DAILY READING - 13/09/2014 (PLEASE, CIRCULATE AND POST WIDELY!) POSTING 2 READING 7 GHANA UNDER RAWLINGS – EARLY YEARS. EMMANUEL HANSEN. Introduction Eboe Hutchful, October 1989 (CONTINUATION) While illuminating both of these formulations raise a number of theoretical issues, even ignoring for a moment the problem of consistency. First, it is not clear whether this ‘class identification’ is structural or ideological, or both – although Hansen’s usage would tend to suggest that it is structural – in other words the military, or its various strata, occupy positions similar to the civilian petty bourgeoisie or other classes in the process of social production. In my view, there are several problems with this position. In general, the class origin of military officers and ranks is not a useful or reliable indicator of their class sympathies or ideological inclination for a variety of reasons. First, as a corporate organization, the modern military does not occupy a direct or determinate place in social production. Its relationship with production is mediated by and through state budget and state appropriation, giving it a certain structural autonomy from – and potential antagonism to – sectors rooted directly in production. Its material and power base is also sustained by specific international production relations and structures. Its interests may indeed coincide closely with other sectors of the state bureaucracy, but even at this level certain contradictions do emerge, relating to the secrecy and ‘inviolability’ of the defence budget and its ideological basis in concepts of ‘national security’. Secondly, it is possible to assert that for obvious reasons, the modern military is determined primarily by ideology rather than structure, and that indeed it is the detachment from structure that makes such an ideological determination possible. The denial of the class structure of the military in that ideology is fundamental to the credibility of the military function in the national – popular, constitutional, democratic state. Thirdly, neither formulation addresses adequately the analytical problems posed by the contradiction between ‘corporate’ and the (various) ‘class’ belongings of the military. The (ideological) emphasis on a corporate identity and profession-in-arms, aims specifically at engineering solidarity out of class heterogeneity. This involves obviating prior class and social solidarities through very rigorous socialization processes. The ‘solidarity that then emerges is opposed to the ‘fragmentation’, ‘indiscipline’, and ‘disorder’ of civil society – in other words, it is used to assert corporate uniqueness and separation from civil society in general.
Posted on: Sat, 13 Sep 2014 12:18:24 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015