Intelligitimate
20th March 2006, 16:27
I think everyone here knows what the Marxist theory of the State is. But just to clarify for some, I will quote Lenin's State and Revolution:
The state is a product and a manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms. The state arises where, when and insofar as class antagonism objectively cannot be reconciled. And, conversely, the existence of the state proves that the class antagonisms are irreconcilable.
Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich that is the democracy of capitalist society.
In his The Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Political Systems; Thomas Ferguson sets out to prove that "The American political system is not ... driven by votes. Public opinion has only a weak and inconstant influence on policy. The political system is largely investor-driven, and runs on enormous quantities of money"
While Ferguson isn't a Marxist, he has basically set out the case for the Marxist theory of the State (at least in how it applies to bourgeois democracy) better than anyone before him. I think any Marxist seriously interested in critiqueing bourgeois democracy in the US should pick up a copy of this book. It's a little out of date, as it was wrote during the Clinton administration, but Ferguson's analysis is spot on.
The state is a product and a manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms. The state arises where, when and insofar as class antagonism objectively cannot be reconciled. And, conversely, the existence of the state proves that the class antagonisms are irreconcilable.
Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich that is the democracy of capitalist society.
In his The Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Political Systems; Thomas Ferguson sets out to prove that "The American political system is not ... driven by votes. Public opinion has only a weak and inconstant influence on policy. The political system is largely investor-driven, and runs on enormous quantities of money"
While Ferguson isn't a Marxist, he has basically set out the case for the Marxist theory of the State (at least in how it applies to bourgeois democracy) better than anyone before him. I think any Marxist seriously interested in critiqueing bourgeois democracy in the US should pick up a copy of this book. It's a little out of date, as it was wrote during the Clinton administration, but Ferguson's analysis is spot on.