The State Under Neo-liberalism
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Much has been written on the subject of the capitalist State in the era of neoliberalism. Two features of the “neo-liberal State” in particular have been highlighted. One relates to the change in the nature of the State, from being an entity apparently standing above society and intervening in its economic functioning in the interests of society as a whole, even at the expense of the unbridled interests of finance capital (such as for instance the State in the era of Keynesian demand management), to being an entity acting exclusively to promote the interests of finance capital.
This change in the nature of the capitalist State, which is sometimes mistakenly called the “retreat of the State”, is manifest in the shift that occurs from its being a spender, an investor and a producer, to its new role in carrying out “privatization” and “disinvestment” (all of which benefit finance capital) and undertaking State expenditure deflation (which accedes to a perennial demand of finance capital). The second obvious feature relates to the fact that since finance capital in the contemporary era is not exclusively tied to any particular national domain (and its imperial adjunct), but has an international character, to protect and promote it on the global plane where it operates, a surrogate global State necessarily has to come into being; and this role is performed by the major capitalist States acting in unison under the leadership of the most powerful State, the U.S., and enjoying the support of the less powerful nation-States whose own large capitalists and financiers are in favour of such an arrangement. The so-called “unipolar” world where all nation-States “adjust” to the leading role of the US is in fact the coming into being of a surrogate global State to protect the interests of international finance capital. I shall not expatiate on these features in the present paper, whose objective is to draw attention to an altogether different, a third, feature of the “neo-liberal State”. This concerns the change that occurs in the “texture” of the State, that is, in the nature of the bureaucracy, other State personnel, and the “organic intellectuals” at large, in the era of neo-liberalism. The implications of this change, I wish to argue, are quite far-reaching. But before doing so, let me make some general comments an aspect of capitalism which surprisingly has received little attention. Source: MacroScan More |
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The State Under Neo-liberalism
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