Class, Crisis and the State

by Erik Olin Wright

One of the major works of the new American Marxism, Wright's book draws a challenging new class map of the United States and other, comparable, advanced capitalist countries today. It also discusses the various classical theories of economic crisis in the West and their relevance to the current recession, and contrasts the way in which the major political problem of bureaucracy was confronted by two great antagonists - Weber and Lenin. A concluding essay brings together the practical lessons of these theoretical analyses, in an examination of the problems of left governments coming to power in capitalist states.

Genres: Nonfiction, Class, Sociology

270 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 17, 1985

About the author

Erik Olin Wright was an American analytical Marxist sociologist, specializing in social stratification, and in egalitarian alternative futures to capitalism. He was the (2012) President of the American Sociological Association.
Erik Olin Wright received two BAs (from Harvard College in 1968, and from Balliol College in 1970), and the PhD from University of California, Berkeley, in 1976. Since that time, he has been a professor of sociology at University of Wisconsin - Madison.
Wright has been described as an "influential new left theorist." His work is concerned mainly with the study of social classes, and in particular with the task of providing an update to and elaboration of the Marxist concept of class, in order to enable Marxist and non-Marxist researchers alike to use 'class' to explain and predict people's material interests, lived experiences, living conditions, incomes, organizational capacities and willingness to engage in collective action, political leanings, etc. In addition, he has attempted to develop class categories that would allow researchers to compare and contrast the class structures and dynamics of different advanced capitalist and 'post-capitalist' societies.

Reviews

[Hayden Kesterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

It had been a while sense I had read such an analytically dense book or one that was so thoroughly Marxist in its reasoning and framing of issues. Wright does a good job of laying out a workable theory of class structure under the monopoly capitalism of the '70's, showing that certain class positions are contradictory on a structural level. The second section on crisis was a little bit more difficult for me to follow, but his conclusion that different contradictions within capitalism emerge depending on the historical development of the means of production seemed to cut through a lot of the tendencies in Marxist writing that claim a certain trajectory or timeline for the fall of capitalism while still leaving room for some level of predictive ability. The third section, contrasting the work of Weber and Lenin on the subject of bureaucracy and the state, did a good job of showing the limits of liberal ideas of good government and the limits of revolutionary socialist understanding of the political nature of bureaucracies stem from and how they might be synthesized to form a more coherent picture of the political reality and potential of the Keynesian state. The conclusion offered a synthesis of these three main points, putting forward an idea of using the state to do away with the state, not in the sense of a social democratic point of view, where the state is seen as a neutral tool, but rather where its class character is acknowledged but potentially infiltrated, so to speak, and used to widen the potential for working class connection and political power.

Obviously things are much different than when Wright wrote this book in the late '70's, but many of his predictions of the increased role of the state in the accumulation process and the political ramifications of that role have taken on a bizarre, if not totally direct, accuracy in the current era of capitalist development. At the very least, reading this book has inspired me to sharpen my thinking about what the class structure of the US and the world more generally actually is, not just how it might map to the generalizations laid out by social theorists, and what that complicated, often contradictory reality might mean for organizing and solidarity as the class struggle develops over my lifetime.

[Conor · Rating 5 out of 5]

While the high rating does not necessarily equal an endorsement of the strategy that Wright proposes per se, this is by far the most cogent and salient argument I have read in defense of quasi-reformist/social democracy-adjacent approaches (i.e. "using the capitalist state to destroy the capitalist state") to socialism. Weirdly enough, it reads as a more serious, rigorous, and thought-out argument for the strategy than even Wright's later works. Here you will find attention to detail and earnest efforts to take seriously and meet critiques and possible objections--something that Wright appears to have skimmed over and taken for granted in his later writing.

I'm not sure I am entirely convinced, but the book has without a doubt presented me with an opportunity to consider the position with more seriousness than I had before. As always, Wright writes in a clear and straightforward manner, seamlessly integrating mathematical quantitative analyses with the theoretical arguments at a higher level of abstraction. This yields a presentation that stops just short of contrived. This has always been my experience reading Wright, but this time around the effort and skill seems worthwhile.

[Left_coast_reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

What does it mean when a Marxist says economic structures ultimately determine the form of the state? What does it mean to say that class struggle mediates the implementation of state policies?

In Class, Crisis and the State Erik Olin Wright explicates key Marxist ideas in an effort to understand the dynamics of capitalist society. He methodically defines various 'modes of determination' like mediation, transformation, limits of functional compatibility, and more and applies these ideas to modern capitalist society.

EOW argues that in advanced capitalism, there are many people who occupy objectively contradictory class locations. For example, managers or line supervisors have very little ownership of the means of production and must exchange their labor power for a wage, but in some ways they enforce the prerogative of capital when they oversee other workers. He argues against the framework put forth by Nico's Poulantzas which posits that only non-supervisory, manual wage earners in the productive sector constitute the working class.

In the next section EOW looks at various Marxist explanations for historical transformations of capitalist society and crisis. He analyzes ideas like the tendency for the rate of profit to fall, underconsumptionist theories, and the relationship of state expenditures to accumulation. He thinks these competing explanations all contain elements of truth and apply more in some eras of capitalist development than others.

In the next chapter he compares the conceptions of bureaucracy held by Max Weber and Lenin. Ultimately he argues that Weber's framework lacks sufficient understanding of the impact of class struggle, and Lenin's fails to account for the political contradictions within the soviet organizational form.

This book is full of diagrams and flow charts that really helped me understand how all the concepts are related. I'm very impressed with EOW's ability to explain complicated concepts. In all my reading of Marxist literature it's rare to have someone take their time and explain key terms like this. Looking forward to reading more of his work.

[John NM · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall excellent. The first third on science and causality was excellent as was the foray into class structure and identity (presaging his later work). The weakest section was the one on theories of crisis. Lots of things in the background that would need more discussion to really be intelligible to someone not well-versed in the debates of the moment.

The last part, on theories of bureaucracy was an excellent application of the machinery developed in the rest of the book. Learned a lot!

[Finlay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wright has a great argument and advances Marxist theory by being critical to the very core of arguments. He takes on, explains, and criticises three key elements to socialist politics: class, crisis, and the state.

[A Whelan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Purchased at Bookmarks socialist bookstore in London. Having studied with Vivek Chibber, I was very interested to read Wright's theory of intersecting / contradictory classes. I've come to conclude that structural analysis of capitalism only goes so far (and it's quite far, actually), and that the rational interest of economic class actors cannot be discounted in the processes of reproduction.

Wright presents a perspective-shifting case for how we must address the contradictory locations of class under twentieth century state monopoly-capitalism. Simply put, the traditional taxonomies between bourgeoise / petit / proletariat are no longer adequate in the world of such divisions as industry / service sectors, manual / mental labor, ideological / economic alignments. Wright argues that Poulantzas draws an entirely too narrow conclusion about the size and capacities of the modern working class, but this portrait is complicated by his analysis that this broader working class identity is inextricably tied up with "extended definitions" such as a wage-earning educator vs. a janitor working at a nonproductive/nonindustrial institution. He ultimately assesses the implications of this development in the context of late-70s European social democratic movements (such as the then-ascendant Mitterand), noting a tendency towards the de-commodication of labor through such social provisions as unemployment insurance in accordance with planned economies. One takeaway, here, is that this trend towards de-commodification shifts the balance of labor from exchange-value to use-value allocated by the state, a potential argument for how social democratic politics may aggravate the contradictions of capital and allow for any opening of labor power against the state apparatus. However, the revelation of contradictory classes complicates this by 'posing new divisions within the working class between those workers whose labour is completely commodified (full time wage laborers) and workers whose labour is less commodified (students, pensioners, unemployed, underemployed).' It is critical, he says, that structural support for class struggle — likely organized labour — be prepared for the ways in which, to paraphrase Lukacs/Lenin, workers are still capable of fighting workers on behalf of the bourgeoisie.

This first of Wright's three theories is probably more realized than 'Crisis' or 'State', but these sections contain some crucial points which point to the structural conditions of advanced state capitalism which will need to be addressed by any holistic socialist agenda. The natural tendencies of the world economy towards crisis — anticipated by Marxist theories of accumulation and the organic composition of capital — are not clearly narrowed to a single typology, but how could he? I tend towards Bukharin's end of the underconsumptionist debate, but the profit-squeeze theory (relative shares of profits correspond to relative positions within class struggle) seems right to me and an area that demands even more historicization given that Wright was accidentally too early to properly account for neoliberalism. The point here is that capital's natural inclinations towards crisis offer openings for organized opposition to turn such contradictions against the bourgeoisie state itself. 'State' is really included here just so that Wright can expound his class and crisis theories in the concluding section, but his structural analyses of the capitalist state are presciently on the money (e.g. 'atomizes the working class by limiting political life to voting'; 'it is essential that the Left not simply attempt to achieve a parliamentary majority...but that they do it in a way which builds the organizational capacities of the working class').

An absolutely essential text that I will be returning to again and again.