Content area
Full Text
ABSTRACT:
The relationship between the two stages of Cohen's functional interpretation of Marx's theory of history is transitive, meaning that the superstructure stabilizes just those facts about production relations required by the productive forces for their development. It follows that the level of development of the productive forces cannot alone explain why a certain type of economic structure endures stably: an appropriate superstructure is also needed. Yet stage two can stand separately since it does not depend on any particular explanation of the nature of the economic structure. Cohen offers an overly restrictive account of why the base needs a superstructure, based on a narrow conception of the economic base as a framework of power. The functional requirements of the economic base must be seen in relation to the "way of producing" through which the productive forces are developed. Cohen's intentional elaboration of how forces select appropriate relations can, in principle, be extended to encompass the transformation of the superstructure. However, this requires a convincing link between the underlying human rationality and the proximate class struggle.
IN KARL MARX'S THEORY OF HISTORY, G. A. Cohen defended an "old-fashioned" interpretation of the theory with functional explanation at its heart. More specifically, Cohen claimed that the level of development of the productive forces functionally explains the nature of the economic structure and, in turn, the nature of the economic structure, or "base," functionally explains the character of the "legal and political superstructure." Given the designation of the superstructure as "legal and political," it is reasonable to suppose (and it has always been supposed) that it corresponds roughly with the concept of the state. Although the correspondence is not exact, it follows that the theory of history involves commitment to functional explanation of (some elements of) stateness, and that this is the second part of a two-stage functional theory.
History and the State
The theory of the state or, more precisely, the base-superstructure relationship is a relatively neglected part of the theory of history. The functional connection between forces and relations of production - elaborated in terms of the development and primacy theses - receives most attention within Cohen's book,1 and the debate on Cohen's work has also focused on "the more basic concepts of the theory"...