Civil society: a political construct in defense of capitalJan LustAbstract: In the last two decades, political discourse is being contaminated by the concept of civil society. Although its definition and significance have changed over time, actually it might be considered as a political and ideological conception instead of a scientifically grounded construct. In civil society discourse, society is considered to be composed of classless subjects, a plurality of identities, and the state apparatuses as class-neutral and opposed to the interests of society. In this essay it is argued that the concept of civil society and discourse is of major utility for the bourgeoisie as it helps to maintain and deepen a false image within the exploited and oppressed classes and social layers regarding the characteristics of capitalist society in general and the capitalist state in particular. Civil society discourse disarms the exploited and oppressed as it eliminates class from social analysis and proposes to struggle for a democratization of society within a capitalist framework.Keywords: Social classes, class analysis, capitalist state, civil society, social transformation Introduction

In the last two decades, political discourse is increasingly being contaminated by the concept of civil society. The demise of the real existing socialist countries in Eastern Europe and the collapse of the former Soviet-Union at the end of the 80s, combined with the introduction of neoliberalism, boomed the concept: class was out and civil society was in.

The definition and significance of the concept of civil society have changed over time (Kaldor, 2005: 31-71). These many faces of civil society, as Meiksins Wood (1990: 65) argues, have made it possible to mobilize it to serve many varied purposes. In her book La sociedad civil global. Una respuesta a la guerra, Kaldor (2005: 110-111) lists the following agencies as pertaining to the global civil society: social movements before the 70s; social movements of the decades of the 70s and the 80s; non-governmental organisations (NGOs), advising committees and commissions at the end of the 80s and 90s; civil transnational networks at the end of the decades of the 80s and 90s; nationalist and fundamentalist social movements of the 90s; and anti-capitalist social movements at the end of the 90s and in the first decade of the third millenium. Nothwitstanding this large list, we consider the description of Veltmeyer and Meiksins Wood the most adequate. According to Veltmeyer (2008: 229-239), civil society is associated with the project of international cooperation for development. In this tradition, civil society is viewed as an array of social organizations representing stakeholders in a process of economic development, a strategic partner in the war against global poverty waged by the World Bank and other international development associations and agencies. In this context, civil society is viewed as an agency for bringing about a participatory and empowering form of developmentan organizational means of transforming the new development paradigm into practice (Veltmeyer, 2008: 229-230). Meiksins Wood (1990: 63-64) comments that civil society encompasses a very wide range of institutions and relations, from households, trade unions, voluntary associations, hospitals, churches, to the market, capitalist enterprises, indeed the whole capitalist economy. Actually, the concept of civil society might rather be considered as a political and ideological conception instead of a scientifically grounded construct.

The use of the concept of civil society by the political scientists of the bourgeoisie does not bother us as these intellectual agencies of the capitalist state are specifically been equipped to develop and disseminate concepts and doctrines that mask the class nature of capitalist society. As Althusser (1971) observes, every social formation must reproduce the conditions of its production at the same time as it produces, and in order to be able to produce. However, what could be considered as a worry is the fact that the concept has found a certain acceptance within the left. According to Meiksins Wood (1990: 65), the left will have to pay a heavy price for the all-embracing concept of civil society. This conceptual portmanteau, which indiscriminately lumps together everything from households and voluntary associations to the economic system of capitalism, confuses and disguises as much as it reveals.The concept of civil society is of major utility for the bourgeoisie as it helps to maintain and deepen a false image within the oppressed and exploited classes and social layers regarding the characteristics of capitalist society in general and the capitalist state in particular. The concept contributes to that what we might call a false consciousness within the working class. While the capitalist production process is been constructed in such a way as to prevent the working class to transform itself from a class an sich (in itself) to a class fr sich (for itself) the productive process is not only a technical one but also a social process, in which the transformation of the material conditions of existence is simultaneously the production, reproduction, and transformation of social relations between the direct producers (engaged in actual productive labor) and the appropriators of their surplus product (those who control the means of production (Zeitlin, 1980: 2), the concept of civil society intends to create the perception that society is composed of classless individuals or subjects. As a matter of fact, as Meiksins Wood (1990: 79) comments, the whole object of the exercise is to side-line class, to dissolve it in all-embracing categories which deny it any privileged status or even any political relevance at all. The civil society discourse of classless subjects corresponds exactly to how the capitalist state is being conceptualized, or rather how it is not conceived. In this discourse, the state is considered autonomous with specific interests opposed to society. According to Poulantzas (1986: 155), the concept of individuals-subjects instead of social classes, is the fundament of the problematic of civil society and its separation of the state. In this essay we discuss the relationship between social classes, the capitalist state and civil society. We intend to show that current civil society discourse is a political construct of the bourgeoisie to mask and defend the dictatorship of capital. Although it might seem that this discourse points to the democratization of society, in fact, by introducing the concept of the plurality of identities it intends to eliminate class and corresponding questions concerning the political and economic bases of exploitation.

This paper is structured in four sections. In the first section we present our concept of class and describe, in general terms, the relations of explotation embedded within capitalist class relations. In section two we examine the characteristics of the capitalist state. This unit will helps us to understand that the capitalist state is not autonomous but rather intimately related to the dominant class. Therefore, it cannot be considered as an agency for the liberation of forces that might lead to the social transformation of society. Section three intends to politically characterize the concept of civil society as a vehicle of the bourgeoisie to mask the workings of the system based on exploitation and oppression. In section four we present our conclusions.I. Classes and relations of explotationThe concept of civil society is embedded within a discourse that eliminates class as the fundament of society, as the elemental unit for the analysis of the development of capitalist society, and as the key for social transformation. By removing class from society, the discourse is able to concentrate the analysis of, for instance, inequality and poverty, on its superficial appearances instead on its causes. In addition, it eradicates the possibility to define strategic power relations as well as conflicts between social groups (Portes & Hoffman, 2003: 9). A Marxist class analysis, in contrast to a Weberian class analysis, makes it possible to determine what generates what people get and what people have to do to get what they get. Exploitation and domination are the pivotal concepts for this analysis (Wright, 1999). As such, a Marxist class analysis could be considered as the sole method that is able to incentivize the struggle for social transformation. In addition, this analysis might also help to determine those classes and social layers that could be considered as the pillars of the capitalist system and those that are able to topple it.

The elimination of class from society and its removal from social analysis makes the totalizing logic and the coercive power of capitalism to become invisible. The effect of civil society discourse is to conceptualize away the problem of capitalism, by disaggregating society into fragments, with no over-arching power structure, no totalizing unity, no systemic coercions in other words, no capitalist system, with its expansionary drive and its capacity to penetrate every aspect of social life (Meiksins Wood, 1990: 65).In his writing The great beginning, Lenin (1961: 228) defined classes as follows: Classes are large groups of people differing from each other by the place they occupy in a historically determined system of social production, by their relation (in most cases fixed and formulated in law) to the means of production, by their role in the social organisation of labour, and, consequently, by the dimensions of the share of social wealth of which they dispose and the mode of acquiring it. Classes are groups of people one of which can appropriate the labour of another owing to the different places they occupy in a definite system of social economy. The relations between the owners of the means of production and the dispossessed are defined as class relations, as, according to the definition of Wright (1999), there not only exist unequal rights and powers over the physical use of a resource, but also over the appropriation of the results of that use.

The class relation between the owners of the means of production and the owners of labour power (the dispossessed), respectively capital and labour for short, are relations of power and explotation. These relations define both classes, since neither exists apart from this relationship between them, and the entire social whole, or mode of production (Zeitlin, 1980: 2). The relations of explotation describe the existing interrelations between the owners of capital and the dispossessed extremely well as these demonstrate that the material welfare of exploiters causally depends upon the material deprivations of the exploited, that the welfares of exploiters and exploited depend upon the exclusion of the exploited from access to certain productive resources and that exclusion generates material advantage to exploiters because it enables them to appropriate the labor effort of the exploited (Wright, 1999).

According to Harnecker (1970: 124), in every mode of production there only exist two antagonistic classes. In the case of the capitalist mode of production these classes are the owners of the means of production and the working class. Both classes may be subdivided in fractions. Although the capitalist mode of production defines only two classes, in capitalist society more classes may exist. Capitalist society is a specific social formation, a historically determined society (Harnecker & Poulantzas, N/D: 51), a place in which the process of reproduction of the (capitalist) mode of production takes place (Poulantzas, 1976a: 45, 185).

The classes that might exist apart from the ones defined in the mode of production are called transition classes. These tend to decompose as new modes of production are being developed (Harnecker, 1970: 134). Besides transition classes, society is also made up of social groups and individuals that do no form part of a determined class, for instance lawyers and administrators (Harnecker, 1970: 124, 138).

Finally, class relations between capital and labour are not only located at the level of the production process but also politically at the level of the state. According to Poulantzas (1976a: 21), the process of production and exploitation is at the same time the process of reproduction of the relations of political and ideological domination and subordination. In this sense, the state has to be considered as a relation of power and exploitation, affecting and reproducing the structure of class relations of capitalist society.II. Characteristics of the capitalist state

The capitalist state is as well the consequence of the contradictions between classes and within classes, between fractions of classes (structuralist theory of the state), as an instrument in the hands of the dominant class (instrumentalist theory of the state). In line with the structuralist theory of the state, in his Origin of the family, private property and the state, Engels (1974: 344) noted the following: The state is therefore by no means a power imposed on society from without; just as little is it the reality of the moral idea, the image and the reality of reason, as Hegel maintains. Rather, it is a product of society at a particular stage of development; it is the admission that this society has involved itself in insoluble self-contradiction and is cleft into irreconcilable antagonisms which it is powerless to exorcise. But in order that these antagonisms, classes with conflicting economic interests, shall not consume themselves and society in fruitless struggle, a power, apparently standing above society, has become necessary to moderate the conflict and keep it within the bounds of order; and this power, arisen out of society, but placing itself above it and increasingly alienating itself from it, is the state. In the same work he also noted (1974: 346): As the state arose from the need to keep class antagonisms in check, but also arose in the thick of the fight between the classes, it is normally the state of the most powerful, economically ruling class, which by its means becomes also the politically ruling class, and so acquires new means of holding down and exploiting the oppressed class. A certain mix of the structuralist character of the state and its instrumentalist function can be found in Engels Herr Eugen Dhrings Revolution in Science (1877). In this work he wrote the following: But with the differences in distribution, class differences emerge. Society divides into classes: the privileged and the dispossessed, the exploiters and the exploited, the rulers and the ruled; and the state, which the natural groups of communities of the same tribe had at first arrived at only in order to safeguard their common interests (e.g., irrigation in the East) and for protection against external enemies, from this stage onwards acquires just as much the function of maintaining by force the conditions of existence and domination of the ruling class against the subject class. In his work Civil war in France (1871), Marx wrote the following regarding the instrumentalist function of the state: At the same pace at which the progress of modern industry developed, widened, intensified the class antagonism between capital and labor, the state power assumed more and more the character of the national power of capital over labor, of a public force organized for social enslavement, of an engine of class despotism.

The structuralist theory of the state might be considered as difficult to handle as it does not provide direct possibilities for political action. The instrumentalist theory of the state, on the other hand, is politically much easier to grasp or to deal with. In relation to the utilty of both theories, Gold, Lo and Wright (1977: 35-36) argue that the instrumentalist perspective tends to voluntarism when explaining the activities of the state. In the case of the structuralists, the authors consider that their analysis has almost completely eliminated conscious action. We consider, nevertheless, the combination of both theories crucial for our understanding of the workings of the capitalist system at the political level. The onslaught on the labor rights and the attack on the workers unions in Peru during the dictatorship of Alberto Fujimori (1992-2009), for instance, certainly favoured the dominant classes, as it made the disposition of cheap and socially unprotected labor for capital possible (instrumentalist theory of the state). The fall of dictator Fujimori was orchestrated by the dominant class itself as the neoliberal project, initiated in the 90s, came under fire after the resurgence of the social movements. The political compromise between the dominant and the dominated classes was the government of Alejandro Toledo (2001-2006) who, although continued the neoliberal project, reinserted the country within the family of democratic nations (structuralist theory of the state).The combination of both theories is also useful for the analysis of the political workings of capitalist society at the international level. For example, the fact that imperialism is currently promoting post-neoliberal policies that are more socially inclusive, more interventionist and more regulatory in the interests of the public (instrumentalist theory of the state), is nothing more than its response, in the light of the demise of pure neoliberalism, to the ongoing international crisis and the popular struggles against exploitation, oppression and, especially in the case of Latin America, in defense of the livelihoods and habitats of the indigenous communities (structuralist theory of the state).

The adherents of the concept of civil society point to the instrumentalist function when they critize the state and mobilize against it. The structuralist character of the state is, on the other hand, a very hard and impossible pill to swallow for the advocates of civil society as it smashes the fundament of their supposed intent to democratize society. For instance, it is much easier to mobilize for some kind of political democratization and obtain certain tangible results, instead to take action in favour of economic democratization as this would imply social transformation. However, political democratization of the state is not something that could be considered as contrary to the interests of the hegemonic fraction of the bourgeoisie in power. As a matter of fact, political democratization might, eventually, in the short run, be opposed to the economic interests of the dominant classes, but compatible with its political interests, with its hegemonical domination (Poulantzas, 1986: 242). Harnecker (1970: 137) comments that in order to preserve its economic power, in some cases the bourgeoisie has to give some political power. The capitalist state, according to Poulantzas (1986: 241), does not directly represent the economic interests of the dominant classes but its political interests.III. Civil society: a political construct to mask the dictatorship of capitalThe existence of various classes and fractions within every class makes a comprehension of capitalist society surely very complicated. However, as in civil society discourse class is been eradicated, the problem of class does not pose an issue for understanding society. In line with the post-Marxist discourse, civil society discourse claims there are no objective class interests that divide society since interests are purely subjective and each culture defines individual preferences (Petras, 1998).

According to Meiksins Wood (1990: 79), the elimination of class is rather exactly the problem of civil society discourse. Theories which do not differentiate among various social institutions and identities, cannot deal critically with capitalism. By eliminating class, the relation of exploitation disappears as one of the objective conditions for the development of the capitalist system and is transformed into a subjectively and individually felt matter.

Civil society discourse intends to make us belief that there exist a gap between the state and civil society, even contradictionary interests. As a matter of fact, the state is considered autonomous and politics and economics are conceived as two different spheres of action. By making reference to Meiksins Wood, Morton (2004: 158) states that by dividing politics and economics attention is diverted from social (class) struggles over subordination and exploitation that are inextricably embedded within capitalist social relations of production.

The advocates of civil society intend to strengthen the forces outside the state apparatuses. While, definitively, this could contribute to the democratization of society, nevertheless, by considering the state as an autonomous agency they unconsciously help to create a false consciousness in the working class and other exploited and oppressed social layers. We consider, however, the state relatively autonomous but this relative autonomy, as Poulantzas explains, is due to the states relation to the social structures of society and is not caused by the fact that it might have a power of its own (Poulantzas, 1986: 140-141).As we argued above, the problematic of the supposed separation between the state and society has to do with how the structure of society is being understood. As civil society discourse considers society being composed of classless individuals rather than of social classes, a plurality of identities so to speak, its advocates are not able to comprehend the class-nature of the capitalist state. As a consequence, instead of fighting for state power, the adherents of civil society discourse disarm the exploited and oppressed classes by creating to what we might call subsocieties. In this way they do not contribute to the democratization of society as they claim they do, or the struggle for social transformation as they might pretend, but, in fact, help to prolong the system. Regarding this matter, Petras (1998) argues the following: The generalized ahistorical, asocial attacks on the state are unwarranted and only serve as a polemical instrument to disarm citizens of the free market from forging an effective and rational alternative anchored in the creative potentialities of public action.The advocates of civil society discourse could be considered as lackeys of capital as they intend to mask its dictatorship. Instead of pointing to a real democratization of capitalist society, they, as argued by Meiksins Wood (1990:79), surrender to capitalism and its ideological mystifications by an indeterminate concept of democracy, or the dilution of diverse and different social relations into catch-all categories like identity or difference, or loose conceptions of civil society.IV. ConclusionsThe concept of civil society is important for the struggle against capital as it might help to gather a diverse and broad range of social movements behind the flag of democratization of capitalist society. To transform this struggle into a fight for social transformation seems to be very difficult due to the contradictionary class interests within and between social movements.

Civil society discourse may be considered as something like the minimum program of the struggle for the social transformation of society, as it could be helpful to break the dominance of the neoliberal ideology. This reformist discourse, however, becomes rapidly reactionary when the revolutionary forces are not able to turn it into a stepping stone to conquer the social consciousness of the working class and the other exploited and oppressed social layers. Nevertheless, in the particular case of Peru, the current correlation of class forces and the uncontested hegemony of the neoliberal ideology do not make it wise to use civil society discourse for revolutionary purposes as it will prolong and deepen the power of capital instead of starting to break it.

Civil society discourse not only intends to eliminate class from society and social analysis, but also aims to demonstrate and disseminate under broad layers of society the existence of contradictionary interests between the state and society. By doing this, on the hand it tries to keep the exploited and oppressed classes from fighting for state power, and on the other hand it creates and propagates the idea that a reform of the state, i.e. the state as an instrument at the service of the whole population, is possible. However, as Engels (1878) argued regarding the place of the state after the socialist revolution, the first act by virtue of which the state really constitutes itself the representative of the whole of society the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society this is, at the same time, its last independent act as a state. State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production.

The state in capitalist society cannot be reformed to work in favour of the exploited and oppressed classes, as it is, essentially, an agency to further the development of capitalist society, i.e. to expand, deepen and maintain relations of exploitation and oppression. Although we do not consider it impossible for the state to contribute to social change, for a specific time-period and depending on the correlation of class forces within and outside the state, however, the revolutionary project for social transformation may not depend on it but rather need to destroy the state. As Lenin (1960: 299) comments in relation to a Kautskyite distortion of Marxism, if the state is the product of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms, if it is a power standing above society and alienating itself more and more from it, it is clear that the liberation of the oppressed class is impossible not only without a violent revolution, but also without the destruction of the apparatus of state power which was created by the ruling class and which is the embodiment of this alienation.

The concept of civil society is a political construct to mask the characteristics of capitalist society as it eliminates class from society and social analysis, and considers the state as class-neutral. Current civil society discourse needs to be regarded as a political attack on the historical interests of the working class, defined as a process towards the creation of a society based on socialist principles. It is the task of the revolutionary forces to show the class-nature of civil society discourse and to reveal the class-character of the state as well as to forge the class consciousness of the exploited and the oppressed masses.Bibliography

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A social transformation of society implies an irreversible change of the production relations, which can be deconstructed in relations of ownership, functionality and exploitation; who produces what, for whom and how (Carchedi, 1987: 95).

The sheer fact of inequalities of income or of domination and subordination within work is not proof that class counts; what has to be shown is that the rights and powers of people over productive assets have a systematic bearing on these phenomena (Wright, 1999).

According to Wright (1999), what distinguishes the Marxist concept of class from the Weberian concept is that the Marxist concept of class is not simply defined in terms of relations to economic resources, but which elaborates these relations in terms of mechanisms of economic oppression.

In Marxist circles of the 70s, the character of the state was heavily debated. For reasons of space, we are not able to reflect on these discussions. For these debates, see Poulantzas (1976a, 1976b, 1986) and Milliband (1970, 1976).

We do not consider the government the same as the state. For the purposes of this essay, it goes too far to discuss the relation between the government and the state or the problematic regarding state apparatuses.

The defenders of the concept of civil society should ask themselves how a democratization of society can take place without pointing to a change of the political and economic structure of society. If, for instance, one of the objectives is to regulate extractive industries in order to diminish their devastating ecological effects, in the case of Peru, the following should be taken into consideration. Mining in Peru is principally a foreign business. Production of the main minerals that determine the dynamics of the sector, copper and gold, is in the hands of just a few companies, For example, 80% of copper production is concentrated in the mining units Antamina (owned by BHP Billiton, Xstrata, Teck and Mitsubishi Corporation), Southern (a majority-owned, indirect subsidiary of Grupo Mexico S.A.B.) and Cerro Verde (property of Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc., SMM Cerro Verde Netherlands B.V.; a subsidiary of Sumitomo Metal Mining Company Ltd., Compaia de Minas Buenaventura S.A.A.). Similarly, Minera Yanacocha and Barrick concentrate about 60% of domestic gold production (Grupo Propuesta Ciudadana, 2012: 10).

It is interesting to note the connection between civil society and post-Marxist discourse. According to Petras (1998), one of the arguments of post-Marxism against Marxism is the following: The Marxist emphasis on social class is reductionist because classes are dissolving; the principle political points of departure are cultural and rooted in diverse identities (race, gender, ethnicity, sexual preference). Regarding the relation of civil society and post-Marxist discourse, we would also like to refer to Veltmeyer (2000), as he states that the basis of post-Marxism is a rejection of the concept which lies at the heart of Marxist analysis: class, defined in terms of the relationship of individuals to the means of production under conditions that are, as Marx conceived it, definite and beyond their will, and that correspond to stages in the development of societys forces of production.

Identity politics in the sense of consciousness of a particular form of oppression by an immediate group can be an appropriate point of departure. This understanding, however, will become an identity prison (race or gender) isolated from other exploited social groups unless it transcends the immediate points of oppression and confronts the social system in which it is embedded. And that requires a broader class analysis of the structure of social power which presides over and defines the conditions of general and specific inequalities (Petras, 1998).

The current correlation of class forces within and outside the Peruvian State shows the absolute hegemony of the Peruvian bourgeoisie in society and its integration with the international ruling class. In the last two decades it was not only capable to implement a large scale privatization process, but it was also the major political force behind the free trade agreements that Peru signed with a variety of countries. Actually, the Peruvian bourgeoisie is the principal defender of the interests of (transnational) extractive capital, having succeeded in avoiding an extra tax on the super profits of the mining corporations. In addition, it has accomplished to start a process that will definitively lead to the privatization of the Lima water supply.