Capitalism State Formation And Marxist Theory

How valid is the Marxian theory of imperialism? This book traces the historical development of the theory of imperialism, the internationalisation of capital and theories of capitalist nation-state formation.

This book brings together some of the more prominent recent analyses within the Marxian tradition that bear on the topics of class formation and social conflict in contemporary capitalism. After examining debates over historical agency, class structure, and electoral dynamics, it explores the provocative arguments of analytical Marxists, Claus Offe, Jürgen Habermas, and Immanuel Wallerstein. In light of these discussions, the author concludes that even if the variety of forces contemporary capitalism structurally generates do not promote the formation of a revolutionary "proletariat," class relations continue to be important for analyzing the historical trajectory of, and challenges to, capitalism—although not in the way that Marx imagined.

Critical Theories of the State is a clear and accessible survey of radical perspectives on the modern state. By focusing on Marxist theory and its variations, particularly as applied to advanced industrial societies and contemporary welfare states, Clyde W. Barrow provides a more extensive and thorough treatment than is available in any other work. Barrow divides the methodological assumptions and key hypotheses of Marxist, Neo-Marxist, and Post-Marxist theories into five distinct approaches: instrumentalist, structuralist, derivationist, systems-analytic, and organizational realist. He categorizes the many theorists discussed in the book, including such thinkers as Elmer Altvater, G. William Domhoff, Fred Block, Claus Offe, and Theda Skocpol according to their concepts of the state’s relationship to capital and their methodological approach to the state. Based on this survey, Barrow elaborates a compelling typology of radical state theories that identifies with remarkable clarity crucial points of overlap and divergence among the various theories. Scholars conducting research within the rubric of state theory, political development, and policy history will find Critical Theories of the State an immensely valuable review of the literature. Moreover, Barrow’s work will make an excellent textbook for undergraduate and graduate courses in political science and sociology, and can also be used by those teaching theory courses in international relations, history, and political economy.

This volume is concerned with the re-evaluation and criticism of Capital itself. It is in three parts, each covering a specific area of Marxist theory. The first part contains an investigation into Marx’s theory of value and considers the types of questions and modes of analysis to which this theory leads. In the second part the nature and implications of necessary economic ‘laws of tendency’ in the capitalist mode of production are covered. Finally there is an analysis of the role of class structure and economic agents in Marxist theory.

The spectacular growth in the 1970s and 1980s of the Marxist literature on politics and the state in capitalist society was hailed at the time as cumulative proof of Marxism's success in producing an effective theory of the political superstructure. More generally, it was seen as confirmation of the health and vigor of Marxist theory. Axel van den Berg questions both of these claims. Through comprehensive analysis of Marxist thought on bourgeois politics and the state, from that produced by Marx himself on, van den Berg radically challenges the viability of a distinctly Marxist theory of the state and of recent Marxist theorizing in general. In an exhaustive review of the literature, van den Berg shows that neo-Marxist theories are, for the most part, not empirically testable. To the extent that it is possible to draw any empirical implications from these theories at all, such implications are virtually indistinguishable from those of "bourgeois" theories. Van den Berg proceeds to lay bare the contradiction at the heart of Marxist theory in general: it presupposes the viability and desirability of some ideal socialist society yet its "anti-utopian" insistence that all criticisms of capitalism must rest on foundations immanent in capitalism itself prohibits any open discussion of such a utopia. Now available in paperback, this is a fundamental work for political and social theorists. "This work is brilliant in its polemical courage, its originality, and its detailed and revealing examination of texts. Van den Berg demonstrates that postwar Marxist political theory and sociology is not only vague and contradictory but that it actually makes critical concessions to the bourgeois thought' it claims to surpass. Appearing in the midst of afar-reaching reconsideration of the Marxism project in Europe, this volume crystallizes these issues for North American social science..."--Jeffrey Alexander, University of California, Los Angeles. "Van den Berg has made a major contribution to the long overdue relegation of Marxism to the museum of nineteenth-century ideological antiquities."--Dennis Wrong, Contemporary Sociology. Axel van den Berg is a Dutch-Canadian professor of sociology at McGill University in Montreal. His most recent work is The Social Sciences and Rationality.

Presents key materials refuting the anti-Marxist theory, and the author looks at what happened in Russia since the demise of the old USSR, showing that it cannot be explained as simply a transition from 'state capitalism' to normal capitalism.