(Taking) Power and the State. posted by Richard Seymour

[Via Marxmail ]. John Holloway is an interesting anticapitalist author, although not quite interesting enough for me to buy his book yet. I think I shall wait until he understands and tackles the question of political power seriously. He was asked the following question about Bolivia:

"[I]f, as the story suggests, a state of seige is announced in Bolivia with the agreement of the Army, how can the revolution move forward _without_ 'taking state power'? What practical steps are required to move the revolutionary process forward?"

Here is his response:

I think what's happening in Bolivia is very important and very difficult. As I understand it, the real force behind the revolution is coming from the people organised in local mass assemblies (cabildos) which are meeting almost daily in El Alto and throughout the country, who have no interest in taking power. The more moderate forces around Evo Morales are trying to channel the uprising into state forms, focussing on the calling of new elections and the winning of power, but certainly the tempo and tone for the moment is being set by the radical forces with their seizure of oil installations, their calls for nationalisation and drive towards the immediate calling of a Constituent Assembly. I think the future of the revolution and the prevention of military intervention depends very much on the capacity of this assembly-based movement to continue developing its strength. This is surely the central issue, but complex and difficult.

I hate to sneer, but I detect a bit of the "tortured liberal" in John Holloway's response, especially that "complex and difficult" business (of course it's all very diffifult, but why make that patently obvious point the preface and post-face of your analysis unless you lack confidence in what you are saying?).

The obvious point to make is that assemblies are themselves a form of counter-power to that state. They are, in germination, a rival form of 'state' power. The siezure of oil installations, demanding a constitutional assembly and the rest involve both demands on the state, and demands for new state forms. The street battles have been raging against the powers of the state, and it seems unlikely that strikers and protesters will get what they want if they do not fundamentally tackle the state. Some elements in the army would rather stage a coup than allow the protesters to have what they want. Some elements of capital would probably prefer this, while multinational capital may hope for US intervention. If the movement were to survive such attempts, it would need to arm itself. It would need to form its own security and military apparatus in order to fight that kind of power. It would need to centralise. It would need, dare I say it, some forms of hierarchy. Having won, it would not be able to dissolve all forms of state power until such time as a just social order was guaranteed.

Holloway's argument seems to me to be a total evasion, and as I say also a rather liberal kind of 'anticapitalism'. More on Bolivia will ensue, as it represents in many ways an even more urgent kind of problem than Venezuela.