Accumulation Strategies, State Forms and Hegemonic Projects

Abstract

Despite the burgeoning literature on the state in capitalist societies, we are still ill-equipped to deal with some fundamental theoretical problems. The search for solutions has often led Marxists quite properly to draw on non-Marxist concepts and approaches but this sometimes involves the risk of dissolving a distinctively Marxist analysis into a broadly pluralistic, eclectic account of the state.1 Among the more problematic issues in the field of state theory are the alleged ‘relative autonomy’ of the state, the sources of the class unity of state power, the periodisation of the state, its social bases, the precise nature of hegemony and its articulation with coercion, and the role of the nation-state in the changing world system. No doubt a much longer list could be compiled. But these issues alone are more than enough to occupy us in the present paper. I approach them through the more general topic of form analysis and its implications for the economic and political spheres of capitalist society. In particular I will argue that the value form and state form are indeterminate and must be complemented by strategies that impart some substantive coherence to what would otherwise remain formal unities. It is in this context that I will elaborate the concepts of ‘accumulation strategy’ and ‘hegemonic project’.2 Let us begin with the fundamental concept of any serious Marxist economic analysis by considering the implications of the value form.KeywordsState FormAccumulation StrategyState ApparatusCapitalist SocietyCapital RelationThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.