Political Power and Social Classes

by Nicos Poulantzas, Timothy O'Hagan (Translator)

Text: English, French (translation)

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Philosophy, Sociology, Political Science, Theory, Academic

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

(Greek: Νίκος Πουλαντζάς). Greek-French Marxist political sociologist. In the 1970s, Poulantzas was known, along with Louis Althusser, as a leading Structural Marxist and, while at first a Leninist, eventually became a proponent of eurocommunism. He is most well known for his theoretical work on the state, but he also offered Marxist contributions to the analysis of fascism, social class in the contemporary world, and the collapse of dictatorships in Southern Europe in the 1970s (e.g. Franco's rule in Spain, Salazar's in Portugal, and Papadopoulos's in Greece).

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating, if extremely dense and academic, attempt to further develop a structural Marxist theory of the State. Poulantzas was obvious a brilliant theorist, and some of his concepts here are very interesting. His insistence on the primary role of ideology within the class state being to mask the role of class relations and the primary role of the ideological instance of the state apparatus under capitalism vis a vis the working class being to keep them disorganized and prevent their formation as a politically aware and dominant class. That concept in particular would be developed shortly thereafter by Althusser into his vital classic work on Ideological State Apparatuses to show how that function is carried out.

His elaboration of the concept of Structure in Dominance to show how the bourgeoisie maintains its ultimate dominance of the state even while its power bloc may be disorganized is very interesting. Makes some important points about how the bourgeoisie doesn't have to be united as a class in order for the state to serve as the custodian of its interests.

However, I did find his concept of the "relative autonomy" of the state needed perhaps some clarification, or could have been phrased better. I say that because even though he insists otherwise, the concept does seem to leave the opening for reformist errors in thinking that this autonomy allows for the state to be taken over to implement socialism via parliamentary action, which has been demonstrated concretely to be impossible due to the fundamental nature of the state as the custodian of the interests of the ruling class.

Additionally, I think the work would be much more accessible if it was expanded with more concrete conjunctural examples, because many of its assertions are kind of just left hanging to stand on their theoretical insistence.

[Kevin Carson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This would be much better if it weren't written in Althusser-ese. About 90% of the text is relating definitions to other definitions, or concepts to other concepts, of "the science of Marxism," and only about 10% examining the actual concrete functioning of classes, relations of producition, and states in the observable world.

Confirms my impression that most of the "science of historical materialism" as it was developed by Engels, Kautsky, and Plekhanov, while Marx was busy researching the Mir and other historical subjects, and further developed by Leninists in the 20th century, would make Marx himself say "WTF????" if he could actually see it.

[Scott Jackson · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://jacobinmag.com/2020/10/toward... is a good piece on this.

[Gamal soliman · Rating 1 out of 5]

الكتاب اكاديمى بحت..للأسف كان مملا اكثر من اللازم

[Dany · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*

[Santiago Sousa · Rating 5 out of 5]

eu queria ter lido com a tradução da unicamp...