Poulantzas and the State
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Marxism, Sociology and Poulantzas’s Theory of the State Simon Clarke 1 In tr oduct ion Political developments in the last ten years have led to a very considerable re- newal of interest in Marx ist economic and political analysis, and to a conce rted attemp t to rein vigor ate Marxis t theory as a revoluti onary forc e. The focus of this movement is the attempt to develop a Marxist critique of Stalinist dogma- tism and of post-Sta linist revisionism. Its materia l conditions are the end of the long wave of post-war capitalist expansion and the reappearance of capitalist crisis, on the one hand, and the development of working class resistance to the domination of capital independently of the orthodox Communist Parties, on the other. This Marxist renaissance is taking place in conditions which make it ex- tremely vulnerable to absorption into the frame of reference of bourgeois ideol- ogy . Since 1930 Marxist theory has been positivel y or negativ ely dominated by the official Marxism of the orthodox Communist Parties (which I shall refer to as ‘dogmatism’). Those Marxists who were not prepared to subordinate themselves to dogmatism we re not able to cha lleng e it eithe r. The period of cold war and the absence of independent working class resistance to capital meant that there was no basis on which such a challeng e could be mounted. The independ ence of such Marxism was maintained by its diversion of attention from political and economi c concer ns. It wa s domina ted by the attempt to explain the ap- parent solidity of bourgeois domination by reference to specific superstructural features which varied from one country to another, thus constituting various na- tional schools of ‘Western Marxism’, which borrowed heavily from the dominant bourgeo is cultural theor ies in the v ariou s countries. The ‘Mar xist’ alternativ es to dogmatism systematically evaded the fundamental theoretical issues which would have been raised by any direct challenge to dogmatism ( Anderson, 1976). The development of capitalist crisis and the corresponding development of political alternatives to revisionism has created new conditions for Marxist the- ory. These dictate a return to the foundations of Marxism, to the generality of the capital relatio n, and a confr ontation with the dogma tist orthodox y . How- ever the novelty of these conditions also indicates a weakness of contemporary Marx ism. In the absen ce of a Marxist critiq ue of dogma tism, various forms of bourgeois ideology, and above all bourgeois sociology, have monopolised such 1
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