Origins of the Party-form in Theoretical Perspective

• In Event: 4447 - Open Topic on Marxist Sociology

Abstract

Marx and Weber conceived of mass parties as the key political organizations of ‘modernity.’ This is not surprising considering the emergence of mass parties in late nineteenth century Europe had paralleled a significant expansion of capitalism, and the development of the modern bureaucratic state. Parties remain the predominant form of political mobilization at a global scale, even in an age of dissatisfaction with conventional political organization and persistent experimentation with new forms of associationThere is a very strong bond, it seems, between the party and the contemporary world. What is the nature of this bond? What exactly is the connection between capitalism, the state, and the party-form that Marx and Weber suspected?
This papers offers a reading of Marx and Weber through the prism of Antonio Gramsci’s understanding of the party-form and Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of political representation. I argue that Marx and Weber were right to relate party emergence with capitalism and the modern-state. But understanding the nature of this relationship requires a rethinking of the unique characteristics of the party as a political-organizational modality, and a focus on the destructive processes associated with the ascent of a market economy and a bureaucratic state apparatus. Parties are historically possible in the aftermath of two primitive accumulations: of means of production and of political self-representational authority. It is in this context where the very possibility of articulatable interests and groups, and articulating agents, emerges. The historical dismantling of communal property forms and accompanying means of political self-presentation, produced an autonomous field of politics, lending space for parties to constitute new political subjectivities. By shedding light on the political consequences of dispossession – and the dispossessive dimension of political representation – I show why the relationship between the party-form and capitalism and the modern state runs deep.

Author

• Edwin F. Ackerman, Syracuse University