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Political power and social classes

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Political Power and Social Classes is the first of Nicos Poulantzas' theoretical books to be translated into English. It's reception in the U.S. bordered on the sensational. Poulantzas was deeply involved in developing a Marxist theory of the state, something that had previously existed only in rudimentary form but in which there was a great deal of interest.

Poulantazs' book was widely read, reviewed in numerous journals across a broad range of disciplines including sociology, political science, philosophy, cultural studies, education, and more. Those of us who had a good deal of trouble with Poulantzs' convoluted prose noted that reviewers tended to address the material we understood, and to ignore the material we found incomprehensible. In this first book, at least, it seems that Poulantzas lost a large part of his prospective audience and had dramatically diminished influence simply because he wrote in a language only the members of the French structural Marxist clique could pretend to understand.

I read Poloitical Power and Social Classes three times, and the second time through I took copious notes. The notes, however, were literal, flat, just paraphrases of the text, rather than insights or connections to other literature that sent one's mind racing productively in a variety of different directions. Poulantzas had been a student of Louis Althusser, and his prose style mimiced that of his over-valued master. In later work, Classes in Contemporary Capitalism and State, Power, Socialism, Poulantzas began to develop his own style, one that gradually became uniquely sophisticated and more or less accessible. One wonders if the Althusserian influence cost the strutctural Marxist Poulantzas more than he gained.

In any case, Poulantzas effectively disabused his readers of instrumentalism, the view that by replacing people in key positions one could accomplish progressive social change. His single-minded rejection of this view, as well as his nearly unreadable prose, set him at odds with other, more conventional Marxist thinkers, such as Ralph Miliband. Nevertheless, Poulantzas' perspective rightly carried the day. The state as a structured entity manifests class interests. In particular, it is unself-consciously constructed to promote the ongoing development of capitalism. For the most part, however, it accomplishes this without purposeful capital-friendly action on the part of participants. Instead, the state is organized to automatically promote some interests and to devalue others.

In this sense, Poulantzas' view is similar to Robert Alford's account in the 1975 book Health Care Politics. The state is structured to serve some interests very well, but others only poorly. Poulantzas's theoretical work concerning the nature of the state, however, was much more fully developed than Alford's explanation in his empirical piece.

While Poulantzas was rightly hailed for his orginiality, it also seems true that much of what was attributed to Poulantzas as new and different was included in Marx's own writings. In the preface to the first edition of Capital, for example, Marx notes that he is interested in individuals only insofar as they are peronifications of economic categories. Certainly a structural Marxist statement --human beings as props or supports of social structures.

Poulantzas was fond of repeating the idea that the state is fraught with cracks, fissures and schisms, in recognition of the fact that the capitalist class is not monolithic, is not the only class, and that the less organziationally favored classes, too, are inscribed in the structure of the state. Class stuggle is a reality in the capitalist state, even if the capitalist class has a decided advantage, with the stability and cohesiveness of the social system dependent on the survival of capitalism.

Poulantzas died when he was only 43. He is much less widely read and less influential today than when his books were first published in English. One wonders, however, if his development as a Marxist theorist of the state might have led to genuinely brilliant and useful work had he decided to stay with us longer, moving further away from the perniciously over-rated Althusserian influence.