Many anthropologists interpret neoliberalism as a radical break from and dangerous rupture in post-war societies that featured Keynesian economic policies and welfare provision. The allure of a mythic welfare state has boosted John Maynard Keynes’s popularity to many who embrace certain facets of socialism. Many critical social scientists have embraced Keynesianism in ways that overlook how the US used Keynesian policies to reengineer and redeploy state power. Keynes’s liberal synthesis inspired managers in the US Treasury Department to understand depression-era problems (...) of unemployment and poverty in ways that were consonant with the expansion of corporate power. For understanding Keynesianism, as it actually existed during the Cold War, we must analyse how the US Treasury and State Departments used Keynesian principles to rebuild the social reproductive capacities necessary for capitalist accumulation both domestically and in Western Europe. I focus on how the architects of postwar capitalism used full employment policies, labour laws and welfare provision to renovate the nexus of political practices and institutional structures in ways that formed a benevolent and caring image of ‘the state’ and the myth of a class compromise. Through these reforms, governmental planners and administrators used the ‘state idea’ to reorganize capital accumulation as if the post-war economy would represent ordinary people’s best interests. In the process, these sophisticated practices of power became reified as the ‘welfare state’ and the ‘Keynesian compromise’ in ways that endow these institutions and policies with a character divorced from practices of power. The post-war state embodied a dialectic of repression and reform that combined criminalizing dissent with full employment policies and welfare provision. Taking these aspects of power into account, we can see post-war Keynesianism in ways that inspire a robust and far-reaching criticism of the contemporary predicament of economic uncertainty, political instability and environmental degradation. (shrink)

The ontological and analytical status of Marxian social theory has been a matter of fierce controversy since Marx’s death, both within and without Marxist circles. A particular source of contention has been over whether Marxism should be construed as an objective science of the capitalist mode of production or as an ethico-philosophical critique of bourgeois society. This is paralleled by the dispute over whether Marxism ought to be considered a humanism or a structuralism. This article addresses both sides of this (...) debate. The argument is that, rather than Marx’s own social thought being split into incompatible poles, giving rise to ‘two Marxisms’, it forms a coherent unity. Marx’s social theory is neither humanist philosophy, nor structural science, but is in fact realist science, which synthesizes these apparent antinomies, and thereby transcends both. (shrink)

The first three sections of this lecture address the need for better historical-materialist theorisations of capitalist competition, capitalist classes and capitalist states, and in particular the institutional dimensions of these – which is fundamental for understanding why and how capitalism has survived into the twenty-first century. The fourth section addresses historical materialism’s under-theorisation of the institutional dimensions of working-class formation, and how this figures in explaining why, despite the expectations of the founders of historical materialism, the working classes have not, (...) at least yet, become capitalism’s gravediggers. While recognising that a better historical materialism along these lines will not necessarily provide us with a gps route to a socialist world beyond capitalism, it does suggest a number of guidelines for socialist strategy, with which the lecture concludes. This includes the need for building new institutions capable of defining, mobilising and representing the working class broadly, as well as recognising that the types of parties that can transform working classes into leading agents of social transformation have yet to be invented. A strategic priority must be to start anew at creating the kinds of working-class political institutions which can rekindle the socialist imagination, and develop the socialist capacities to get there. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Highlights of Past Literature Current Work Future Work.

In liberal thought, democracy is guaranteed by the unity of community and government. The community of citizens elects its government according to political preferences. The government rules over the community with powers that are limited by unalienable human, civil, and political rights. These assumptions have characterized Classical Liberalism, Revisionist Liberalism, and contemporary Neo-Liberal theories. However, the assumed unity of community and government becomes problematic in Global Post-Fordism. Recent research on the globalization of the economy and society has underscored the increasing (...) inability of nation-states to exercise power over their communities, which, in turn, limits the ability of communities to express their will at the nation-state level. The current phase of capitalism is characterized by socio-economic relations that transcend the jurisdictions of nation-states and local spaces. By introducing features characteristic of Classical Liberalism, Revisionist Liberalism and Neo-liberalism, and the contribution of the theory of Reflexive Modernization, which represents a novel attempt to rethink democracy within the liberal tradition, the issue of the fracture of the unity of community and government can be addressed. The inability of governments to control economic and non-economic environments creates a crisis of representation that implies serious limits to liberal democracy. This situation is particularly important for the agricultural and food sector since its development and programs for its democratization have been historically based on the intervention of agencies of and control by the nation-state. (shrink)

Two contrasting theories-actor-network theory and nondecision making-are separately applied to the same case study, namely, technologies for automatically identifying road vehicles. By this process, the strengths and weaknesses of each approach are highlighted: The actor-network approach is useful for understanding local processes but lacks tools for easily illuminating patterns across countries; by contrast, the concept of nondecision making is useful for explaining the general lack of implementation of technology for automatic vehicle identification but not for explaining variations between developments in (...) different countries. This study highlights the importance of attempting to compare theories by using the same case study. (shrink)

In 2011, two Chinese municipalities, Chongqing and Shanghai, enacted a property tax on rich homeowners. However, the two municipal governments sharply diverged in their designs of the tax and the justifying frames used. Whereas Chongqing explicitly framed the tax as a redistributive measure targeting the economic elite, Shanghai framed it as an ad hoc technical intervention in the housing market that would antagonize no one. This article explains how the only two Chinese cities that introduced this unconventional tax ended up (...) enacting the tax in such different ways. In doing so, this article proposes a theoretical framework synthesizing two main pillars of Bourdieu’s state theory – a conceptualization of the state as a field of competition, and a careful consideration of the symbolic dimension of state power. The political competition in which the top leaders of the two municipalities were engaged drove them to enact the tax. The positions these leaders occupied in the field of competition shaped their specific strategies of accumulating competition-specific capital, getting their capital noted and recognized by other players in the field, and theatricalizing their capital-seeking acts as serving some universal interest. These dynamics gave rise to divergent styles of enacting the tax. (shrink)

Based on the fact that military establishments have historically played a major role in the transformation of societies, this paper argues that the Nigerian Armed Forces need to be credible and modernized in order to be able to fulfil their constitutional responsibilities. They can do this by providing the necessary support, in terms of professional expertise and administrative efficiency, for the successful implementation of Nigeria’s Vision 2020 and its strategic Seven-Point Agenda. By supporting the democratic institutions in the successful implementation (...) of Vision 2020, the armed forces would have quickened the transformation of Nigeria intoan industrialized democratic nation that could compete favourably with its counterparts in the Americas, Europe and Asia. (shrink)

The emergence of the ever-growing anti-corruption movement from the early ’90s onwards has proven itself to be of considerable importance in how we understand and explain global inequalities as well as in redefining corruption as a lack of transparency. This paper examines the timing and content of this international anti-corruption movement. It argues that, following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the deepening of an increasingly transnational capitalism, anti-corruption discourse has arisen as a new version of the ‘white man’s (...) burden’, a justification for intervention into the domestic politics of less powerful states as well as an explanation for their relative poverty. Concurrently, the anti-corruption movement has functioned to push states into increasing their autonomy with respect to local interests and fractions of capital in order to become more subservient and hospitable to transnational capital as a whole. (shrink)

The capacity to provide satisfactory nursing care is being increasingly compromised by current trajectories of healthcare funding and governance. The purpose of this paper is to examine how well Marxist theories of the state and its relationship with capital can explain these trajectories in this period of ever‐increasing austerity. Following a brief history of the current crisis, it examines empirically the effects of the crisis, and of the current trajectory of capitalism in general, upon the funding and organization of the (...) UK and US healthcare systems. The deleterious effect of growing income inequalities to the health of the population is also addressed. Marx's writings on the state and its relation to the capitalist class were fragmentary and historically and geographically specific. From them, we can extract three theoretical variants: the instrumentalist theory of the state, where the state has no autonomy from capital; the abdication theory, whereby capital abstains from direct political power and relies on the state to serve its interests; and the class‐balance theory, whereby the struggle between two opposed classes allows the state to assert itself. Discussion of modern Marxist interpretations includes Poulantzas's abdication theory and Miliband's instrumentalist theory. It is concluded that, despite the pluralism of electoral democracies, the bourgeoisie do have an overweening influence upon the state. The bourgeoisie's ownership of the means of production provides the foundation for its influence because the state is obliged to rely on it to manage the supply of goods and services and the creation of wealth. That power is further reinforced by the infiltration of the bourgeoisie into the organs of state. The level of influence has accelerated rapidly over recent decades. One of the consequences of this has been that healthcare systems have become rich pickings for the evermore confident bourgeoisie. (shrink)

The present review essay discusses Peter Bratsis’s work Everyday Life and the State. It is argued that Bratsis produces a sound contribution to the on-going debate on state theory, which has its particular strengths in the innovative treatment of the public-private divide and an elaborate critique of fetishistic and ideological relations in the field of the political. In this, Bratsis builds on a broad range of structuralist, poststructuralist and dialectical positions. Deficiencies of his work are likewise to be found in (...) this bricolage of theoretical approaches: it is argued that conflicting epistemological and ontological fundamentals are not sufficiently taken into account, which consequently leads to reductionist and errant conclusions. This is especially evident in the confusion of ‘structuralist’ and ‘dialectical’ heuristics, which leads to an insufficiently materialist picture of the state in relation to ‘everyday life’. (shrink)

This article reconsiders contemporary conservatism’s “libertarian” claim to economic and political liberty and related claims. It re‐examines the relation of conservatism and its supposed “libertarianism” to the principle or ideal of liberty in society and economy, respectively. The paper argues and demonstrates that since its inception out of medieval traditionalism, conservatism has continued to consistently oppose the ideal and practice of liberty defining liberalism, and to that extent modern liberal‐democratic society as a reality or project premised on that ideal. The (...) argument and inference is that conservative “libertarianism” is effectively the antithesis to the ideal of liberty, couched in and rationalized as antagonism toward liberalism identified as its original and continual antagonist. (shrink)

The implications of Marxist state theories developed by Nicos Poulantzas and Ralph Miliband are useful for framing issues related to leftist strategy in twenty-first-century Venezuela. A relationship exists between each of the theories and three issues facing the Chavista movement: whether the bourgeoisie displays a sense of ‘class-consciousness’; the viability of tactical and strategic alliances between the left and groups linked to the capitalist structure; and whether socialism is to be achieved through stages, abrupt revolutionary changes, or ongoing state radicalisation (...) over a period of time. During Poulantzas’s lifetime, his concept of the state as a ‘strategic battlefield’ lent itself to the left’s promotion of ‘strategic alliances’ with parties to its right. The same concept is compatible with the ‘process of change’ in Venezuela, in which autonomous movements play a fundamental role in transforming the old state and the construction of new state structures. (shrink)

Malcolm Quinn’s book,Utilitarianism and the Art School in Nineteenth-Century Britain, is an historical study of the birth pangs of the state-funded art school that interrogates the politics of art’s reproduction within the context of Victorian reformism in which the art school was proposed as a mechanism to improve the standards of taste of manufacturers and factory workers, as well as of artists, designers, art teachers and others. The review locates the political and cultural transition from the academy to the art (...) school as the construction of a specifically bourgeois institution of art. (shrink)

Too often, advocates of domain-specific belief systems overlook the implications of their beliefs when choosing communications technologies and strategies, although they rarely overlook the importance of content. This essay argues that both environmentalism and sustainable agriculture, as systems of belief, favor certain strategies of generating and distributing information over others; that is, the essay argues that both the content and form of communications imply certain value preferences, hence both are subject to value-relevant choices. An additional purpose of the essay is (...) to set a context for this special edition of Agriculture and Human Values. Collectively the articles in this edition discuss a wide variety of issues, including but not limited to questions connected to information generation, access to information and information technologies, and the value systems conveyed by communications vehicles, including what is conveyed and different discussions of what should be conveyed. This essay looks at the importance of four sets of domain-specific value systems (environmentalism, sustainable agriculture, and the conventionalism counters to both of these) for two different sets of value systems connected to information generation, and further discusses each of these value sets in connection to choosing asymmetrical or symmetrical communications. It is hoped that this discussion of the flow of information, from generation to distribution, will provide a context for reading the edition as a whole. (shrink)

The survival of neoliberal forms of governance after their apparent repudiation during the Global Financial Crisis is a problem that continues to generate significant scholarly controversy. One of the most influential accounts of the survival of neoliberalism in the crisis draws on Michel Foucault’s The Birth of Biopolitics to claim that states intervening to support financial markets during the crisis was simply the neoliberal system working as expected. Returning to Foucault’s original text, I argue this account constitutes a systematic misreading (...) because it treats Foucault as having developed an instrumentalist theory of the neoliberal state, a possibility Foucault explicitly rejected. I suggest that the reasons that led Foucault to reject an instrumentalist theory of the state remain just as relevant today, and accordingly argue for a return to Foucault’s methodological decision to treat neoliberalism not as a theory of state but as a discourse which constructs a novel bio-political governmentality. (shrink)

The analysis of the financialization of food and farming has tended to focus on issues such as the impact on the productive and input sectors of the food chain, including the role of asset management companies, private equity consortia and other financial institutions in acquiring and managing farmland. However, processes of financialization impact along the whole agri-food supply chain, including the retail and food service sectors. This paper analyses the take-over by a private equity company of Somerfield, one of the (...) UK’s leading supermarket chains, and the impact the subsequent restructuring had on the management and organization of the retailer’s operations. In doing so, the paper not only extends the analysis of the effects of financialization on the food system, but also raises questions about the extent to which the supermarkets are the dominant actors in the establishment and management of agri-food supply chains. (shrink)

This study explains why the power of neoliberal business over the Mexican state increased during the last three decades of the twentieth century. It identifies three sources of increased neoliberal business power that occurred in conjunction with neoliberal reforms: (1) active mobilization by neoliberal business, (2) increased access to the state by neoliberal business, and (3) increased economic power of neoliberal business. It thereby contributes additional evidence that counters the view of Mexico’s state neoliberalizers as acting autonomously from business. It (...) further outlines two conditions that were instrumental in bringing about the increased power of neoliberal business: the onset of economic crisis in the 1970s, and a shift in foreign capital preferences in Mexico. The analysis demonstrates how Mexico’s sources and conditions of business power differed from those in advanced industrial societies, and outlines why the Mexican case may be a good starting point for devising a historically-contingent theory of business power in the semiperiphery. (shrink)

We examine crime that emerges from the global restructuring of agriculture and food systems by employing the case of the Australian “Ship of Death,” whereby nearly 58,000 sheep were stranded at sea for almost 3 months in 2003, violating the Western Australia Animal Welfare Act of 2002. This case demonstrates that the acceleration of transnational trade networks, in the context of agri-food globalization, victimizes animals and constitutes a crime. Herein, we examine this case in depth and show how economic restructuring, (...) driven by a “logic of capital” orientation, can exert pressure on the state causing it to fail to enforce its own regulations and in this way engage in criminal actions. (shrink)

Recent theories of the state often draw attention to states’ autonomy from social preferences. This paper suggests that the phenomenon of public ignorance is the primary mechanism responsible for state autonomy in democratic polities. Such theorists as Skocpol and Poulantzus, who do not take account of public ignorance, either underestimate the state's autonomy or stress causal mechanisms that are necessary but not sufficient conditions for its autonomy. Gram‐sci's concept of ideological hegemony is promising, even though it is far too insistent (...) on the penetration of ideology of any kind beyond relatively small numbers of political sophisticates. (shrink)

. References. Critical Review: Vol. 18, Democratic Competence, pp. 331-360.

The animal rights movement is a serious challenge to current agricultural practices. Agriculture's response, in part, depends on how successfully it can mobilize its natural constituency, farmers. However, theories of the mainstream press suggest that the mainstream press generally covers events, rarely reports or adopts the perspective of alternative movements, rarely includes mobilizing information, and suggests that routine social structures can, should, and will contain the movement. Hence, current theory indicates that the mainstream press does not act to mobilize the (...) general public. However, very little research has examined how specialized presses, such as the farm press, respond to movements. The study reported here was based on an analysis of 406 articles from ten farm magazines. The findings suggest that the farm press acted more as an advocacy press than does the mainstream press. Collectively, the farm press articles included as many positions pieces and stories explaining animal rights as an issue as they did event stories. The articles reported, and countered, the positions of the animal rights movement; suggested that routine social structures might not contain the animal rights movement; called for agriculture to mobilize; and included specific recommendations concerning how agriculture should mobilize. (shrink)

The paper examines the social contradictions generated by patterns of reproduction of accumulation of capital, social legitimation and by present agricultural policies fostered by the State. Through a scrutiny of the role of the State in capitalism it is argued that agricultural overproduction, the widening of the gap between small and large farms, the fiscal crisis of the State associated with agricultural programs and waste of resources are the outcomes of an attempt on the part of the State to promote (...) simultaneously accumulation and legitimation. The possibility of enhancing accumulation and maintaining legitimation clashes with the diverse socio-economic demands associated with the present agricultural production system and the general viability of the social structure as a whole. (shrink)