Servants of the state or masters of capital? Thinking through the class implications of state-owned capital

ABSTRACT The emergent literature on ‘new state capitalism' has offered little in terms of class analysis so far. This stands in contrast with prior twentieth-century writings which had sought to retool Marxist class theory to highlight the ambivalent position of the ‘state class' in settings where the state owned large concentrations of productive capital. This article sets out a novel conceptual framework for analyzing the class situation of officials and executives embedded in government and state-owned enterprises. Overseers and managers of state-owned capital should be understood as Janus-faced actors, participating simultaneously in political and economic fields, articulating political hierarchy with power over capital. Furthermore, fractions inside the state can be identified in so far as the authority to operate, and to allocate, capital is distributed unevenly within the state’s ruling stratum. As an illustration, an examination of the class ramifications of central-level SOEs in China is provided.