Nicos Poulantzas

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Marxist political sociologist and philosopher

Nicos Poulantzas (Greek: Νίκος Πουλαντζάς ; 21 September 1936 – 3 October 1979) was a Greek-French Marxist political sociologist and philosopher. In the 1970s, Poulantzas was known, along with Louis Althusser, as a leading Structural Marxist and, while at first a Leninist, he eventually became a proponent of democratic socialism. He is best known for his theoretical work on the state, but he also offered Marxist contributions to the *ysis of fascism, social cl* in the contemporary world, and the collapse of dictatorships in Southern Europe in the 1970s (such as Franco's rule in Spain, Salazar's in Portugal, and Papadopoulos' in Greece).

1 Life
2 Theory of the state
3 Legacy
4 Major works
5 References
6 Further reading
7 External links

Life

Poulantzas studied law in Greece and moved to France in 1961; there he completed a doctorate in the philosophy of law under the *le The rebirth of natural Law in Germany (La renaissance du droit naturel en Allemagne) in 1964. He taught sociology at the University of Paris VIII from 1968 until his death. He was married to the French novelist Annie Leclerc: and had one daughter. He committed suicide in 1979 by jumping from the window of a friend's flat in Paris.

Theory of the state

Poulantzas's theory of the state reacted to what he saw as simplistic understandings within Marxism. Instrumentalist Marxist accounts held that the state was simply an instrument in the hands of a particular cl*. Poulantzas disagreed with this because he saw the capitalist cl* as too focused on its individual short-term profit, rather than on maintaining the cl*'s power as a whole, to simply exercise the whole of state power in its own interest. Poulantzas argued that the state, though relatively autonomous from the capitalist cl*, nonetheless functions to ensure the smooth operation of capitalist society, and therefore benefits the capitalist cl*. In particular, he focused on how an inherently divisive system such as capitalism could coexist with the social stability necessary for it to reproduce itself—looking in particular to nationalism as a means to overcome the cl* divisions within capitalism. Poulantzas has been particularly influential over the Marxist state theorist, Bob Jessop.

Borrowing from Antonio Gramsci's notion of cultural hegemony, Poulantzas argued that repressing movements of the oppressed is not the sole function of the state. Rather, state power must also obtain the consent of the oppressed. It does this through cl* alliances, where the dominant group makes an "alliance" with subordinate groups as a means to obtain the consent of the subordinate group. In his later works, Poulantzas *ysed the role of what he termed the "new petty bourgeoisie" in both consolidating the ruling cl*es hegemony and undermining the proletariat's ability to organise itself. By occupying a contradictory cl* position—that is to say, by identifying with its de facto oppressor—this fraction of the working cl* throws its lot in with the bourgeois whose fate it (wrongly) believes it shares. The fragmentation (some would argue the demise) of the cl* system is, for Poulantzas, a defining characteristic of late capitalism, and any politically useful *ysis must tackle this new constellation of interests and power. A highly abbreviated example of this can be seen in a Poulantzas-influenced *ysis of the New Deal in the United States: the American ruling cl*, by acceding to some of the demands of labour (things like minimum wage, labour laws, etc.), helped cement an alliance between labour and a particular fraction of capital and the state (Levine 1988). This was necessary for the continued existence of capitalism, for if the ruling cl* had simply repressed the movements and avoided making any concessions, it could have led to a socialist revolution.

Legacy

Poulantzas provides a nuanced *ysis of cl* structure in an era when the internationalisation of production systems (today "globalisation") was shifting power from labour to capitalist cl*es. In many areas, he foresaw the current debate on the critical Marxian language of cl*, bourgeoisie, and hegemony finds little echo in contemporary political science, where its positivism requires researchers to focus on putative measurable and objective en*ies. However, by placing cl* *ysis at the center of political *ysis, Poulantzas reminds us that theorists are political agents themselves and that accounts of the political world are suffused with the ambient ideology that they suppose themselves to bracket.

The official think-tank of SYRIZA, a left-wing Greek political party, is called Nicos Poulantzas Ins*ute.

Major works

Poulantzas, Nicos. Fascism and Dictatorship: The Third International and the Problem of Fascism. NLB, 1974 (orig. 1970). ISBN:0902308858
Poulantzas, Nicos. Cl*es in Contemporary Capitalism. NLB, 1975 (orig. 1973). ISBN:0902308068
Poulantzas, Nicos. The Crisis of the Dictatorships: Portugal, Greece, Spain. Humanities Press, 1976. ISBN:0902308777
Poulantzas, Nicos. Political Power and Social Cl*es. NLB, 1978 (orig. 1968). ISBN:0-86091-705-3
Poulantzas, Nicos. State, Power, Socialism. NLB, 1978. ISBN:086091013X
Poulantzas, Nicos. The Poulantzas Reader: Marxism, Law and the State, ed. J. Martin. Verso, 2008. ISBN:9781844672004

References

External links

Nicos Poulantzas Ins*ute (in Greek and English)
"A Trotskyist critique of Poulantzas's theory of the state" by Colin Barker, International Socialism
Website on Poulantzas' work and to the book "Reading Poulantzas" (in German)