Neoliberal state capitalism as the ‘real subsumption’ of public enterprise?

ABSTRACT

This commentary argues that the puzzle of neoliberal state capitalism can be fruitfully approached through Karl Marx’s categories of ‘formal’ and ‘real’ subsumption, as applied here to changes in public enterprise. Indicated through various Canadian examples, the redistributive activities once associated with state ownership have been whittled to financial and technical assistance for capital, enmeshed within imperatives of financialisation and privatisation. With narrower mandates and limited social objectives, public enterprises have been transformed through the real subsumption of neoliberal state capitalism. Enhanced theorisation can inform academic debate and might suggest trajectories of future political contestation.

KEYWORDS:

• neoliberalism
• public enterprise
• state capitalism
• state-owned enterprise
• subsumption

JEL:

• B14
• P16
• H13
• H82

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The terms ‘state-owned enterprise’ and ‘public enterprise’ will be used interchangeably here in reference to government-owned commercial entities organised through formal articles of incorporation under the Canada Business Corporations Act or Acts of Parliament, an approach consistent with Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (2015, p. 14) guidance that suggests, ‘any corporate entity recognised by national law as an enterprise, and in which the state exercises ownership, should be considered as an SOE’. For a broader discussion of public ownership, see Cumbers (2012) and McDonald (2016).

2 The movement from formal to real subsumption can be found in other areas of relevance to neoliberal state capitalism as well. With financialised public infrastructure (Ashton et al., 2012; O'Neill, 2013), for example, where financialisation organises a shift from debt-funded public works projects (formal subsumption) to private equity holders making decisions about the design and operation of public infrastructure (real subsumption), the logics and needs of finance come to intimately determine process and outcome just like the real subsumption of labour over time.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council [grant number 435-2021-0046].