Russell Haggar

Site Owner

Ideologies and the State

 

A State comprises several political institutions [such as the government, the civil service, parliament, the judiciary, the police and the military] which exercise legal sovereignty over the citizens of a given territory in the sense that the laws of the state take precedence over the rules of all other groups and institutions and are binding on all citizens of the state. Citizens who do not comply with these laws risk punishment via the state's legal institutions. States will seek to secure compliance with their rules via the consent of the citizens but may also use coercion or the threat of coercion to ensure compliance with their rules.

 

Andrew Heywood has defined an ideology as “ a more or less coherent set of ideas that provides the basis for organized political action, whether this is intended to preserve, modify or overthrow the existing system of power. All ideologies therefore offer [a] an account of the existing order usually in the form of a world view; [b] advance a model of a desired future, a vision of the good society and [c] explain how political change can and should be brought about…how to get from [a] to [b]. In this essay I shall consider the nature of the state as analysed in the ideologies of Marxism, Evolutionary Socialism, Liberalism and Conservatism.

 

 

Marx’s theory of the ruling class states that, basically, the Bourgeoisie are an economically dominant class in that their ownership of the means of production in capitalist society gives them power over decisions affecting production, investment and employment, but they are also a ruling class in that they indirectly exercise considerable control over the capitalist state which may be seen as an interlocking set of political institutions including, in the case of the UK., the PM. and Cabinet, Parliament, the Monarchy, the Judiciary, the Civil Service, the Police and Military, Local Government, Nationalised Industries, (if any) and the BBC.

 

Many would accept Marx’s theory for the 19th Century, when politics was dominated by the aristocracy and adult suffrage was limited and when trade unions were weak and the Labour Party was non-existent, thus restricting the political influence of the working class. However, it has been claimed that Marx’s theory had lost much of its relevance by the middle to late 20th Century in conditions of universal suffrage and given the growing strength of trade unions and of the Labour Party. Now it was argued that the managerial revolution or the divorce of ownership from control had weakened the economic power of the capitalist class and that the distribution of political power could be more accurately described by the theory of Democratic Pluralism to be discussed later in the context of other ideologies

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Yet by the late 1960s, Marxist ideas experienced something of a revival and writers such as Ralph Miliband aimed to rehabilitate the Marxist theory of the ruling class. According to Miliband, capitalism had not undergone very significant changes since the 19th Century and theories of post-capitalism and democratic pluralism were themselves not accurate. Miliband recognised that the Bourgeoisie or the capitalist class did not have total control over the State but argued that its control was much greater than the influence of any other social grouping or organisation such as the trade unions or the Labour Party.

 

According to Miliband, the State was run by a series of interconnected state elites, (the political elite, the civil service elite, the judicial elite and the military elite), but these elites were , in turn, extremely likely to be influenced by the Bourgeoisie and to make policy decisions accordingly. The Bourgeoisie according to Miliband remained a ruling class. It exercised its influence through the following mechanisms:

1. because some senior politicians were also senior business persons and might therefore take decisions in the interests of business. However, Miliband recognised that this applied only to a minority of those in state elite positions.
2. because other members of state elites were drawn disproportionately from the upper and upper middle classes and may well have been educated at private schools and Oxbridge universities and this was assumed to bring a pro-capitalist bias to their decisions. Also, although some people were upwardly mobile from the working class into elite positions, this would be possible only if they were prepared to jettison any radical views if they ever had any.
3. pro-capitalist Conservative parties are especially well funded and this increases their chances of winning General Elections.
4. capitalist socialisation processes operates via family, school and media to reduce the likelihood of criticism of the capitalist status quo.

The power of the capitalist class can then be demonstrated by the existence of great inequalities of income and wealth. Here, it is argued that such inequalities continue to exist only because the capitalist class has the power to maintain them. “Power”, it is said, “is visible in its consequences”.

 

While also writing from a Marxist stance, Nicos Poulantzas in the 1970s was rather critical of Miliband’s approach. According to Poulantzas, the capitalist state had some relative autonomy. That is, it had some flexibility to take decisions on its own behalf that some sections of the capitalist class (which according to Poulantzas, was itself divided into different fractions) would not wish to accept. Such relative autonomy was necessary if the State was to resolve conflicts within the capitalist class and to grant concessions to the working class which might sometimes be necessary to defuse protest but which the capitalist class would not readily accept. However, Poulantzas believes that there are limits to the State’s autonomy in that it can only grant concessions which still maintain the structure of capitalism. Its autonomy is only relative. The other key difference between Miliband and Poulantzas is that whereas Miliband stressed the importance of social background of those in elite positions as factors influencing decisions, Poulantzas considered this largely irrelevant and claimed that decisions are much more influenced by the need of the state elites to operate within a basically capitalist structure such that, for example, taxes cannot be raised for fear of adverse electoral consequences or of sparking off an economic crisis caused by a flight of capital abroad. It is in this sense that Poulantzas is described as a structuralist Marxist.

 

In the ideologies of Evolutionary Socialism, Liberalism and Conservatism the state is analysed broadly in accordance with the theory of democratic pluralism although there are also significant differences in the analysis of the state as among and within theses three ideologies.

 

In the theory of democratic pluralism, it is argued that power is widely distributed among several political parties, many pressure groups and among citizens who have votes in regular general elections. Within this system, the State is seen as a neutral arbiter, not systematically favouring one particular interest (e.g. the capitalist class) at the expense of all other interests as in the Marxist theory of the state. There are important studies by R. Dahl, C. Hewitt and W.Grant and D.Marsh   which give some support to the Pluralist theory but it has also attracted several criticisms.

• It is argued that members of pressure groups and political parties actually have little control over the leaders so that it would be more accurate to describe the system as one of elite pluralism rather than democratic pluralism but defenders of elite pluralism claim that at least the different elites represent members of their respective organisations so that this is consistent with a form of democracy. However, there are other criticisms both of the theory of democratic pluralism and of elite pluralism.
• It is argued that they work with a narrow one-dimensional concept of power rather than the broader 2 and 3 dimensional concepts; (you would need information on S. Lukes’ analysis of power to discuss this point further).
• It is argued that pressure groups other than the trade unions and political parties tend to be dominated by the middle classes so that the working class ispoorly represented; the poor and disadvantaged remain marginalised by the political process.
• The uneven distribution of wealth and income suggests also that power is unevenly distributed; the pluralist theory might be seen as little more than an ideology designed to give an impression of democracy at work whereas in practice, little real democracy exists.

 

 

• Evolutionary socialists have accepted liberal arguments in favour of liberal democracy. They believe that competing political parties, regular fair elections, mass media free from state control, parliamentary control over the executive , the independence of the judiciary , the existence of autonomous pressure groups and citizens’ civil liberties are all essential for a fair effective democratic political system.

 

 

• Evolutionary socialists do not seek the abolition of capitalism and private property and social democrats , if not democratic socialists, have increasingly argued from the 1950s onwards that the extent of public ownership should be limited because of its bureaucratic inflexibility and inefficiency and because the dynamic capitalist economy, regulated and controlled by government in accordance with the public interest can result in the ending of poverty, reduced inequality and rising living standards for all.

 

• Since capitalism is to continue so too will the social class system but evolutionary socialists aim to redistribute income and wealth from rich to poor by means of progressive taxation and redistributive social security benefits although they will also allow some economic inequality to persist as a means of maintaining the economic incentives assumed to be necessary to secure fast economic growth.

 

• Evolutionary socialists also support collective measures, [for example Keynesian methods of aggregate demand management] to manage the overall economy and they wish to raise taxation revenues to expand the welfare state in order to deal with issues of poverty, unemployment, homelessness, ill-health . Further extended educational provision will help to promote equality of opportunity even though some economic inequality will remain. Reduced economic inequality will also contribute to increased individual liberty.

 

• In sum evolutionary socialists wish to humanise capitalism rather than to abolish it and to do so while retaining the central features of liberal democracy. The state will play a very significant role in the humanisation of capitalism: Keynesian methods may be used in an attempt to secure full employment; major industries may be taken into public ownership or at least heavily regulated by the state and expanded welfare services will be provided financed partly by progressive taxation. However there are disputes within evolutionary socialism between democratic socialists and social democrats as to the desirable relative sizes of the private and public sectors respectively.

 

 

 

 

There have been important divisions among conservatives as to the desirable extent and direction of state activity.  Some Conservatives from Disraeli onwards have argued that laissez faire capitalism left to its own devices would generate excessive economic inequalities which in Disraeli’s terms would divide the UK into “Two Nations” of rich and poor and that it was therefore desirable that the scope of government activity should be extended to encompass legislation to improve working conditions, housing and public health so as to create a more harmonious “One Nation” society.

 

By the mid C20th in the aftermath of the Labour general election victory of 1945 so-called Right Progressive Conservative party politicians such as Butler, Mccleod, Macmillan and Hogg harked back to the Disraeli tradition of One Nation in their pragmatic acceptance of the expansion of state activity ushered in via by the 1945-51 Labour government programmes involving selective nationalisation, expansion of the welfare state, Keynesian economic policies and tripartite decision making.

 

However, it could be noted that acceptance of this greater role for the state was partly an electoral necessity and that it in no way challenged the existence of the capitalist system based on private property ownership and even though it did involve some reduction in economic inequality, social class differences in income , wealth, power and opportunity remained substantial.

 

Other some conservatives have accepted liberal-based beliefs in laissez faire and the market mechanism as well as a strong belief in the inevitability and desirability of economic inequality and the sanctity of private property.  This set of beliefs combined with criticisms of excessively wasteful state bureaucracy and the evils of socialism have encouraged them to support limited government.

 

Insofar as Mrs Thatcher and her supporters have accepted this set of beliefs they have been described as neo-liberals rather than conservatives. However it has been argued also that Mrs Thatcher’s version of New Right ideology has involved a combination of neo-liberal and neo-Conservative ideology in that as well as accepting the importance of the market mechanism she and her supporters have believed that a strong state would be necessary to re-establish law and order, to maintain law and order in the face of significant industrial disputes such as the miners’ strike of 1984 -85, increase expenditure on defence in order to counter the perceived USSR threat and strengthen the role of central government in the provision of state education which was believed to be failing to meet the needs of the capitalist economy. Consequently Andrew Gamble has argued, very importantly that Mrs Thatcher’s beliefs may be summarised as involving a belief in the free economy and the strong state.