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theory of governmentality (Foucault 1979,
Valverde 1998). Here the emergent modern
nation-state
represents an independent force of domination
within society, one which attempts to regulate
the physical,
mental and moral health of both individuals and
the population as a whole in line with
scientific notions
of health and normality. Laws and state
practices related to “vice” represent one aspect
of this larger
transformation to a disciplinary society.
Despite their obvious differences, both of these
perspectives take for granted the ability of one
societal group—capitalists for Marxism, the
state for Foucault—to construct and enforce
norms and
regulations serving its interests. While
recognizing that in modern societies state and
corporate elites are
important social actors, I argue that the
relation between them, and thus those laws
regulating vice, are
neither predetermined nor determinant. Rather,
turning to both neo-Marxism and the work of
Pierre
Bourdieu, I conceptualize the modern state as
both relatively autonomous vis-à-vis specific
agents of
capital, and as holding “a monopoly of symbolic
violence” in society (Bourdieu 1989: 377)—i.e.,
as
retaining the power to deem as legitimate or
illegitimate a wide variety of individuals,
activities and
institutions. However, we cannot infer from such
power a concomitant “will to power”—i.e., that
the
various subfields of the state and their agents
will act at all times to consolidate their
control over society.
Rather, we must consider not only the structures
of and relations between the state and corporate
fields,
but those of other organized constituencies
within a given society’s field of power4 as
well. We thus may
find that corporate, religious or some other
sort of groups are able to harness state
power—especially the
power to confer il/legitimacy—in accord with
their own interests. But enough with the
academic
generalities; on to the casinos.
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