Understanding State Roles in Historical and Global Contexts

welcome we are looking at module 1 historic sites in the state and you will notice in your course outline and in the

documents before you including the podcasts and so on that you would review you would notice as we go through the

course the questions estate emerges as a question as a topic of enduring importance so in this particular module

we'll be talking about historic sites in the state we wanted locate it within the long run history so that understanding

the state we want to understand market lineage we want to understand the origins or and the reproducibility of

the state in our context return about the carribean scenario carbon system systems come in states if you're further

feel we're talking about a state where you are normally you will find that these states tend to take on and so on

geographical characters in the sense that time the culture of that geographical space attends to the state

that you are in or the country that you are in but for the purposes of conceptualizing the state we want to be

able to do a few things right so it's critical that we look at the question of the state in terms of where life is

fashion so we want to understand that the state is the spatial face it's a spiritual fix where life is

fashion well ladies are produce and reproduce where there is considerable attention on the part of authorities and

keeping order where there is in that settle space state space laws are made we want to understand also how wealth is

produced and accumulated so in that spiritual fix in that produced geography we have a culture around how people

reproduced in their lives and the role that institutions play in that context also we all we want to treat the state

as really shock in a theatre of accumulation and by that what I mean as a theater of accumulation

we are featuring the role that entrepreneurs would play in the pursuit of their own interests we are featuring

the role that consumers will play in the pursuit for greater efficiency in the production of goods and the supplier of

such goods and we are also featuring the role that citizens will play in the pursuit of justice in the pursuit of

equality fairness and so on so we come down to a question when we are looking at the state we look at we come to the

question of what is the what ought to be the role of the state and in understanding what is the role of the

state we really are discussing state posture a about States posture it's important to consider the perspectives

that are given to you and I can assure you that there tool as it were founding fathers in relation to understanding the

posture of the state of what ought to be the role of the state and we are talking about Adam Smith and we're talking about

Karl Marx of course we are drawing from their cosmovision I'm not necessarily oh

strictly from a particular body of work upon particular texts but their Smithee ins and your mark scenes and scholars

working within the Adam Smith liberal conception of society and market economy have a particular view about the role of

the state where that state plays I saw the night watchman role a minimalist rule its role is to maintain

infrastructure maintain law and order establish rules governing market behavior and and as such it plays a

minimalist role in the economy it recognizes that people are born with natural inclinations to truck trade

barter and to engage in exchange relations so the state just plays the role of regulating order along those

lines at and force to enforce contra we also recognize that's my dodgy ringtone that

the state also plays a role in the reproduce reproduction of society and the economy in the liberal conception in

the Marxian conception the question asks about the rollers there is - whom - well really whose interest is being

served.the the question is for mark scenes is this as the rules state that - on behalf of the capitalist class or

those that own the wealth and the the means of production is it the state is ruling at their behest or you know is it

that the state is supposed to court as part of the framing of the national interest their interests so Marxist ask

critical questions from the perspective of those that do not have the wealth or the social positioning in society to be

counted as part of the ruling alliance or part of the bourgeois forces and bourgeoisie of course referring to those

class groups those class of those classes or groups that only means of production and in their conception a

Marxist conception the role of state therefore should be that to provide a protective response to protect the

vulnerable and to ensure a fair distribution of the country's wealth and so for them the ideal role of the state

is to play that role in the promotion of greater freedoms now there are whole set of developmentally scholars however who

are neither strictly liberal liberal in the smithy insane Australian Marx in a radical or structures in the Marxist

sense and they have competing conceptions - about the role of the state for them for those that are

for lack of a better term promoters of free trade are free enterprise we may call them near liberals they are less

about what Smith has to say in relation to rules and so on as much as they're to say that the state should play a role in

facilitating business and investment besides the traditional rules of lying my Smith and others the state for many

new liberals is to promote market order financial order and to promote financial enhancement and a business enhancement

and that ought to be the role of the state for those that we may call developmental thinkers developmentalist

they're arguing that the role of the state should be to in shaping the political economy development should be

about ensuring that the state is disciplining capital or stirring capital in the direction of extending and

growing the diversification of the economy in developing the productive sectors and potentials of that the

economy and so on by political economy development therefore we are really talking about the interplay between

politics economics and institutions in the pursuit of national development and national development as it was pointed

out earlier is something subject to contentious discussion national development in the interests of the

promotion of capitalist development some will argue and that must mean paying attention to the role of the

entrepreneurial elite or Nash's development in the sense of growing the economy for the purposes of readership

redistribution of the world in an etiquette of equitable kind of way so we can see that this is a sort of

socialistic leaning and not necessarily of the classical Marxist sense but in the sense of creating that just society

where entrepreneurs can make money and the vulnerable groups can see through the

stay a protective response so and all of that we're talking about state posture now of course the course is located

within an understanding of globalization so we need to look at not just governance and the administration of

things at the local level we also need to look at governance and the administrative administration of things

at the global level so I hate the term global governance and we are rather states have obligatory processes as

members of international organizations that you aim as contributors to the IMF and so on they have obligatory processes

so quite often you see states are forced to or cajole into complain with international norms as part of your

obligatory press a part of your obligations as a member and you also have to adopt certain global standards

so we steer or critical lens in this course in the direction to of looking at relations of power at the global level

so we are dealt with relations of power at the national level where we are concerning the state because you want to

understand what is the role of capital what is the role of the political class was the role of ruling elite or is the

role of the working majority hard the questions of the reproduction of wealth settle are the questions of a fair

distribution of that wealth settled at the global level we want to look at the estate to which these global governance

regimes remain open to justice claims the extent to which there may be an exercise of coercive power on the

autonomy of states on what states do so all these things constitutes the politics and the interplay of relations

of power that you will be examining throughout this course so enjoy the readings follow through

with the discussions about the political economy of development seek to be able to answer

any exam question that asks you why study the state I why should we study this in relation or in reference to the

political economy of development understand these things and then you'll be able to understand and capture not

only the role of nation-states in today's globalization but the role that capital plays in moving in and out of

these nation states because you know capital is a spatial we talk about spatial fix when we talk about states

but capital does not really a capital does not stay still it moves around its Footloose of course capital requires a

social piece and camber the nation states in order to reproduce its own wealth and and so on but basically we

are talking about the internationalization capital are we trying to understand States as they

navigate globalization thank you