re: economic strategy and the state

[mcclintockbrent%faculty%Carthage]

Doug Henwood asks in reply to one of my earlier posts: "if "we" (the Good 
Guys) have virtually no influence over national states, how can we have any 
over these megastates [EU, UN, etc.], whose terrain is highly technical and 
abstract to most people?"

I don't agree that "we" have virtually no influence over nation states (I'm 
not sure who the "Good Guys" are anyway). Progressive forces have curbed 
capitalist excesses through the state from the advent of capitalism. 
Undoubtedly, these restrictions and amendments have not been to the extent 
that most progressives would like. As for megastates -- I'd rather call them 
quasi-states or minor states -- I'm not ready to assign labor and 
environmental side agreements to NAFTA, weak as they may be, to being the 
outcome of the dictates or largess of corporate capital. Just maybe, labor and
environmental movements had some little role in securing those small gains. 
Ditto for the extension of democratic institutions (again in underdeveloped 
form) to the supranational level in the EU. The UN system for all the excesses
of the IMF and World Bank has done many things to enhance social provisioning 
at the global level.

The difference between Doug and myself probably hinges on paradigm differences
on the state. Rather than a Marxist perspective, I take an institutionalist 
approach that sees the state as a dichotomy: the state has both integrative 
and repressive functions. That is, the state both promotes the provisioning of
society through the supply of collective goods and uses its power to further 
the interests of one class over another in a struggle over the economic 
surplus. Simultaneously, the state is both welfare state and warfare state. So
while I'm not always or frequently enamoured of the state's actions, I'm not 
permanently pessimistic about its potential to do "good", ie progressive 
things. As for fledgling supranational states, I see them as quasi-states that
are an opportunity to be used by progressive forces rather than to be ignored.
In an evolutionary role, they are currently a thin of the wedge for 
progressive social movements at the global level (along with trans-border 
non-governmental social movements).
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Brent McClintock                    |                           | 
Economics                           |                           |
Carthage College                    |      THERE IS NO WEALTH   |
Kenosha, Wisconsin 53140            |           BUT LIFE        |
USA                                 |                           |
Phone: (414) 551-5852               |         John Ruskin       |
Fax:   (414) 551-6208               |                           |
Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED]      |                           |
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