Marx's Capital, Capitalism and Limits to the State: Theoretical Considerations

349 Pages·2022·3.716 MB·English

by  Raju J Das

Marx’s Capital, Capitalism and
Limits to the State
Marx’s Capital, Capitalism and Limits to the State examines the capitalist state in
the abstract, and as it exists in advanced capitalism and peripheral capitalism,
illustrating the ideas with evidence from the North and the South.
The volume unpacks the capitalist state’s functions in relation to commodity
relations, private property, and the crisis-ridden production of (surplus) value
as a part of the capital circuit (M-C-M′). It also examines state’s political and
geographical forms. It argues that no matter how autonomous it is, the state
cannot meet the pressing needs of the masses significantly and sustainably. This is
not because of so-called capitalist constraints but because the state is inherently
capitalist. Each chapter begins with Capital volume 1. And each chapter ends
with theoretical/practical implications of the ideas which taken together
counter existing state theory’s focus on state autonomy and reforms and point
to the necessity for the masses to establish a new transitional democratic state.
But the book goes ‘beyond’ Marx too, as it deploys the combined Marxism of
19th and 20th centuries.
Marx’s Capital, Capitalism and Limits will interest scholars researching
state-society/economy relations. It is suitable for university students as well
as established scholars in sociology, political science, heterodox economics,
human geography, and international development.
Raju J Das is Professor at York University, Toronto. His teaching and research
interests are in political economy, class theory, the capitalist state, and international
development. His recent books include Marxist Class Theory for a Skeptical World.
He is associated with a number of scholarly journals: Dialectical Anthropology;
Race, Class and Corporate Power; Critical Sociology; Human Geography; and Science
and Society: A Journal of Marxist Thought and Analysis.
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Craig Allan Medlen
Marx’s Capital, Capitalism and Limits to the State
Theoretical Considerations
Raju J Das
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/
Routledge-Frontiers-of-Political-Economy/book-series/SE0345
Marx’s Capital, Capitalism
and Limits to the State
Theoretical Considerations
Raju J Das
First published 2022
by Routledge
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© 2022 Raju J Das
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-0-815-34795-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-24881-3 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-351-16800-7 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781351168007
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This book is dedicated to all those workers and
small-scale producers of the world and their organic
intellectuals and political organizers, who fight against
the state’s defence of capitalism and who are passionate
to establish a transitional socialist state, a state that
will ensure that the majority – that is, the poor, the
common men and women, and children – meet
their economic needs in an ecological sustainable
and equitable manner and that they enjoy genuine
democratic rights.

Contents
List of figures x
Acknowledgements xi
1 Introduction 1
1 Waning and waxing of intellectual interest in the state 1
2 Existing state theorizing 3
3 The state, Capital volume 1, and the Lenin legacy 6
4 What is to be done theoretically? A need for
a dialectical approach 8
5 An overview of the argument 14
2 A critical review of Marxist state theory post Marx 22
1 The capitalist class agency perspective 22
2 The capitalist class structure perspective – the political moment 23
3 The capitalist class structure perspective – the economic
moment 24
4 The state actors agency perspective 28
5 The working-class agency perspective 34
6 Structural-strategic approach 36
7 Existing state theory: a critique of its intellectual context and
political implications 38
8 Conclusion 50
3 The state and class relations 57
1 The state and economic relations 58
2 From economic relations to class relations (and their gender and
spatial nature) 61
3 The state and class struggle 65
4 The state and the dominant class as two arms of the class
structure 69
5 Class society and state functions 71
viii Contents
6 Forms of class relation and forms of class-state: some historical
examples 73
7 Multiple state forms within given class forms 78
8 Summary, and theoretical and political implications 80
4 The state’s internal relation with capitalism
and capitalists 88
1 An internal relation between the state and the capitalist class 91
2 Limits on the state’s functioning 94
3 Summary, and theoretical and political implications 96
5 The state, capitalist commodity relations, and
labour power 99
1 Use-value, exchange value, and the state 99
2 Value relations and the state 105
3 The state, the ‘peculiar commodity’, and the labour circuit 107
4 The state and commodity fetishism 110
5 The state and counter-tendencies to equality and freedom
in commodity relations 111
6 Summary, and theoretical and political implications 116
6 The state and capitalist property relations 125
1 Forms of private property 125
2 State-mediated class differentiation as a basis for capitalist private
property 126
3 State-assisted extra-economic ‘production’ of capitalist private
property 128
4 Capitalism, theft, and anti-theft laws 132
5 Summary, and theoretical and political implications 133
7 The state, and capitalist production, exploitation,
accumulation, and crisis 139
1 The state and the ‘M-C(MP+. . .’ phase of the capital circuit (the
sphere of money and means of production) 141
2 The state and the ‘C ( . . . + LP)’ phase of capital circuit (the
sphere of labour power) 144
3 The state and the ‘P’ phase of capital circuit (the sphere of
commodity production) 145
4 The state and the ‘C′-M′’ phase of capital circuit (the sphere of
realization) 151
5 The state and capitalist accumulation 153
6 The state and tendencies/counter-tendencies towards the crisis of
accumulation 156
7 Summary, and theoretical and political implications 160
Appendix: Studying the state-crisis relation 167
Contents ix
8 The state and the agency of capitalists and state actors 173
1 Structure and agency 174
2 Capitalists’ agency 175
3 State actors’ agency 181
4 Limits to state function in support of capitalist interests 185
5 Summary, and theoretical and political implications 188
9 The state and the agency of the working class 195
1 State’s pro-worker interventions and the labour
circuit (C-M-C′-R-C) 195
2 Driving forces behind state action in favour of workers
(and small-scale producers) 198
3 Limits to state’s pro-worker interventions, and why? 203
4 Bringing it all together: broader theoretical reflections on the state
and forms of working-class struggle 215
5 Summary, and theoretical and political implications 225
10 State forms: Geographic and bureaucratic 239
1 Geographical forms of the state and capitalist accumulation 240
2 Bureaucratic state form and political domination by the state 247
3 Summary, and theoretical and political implications 251
11 Capitalism, imperialism, and the state in the global
periphery 256
1 Disarticulated development of productive forces in the
periphery 257
2 Peripheral social formation dominated by ‘backward’
capitalism 259
3 Imperialism retarding development of productive forces in the
periphery 263
4 Class basis of the peripheral state, and peripheral state functions
and form 267
5 The state, exploited classes, and class struggle from below in the
periphery 276
6 Coercive nature of the peripheral state’s democratic form 281
7 Class contradictions of development and threat to peripheral state’s
legitimacy 286
8 Summary, and theoretical and political implications 290
Bibliography 300
Index 317