Lecture 21. Sociology 621. The State and Accumulation: functionality & contradiction November 30, 2005 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; (c) some inherent selection principle that works “behind the backs of actors” as in the Darwinian model?Lecture 21 The State & Accumulation 2 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 21 The State & Accumulation 3 1. 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. As O’Connor has argued in the fiscal crisis of the state, these two may contradict each other. (eg. social security vs budget deficits). 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) Critical theses: 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/ the deeper are these contradictions Î necessity for more autonomy from manipulation by particularistic interests of specific capitalists for the state to be functional, for it to provide for these steering requirements in an effective way. The state needs autonomy to be able to act functionally. [Cut: 3/ the creation of such autonomy Î dissolves purely “positive subordination” (i.e. the state as inherently functional/reproductive) since it is not longer strictly dictated by economic exchange (this is what “autonomy” means) Î the problem of negative subordination arises, of blocking potentially dysfunctional practices of the state.] 3/ FRANKENSTEIN EFFECT: The state needs the capacity to intervene pervasively but it also must abstain from using that capacity in ways that undermine accumulation. Consequence = Frankenstein effect = creating a monster you cannot control: to be able to autonomously intervene functionally it must have the capacity to do so destructively. This is the pivotal problem: p.52 “the problem of whether the political administrative [system]