Abstract
Abstract This article presents the inaugural memorial lecture at the Nicos Poulantzas Institute in Athens. It examines and extends the work of the eponymous Greek legal and political theorist, political economist, and communist intellectual, Nicos Poulantzas, who radically transformed Marxist state theory, made major contributions to the critique of political economy for the era of Atlantic Fordism and post-war American imperialism, and called for a judicious balance between representative and direct democracy to secure a democratic transition to democratic socialism. It first offers some general reflections on the originality, legacy and actuality of Poulantzas's work in these respects and then reconstructs his later views on the critique of political economy before his death in 1979. Noting his neglect of the environment and issues of political ecology, which was typical of the French and Greek left in the 1970s and also rooted in more general features of Marxist theorizing on nature and the environment, the article elaborates a Poulantzasian view of political ecology based on key arguments from his work. The article concludes by reasserting the validity of his vision of democratic socialism, indicating that it would have become a critique of political ecology, and suggests that he would have approached this in the same spirit of romantic public irony that was advocated by one of his major theoretical and political influences – Antonio Gramsci. Key words: capitalist states; class analysis; democracy; ecology; imperialist rivalries; Nicos Poulantzas; productivism; state theory; the strategic-relational approach
Highlights
All twentieth-century political theory has basically posed the same question: what is the relationship between the State, power and social classes?
If all political theory and all theories of socialism revolve around this question, this is because it constitutes a real problem
It involves the question of the transformation of the State in the transition to democratic socialism. (Poulantzas 1978a: 11,14)
Summary
All twentieth-century political theory has basically posed the same question: what is the relationship between the State, power and social classes?. I met Nicos Poulantzas only once, towards the end of his life, his impact on my intellectual development has been immense and is matched only by the influence of Karl Marx and Antonio Gramsci It is reflected in what I have taken from him and, I hope, taken further; as well as in where I have disagreed with him and even moved away from his positions. I am happy to note in this regard an exciting and productive Poulantzas revival as issues that he identified in the 1970s are once more being put on the theoretical and political agenda in the first decades of the 21st century This revival is reflected in two of the three themes of my lecture title – political economy and democratic socialism. (3) a discussion of his neglect of the environment and issues of political ecology; and (4) a reassertion of the validity of his vision of the democratic transition to democratic socialism
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