Interrogations #2 with Eow Comments Sociology 924 Session 3: Organization-analytic Approaches to the State Memo #2 James Benson—a Question to Michael Mann Interrogation – Week 2 (the Sources of Social Power) – Amy Lang

Michael Mann criticizes class reductionist theories of the capitalist state which described the state as an organization for managing the affairs of the bourgeoisie (504). While he acknowledged that Marx had a point in this regard, he insists that Marx had “underestimated the constraints on capitalism that moralideological and party-democratic crystallizations might bring.” My question to Michael Mann is as follows: Does your work demonstrate that moral-ideological constructions and party-democratic formations were independent of dominant class influences, such that they functioned as significant challenges to the capitalist nature of the state, during the time period covered by your book? [The pivotal term Mann would use to answer your question is “entwining”: that is, the various forms of social power – ideological, party-democratic (and also military) – interact with and interpenetrate each other, and the effects in the world are the result of such interactions. The effects of the co-presence of different organizational-bases of power are not additive; they are interactive. And in such interactions it is impossible to reduce the effects to any one dimension – thus the rejection of reductionism. This does not mean mean that these non class bases of power are “independent” of class any more than class is “independent” of them. They need not “function as significant challenges to capitalist nature of the state” in order for them to have systematic, irreducible consequences. ]