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Method and the State

In

this section the

aim

is to outline a framework for conceptualising the colonial state form in such a way that is sensitive to the study of development practice in Papua New Guinea. Principally, the practice already mentioned of compartmentalising social scientific study into the separate domains of economic and political analysis is regarded as a major barrier to our understanding of development practice and hence, of the various forms of capitalist development. Relations between the state and peasant households are relations of production and in order to grasp the post-war ascendancy of state-regulated schemes of smallholder production, an appreciation of the limitations implicit in the capitalist state form is necessary.

In moving to specify the late-colonial state we are immediately confronted with a paradox: in the first instance, states appear to exist as separate entities and yet in the second instance, we speak of the capitalist state as an object in itself. The question which follows is predictable. To paraphrase John Holloway, how can we understand the state as a "unity of the separate", for example, as the capitalist state (colonial or otherwise) and as a "multiplicity of different states"?107

To distinguish between the state as a "unity in separation" and as a "multiplicity of different states", is not to imply a dualism between theory and history, or between the state as an object of

theory

and as something which actually

exists.

Rather, to borrow the words of Richard Johnson, it implies a distinction between

"historical categories and accounts at

different levels of analysis"

.108 Holloway's

aim

therefore, is "to dissolve the state as a

106 _{Cowen and Shenton, 1996, p.57.}

107 _{Holloway, 1994, p.24.}

category", rather than to rigidify its appearance of separateness. 109 This is in direct contrast to political sociology which, as Philip Abrams notes, "springs from the separation of the political - and more especially the state - from the social" . 1 10 Political sociology is constructed as an attempt to give an account of political action as distinct from economic or social action. That is, the observed 'fact' of a phenomenally discrete domain of political action is abstracted and reified as a concrete object which in a word, exists - i.e. the state, separate from the economy. For example, Nicos Mouzelis proposes as a 'post-Marxist' alternative to the Althusserian model of structural causalityJ 1 1 a 'mode of domination' separate, yet analogous to, the category of the mode of production, for analysing the state in developing social formations.1 12 However, the analogy, although suggestive, is a superficial one: the Althusserian assertion of a 'necessary correspondence' between the economic and the political simply gives way to the 'necessary non-correspondence' of a mode of domination (the political) defined in separation from a narrowly construed mode of production (the economy). Whether the relationship between the state (the mode of domination) and the economy (the mode of production) is specified in functional or non­ functional terms is irrelevant given that the former's external appearance is taken for granted before any discussion begins.

Traditionally, Marxist theories of the state have been based, "superficially at least", on a similar distinction.

In

the words of Abrams, "most varieties of Marxism assume that adequate political analysis must, as Marx put it, proceed on the basis of 'the actual relation between the state and civil society"'. Furthermore, even when writers, such as Nicos Poulantzas, "overtly reject this framework they do so only to substitute for the separation of the state and civil society a problematic formulated as 'the specific autonomy of the political and economic' within the capitalist mode of production".1J3

In

a manner not

109

Holloway, 1994, p.52.

1 10

_{Abrams, 1 988, p.59.}

1 1 1

_{Premised on a conception of the mode of production which, i n the words of A1thusser ( 1979,}

p.97), is "constituted by

a

certain type of complexity, the unity of

a

structured whole containing

levels or instances which are distinct and 'relatively autonomous' ... fixed in the last instance by

the level or instance of the economic", the model of structural causality, under the guise of a rigid

dualism between the mode of production and the social formation, sought to avoid a 'crude

econornism' , whilst maintaining a mechanical understanding of the 'base'

and

'superstructure'

at

the level of society.

1 12

_{see Mouzelis, 1 990, pp.73-79 and 97- 103.}

1 J3

Abrams, 1988, p.59; see Poulantzas, 1969.

dissimilar to political sociology, Poulantzas' ann was to theorise the state as an "autonomous and specific object of science". 1 14 The assumption was that insofar as Marx' s

Capital

was primarily concerned with elaborating categories specific to the 'economic level' , the task of Marxist political theory it followed, was to develop categories specific to the political - hegemony. As with political sociology, for Poulantzas, a "regional theory of the political" was made possible because of the "characteristic autonomy of the economic and political" in capitalism. I 15

In the context of development studies, the idea of a "regional theory of the political" was initially taken up and developed by John Saul and Harnza Alavi in contributions on the post-colonial state in Tanzania and Pakistan respectively. Echoing Poulantzas, Saul suggested that whilst "Marxist understanding of African economies has progressed ... political analysis has lagged behind". 1 16 Citing the work of Samir Amin, the point was to complement such categories as 'unequal exchange' with concepts specific to the state in developing social formations. For both Saul and Alavi the state in Tanzania and Pakistan was 'over-developed' . Although concerned with the post-colonial state, the genesis of its so-called 'over-developed' form during colonialism renders their observations relevant to the present study. Briefly, the "superstructure of the. state", accomplished through colonialism, was geared towards securing the interests of metropolitan capital. Its principal function therefore, was not to secure the interests of one class against another, but to "exercise domination over all indigenous classes in the colony". Hence, the corresponding superstructure is said to be "over-developed in relation to the structure" it directly presides over: the state apparatus assumes "a new and relatively autonomous existence, which is not paralleled in the classical bourgeois state". Underpinning this disproportionate 'superstructure' was the 'fact' that the state "directly appropriates a very large part of the economic surplus and deploys it in bureaucratically directed economic activity in the name of promoting economic development". 1 17

1 14

_{Poulantzas, 1973, p.29.}

I1S _{ibid.; see Holloway and Picciotto, 1978, p.4.}

1 1 6 Saul, 1 974, p.349. 1 17

_{Alavi, 1 972, p.6 1 .}

The empirical inadequacies of the category of the over-developed state have been adequately dealt with by Colin Leys. 1 18 However, the more important criticism relates to the recurrent theme of the so-called "exceptional" autonomy of the state in developing social formations. Leys' own attempt to theorise the state in Kenya via a misreading of Marx' s

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

was similarly flawed. According to Leys, bonapartism was characteristic of a form of state corresponding to a society in which the subordination to capital was incomplete. As a model it represented "a purely transitional ... phenomenon [which] may become in some circumstances a generic form of government at the capitalist periphery". 1 19 For Leys, "Marx' s analysis of bonapartism starts out from the essential fact that in this situation the leader is not the agent of any one class, but enjoys a measure of independence". 120 In turn, Leys attributed the same condition of existence to the Kenyatta regime. That is, the primary character of capitalist accumulation in Kenya, meant Kenyatta "must encourage the emerging bourgeoisie, he must speak for the peasantry, he must satisfy the armed forces and the large bureaucracy which serves as his chief power base" .121 It follows, that whilst the undeveloped character of capitalist accumulation gave the Kenyatta regime an 'exceptional autonomy' , its transitional content resided in the fact that as indigenous capital began to acquire and assert its dominance, this 'autonomy' necessarily diminished.

For Marx, bonapartism, as a form of state, was "not suspended in mid-air" and hence, is incapable of being elevated to the status of a generic concept. 122 As an historical product, it represented "the most numerous class of French society", namely "the smallholding peasant". I23 The contradiction of the Bonapartist state lay not in its 'transitional independence', but in defending peasant demands for individual property against landed interests, private ownership of the instruments of production by capital, was similarly defended. As an account of the balance of class forces at a particular conjuncture in French history, the principle to take from

The Eighteenth Brumaire

is not one of an autonomous

1 18 Leys,

1 976, pp.41 -43.

1 19

Leys, 1 975, p.21 l .

120 _ibid.

121

_Kamin,

_{1983, p.223.}

122 _{see Sayer and Corrigan, 1987, p.73.}

123

_Marx,

_{1 852, p. 1 23.}

sate resting on a stalemate of class interest, but rather one of the

limits

to the capitalist state form. 124

As a 'political form', the capitalist state "is a moment of the totality of capitalist social relations" which finds existence as a multiplicity of separate states:

The particularisation of the state, the abstraction of coercion from the immediate process of exploitation, was expressed in a contrasting movement: as the relation of exploitation was liberated from spatial bonds, the coercion which provided the necessary support for capitalist exploitation acquired a new territorial defmition.l25

It follows, that "no national state, rich or poor, can be understood in abstraction from its existence as a moment of the global capital relation" .126 It is thus invalid to distinguish between 'over-developed' and 'developed states' , between 'dependent' and 'non-dependent' states and between 'weak' and 'strong' states. As Bemstein has correctly pointed out, theories of class and state which flow from such categories are often based on the implicit assumption that capitalist development in developed social formations is unproblematic.l27

In

defming the state as a moment of a global relation which is expressed as a multiplicity

of nation states, three points need to be

made.

First, the relationship

between the state as a political form and as a particular national state, is in no way essentialist. This is because the latter is not a direct expression of the former (as with a 'capital-logic' approach which seeks to understand state formation as a functional form read-off from the logic of capital accumulation) and because the former has no existence independent of the latter (that is, as a mUltiplicity of national states). Second, to say that the state plays a key role in securing the reproduction of capital, is not to say that the state and capital must take predetermined forms. Rather, the

aim

is to break with economic determinism by shifting the point of analysis away from the state as a concrete object and hence, away from the problem of structure, to the contested ground between capital and labour - namely, surplus value production. Third, and related to the second, the tendency to view the state and capital as 124

see Sayer and Corrigan, 1 987, pp.7 1-73.

125

Holloway, 1994, p.3 l .

126

_ibid.

"teleologically fulfilling each others destinies"l28 is necessarily rejected on the grounds that it is impossible in logic to abstract such a relationship in a society subject to the contradiction between capital and labour - i.e. state practice is detennined as much by the existence of labour as it is by capital.

What then, does it mean to talk: of the state as a form of social relation and how in turn, is this structured within the methodology of historical materialism? The error of positivism, Marx outlines in the

Grundrisse,

is that it simply brings outward appearances into an external· relationship with one another: "the crudity and lack of comprehension lies precisely in that organically coherent factors are brought into a haphazard relation with one another, i.e. into a purely speculative connection". 129 In contrast, Marx presents an alternative mode of investigation which centres on the concept of form. That is, the contradiction between capital and labour appears not as what it is, as a direct relation of exploitation, but as a series of discrete, disconnected 'things' - the commodity, money, profit, rent, the state and the economy. According to Marx, the process of capitalist production "gives rise to ... formations, in which the vein of internal connections is increasingly lost, the production relations are rendered independent of one another, and the component values become ossified into forms independent of one another". 130 This is true of the purchase and sale of commodities, production and exchange, production and distribution and the circuits of capitall31: "in the developed system of exchange", Marx wrote, "individuals seem independent . . . free to collide with one another and to engage in exchange within this freedom; but they appear thus only for someone who abstracts from the

conditions,

the

conditions of existence

within which these individuals enter into contract".132 One of the tasks of

Capital

was to transcend the constraints of empiricism's linear causality, which sees only "empirical collisions" between externally related, static spheres. 133

128 _{Gibbon and Neocosmos, 1985, p. 1 87.}

129 _{Marx, 1 858, p.26.}

130 _{Marx, 1 858, p. 1 69; see also, 1 865, p.828}

_.

131

Marsden, 1992, p.369; and Marx, 1 858, pp. 1 69, 1 97, 99 and

403.

132

Marx, 1 858, p. l 64 (original italics).

133 Marx, 1 867, pp. 1 68-169.

As noted, political sociology begins with the so-called autonomy of the state as an established 'fact' and proceeds to construct its relation to society externally through such categories as authority, obligation, rights, domination and/or legitimisation. To use the words of Marx, "it is only the direct

form of manifestation

of relations that is reflected in

[people' s] brains and not their

inner connection".I34 In

contrast, materialist analysis begins with society and proceeds to uncover the substantive abstractions which constitute social phenomena in terms of their inner connections. Thus, instead of taking the existence of the state for granted and therefore, focusing on its functions, materialist analysis seeks to uncover what is particular about the social relations of capitalist society which gives rise to their reification as phenomenally distinct economic and political spheres.135 Notions of structure and 'laws of development' are replaced by categories which give expression to process and internal social relations. As noted, examples of social forms particular to capitalism include exchange value, wages, prices, profits, the state and the economy. They are forms through which the social relations of capitalist society are actually confronted and as a result, acquire an independent mode of existence.

To dissolve the categories of the state and the economy, is to understand them not as things, but as social manifestations of particular social relations. To use the words of Holloway, "just as in physics we have come to accept that, despite appearances, there are no absolute separations, that energy can be transformed into mass and into energy, so, in society too there are no absolute separations, no hard categories". 136 It follows that diverse phenomena such as the state and the economy do not exist as externally related entities, but are moments of the class relation through which they are constituted. As Sirnon Clarke explains: "it is the concept of class relations as being prior to the political, economic and ideological forms taken by those relations (even though class relations have no existence independently of those forms) that makes it possible for a Marxist analysis to conceptualise the complexity between diverse phenomena as forms of fundamental class relations". 137

134

cited in Sayer, 1 987, p.93 (original italics).

135

see Holloway and Picciotto, 1 978, p. 1 8; and 1 99 1 , p.1 12.

136

Holloway, 1994, p.26.

137

Clarke, 1978, p.42.

The 'separation' , or 'particularisation' of the state is a defining feature of capitalism. Importantly, it is not a question of the state

in capitalism,

but rather one of the social relations of capitalism which allow us to talk of a capitalist state. 138 As Anderson explains:

the 'superstructures' of kinship, religion, law or the state necessarily enter into the constitutive structure of the mode of production in pre-capitalist social formations. They intervene

directly

in the 'internal' nexus of surplus-value extraction, where in capitalist social formations, the first in history to separate the economy as a formally self-contained order, they provide by contrast its

'external' preconditions.139

E.P. Thompson makes the point more firmly with respect to the economy: "the very category of economics - the notion that it is possible to isolate economic from non­ economic social relations, that all human obligations can be dissolved except the cash­ nexus - was the product of a particular phase of capitalist evolution".I40 Just as capital exists by virtue of its separation from labour, so too political power exists by virtue of its separation from society in the form of the state. It is in this sense that Lenin, in his much misunderstood

The State and Revolution,

talks of the state as "a power standing

above

society and

'alienating itself more and more from it'"

. 141 Furthermore, as Colletti notes, Lenin's recourse to the need to 'smash the state' referred not to "the Ministry of the Interior in flames", but rather "the destruction of the diaphragm that separates the working class from power". 142

138

_{see Colletti, 1 972, pp. 1 05-106.}

1 39 Anderson, 1974, pp.403-404 (original italics).

140

Thompson, 1 965, pp.82-83.

141

Lenin, 1 9 1 7, p.388 (original italics).

142

Colletti, 1 972, p.220. That the state represents "the embodiment of alienation" necessarily

gives rise to the question of commodity fetishism: i.e. "the process whereby, while subjective

human or social labour is represented in the form of a quality intrinsic in

things,

these things

themselves, endowed with their own subjective, social qualities, appear 'pe

rso

nified

'

or

'animated', as if they were independent subjects" (ibid, p.78 [original italics]). It follows, that the

so-called relative autonomy of the state, its external form of appearance, is but one aspect of

commodity fetishism. To use the words of Holloway and Sol Picciotto (199 1 , p. 1 l4), "the ·state,

like other social forms in capitalism (rent, interest etc.) is seen as a 'thing' standing apart from

other 'things' , rather than as an historically determined form of the social relation of capital".

The author's add: "the reproduction of social relations in fetishised form, i.e. in a 'fantastic form'

which conceals their reality as relations of class domination, is an essential part of the

For Marx, "the abstraction of the state as such belongs only to modern times". 143 As a "modern product", it follows that the same abstraction is meaningless outside contemporary society: "equality and freedom", Marx wrote, "presuppose relations of production yet unrealised in the ancient world and the Middle Ages". I44 For example, feudalism, according to Marx, was directly political in that, "personal dependence characterises the social relations of material production as much as it does the other

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