Showing papers in "Theory and Society in 1979"

Theories of revolution reconsidered

Abstract: Just over a decade ago, Lawrence Stone capped an elegant essay on "Theories of Revolution" with the anticipation that social theory would increasingly enlighten historical research, and modern historiography help confirm or refute more daring theoretical conjectures.2 Since then, several fine works of historical and comparative analysis have been published on the origins and outcomes of revolutionary situations.3 As yet, however, no general theory featured in Stone's review has been employed in any capacity beyond decorative footnoting by noteworthy students of revolutionary history, past or present. At most, one or another general theory has served to provide catchy, convenient headings for topical partitions in historical narrative.4 Nor, from their side, have authors of general theories ventured to test their ideas against well-researched blocs of historical data. Instead, they have been content to relay odd bits of history an anecdotal "evidence" for the hypotheses at hand. And when political analysts have sought to explain how successful revolutionaries prevailed, they have preferred to winnow the writings of movement strategists rather than consult the social science model-builders.S

Theories of revolution and revolution without theory

Abstract: The above analysis identified four conditions as necessary and sufficient for revolution in general and the Mexican revolution in particular: a favorable world context, an administrative and coercive crisis of the state, widespread rural rebellion, and dissident elite movement(s) The first three interact to produce a revolutionary situation; the fourth, given the near-automatic existence of alternate contenders, emerges to effect political and social transformation after military superiority is proved Other conceptions of revolution - with their foci on expectations and deprivations, or dissensus and ideology, or political conflict, or change of “stage” and class struggle - were found wanting theoretically and to varying degrees unhelpful in making sense of the empirical realities of the Mexican case The historically grounded, world-system informed structural explanation better fits the data And theoretically, it integrates the two levels of description that analysts of revolution must comprehend: changes in social and political organization, and conscious human action It preserves the distinction between revolution and other less far-reaching socio-political phenomena And it suggests, sternly and surely, that in contemporary advanced societies the kind of conjuncture specified above cannot occur Past revolutions may inspire but cannot serve as models for our own future

Revolution in the revolution

Abstract: This examination of what I have, with apologies to Regis Debray, chosen to call “the revolution in the revolution” may help us to place the process of peasant rebellion in a new and hopefully more realistic perspective. It implies, above all, that the historical evolution of peasant radicalism is more a process of addition than of substitution. That is, the growth of a radical revolutionary elite espousing modern creeds such as nationalism and communism does not so much displace the older forms of rebellion or the values they embody, so much as it adds a new layer of leadership and doctrine at the revolutionary apex. The degree of interpenetration varies from place to place and over time, but we can expect to find, as we move toward the rank-and-file in the countryside, the expression of beliefs, values, and interests which distinguish the peasantry as an old and distinct, pre-capitalist class. Once again, the revolutionary amalgalm mimics the ritual amalgam which anthropologists have noted.

On the State of the State: Marxist Theories of the State After Leninism

Abstract: ion which they are both good at regardless of whether one is a humanist and the other a scientist! If socialists do not make explicit broad, universalistic socialist principles then there is no way of evaluating how political action is either overthrowing repressive, unjust social practices, or reproducing these pre-capitalist and bourgeois relations despite the overthrow of private property. What is the point of analyzing the structures of different modes of production if one cannot see whether the social practices of these various pre-capitalist modes of production are compatible or incompatible with nonexploitative social relations. How can we pretend to be scientific and not evaluate the moral legitimacy of slavery or piece work? The value free moral relativism of structural analyses of modes of production is not only bad science but also bad political practice. For without a conception of historically specific struggles over moral development, we remain blind to the progressive achievements which capitalist states have implemented. Or are we to only see the bourgeois state in negative terms and ignore the protests of reactionary religious, political and economic forces who are desperately trying to limit state intervention against discriminatory social practices based on puritan bigotry, racist and sexist notions of superiority, plus dozens of other non-universalistic notions of human beings? For if one denies that socialism is a moral development over many This content downloaded from 157.55.39.255 on Mon, 01 Aug 2016 06:00:59 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

On the state of the state

Abstract: ion which they are both good at regardless of whether one is a humanist and the other a scientist! If socialists do not make explicit broad, universalistic socialist principles then there is no way of evaluating how political action is either overthrowing repressive, unjust social practices, or reproducing these pre-capitalist and bourgeois relations despite the overthrow of private property. What is the point of analyzing the structures of different modes of production if one cannot see whether the social practices of these various pre-capitalist modes of production are compatible or incompatible with nonexploitative social relations. How can we pretend to be scientific and not evaluate the moral legitimacy of slavery or piece work? The value free moral relativism of structural analyses of modes of production is not only bad science but also bad political practice. For without a conception of historically specific struggles over moral development, we remain blind to the progressive achievements which capitalist states have implemented. Or are we to only see the bourgeois state in negative terms and ignore the protests of reactionary religious, political and economic forces who are desperately trying to limit state intervention against discriminatory social practices based on puritan bigotry, racist and sexist notions of superiority, plus dozens of other non-universalistic notions of human beings? For if one denies that socialism is a moral development over many This content downloaded from 157.55.39.255 on Mon, 01 Aug 2016 06:00:59 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

New productive forces and the contradictions of contemporary capitalism

Abstract: The analysis that we have put forward is necessarily incomplete without developing its implications for political practice. However, considerations of space prevent us from elaborating on this aspect of our argument here. It is also the case that our ideas on politics are less coherent and developed than the theoretical perspective that we have outlined. This seems inevitable, since political thinking must be a collective project; political programs written by isolated individuals always sound hollow and abstract.

Problems in the theory of state capitalism

Abstract: Our analysis has focused on the concept of state capitalism as applied by its various proponents to the Third World and advanced capitalist countries as well as the socialist countries. This concept was employed to explain the changes which occurred in the nature and role of the state in contemporary societies, particularly its intervention in and regulation over their economies. The proponents of the thesis of state capitalism for the Third World and advanced capitalist countries accurately describe the greater intervention of the state through nationalization measures and the introduction of state planning. Their interpretation of these processes as the emergence of state capitalism emanates from a conception of the state as external to capitalist production relations. They have failed to demonstrate that capitalism, in either the Third World or advanced countries, has taken a qualitatively new form; more specifically that (1) private capital has been subordinated to the state, and (2) that the operation of the market is controlled by national plans. Our critique has shown that the increasing intervention of the state, which albeit plays an important role in these societies, is explainable in terms of the logic of capitalism in its various manifestations, The state, therefore, has always been an intrinsic component of capitalist relations of production, and the concept of state capitalism, which attributes new properties to the character of capitalism, is untenable. Adherents of the state capitalist model for the socialist countries attempted to reveal that capitalist forces (embodied in the state bureaucracy) and relations had restored their dominance in these societies subsequent to anti-capitalist revolutions. However, we have shown the inadequacy of their argument by demonstrating that (1) capitalist relations of production within these societies, and that in fact some sectors (the completely planned sectors), have lost their commodity character; (2) that the state bureaucracy cannot correspond to a capitalist class because it neither can accumulate means of production nor purchase labor power for its own ends; and (3) that they neglect to see that societies in early forms of socialism, particularly within the context of a capitalist world market, retain certain capitalist elements and forms of inequality. Although we do not deny that capitalist relations of production may regain their dominance within these societies and that the state bureaucracy may correspond to a capitalist class, these have not yet been demonstrated. Consequently, the use of the concept of state capitalism to characterize these societies does not accurately reflect reality. We therefore maintain that state capitalism as a sociological concept is presently overused and lacks the theoretical rigor a concept requires if it is to be useful for social analysis. State capitalism, therefore, must be used as an analytical category and not merely as a loose descriptive device. Our critique of the state capitalism concept is not merely semantical, but is based on a fundamentally different conception of the character of the state in capitalism as well as in socialism. The adherents of state capitalism - in capitalist or socialist societies - must demonstrate that social reality indeed expresses new properties which necessitate the creation of a new concept.

A critique of the althusserian approach to class

Abstract: last decade has been the influence of the French School of marxism which formed in the early 1960s around Louis Althusser. Serious criticism of their ideas has mostly come from within marxism, and has naturally focussed on what appeared to be novel within that intellectual framework- their epistemological doctrine, their account of "the break" in the history of Marx's thought, their theory of ideology and the state. Criticism (at least in English) has mostly overlooked their position on an issue that many socialists would regard as rather more fundamental- the theory of class. Partly this omission has to do with the history of the school itself. Its positions were first worked out as philosophical doctrines; Althusser retrospectively remarked that "the class struggle does not figure in its own right in For Marx and Reading Capital, "f and the same is true of Lenin and Philosophy. Books within the Althusserian framework explicitly devoted to the theory of class did not appear until 1974 (Poulantzas' Classes in Contemporary Capitalism) and 1977 (Carchedi's On the Economic Identification of Social Classes). Yet there is a definite approach to class to be found even in the philosophical texts, which after all use the term, if they don't examine it, on every second page. It was crystallized in 1968 in a highly influential forty pages of Poulantzas' Political Power and Social Classes, and can be followed in a more explicit and elaborated (and in some respects modified) form, into the texts of the 1970s.

State and revolution

Abstract: Our brief examination of the conditions underlying the political crises of the Meiji Restoration and the Prussian Reform Movement has tended to reinforce by contrast our central arguments about the causes of revolutionary political crises in France, Russia, and China Bourbon France, Hohenzollern Prussia, Tokugawa Japan, Manchu China, and Romanov Russia - all became subject to military pressures from more economically developed nations abroad and all experienced in response societal political crises Yet only France, Russia, and China were plunged into the upheavals of social revolution, while Prussia and Japan, relatively speaking, adapted speedily and smoothly to international exigencies through reforms instituted from above by autocratic political authorities The different fates of these agrarian monarchical regimes faced with the challenges of adapting to the exigencies of international uneven development can be explained in large part by looking at the ways in which agrarian relations of production and landed dominant classes impinged upon state organizations - though it is also important to assess the severity of the pressures from abroad with which each regime had to cope

Capitalism, liberalism, and schooling

Abstract: Clearly, Schooling in Capitalist America is not without its limitations. It is charcterized by an ahistorical treatment of the functions of education, an economistic conception of social structure, an inadequate theory of reproduction and contradiction, and a seriously inaccurate account of educational politics. Yet despite its problems, Schooling is a very important and valuable work. Bowles and Gintis are particularly successful in developing an effective critique of the liberal political economy of education, and a conceptualization of a broad theory of the dynamics of educational change that confounds all previous accounts, whether liberal or revisionist. Schooling in Capitalist America is therefore a valuable, if flawed, starting point for a Marxist research program into the history and political economy of education. Its contributions to that research program are significant, and its difficulties instructive. While Schooling therefore is not all that one could wish for, it is a significant and provocative beginning. Moreover it is model of engaged and committed scholarship that provides some understanding of what is required for the collective control of the future.

The emergence of modern science and world system theory

Abstract: Viewing the modern world as a single system of interdependent economic and political units rather than as isolated societies poses new possibilities, not only for the analysis of these units themselves, but for social and cultural developments such as the origin and evolution of modern science. It is generally conceded that the growth of modern science had been facilitated by various social conditions. Yet efforts to identify these and to specify their effects have met with only limited success, inducing most historians of science to emphasize the internal intellectual unfolding of scientific thought, rather than the effects of external social factors.1 Recent work on the history of the European world-economy, however, provides new opportunities to refocus the analysis of the relations between social conditions and the rise of modern science.

Notes on Marxism and sociology in the USA

Abstract: Fifteen years ago it was fashionable to declare the American Marxist a rare species.1 Since the popularity of Marxism was considered a byproduct of economic decline, its endangered status was taken to be an ineluctable sign of the fundamental soundness of American capitalism. In retrospect this analysis seems lame at best, if only because Marxism has recently gained new strength, particularly in the universities. The evidence of this strength is all around us. For the first time, Marxian graduate programs have been instituted in several American universities in sociology as well as many of the other social sciences. Marxist scholarly journals have proliferated,2 and articles on Marxist themes occasionally make their way into mainstream journals.3 Books by Marxist writers have recently succeeded in winning several of the most prestigious awards of various professional associations. And a large number of American colleges and universities can claim to have Marxists on their faculties. It is revealing that this Marxist renaissance has occurred in the absence either of a major depression, or of any obvious qualitative changes in the American social structure.4

De-centered analysis

Abstract: The following text is limited to a study of two important theoretical structures: American ethnomethodology and European structuralism. The claim will be made that the relationship between the two is homologous. That is to say: even though they are functionally different theories, they possess a similar internal structure as well as a similar structural place in their respective theoretical organisms. Briefly stated, the homology is that both employ language as a primary theoretical resource with the result that both eventuate in a criticism of the theoretical phenomenon sociologists know best by the name

Mass culture and the modern world-system

Abstract: Pictorial prints1 were the first form of mass-produced images for popular markets. These mass-produced cultural goods first appeared and gained their distinctive identity in the Renaissance at the same time that elite art was becoming a distinct cultural form,2 thereby questioning much of the literature which treats mass culture as a child of the eighteenth century.3 By considering fine art as a product of the Renaissance and mass culture as a product of the industrial revolution, scholars have made it easy to argue that mass culture is a degraded derivative of elite culture.4 But if these two forms of culture emerged simultaneously, then students of mass culture will have to rethink the relationship between mass and elite culture.

Marx on the state: The events in France between 1848?1850

Abstract: Marx's essays on the Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte and The Class Struggles in France Between 1848-18501 represent an effort to apply theory to politics and history. I shall attempt to demonstrate that Marx's theoretical apparatus is actually irrelevant to the political interpretation of the events that he describes and that the Marxist theoretical scheme fails badly when and because it attempts to impose itself on the real facts of history. My method will be to explore the basic structure of ideas that underlies Marx's analysis in these two works, and I shall adhere closely to their theoretical schemes. Every theoretical notion that I claim to find in these works will be derived from the work itself, and my analysis will be tested by direct reference to relevant passages. In effect, I propose to excavate the theoretical "base" upon which the journalistic "superstructure" is erected.

De-centering linguistics: A comment on Lemert

Abstract: Lemert deals with trends that have each a philosophical heritage and academic context. I know something about the academic context of ethnomethodology, less about that of European structuralism; a little about the philosophical sources and foes of ethnomethodology, less about those of European structuralism. In consequence, I find myself somewhat in the position of commenting on a war from the vantage point of a specialist in ammunition.