capitalisr developmment and state formation in Pakistan

Capitalist Development and State Formation in Pakistan
Posted by: "Hassan Nasir" redpak2000@yahoo.com redpak2000
Mon Jun 12, 2006 10:54 pm (PST)

A Comparison with the Bonapartist regime of France and the Junker’s Path of capitalist development
By Shahram Azhar

Introduction:
The development, formation and consolidation of capitalism and the state in any country is of primary importance to social research in the political economy of a country. Unfortunately, little or no research in this field--- capitalist development and state formation--- has been done in Pakistan. Even more acute is the need for a Marxist-Leninist understanding of state formation in Pakistan for the simple reason that in order for the members of the oppressed classes to challenge the ruling classes a clear and precise understanding of friends and foes must be made.
It is with this aim that this paper has been written: to establish a Marxist-Leninist understanding of the process of capitalist development and state formation in Pakistan. It will be shown that this process has been influenced by a number of factors, including the colonial heritage of the country, the lack of a vibrant and revolutionary bourgeoisie class, and a protracted process of military absolutism which has parasitically inhibited the growth of a democratic culture.
This paper builds upon the general theory of the development of the capitalist state in Marxian terms---as expounded by Marx and Engels in their articles on the “Civil War in France”, “Eighteenth Brumaire of Louise Bonaparte” and the “Critique of the Gotha Program” and by Lenin in his “State and Revolution” and “Capitalist Development in Russia”--- and applies it to the specific case of Pakistan. The author proposes the view that state formation and consolidation in Pakistan bears striking similarity to the processes proposed by Marx in his exposition of ‘Bonapartism’ in France. Building upon Marx’s analysis of social classes and the state, this paper draws an analogy between Bonapartism in France and the dictatorial one-man military rules which Pakistan has become accustomed to over the course of its history. However, it must be kept in mind that due to its colonial and neo-colonial development, many features of the Pakistani state are strictly peculiar to post-colonial
societies in general and Pakistan in particular and this paper in no way suggests that the political economic framework of Pakistan is an exact reproduction of the Bonapartist regime in France. The Bonapartist regime in France was a temporary balance of class forces; whereas the rule of the military in Pakistan has turned out to become the sole and recurrent political economic equilibrium of the country.

Bonapartism in France, Military Rule in Pakistan
In order to draw an analogy between Bonapartism in France and Military Rule in Pakistan, it is imperative to understand the general outline of Marx’s analysis on this question. During the course of this exposition of Marx’s analysis, the perceptive reader may already begin to observe patterns similar to the dictatorial nature of the state of Pakistan. It must be borne in mind that one of the primary factors that explain the emergence of Bonapartism in general, is the impotence of the ruling class---the bourgeoisie--- to control state power. The source of this impotence may differ in the two analogical cases--- and indeed it does--- in the case of Pakistan it is strictly an outcome of the neo-colonial pattern of capitalist development. However it is not the source but the end result of Bonapartism that we will be analyzing.
In his work “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte” Marx confronts the paradox of state power that appears not to express the rule of a social class at all, but to dominate civil society completely and to arbitrate class struggles from above. Marx’s project in these essays was essentially to decode the interests of the political and social forces to explain why the different classes in French society represented themselves in this way in the political arena.
The starting point of Marx’s explanation is the relatively undeveloped character of French capitalism. ‘The struggle against capital in its highly developed modern form---at its crucial point, the struggle of the industrial wage-laborer against the industrial bourgeoisie--- is in France a partial phenomenon.”[1] Industrial capitalism in other words, was only one of the modes of production found concurrently in France, and the great majority of the French population were still involved either in peasant or petty bourgeoisie production. Furthermore, in this analysis Marx analyzed the development and role of various social classes: great landowners, financial bourgeoisie, industrial bourgeoisie, petty bourgeoisie, industrial proletariat, lumpen-proletariat and small peasant proprietors were the most prominent.
Given this plurality of classes, it is not surprising that Marx had to qualify the simple model of one ruling class presented in the Manifesto. Marx’s analyses of France imply rather the existence, on the one hand, of a ruling bloc composed of a plurality of classes or fractions of classes; on the other hand, within this ruling bloc, of a single dominant class or fraction. The Orleanist monarchy of 1830-48 was the rule of the “financial aristocracy” and the big industrial bourgeoisie, while the Restoration monarchy of 1815-30 had been the rule of the large landowners. In the bourgeoisie republic of 1848-51 these two wings of the bourgeoisie, still organized under their monarchist banners, “had found the form of state in which they could rule jointly.” [2] However, within this ruling bloc Marx identifies the financial bourgeoisie as the dominant fraction, both under the Orleanist monarchy and the 1848 republic. ‘Our whole account has shown how the republic, from the
first day of its existence, did not overthrow the financial aristocracy, but consolidated it’. [3] Although the economic interests of the industrial bourgeoisie were opposed to those of the financial aristocracy, and they had even supported the February Revolution, they were forced, when the revolution brought with it the threat of the proletariat, to rally around the class that had recently been their adversary.
Bonapartism, at first sight, seems to upset Marx’s theory of the state as the organized rule of a class, of even a class bloc. Marx himself wrote, ‘France therefore seems to have escaped the despotism of a class only to fall back beneath the despotism of an individual, and indeed beneath the authority of an individual without authority. The struggle seems to have reached the compromise that all classes fall on their knees, equally mute and impotent, before the rifle butt.’[4] However, Marx goes on to resolve this paradox by analyzing the Bonapartist regime, if not as the organized rule of a class bloc, nevertheless as the determined product of the class struggle.
An analysis of Pakistan’s political economic capitalist development and state formation reveals an interesting pattern of Bonapartism, albeit in a permanent rather than a temporary phase of history. During the tumultuous political economic history of the country, it has witnessed protracted periods of one-man military rules--- such as the one presently operational in the country. Some aspects of this analogy--- that is the analogy between Bonapartism and Military dictatorships in Pakistan--- have been influenced by the colonial heritage of Pakistan, the comprador nature of the bourgeoisie and its impotence as a vibrant and dynamic social force, and the direct and indirect influence of imperialist domination. However, if military rule in Pakistan is to be explained solely in terms of the neo-colonial path of development, how is one to explain the completely divergent paths of state formation, and capitalist development pursued by two countries that had experienced
completely
Pakistan’s history has been the history of Bonapartist military dictators who have assumed a relative elitist isolation----though not an absolute isolation--- from the social antagonisms of the society. Given the fact that pre-capitalist and capitalist methods of productions concurrently operate within Pakistan, a plurality of class and social interests prevails in the country. A “conglomerate” of ruling classes emerges in the shape of the comprador bourgeoisie, a weak national bourgeoisie and the traditional landowning class with the interests of the comprador bourgeoisie being held the dearest by the state. None of these ruling forces has ever been in a position to challenge military rule in any way or form. How is it that these ruling classes can entrust political rule to a power other than itself? How can they be sure that the military will protect their interests so well, especially given that, once the state machine dominates civil society, depriving all,
including the bourgeoisie, of political rights, the class that has abandoned political power cannot similarly win it back? An analysis of the evolution of capitalism in post-colonial Pakistan will help explain the impotence of the ruling clique in challenging military dictatorships.
At the time of independence in 1947, industrial capital was little developed in the territory that constitutes Pakistan today. The traditional ruling class was that of the landowners who dominated the rural economy. However, from the outset the state was intent upon the creation and consolidation of a stratum of society that would control industrial capital: the bourgeoisie. The Pakistan Industrial Finance Corporation (PIFC), the Industrial Development Bank of Pakistan (IDBP) and the Pakistan Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation (PICIC) were all state initiatives to ensure capitalist development in Pakistan. This prioritization of state goals towards bourgeoisie development can be understood through the fact that from the outset the impetus to capitalist development came from without the society; in its infancy through the colonization of India by the British, and in its maturity through the post-colonial state of Pakistan and its direct support for
capitalist development. Furthermore, this process was also influenced by the fact that Pakistan emerged on the world map during the era of imperialism. In order to become a member of the global political economic system she had to engage in reforms suitable to the imperialist global political economy. The economic interests of imperialism were never in the creation of an independent national bourgeoisie that could pursue protectionist and indigenous capitalist development in Pakistan, but rather the creation of a comprador bourgeoisie which depended on the masters of the global market for the sale of its produce. Therefore, due to its reliance on the state from the outset for capitalist development, the bourgeoisie could never seek to challenge the state. As Marx explains in Capital, political power is not a necessary pre-requisite for the extraction of surplus value and the reproduction of capitalist relations. All that is needed is the basic juridical framework that
protects the free exchange of commodities and labor-power. Once pre-capitalist obstacles to capitalist development have been cleared away, the bourgeoisie does not have to direct the state itself, as long as the state power is one that will maintain this juridical framework and repress any revolutionary challenge to it.
It is also important to note that the executive power for its part is just as dependent on the capitalist mode of production, for as a “parasitic” body it itself lives of the surplus value produced by the workers and is as threatened as the bourgeoisie by the proletarian revolution. This unity of interest between the state and the bourgeoisie is as apparent in the military dictatorships of Pakistan as it was in the Bonapartist state of France. This unity of interest is further accentuated in the case of Pakistan due to the fact that historically the military and the comprador bourgeoisie have both relied on imperialism for support--- the former strategically and politically and the latter economically.
The lack of a revolutionary national bourgeoisie that could gain access to state power created a power vacuum in the political economic framework of the country. The impetus to the Pakistan movement, and the ideological foundation upon which the nationalism of the country was to be built came from the petty-bourgeoisie of the U.P and the C.P of India. In its infancy as yet, the embryonic form of the bourgeoisie could not challenge the state in any meaningful way. On the contrary, as the aforementioned arguments prove, it was the state which was responsible for the development of the bourgeoisie. The state---which occupied primary importance in colonial times --- was to become the source of capitalist development and the master of the political economic structure of the post-colonial country. Within the state, it was the military alone which could assume primary importance in governing the country’s path of development. This can be explained through an
analysis and understanding of the extremely important role of the military in colonial India, where the military Commander-in-Chief was consulted on virtually all issues pertinent to the political economic development of India. Furthermore, military expenditure and elitism was a domain which even the Viceroy couldn’t dare to influence.[5] Therefore it must come as no surprise that the state, and within it, the commander-in-chief of the Pakistan military assumed primary importance in the political economy of a country where the national bourgeoisie was not powerful enough to be in command of the state. The military was to become the master of capitalist development in Pakistan: not only in terms of its indirect support for private capitalists, but also in terms of its direct engagement in the productive process.
The military has interfered in the bourgeoisie parliament as and when it has seen fit. The ideological basis of military takeovers has been the inefficiency of political parties and leaders to direct the political economy of the country. This marks striking resemblance to the following explanation by Engels of Louis Bonaparte’s excursion: “Louis Bonaparte took the political power from the capitalists under the pretext of protecting them, but in return his rule encouraged speculation and industrial activity”.[6] The establishment of the “dictatorship of an individual” which in Marx’s opinion “arbitrated class struggles from above” and directed its attention towards the “financial aristocracy” in France, has led to a one-man military dictatorial rule in Pakistan and the direction of state goals has been towards the achievement of the political and economic aims of the comprador bourgeoisie of this country. In a direct resemblance to Bonaparte rule in France, in Pakistan
“the struggle seems to have reached the compromise that all classes fall on their knees, equally mute and impotent, before the rifle butt.”[7]
Capitalist Development in Pakistan: a comparison with the Junker’s Path
The development of the state was unique in the case of India---as in the case of all colonial societies--- in the sense that the standing army, the bureaucracy and the judiciary, in other words the state represented the interests of not the native or indigenous ruling classes but rather the dictatorship of foreign capital on the native population which was previously living under pre-capitalist modes of productions. Furthermore, since the introduction to the capitalist mode of production in India came from without through colonization (through the introduction of private property in land, tax in money rather than in kind) --- state formation from the outset assumed an alienated form in society whose dictatorship on the vast majority of Indians was maintained through the military wing of the East India Company. The state was from the outset in a certain way beyond all indigenous interests, since its only interest was in maintaining the rule of foreign exploitation. Herein
lies the essential difference between the Junker’s path of capitalist development and what we may call the colonial path of capitalist development that we see in Pakistan. Junker’s development is similar to colonial development in the sense that no revolutionary bourgeoisie democratic republican movement challenged feudal relations from within the society. During the Junker’s transition to capitalism the ‘old landlord economy is retained and turns slowly into purely capitalist, “Junker’s” economy. The basis of the final transition from labor service to capitalism is the internal metamorphosis of feudalist landlord economy. The entire agrarian system of the state becomes capitalist and for a long time retains feudalist features.’ In other words it signifies the retention, in the main, of landed proprietorship and of the chief supports of the old “superstructure”; it involves a transition towards capitalism, albeit in a form in which feudalistic relations of production are
not completely amputated from the body of the society.[8]
However, an important difference between the two patterns can be observed from the fact that whereas capitalist development in Germany was undertaken by the indigenous Junker’s as a realization of the superiority of the capitalist mode of production[9] and was directed towards the development of a national bourgeoisie, state prioritization in Pakistan has been directed towards the creation and consolidation of a comprador bourgeoisie. The incessant zeal with which the state of Pakistan has pursued the goal of consolidating and concentrating wealth in the hands of the bourgeoisie can be observed from a historical account of the shameless manner in which the industrial bourgeoisie was handpicked by the state. Furthermore, the primacy of the state over all other social institutions that is a distinctive feature of post-colonial societies was not an archetypical pattern of Junker’s development. The post-colonial pattern of capitalist development signifies the
existence of a “hyper-extended state” which becomes the torchbearer of capitalist development in a country. At the same time, however, remnants of pre-capitalist methods and relations of production---which are a cornerstone of the Junker’s pattern of development --- are a fundamental component of the capitalist development that we see in Pakistan. However, the extent to which feudal relations are exaggerated in the academic circles of Pakistan is reminiscent of the attempt on the part of the Liberal lobby to blame the miserable standards of the political-economic and social development of Pakistan on pre-capitalist rather than the capitalist mode of production.

Conclusion:
"The forms of bourgeois states are extremely varied, but their essence is the same: all these states, whatever their form, in the final analysis, are inevitably the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. The transition from capitalism to communism certainly cannot but yield a great abundance and variety of political forms, but the essence will inevitably be the same: the dictatorship of the proletariat" [10]
This paper has been an attempt to understand the processes of capitalist development and state formation in Pakistan. It has presented an analogy between Bonapartism in France and one-man military rule in Pakistan. Furthermore, it has also traced the commonalities between the Junker’s path of capitalist development and the path of capitalist development that has been seen in Pakistan. It has been argued that the impotence of the bourgeoisie in terms of directly controlling state power; and on the contrary the institutions of the state commanding the bourgeoisie and directing its interests in the political economy of the country is a trait strikingly similar to the Bonapartist method of manipulating class struggles from above the society. I have argued that even though military rule in Pakistan--- as in the case of Louis Bonaparte--- appears to be directing the class struggle from above, it is in the final analysis the representative and a product of the class antagonisms.
This has been proven through the fact that state goals and priorities have been directed, from the outset, towards the creation and consolidation of a comprador bourgeoisie. Furthermore, as has been argued in this paper, state isolation from the class struggle has been relative and not absolute. This refers to the fact that the state of Pakistan has always sided with the interests of the comprador bourgeoisie against the working class and the peasantry. Any rebellion against the political economic framework of military rule cannot be expected from the impotent bourgeoisie of Pakistan which has itself, from the outset, relied upon the support offered to it by the state. The only classes which can in any way or form challenge the current political economic equilibrium of the country are the working class and the poor peasantry which have from the outset borne the brunt of the decadent dictatorial system. Therefore, any social and political attempt at overturning the present
equilibrium must gather the support of these two classes.

Works Cited

Lenin, Vladimir I. Capitalist Development in Russia. Moscow: Progress.

Lenin, Vladimir I. The State and Revolution. Moscow: Progress. 7-22.
Marx, Karl H., and Frederick Engels. Class Struggles in France. Lawrence and Wishart.
Marx, Karl H. Civil War in France. New York: Lawrence and Wishart. 22-42.
Marx, Karl H. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonapart. Lawrence and Wishart, 1975. 148-169.
Moon, Penderel. The British Conquest and Dominion of India. 466-468.


---------------------------------
[1] The Class Struggles in France, p 46.

[2] The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, p. 165.

[3] The Class Struggles in France, p.109

[4] The Eighteenth Brumaire, p 236.

[5] The British Conquest and Dominion of India, Sir Penderel Moon, p. 467

[6] Introduction to the Civil War in France, Engels, p.24

[7] The Eighteenth Brumaire, p 236.

[8] Capitalist Development in Russia, p. 32

[9] Capitalist Development In Russia, p 107

[10] State and Revolution, p. 7.