There are a number of different theories about the Capitalist States.
The standard Libertarian argument seems to be that you just roll back, or get rid of, the State and all wealthy capitalists will renounce their privilege and let everyone else live in liberty and prosperity, untroubled by the inequalities of power and wealth that may arise.
The slightly more conventional, capitalist theory is that the State is needed to enforce property rights, enforce contracts, while providing a relatively neutral legal framework to solve disputes among the powerful, and defend against foreign states. Possibly the State should also stabilise things after massive market failure. Although there seem to be some who do not seem to believe the market can ever fail so, in their view, this is not needed. This is more or less the standard official neoliberal position; with the addenda that the State should be as small as possible. As suggested elsewhere in this blog, the actual neoliberal position seems to be that the State should defend the established corporate power and market structures against ‘democratic’ political change, or even natural change, because this is really important.
Other people see capitalism not as trade (trade goes on everywhere, even in communist states), but as a set of patterns of power relations built around particular organisations of extraction, production, distribution, and trade etc., which tend to favour the already wealthy (those with capital, or access to capital). Capitalism is not in any way, an inevitable ‘natural result’ of people engaging in exchange. Historically, capitalism has grown out of the violence of the slave trade, dispossession of people from their land, colonial depredation, forcing people to engage in trade. forcing people into wage labour, suppression of workers’ organisations, enforced occupational illness, environmental destruction and so on.
Capitalism tends to destroy self-sufficiency for most people, and throw them onto the labour market, where they are expected to obey a boss. It is not an inevitable model of liberty. Saying you can choose your boss, is bit like saying you can choose your master, or your State. This violence and destructiveness, generates a level of resistance by the population in general, and this resistance needs to be channeled into supporting the established systems of market and political power (perhaps through people like Trump).
If you have this view, then you will expect a capitalist state to slowly move towards plutocracy. In a plutocratic State, wealth buys politicians, laws, regulations, violence, the information which gets circulated, and so on, and hence (over time, as money can buy almost anything), the State becomes governed to benefit the ultra-wealthy. Corruption and ecological destruction become normalised. Wages stagnate. Economic crashes become regular affairs, and the established elite are bailed out from their mistakes. The Government subsidises the corporate sector, either directly or through military spending, etc. This all happens, because, in a capitalist world, that is clearly what the State is for. Ordinary people feel the State no longer listens to them or ignores them (and they are largely correct). This is more or less what we have today, after 40 years of ‘free market’ boosting.
This does not mean that all wealthy people share all interests in common. They may well fight over minor issues, but all sides largely aim to keep the State plutocratic, and to protect their wealth.
The set up aims to ensure that people think their best interests involve trying to go along with the established organisation, or that they can try to take advantage of this organisation for their own benefit.
The Capitalist State engages in planning so as to maintain the power of capital, as best it can.
If you were in favour of abolishing the State then you probably have to void all other sources of power, including wealth, as those people with wealth will get around to setting up a State over you, to defend and entrench themselves. If you were in favour of a minimal State then you probably also have to guard it from takeover by the wealth elite, or the religious elite, or techno elite, or the military elite etc….
It is hard to keep States relatively democratic, and no easier under capitalism, especially if the power of labour has been crushed, which is an aim of capitalism in general.
Tags: neoliberalism, the state
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