Lecture 17. Sociology 621. The State and Accumulation: functionality & contradiction November 2, 2009 I. THE FUNCTIONALIST LOGIC OF THE THEORY OF THE STATE 1 Negative Selection & Functionality In the previous lecture on the state we asked “what is capitalist about the capitalist state”? The idea was to identify institutional properties of the state that stamped it with a “distinctive class character”. What do we mean by a “distinctive class character”? This means that the form of the state generates specific effects which serve the interests of specific classes. This is a complex claim. It involves three linked propositions and a conclusion: (1) the effects of state action tend to serve the interests of the capitalist class (2) the form of the state helps to explain the effects of the state. (3) the specific way that form generates effects is through negative selection: the form of the state imposes limits of possibility on what happens (negative exclusions). (4) Therefore, the class content of effects is generated by the class character of these exclusions: disruptive, dysfunctional, anticapitalist outcomes are excluded by the form of the state.. This way of elaborating the concept of the capitalist state tends to move towards what can be called a functionalist account of the state: the state takes the form that it does because this is necessary in order for the state to fulfill certain functions; the class character of the state is derived from the class content of these functions = reproducing capitalism. There is a weak and a strong form of the argument: ! Capitalist form leads to exclusions with a class content ÷ obstacles to policies which are dysfunctional. No implication that policies are functionally optimal. ! Strong functionalist claim = among the nonexcluded possibilities, the optimal one for capitalism is selected. 2 Key problem for functionalist explanation = Feedback process The central question here = what mechanisms actually regulate the “feedback loop” in this functional explanation? Is this: (a) conscious manipulation by capitalists; (b) class struggle -- victories and defeats of classes;Lecture 17. The State & Accumulation 2(c) some inherent selection principle that works “behind the backs of actors” as in the Darwinian model? I think that the explanation for the functionality of the state must combine three elements: 1) an account of political class struggle, 2) an account of institutional learning, and 3) an account of systemic pressures which make certain solutions stable and others precarious: 1) struggle: at certain historical moments the institutional arrangements are objects of struggle Î creating class-filters and system-reproducing arrangements is what the struggles are about; 2) learning: mistakes are made, often no one knows what will work. Therefore there needs to be a process of trial and error and institution reconstruction in light of information about real effects: this is a crucial role for policy experts, think tanks, political feedback. 3) system-reproducing tendencies: what works and what does not work, however, is affected systematically by the nature of capitalism Î some institutional solutions will be vulnerable because they precipitate disinvestment or fail to smooth market problems Î pressures for change. II. PROBLEMATIC FUNCTIONALITY Bourgeois Political Utopia. The fantasy of capitalists is that institutions be designed in such a way that they effectively reproduce capitalism without any necessity for political intervention by capitalists. That would be a bourgeois utopia: the institutions automatically and perfectly reproduce the conditions for accumulation. Problems: There are many problems with this utopian vision. Here I want to emphasize one in particular, which I will refer to as the problem contested and contradictory functionality: that is, there are a variety of ways in which contradictions can deeply enter and disrupt the functional logic of the state. Types of contradictory functionality. Four types seem especially important: 1. Legitimation vs accumulation 2. Necessary autonomy contradicts subordination 3. Forms of organizational rationality contradict intervention requirements 4. International economy vs national statesLecture 17. The State & Accumulation 31. LEGITIMATION VS. ACCUMULATION = CONTRADICTIONS BETWEEN STATE FUNCTIONS Reproducing capitalism requires at least two kinds of state interventions: interventions which legitimate the system to the masses and interventions which establish favorable conditions for accumulation. James O’Connor argued in a very influential book in the early 1970s, The Fiscal Crisis of the State, that these two functions may contradict each other. (eg. social security vs budget deficits). The idea was basically this: • Capitalism imposes considerable risks and deprivations in the lives of ordinary people • The state provides a way of softening these risks and therefore reducing social conflict and political disruption • But once a benefit becomes established it is viewed as a right – as an entitlement – and thus it is difficult to reduce. • Spending thus has a ratchet-like quality of being sticky downwards – it is easier to expand entitlements than to reduce them. • This generates a potential contradiction between legitimation and accumulation There are two weaknesses in this argument: (1) Successful accumulation is itself a source of legitimation: a healthy capitalist economy legitimates both the state and capitalism even if people also have uncertainty and risk. (2) The ratchet like character of entitlements is not as strong as was thought. In the 1970s we thought that this contradiction was quite explosive: we did not anticipate the effectiveness of the Neoliberal ideological attack on the affirmative state and the important change in the legitimation pressures on the state. 2. AUTONOMY VS SUBORDINATION: CONTRADICTIONS WITHIN THE ACCUMULATION FUNCTION (Offe’s essay on the crisis of crisis management) Offe’s Argument (1) Thesis 1: logic of capitalism Î self-destructive tendencies (anarchy of market) Î functional necessity for flanking systems, especially state: the state must intervene to prevent capitalism from destroying itself economically. (2) Thesis 2: the deeper are these contradictions Î necessity for more autonomy from manipulation by particularistic interests of