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4 - STRUCTURAL DEPENDENCE OF THE STATE ON CAPITAL

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2010

By
Adam Przeworski  and
Michael Wallerstein
Edited by
David Austen-Smith ,
Jeffry A. Frieden ,
Miriam A. Golden ,
Karl Ove Moene  and
Adam Przeworski
Adam Przeworski
Affiliation:
Carroll and Milton Petrie Professor in the Department of Politics, New York University
David Austen-Smith
Affiliation:
Northwestern University, Illinois
Jeffry A. Frieden
Affiliation:
Harvard University, Massachusetts
Miriam A. Golden
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
Karl Ove Moene
Affiliation:
Universitetet i Oslo
Adam Przeworski
Affiliation:
New York University
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Summary

Capitalism is a system in which many scarce resources are owned privately, and decisions about allocating them are a private prerogative. Democracy is a system through which people as citizens may express preferences about allocating resources that they do not privately own. Hence the perennial question of political theory and of practical politics concerns the competence of these two systems with regard to each other. Is it possible for governments to control a capitalist economy? In particular, is it possible to steer the economy against the interests and preferences of those who control productive wealth?

The central and only distinctive claim of Marxist political theory is that under capitalism all governments must respect and protect the essential claims of those who own the productive wealth of society. Capitalists are endowed with public power, power which no formal institutions can overcome (Luxemburg 1970; Pashukanis 1951). People may have political rights, they may vote, and governments may pursue popular mandates. But the effective capacity of any government to attain whatever are its goals is circumscribed by the public power of capital. The nature of political forces that come into office does not alter these limits, it is claimed, for they are structural – a characteristic of the system, not of the occupants of governmental positions nor of the winners of elections.

During the past 20 years Marxists have developed several theories to explain why all governments in capitalist societies are bound to act in the interests of capitalists.

Type
Chapter
Information
Selected Works of Michael Wallerstein
The Political Economy of Inequality, Unions, and Social Democracy
 , pp. 58 - 85
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2008

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