Epochal economic conditions limit but never determine the detailed form of political crises

Evidence

The fact that the political complexity of the moment of 1851 is related to the coexistence of modes of production, with no single mode as yet in full dominance, is a crucial step in the argument. In one sense, then, the political crisis of 1851 is given at the level of mode of production. It may even be seen that, in a long-term sense, the stage of development (i.e., underdevelopment) of the capitalist mode of production is what prescribes—determines, in an epochal sense—the range of “solutions” to the crisis possible at this stage of development (i.e., no clear resolutions, one way or another). What it certainly does not do is to prescribe, in detail, either the content or forms of the political conjuncture. … The lack of resolution—the situation of almost perfect equilibrium between the various contending fractions, leaving room for none definitively to prevail—provides the conditions in which the state itself appears, as a neutral structure “above the contending classes,” and enormously expands its range and “autonomy.” … Capital settles for a “postponement.” “Bonapartism” is its name and form. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 513

Categorization

• XREF: The core Hall/structural-Marxist tension between economic determination (in the last instance) and political autonomy/prepared conjunctures connects to earlier notes on ideology and hegemony across the volume. — connects to: No reliable predictive model exists for whether major reforms will entrench — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 429; Economic crises are ambiguous enough to enable wildly divergent political outcomes. — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment: The Left After the…, 99
• DEFINE: Defines ‘Bonapartism’ as the regressive political solution capital accepts when no class fraction can rule in its own name.