on saying what you mean and meaning what you say: a response to craven

On Saying What You Mean and Meaning What You Say: A Response to CravenAuthor(s): Axel van den Berg and Michael R. SmithSource: The Canadian Journal of Sociology / Cahiers canadiens de sociologie, Vol. 8, No. 3(Summer, 1983), pp. 333-337Published by: Canadian Journal of SociologyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3340110 .

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On saying what you mean and meaning what you say: a response to Craven

Craven's most strenuous objection is that we did not treat his book "on its own terms." Specifically, he claims that his book cannot be described as "a rare attempt to descend from the heights of theoretical abstraction and use the recent Marxist theory of the state to make sense of specific historical occurrences." These claims on Craven's part leave us, quite frankly, aston- ished. Not only does what is widely considered as the current Marxist theory of the state figure prominently in all chapters devoted to programatic state- ments on the interpretation of federal labor policy (especially the introduction, chapter 6 and chapter 11); in addition, the core concepts of that theory (especially the "legitimation" and "accumulation" functions of the "capitalist" state) are routinely applied in the interpretation of labor policy throughout the book. Craven does interpret Mackenzie King as an "organic intellec- tual" maintaining capitalist class hegemony (e.g., pp. 14-16, 364-5). He does interpret the outcome of interventions under the IDIA as contributing to "legitimation" (p. 307). He does explicitly assert that there is an "endemic tension" between the legitimation and accumulation functions of the state (p. 160). He does adopt Poulantzas's view of the state as the "factor of cohe- sion" of the "social formation" as a whole (p. 161). He does flounder around trying to figure out whether the 1872 Trade Union Act should be considered as a case of legitimation or accumulation (pp. 167-74). He does refer to a se- ries of victories for the hard-line employers as a "long run of bad luck" and to successful appeals by workers under the terms of the IDIA as victories of their employers, because the former presumably undermined and the latter strengthened the legitimating effect of the Act (p. 307). He does explain the legitimation activities of the state as necessary to maintain social order in a society whose class divisions are "ultimately irreconcilable" (p. 355, 354-64 generally). These are not our inventions. They are in black and white in Craven's book. What is even more puzzling is that in the latter part of his reply, Craven repeats as "the framework I adopted" precisely the arguments which we criticized - only paragraphs after accusing us of maliciously ascribing positions to him which he does not take, "for our own purposes."

It is true that there is more to the book than the Marxist theory of the state. Certainly, Craven presents an interesting historical account of the in- tellectual antecedents of Mackenzie King's ideas. He also discusses the rela- tively interventionist tradition of Canadian labor policy. In fact, however, we drew attention to these parts of this book in the portion of our review (pp. 507-8) where we outlined his argument without comment. But in our critical comments we chose to focus on those substantial and central parts of his

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book in which he "attempts to make something more of his study than a straightforward and conventional historical account" (p. 510 of our review). We make no apologies for having done so. It is worth stressing here, more- over, that our critical remarks about Craven's book are carefully documented with either quotations or specific reference to the pages of his book in question. In contrast, Craven contents himself with a reference to "specific misconstructions and misrepresentations that populate the review" about which he proves to be anything but specific (with one exception, to which we will return).

Consider the parts of Craven's reply that are designed to show that we have misrepresented his book and, more generally, that we are guilty of "bad faith." First there are the three approaches to the interpretation of Canadian labor relations policy in the introduction to An Impartial Umpire, only one of which is the recent Marxist theory of the state. What are the other two? One is the examination of Mackenzie King's ideas. But, as we noted above, we refer to this part of Craven's analysis in our review (p. 507), so there is no misrepresentation here. The other "would view the policy as the outcome of some more or less rational bargaining process carried out between the parties directly involved in industrial relations" (p. 8). But nowhere in the book does Craven actually consider any variety of bargaining theory. Rational bargaining does enter into Craven's purely descriptive account of events from time to time; but only as a contingency which somewhat complicates but does not in any respect vitiate the underlying processes of legitimation and accumulation postulated by the Marxist theory of state. That Craven should use rational bargaining in his account in this purely contingent fashion is not surprising since, as we argued at length (pp. 514-16 of our review), these Marxist notions are precisely designed to avoid facing some of the uncomfortable issues (for Marxists) raised by the application of a rational bargaining perspective to labor relations. In citing his introduction to support his invective Craven seems to us disingenuous.

Second, Craven seems to suggest that the "poor grasp of the literature" (in his words) to which we draw attention somehow indicates that he is using a line of argument which is derived from something other than the Marxist theory of the state. What is the point to which we were referring? The point is that on pp. 158-9 of his book Craven inappropriately attributes notions of "relative autonomy" to the early work of Miliband where those notions would be more appropriately attributed to Poulantzas or Offe. This does not seem to us something of which Craven ought to be proud. But in any case, as we made clear, the issue is simply one of attribution. As we document in some detail, he uses the core ideas of legitimation and accumulation in precisely the way that they are formulated in the Marxist theoretic literature with, in our view, the same preposterous outcomes.

Third, we did recognize that at one point in his book Craven notes that

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one ought to avoid imputing long run interests that can only be divined with hindsight. But, Craven seems to think that the quotation in question somehow shelters his argument from criticism in the same terms as the theoretic Marxist literature on the state. This line of defence by Craven, however, assumes that his reasoning in An Impartial Umpire is consistent. Yet the ob- servation on avoiding imputing long-run interests in the conclusion of his book is hard to square with his use of the concept of legitimation in the body of the text. When Craven treats victories in labor disputes by employers as a "run of bad luck" he is imputing long-run interests to employers. And when he refers to successful appeals by workers under the provisions of the IDIA as victories for their employers he is imputing long-run interests to workers. More generally, his use of the concept of legitimation throughout the book necessarily assumes that the government was doing something more than simply conciliating the contending parties in a labor dispute; it assumes that the government was serving the long-run interests of capital (see, for ex- ample, the discussion on p. 162 of An Impartial Umpire). What does the concept of legitimation mean if it does not mean this? Again, Craven's ina- bility to reconcile different parts of his book does not seem to us to provide grounds for celebration on Craven's part and certainly does not contradict our (carefully documented) treatment of substantial parts of his book as ex- amples of the recent Marxist theory of the state in practice.

In the latter part of his reply, Craven ventures another line of defence. His use of the concept of legitimation, he claims, is "a dynamic one rooted in history," while ours is "static and ahistorical" because we, according to Cra- ven, equate legitimation attempted with legitimation achieved. This objection only demonstrates once more his failure to grasp the implications of the concepts he uses well as our criticisms of them. No one denies, of course, that governments try to keep the economy running smoothly, help various groups settle their differences in as undisruptive a manner as possible, prevent or resolve "unnecessary" tensions and disorders, etc., all in the name of what they perceive to be the "public interest." In his book, Craven exhaustively shows that Mackenzie King, too, to no one's surprise, aimed to do these things. It is also no great discovery that some governments and policies are better at achieving these goals than others. If Craven wishes to dress up such virtual truisms by using important-sounding terms like "legitimation," that is his business. Such usage merely amounts to a fairly harmless attempt to ornament an otherwise perfectly conventional analysis of policy in terms of its own stated aims, without any further theoretical implications; in particu- lar, without any implications as to the "ultimate" resolvability of conflicts which the policy under study aims to resolve.

But the term as used in the Marxist literature on the state and adopted by Craven in his book - though not, it seems, in his reply to our review - is explicitly intended to have just such implications. Since class conflict is

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"ultimately" unresolvable within capitalism, it is argued, there is a recurrent tendency for large numbers of workers to question the legitimacy of the system, thereby posing an objective threat to the social order. The state, being charged with the function of preserving the stability and integrity of the system, is thus constantly forced to re-legitimize itself and the capitalist system in the eyes of the workers by conciliatory policies towards labor. This is what is meant by the state's "legitimation function" in the literature, and it is also how Craven uses it in his book (e.g., pp. 158-62, 353-64). Obviously, then, if

early Canadian labor policy is to be interpreted in this sense it is necessary to show that it was a response to an objective (i.e., not just imagined by Mackenzie King), and fairly serious threat to the social order, and that it helped alleviate that threat. We argued that Craven failed to show that those policies did anything at all to convince a single worker of the fairness of the Canadian capitalism of the period or of the state's interventions. In his reply, Craven claims once again to have shown that those policies did to some de- gree help to de-radicalize labor, but he does not refer to the pages in his book or the evidence to support this assertion. In our view this is because there is no such evidence and his reply gives us no grounds to revise that opinion.

In any case, his comments completely miss the principal point we were making. It was we who pointed out the static and ahistorical implications of the notion of "legitimation" as employed by Craven and the Marxist literature. The notion ultimately rests, as we showed by quoting from Craven's book (p. 517 of our review), on a belief in a "natural," supra-historical sense of justice which renders every social system that fails to fully realize its

imperatives inherently unstable. We suggested an alternative interpretation: (capitalist) societies are quite stable whether workers are convinced of their

"legitimacy" or not. Workers will not rebel, in our own view, unless they judge the achievement of a more just society as feasible, at a reasonable cost. Craven, faithful to the core ideas of the recent Marxist theory of the state, simply ignores this possibility.

Let us now briefly consider the problem of order itself along with what Craven calls "a serious substantive misconstruction." As we pointed out in our review (p. 507), and as Craven stresses in his reply, his argument asserts that two forces were disrupting labor relations in this period. One was the or-

ganizing drive by the AFL and the other was the effect of scientific management. Our criticisms focused on the effects claimed for the rationalization of

industry. But since both parts of this argument appear in our review, it is unclear where our misconstruction lies. What we argued was that his claim with respect to the effects of scientific management was poorly supported by the evidence he presented. Craven does not dispute this in his reply. Instead he offers an argument to the effect that the organizing drive of the AFL was a sufficient cause of disorder. In any case, he argues, the secondary literature proves the point. We will not argue over the effects claimed by Craven for

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the AFL organizing drive. We simply note that this was not treated as a sufficient cause in his book. In An Impartial Umpire, the rationalization of industry was worth consideration in the text as well as an appendix of its own. In his reply, it has become unimportant. But Craven's discussion of the implications of the process of accumulation (e.g., pp. 353-8) makes it clear that his argument assumes that the threat to order is somehow embodied in the logic of capitalism. If the AFL organizing drive is a sufficient explanation for the threat to order of this period then Craven might as well have dis- pensed with his discussion of accumulation and its effects altogether. But, having made the effects of accumulation a central part of his argument in his book, we do not think that Craven should dispense with them in his reply. He seems to us to be attempting to have his cake and eat it too.

What of the evidence that establishes the existence of serious disorder? The only source cited by Craven is Jamieson's Times of Trouble. This is a distinguished enough source. But still, given the centrality of some threat to social order in Craven's interpretation, we would have preferred to see some more detailed consideration of the evidence on this (as we observed, quite mildly, in our review).

But the more important point is that if the process of accumulation had made legitimatory activities by the state necessary (as Craven argues in the book that we reviewed, if not in his reply), the evidence required to make this would show that, somehow, the policies had the effect of reducing disorder; more specifically, that they convinced workers that Canadian capitalism was more fair than it had seemed to them to be before the state's legitimatory ini- tiatives. We are at pains to point out in our review that Craven presents no evidence (with the possible exception of changed immigration laws) to that effect.

One final comment is in order. Craven concludes his reply by bracketing our carefully reasoned and documented review with the off-the-wall comments of a federal politician. The rhetorical ploy involved here is as transparent as it is contemptible. When we read Craven's book we thought that it was the work of a responsible historian who had overreached himself in attempting to apply a body of theory whose implications and limitations he did not properly understand. In the light of his reply we are forced to con- clude that we overestimated him.

University of Alberta Axel van den Berg McGill University Michael R. Smith

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on saying what you mean and meaning what you say: a response to craven

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