- 150 pages
- English
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Everyday Life and the State
About This Book
'Peter Bratsis breaks new ground, forcing us to think of the connections between big structures and our most intimate inner lives. A fascinating and erudite book.' -Frances Fox Piven, CUNY Nearly four centuries ago, liberal political thought asserted that the state was the product of a distant, pre-historical, social contract. Social science has done little to overcome this fiction. Even the most radical of theories have tended to remain silent on the question of the production of the state, preferring instead to focus on the determinations and functions of state actions. Bratsis argues that the causes of the state are to be found within everyday life. Building upon insights from social, political, and anthropological theories, his book shows how the repetitions and habits of our daily lives lead to our nationalization and the perception of certain interests and institutions as 'public.' Bratsis shows that only by seeking the state's everyday, material causes can we free ourselves from the pitfalls of viewing the state as natural, inevitable, and independent from social relations.
Frequently asked questions
Information
1 The Spontaneous Theory of the State and the State as Spontaneous Theory
Sometimes we stand in wonder before a chosen object; we build up hypotheses and reveries; in this way we form convictions which have all the appearance of true knowledge. ⌠In point of fact, scientific objectivity is possible only if one has broken first with the immediate object, if one has refused to yield to the seduction of the initial choice, if one has checked and contradicted the thoughts which arise from oneâs first observation. ⌠Far from marveling at the object, objective thought must treat it ironically.âGaston Bachelard, The Psychoanalysis of Fire
When, in turn, Marx criticizes Hegel for having opposed bourgeois or civil society to the State, for having arrived by deduction at the constitutional monarchy and Prussian democracy, giving them an aspect of the eternal, he is simply revealing an essential tendency of Hegelian thought, which is to legitimate existing reality by conceiving it philosophically. ⌠The truly concrete subject, the bearer of predicates, is man as social being, who belongs to what Hegel called bourgeois society, and the State, which Hegel mistakenly took for the Subject, as Idea, is in fact a predicate of manâs social nature. The Ideaâin reality, the product of manâs social activityâappears in Hegel as the authentic which results in âa mystery which degenerates into mystification,â as Marx puts it. (Hyppolite 1969, 108â112)
The State as Subject and as Object
There is one preliminary problem about the state which is very seldom considered, yet which requires attention if the discussion of its nature and role is to be properly focused. This is the fact that âthe stateâ is not a thing, that it does not, as such, exist. What âthe stateâ stands for is a number of particular institutions which, together, constitute its reality, and which interact as part of what may be called the state system. (Miliband 1969, 49)These are the institutionsâthe government, the administration, the military and the police, the judicial branch, subcentral government and parliamentary assembliesâwhich make up âthe state,â and whose interrelationship shapes the form of the state system. It is these institutions in which âstate powerâ lies, and it is through them that this power is wielded in its different manifestations by the people who occupy the leading positions in each of these institutions. (Miliband 1969, 54)
The reason for attaching considerable importance to the social composition of the state elite in advanced capitalist countries lies in the strong presumption which this creates as to its general outlook, ideological disposition and political bias. (Miliband 1969, 68)What the evidence conclusively suggests is that in terms of social origin, education and class situation, the men who have manned all command positions in the state system have largely, and in many cases overwhelmingly, been drawn from the world of business and property, or from the professional middle classes. (Miliband 1969, 66)
Table of contents
- Cover
- Halftitle Page
- Great Barrington Books
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: Donât Take It Literally
- 1 The Spontaneous Theory of the State and the State as Spontaneous Theory
- 2 From The Kingâs Two Bodies to the Fetish of the Public: The Foundations of the State Abstraction
- 3 Political Corruption as Symptom of the Public Fetish; or, Rules of Separation and Illusions of Purity in Bourgeois Societies
- 4 The National Individual and the Machine of Enjoyment; or, The Dangers of Baseball, Hot Dogs, and Apple Pie
- 5 The Constitution of the Greek Americans: Toward an Empirical Study of Interpellation
- 6 Tentative Conclusions and Notes Toward Future Study
- Appendix
- Bibliography
- Index
- About the Author