[p2p-research] end of the free market?

[Kevin Carson]

On 5/18/10, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
> In the book by Paul Hirst I'm reading, on Pre-capitalist modes of
> production, he is emphatic that the state is the 'sphere of representation
> of class society', but not 'a tool of the dominant class'. It is as well of
> course, but not exclusively, this is why the state can have a relative
> independence from the corporation, depending on the relative strenght of
> social forces,

Sounds thought-provoking.  There's a large body of excellent
contemporary Marxist literature on the various theories of the state
(instrumentalist, autonomist, structuralist).  G. William Domhoff did
an amazing lit review on it several years back, which I've misplaced.

My own inclination is to say that the state is by nature an instrument
of class rule, but to the extent that the range of class forces
controlling it is always shifting, it's also a contested arena for
class warfare.  Ruling classes are defined as ruling classes by their
success in gaining control of the state, because economic exploitation
requires the enforcement of artificial property rights.  In some cases
the apparatus of the state itself, or some portion of it, becomes the
ruling class, or the dominant "private" economic class shares power
with the state apparatus in excercising exploitative power.

-- 
Kevin Carson
Center for a Stateless Society http://c4ss.org
Mutualist Blog:  Free Market Anti-Capitalism
http://mutualist.blogspot.com
The Homebrew Industrial Revolution:  A Low-Overhead Manifesto
http://homebrewindustrialrevolution.wordpress.com
Organization Theory:  A Libertarian Perspective
http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/studies-in-anarchist-theory-of.html