These classes were in conflict, competing with each other for the
resources which were under the control of the state. The landed aristocracy
was important because socio-economic structures had not been completely
transformed under colonialism into a capitalist society. It was in transition
with surviving feudalistic relations in the rural areas reflected in the rela-
tionships between landlords and tenants. Agriculture was based on a mode
of production which was far from capitalistic and which retained many ele-
ments of a pre-capitalist society and economy particularly in the control of
rural tenants and labour. The landed classes were keen to retain their control
over the agricultural sector not because they wanted to transfer their surplus
into industrial investment or even into a more capitalistic way of farming.
Rather they wanted to retain their pre-capitalist, feudalistic privileges and
powers over the local population.
The interests of this class were not identical to those of the other two
propertied classes. There was tension between the landed class and a bour-
geoisie that wanted industrialization to achieve higher levels of productivity
and more surplus for indigenous investment, low wages supported by cheap
food for the cities, and cheap raw materials for industrial processing. The
metropolitan bourgeoisie was interested in investments that would not be of
equal benefit to the national bourgeoisie. American aid was found to have
forced policies on the Government of Pakistan which were to the detriment
of domestic interests but in favour of American investors. Corruption was
another method by which the metropolitan bourgeoisie promoted its inter-
ests. The metropolitan bourgeoisie was in competition for control over dif-
ferent levels of the economy, the kinds of investment to be included in
development plans, and the partnerships between indigenous and foreign
capital that would be authorized by the state. At times the state seemed to
act on behalf of international capital, representing it locally. Sometimes it
would defend the interest of indigenous interests against foreign capital by
setting up protectionist tariffs against the importing of finished manufac-
tured goods. Though the national bourgeoisie was in a subordinate, client
status to the metropolitan bourgeoisie, their collaboration did not imply an
identity of interest – hence the need for the state to play a mediatory role.
The state essentially performed a function of mediation between con-
flicting propertied classes. Their interests were not contradictory since they
all had in common one essential value, the preservation of private property
in the social relations of production. But they had clearly competing inter-
ests. A particular kind of state was most appropriate for this mediating role,
one that could free itself to a degree from the direct control of a faction of
the bourgeoisie. Such a state needed a ‘bureaucratic–military oligarchy’,
The State in the Third World 115