Michael Hoover wrote: > > > > Yes, and note they didn't say "the state," they said "The executive." > > They were probably thinking of the "cabinet" or cronies who gathered > > around a monarch or the prime minister & cabinet of a parliamentary > > regime. In 1848 they probably weren't paying much attention yet to the > > u.s. and its weird form of state. > > Carrol > <<<<<>>>>> > > hey, some guy on pen-l. lbo, marxmail, has been pointing out above to > little avail for years... mh
As a matter of fact, I think my attention was first drawn to this by that 'some guy' a few years ago. :-) The quotation does stick in memory as "the state" unless one really focuses on it. And the state, unlike the executive, has no empirical existence, being merely (merely!) a set of relations, while "the executive" draws one's attention to the empirical reality of the moment. And perhaps that is important, since it raises the question of the relationship between a particular Executive Power and the less visible but real and complex set of social relations which constitute the ruling class itself. Carrol P.S. A hypothesis which I won't defend or develop but which I think would be worthwhile exploring: A century from now historians (unless we have been bombed or warmed back to the stone age) looking back on the history of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries will see that the core of the ruling class consists of the rentier strata of the capitalist class.
