Abstract
This article seeks to reinterpret the process of state and class formation in “peripheral” societies—notably Syria—through a contextualized reading of Marx’s Eighteenth Brumaire influenced by the approach of Political Marxism (PM). In light of PM’s claim that capitalism did not emerge in France until the late nineteenth century, it draws a picture of post-revolutionary French society in which the legacy of the precapitalist Absolutist state still determined the nature of ruling class reproduction and class struggle, centered on the state apparatus as the principal source of appropriation. These insights on the nature of ruling class appropriation and the centrality of the state are then applied to the case of post-Ottoman Syria, uncovering parallels with class struggles in post-revolutionary France rooted in the “Jacobin” politics of a state-dependent bourgeoisie of officials and officers. It proposes to rethink the contested moments of transition in terms of “alternative modernities” that developed in the absence of generalized capitalist relations of production.
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Notes
The reification of these categories often translates into an understanding of state-society relations in dichotomous terms: “society is perceived as a mélange of social organisations that struggle against the state, sometimes displacing or harnessing the state” (Bilgin and Morton 2002, p. 63; see also Al-Khafaji 2004, p. 164).
As Marx (84) recognized, the material interests of this class remained tied to state finance in much the same way is its ancien régime predecessors.
For a detailed discussion of how the resistance of workers and craftsmen hindered the development of capitalist industrial relations in France, see Lafrance 2019.
The argument presented here builds on this framework, yet, PM’s rearticulation of Trotsky’s idea differs significantly—notably on its status as a transhistorical “law” of international relations—from its recent revival in the discipline of international relations by Justin Rosenberg and others, see Duzgun 2018a.
Although he held on to the definition of the French Revolution as a bourgeois revolution, Gramsci (1992), for instance, recognized that elsewhere on the continent, the capitalist classes remained subordinated to the rule of absolutist elites and that capitalism only slowly and unevenly developed through successive processes of “passive revolution.”
Kevin Anderson (2016) has recently uncovered little known or unpublished works where Marx engaged more systematically with the nature of social relations and development in peripheral societies and questioned his previous Eurocentric assumptions.
For a more enlightening and detailed comparison of the Middle East with France—and Europe more generally, see Al-Khafaji 2004.
Oftentimes this diversification took place through intermarriage between families specializing in different forms of property, see Khoury 1983, pp. 48–50.
I hesitate to define the effendiyya in terms of a “middle class” as many authors do. It might be more suitable to describe it as a “junior” faction of the ruling elite, although the issue is debatable. In any case, its relation with the dominant notables was not based on exploitation, but was organized around differential access to property, public employment, and state ressources.
The term corresponds more or less to the title of “gentlemen” and usually designated educated men of middling status, differentiated from the wealthiest and most influential members of the elite. See Eppel 2009.
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The author would like to thank Indigo Carson and the Theory and Society Editors and reviewers for their thoughtful comments on previous versions of the manuscript. The author declares that he has no conflict of interest.
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Viger, J. The Eighteenth Brumaire in historical context: reconsidering class and state in France and Syria. Theor Soc 48, 611–638 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-019-09354-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-019-09354-4