Class Power in Hard Times: Excavating Nicos Poulantzas’s Theory of the Capitalist State through the History of the 2007–2008 Crisis

Abstract

After the 2007–8 financial crisis, the fortunes of the American financial class remained surprisingly secure. This owed to the state’s extraordinary set of bailout measures. How do we theoretically make sense of the state’s class bias? Most prevailing state theories are agnostic to class. This is a sharp departure from their neo-Marxist predecessors, particularly Nicos Poulantzas, who argued that capitalist states support the dominant class faction. To recenter the politics of class, I discuss Poulantzas’s ideas in the context of the 2007–8 crisis in the United States. Arguing against criticisms that he was functionalist and ahistorical, I show how he theorized moments of historical change. To demonstrate the utility of his ideas in recent history, I apply them to the history of the capitalist crisis of the 1970s when dominant form of capital shifted from big industry to finance. I then discuss some ways that state responses to financial crises effectively safeguarded this class. This article casts a new theoretical light on the history of the 2007–8 crisis and seeks to revive an interest in a radical theory of the capitalist state.