Dispossession and the Mass Party

This chapter argues that Marx and Weber were right to relate party emergence with capitalism and the modern state. But understanding the nature of this relationship requires a 1) rethinking of the unique characteristics of the party as a political-organizational modality and 2) a focus on the destructive processes associated with the ascent of a market economy and a bureaucratic state apparatus. A reading of Marx and Weber through the prism of Antonio Gramsci’s understanding of the party-form and Bourdieu’s insights on political representation moves us in this direction. Capitalism and the modern State transform political organization, as it ceases to be an act of direct presentation to a territorial outsider and becomes an act of re-presentation whereby a specialized intermediary agent (party, union, civil societal organization) articulates private sectoral interests that cut across local communities. This transition from “territorial presentation” to “social sectoral representation” requires two primitive accumulations, and economic and a political one.