State derivation

State derivation has been understood since the 1970s as an attempt within Marxism and neo-Marxism to explain the emergence and extent of the state and its law within the bourgeois, modern economic system and therewith to derive the relationship between economics and politics from the structure of capitalist production.

In the 1920s, the legal scholar Yevgeny Bronislawowitsch Paschukanis foreshadowed the debate with his explanation of the legal form of the commodity. Important writers in this area since 1970 are Rudolf Wolfgang Müller, Christel Neusüß, Bernhard Blanke, Elmar Altvater, Freerk Huisken, Joachim Hirsch and the class analysis project (including Joachim Bischoff).

Debate

The debate was considered a branch of New Marx Reading and took place primarily among academicians, but also arose from political situation. After the electoral victory in 1969 of a social-liberal coalition in Germany, many on the left hoped for social reforms and sought a revision of institutions and a reform of society by means of the state.

Within the state-derivation debate the state is seen as a "structural component of the capitalist relations of production itself, its specific political form. The capitalist classes and relations of exploitation are set up so that the economically ruling class do not rule directly but their rule can only be realized by means of a body that is relatively separate, the state. At the same time, the structural and functional logic of capitalism remains in control. The state does not stand outside and independent of capital. The bourgeois state is therefore a class-state without being the direct instrument of a class. And this particularization 'or' relative autonomy 'of the state is the basis of the state illusion. "(Joachim Hirsch)[1]

Criticism

Rainer-Olaf Schultze has argued that the derivative-debate remains "mostly in the conceptual logical domain of the interpretation of the Marxist classics" and failed "to deliver the necessary mediation for the concrete analysis of the reality of capitalist states." [2]

Similarly, Frank Deppe suggests that the state-derivation debate 'was a typical example of a - largely detached from practice and finally only self-reflexive - "academic Marxism", especially focusing on the state - given the importance of civil society in the sense of Gramsci - involves a narrowing of the political concept".[3]

Also, the time in the debate decisively involved Joachim Hirsch conceded later, "that the state derivation debate was conducted on a highly abstract level and sometimes the direction became a form of theoretical tiddly winks". On the other hand, according to Hirsch, however, in many cases the status of the debate has been misunderstood, in which it had not gone to a finished theory of the state, but the shape determination of civil society as part of a broader historical theory.[1]

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References
  1. Tote Hunde wecken? Interview mit Joachim Hirsch zur Staatstheorie und Staatsableitung Archived 2012-07-07 at Archive.today, Arranca!, Nr. 24, 2002
  2. „Ableitung“ von Schultze, Rainer-Olaf; in: Nohlen, Dieter; Schultze, Rainer-Olaf; Lexikon der Politikwissenschaft. Theorien, Methoden, Begriffe, 2. Aufl. (2004)
  3. Oder auch: Vor allem in der sog. „Staatsableitungsdebatte“ der 70er Jahre stand das Bemühen um die „richtige Ableitung“ des Staates aus dem [Anm.: marxschen] „Kapital“ im Zentrum. Diese Debatte verlief sich bald in hoch abstrakte Elaborate, deren Bezug zur wirklichen Bewegung und zu den Kämpfen der Zeit kaum noch nachzuvollziehen war. Deppe, Frank: Krise und Erneuerung marxistischer Theorie. Anmerkungen eines Politikwissenschaftlers. (PDF-Datei; 196 kB) Geringfügig bearbeiteter und gekürzter Text seiner Abschiedsvorlesung vom 14. Juli 2006; eine erste Fassung des Textes erschien in: „Sozialismus“ Hamburg: VSA-Verlag Nr. 3 / 2007.

Literature
  • Wolfgang Müller, Christel Neusüß (1970): Die Sozialstaatsillusion und der Widerspruch von Lohnarbeit und Kapital. In: Sozialistische Politik Nr. 6/7 (also published in PROKLA Sonderheft 1, 1971.)
  • Sybille von Flatow, Freerk Huisken (1973): Zum Problem der Ableitung des bürgerlichen Staates (PDF-Datei; 5,46 MB), In: PROKLA Nr. 7, 1973.
  • Bernhard Blanke, Ulrich Jürgens, Hans Kastendiek (1974): Zur neueren marxistischen Diskussion über die Analyse von Form und Funktion des bürgerlichen Staates., In: PROKLA 14/15.
  • Projekt Klassenanalyse (1974): Oberfläche und Staat: Kritik neuerer Staatsableitungen (Altvater, Braunmühl u.a., Flatow/Huisken, Läpple, Marxistische Gruppe Erlangen). VSA, Westberlin.
  • Norbert Kostede (1976): Die neuere marxistische Diskussion über den bürgerlichen Staat. Einführung – Kritik - Resultate. In: Gesellschaft. Beiträge zur Marxschen Theorie 8/9, S. 150-196
  • Bernhard Blanke (1976): Entscheidungsanarchie und Staatsfunktionen. Zur Analyse der Legitimationsprozesse im politischen System des Spätkapitalismus (15 Seiten pdf; 345 kB), in: Rolf Ebbighausen: Bürgerlicher Staat und politische Legitimation, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M.
  • Christoph Butterwegge (1977): Probleme der marxistischen Staatsdiskussion. Pahl Rugenstein, Köln.
  • Gerd Rudel (1981): Die Entwicklung der marxistischen Staatstheorie in der Bundesrepublik. Frankfurt a.M., New York.
  • Ingo Elbe (2008): Marx im Westen. Die neue Marx-Lektüre in der Bundesrepublik seit 1965. Berlin, ISBN 978-3-05-004470-5.
  • Michael Jäger Ableitung (pdf), in: Historisch-kritisches Wörterbuch des Marxismus, Bd. 1, Argument-Verlag, Hamburg, 1994, Sp. 33-36. ISBN 3886194310.
  • Holloway, John; Picciotto, Sol (eds.). State and Capital: A Marxist Debate, 1978.
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