as a subjectivist approach, as it seeks to explore the relationship between the classes, bureaucracy and their social background and powerful institutions in an interpersonal way. Poulantzas has criticized Miliband for this approach. Since Miliband accepts closeness between class power and state power and their unity, his approach is also known as the instrumentalist theory of the state—the State as an instrument or agent of the ruling classes.
Nicos Poulantzas in his Political Power and Social Classes (1973) and in an article ‘The Problem of the Capitalist State’, presented his views on the role and nature of the State in capitalist societies. Poulantzas challenged Miliband’s subjectivist view and maintained that class affiliations, as suggested by Miliband, were not crucial to the functioning of the State in a capitalist society. He takes a structural view in the Marxian sense where the role of the State is ultimately determined by economic infrastructure. His structural theory of the state suggests that the State can only perpetuate the social system in which it operates. This means that the State in the capitalist system will serve the long-term interests of the capitalist system, irrespective of class affiliations. Further, the State, structurally, is in the service of the capitalist interests, even if class affiliation is absent. Poulantzas says, ‘capitalist state serves the interests of the capitalist class only when members of this class do not participate directly in the state apparatus.’101 Opposed to what Miliband had concluded, this means that the ruling class may not be the politically governing class.
This is the basis of Poulantzas concept of the state as relative autonomous. Relative autonomous state is required because the capitalist class as a whole is not free from internal divisions (manufacturing capital, financial capital, etc.) and one or the other will always present differing interests. They may also oppose various acts of the State like democratic rights and welfare reforms. But to protect the long-term interests of the capitalist class as a whole, the State must stay relative autonomous and maintain the cohesiveness of the system. For Poulantzas then the State must ensure: (i) political organization of the dominant class to represent their common interests, and conversely, (b) political disorganization of the working class by diffusing their radical potential by giving concessions and (iii) long-term interests of the capitalist class by keeping itself relative autonomous and presenting the state as representing public interests. In fact, J. Westergaard and H. Resler in their empirical study, Class in a Capitalist Society (1976) have concluded that though, in Britain as well as other advanced capitalist countries, the State has implemented a wide range of reforms to improve health, social security, safety in work places, age old pensions, free education etc., these reforms have left the basic structure of inequality unchanged.102 Thus, Poulantzas treats relative autonomy as an important characteristic of the capitalist state, which is a unifying agency.
Louis Althusser, like Poulantzas, takes a structuralist position, i.e., state perpetuating the social system in which it operates. He also supports the perspective of relative autonomy of the state. For him, the State by being autonomous from explicit capitalist interest or its direction, serves it in general. Secondly, Althusser holds that it is not only the base that affects the superstructure but the former also gets affected by the latter and only in the final analysis it is determined. Althusser maintains that availability of labour power requires reproduction of skills. But it also requires reproduction of its submission to the ruling ideology. Thus, to achieve willing consent of the labour power for the benefit of the capitalist class, a number of ‘Ideological State Apparatuses’ such as mass media (press), law (courts), religion (church), education (schools), etc., are required. These help in transmitting the ruling class ideology. Althusser supports the relative autonomy conception and also Gramsci’s concept of hegemony.
Thus, two streams or accounts of theory of the State have been generally debated and contested within the Marxian fold. But the fact that the state remains the state of the capitalist class, directly or indirectly, is the conclusion that they reach at.CopycopyHighlighthighlightAdd NotenoteGet Linklink
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