Crisis Tendency of Modern Capitalist State -- A Study on State Theory of Claus Offe

• Main Authors: Lan, Hsin-Kai, 藍欣開
• Other Authors: Hung, Lien-Te
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 1998
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/19941009862390879524

碩士 === 淡江大學 === 歐洲研究所 === 86 === 　　In the series of Marxist research, the State is one of the very important subjects, not only in the writings of young Marx, but also those of old Marx and Engels, Lenin, Gramsci, Miliband, althusser, Poulantzas and Offe. They concentrated on the contradictios of the repitalist state, and also on the relation between capitalist state and society. 　　Claus offe raises the question: could social conflist be completely resolved through implementing the policies of welfare state and intervening by the capitalist state? Capitalism is characterized by its internal structural crisis, that is: a constant tendenct to paralyse the commodity form of value In modern capitalist society, the economic crisis (first ouder crisis) can bot be avoided but take place. In the welfare state, the government tries to be the crisis manager and the mediator of capitalist crises, This kind of state intervention in welfare state is an "irreversible" development and it can be interpreted as a responding to functional need of modern capitalism. 　　In the State theory of Claus offe, he describes the concept of the capitalist state an "institutional form of political power" and which is guided by the following four functional conditions: (1)private production; (2)taxation constraints; (3)accumulation and (4)democratic legitimation. Offe accepts the standpoints from "state derivation" (Staatsableitung or the so called "the school of capital logic"), and emphasizes the relation between the capitalist state and capital accumulation. Offe also brings up a new model: "selection of institution" (die Seletivitatider politischer Institutionen) to explain the existence of state autonomy, especially in the process of policy marking. 　　These crisis management strategies of the welfare state themseves become subject of teh new form of crisis tenency, the so called "second order crisis", which appear in political subsystem and the normative subsystem. This "second order crisis" includes three dimensions:(1)the fiscal problems of teh capitalist state; (2)political and administrational crisis--planning failures and (3)crisis of legitimation--mass loyalty problems. 　　Althouth state intervention could temporarily cure the diseases of modern capitalist society, but there still exists crisis tendency inside capitalism. In Offe''s Stage theory, he points out the contradictions of the welfare state and this is what we should keep in our mind, when we are on the way to welfare state.