Max writes: >If you think the state is the executive committee of the
bourgeoisie, than you are a public choice theorist too.<
The Virginia public choice school would not agree (even though they share
the view that politics is endogenous with Marxian political economy).
The Virginia school assumes that each voter's impact in the election is the
same as each of the other voters (and emphasize how this process is less
rational than a market). The "executive committee" theory, on the other
hand, would be based on a one dollar/one vote theory (as a first
approximation), so that those who have the bucks have more impact than
those without. This recognizes that "voting" (in the sense of people having
an impact on political decisions) takes place all the time, through
lobbying, etc. Also, there are all sorts of government agencies -- notably
the Federal Reserve in the US -- which are largely independent of control
by democratically-elected officials, so that they can easily be "captured"
by the industries they regulate (in the case of the Fed, banking and finance).
BTW, when people, especially anti-Marxists, use the phrase "executive
committee of the bourgeoisie," they often forget that such committees can
make errors (from the point of view of the long-term class interests of the
bourgeoisie), be indecisive, represent special interests within the
bourgeoisie (or among state managers), etc. (Similarly, the boards of
directors of corporations make mistakes, fiddle while the bottom line
burns, represent special interests among stock-holders or managers...)
In addition to the exec committee, we should remember that the state as
such (in all class societies) is a coercive institution that maintains the
class system. The executive committee theory is only one part of Marx's
complete theory of the state (see, for example, Hal Draper's multi-volume
book).
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine
