State and capital

Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler's Capital as Power (2009) is one of the most important works in political economy in a long time. ¹ It not only demonstrates irreconciliable failings of both neoclassical and Marxian economic theories, but it points the way forward to an entirely new understanding of capitalism: capital as power. This new understanding, however, itself has a serious failing, at least as presently formulated: its treatment of the state. In fact, in their capital as power framework, the state all but disappears into vague ‘corporate-government coalitions’, and is replaced by a radically new concept of the ‘state’ as a mode of power (see glossary) of society. ² And since they argue that that mode of power is now capital, they speak of the ‘state of capital’. In effect, they not only repudiate the need for a theory of the state (as distinct from capital), but suggest that we must overcome all conventional understandings of the state as we know it (8, 280–1). ³ While I believe that much of their critique of state theory is valid, in this chapter I argue that their total repudiation of state theory in Capital as Power is a critical mistake. I also argue, however, that this need not be so, as I believe a reconceptualization of state theory can make a significant contribution to the power theory of value.