STATE AUTONOMY 15 ruling classes. One way, or rather the more useful way, of understanding both the process of centralisation of political power and the manifestation of the counter-tendency in the shape of the demands for 'State autonomy' is to look at it, at one level, through this consolidation and differentiation of ruling classes and how they seek to manage it and, at another level, to relate it to the growing democratic aspirations and concrete struggles of the common people, the working class and the peasantry. Most of the demands for State autonomy can, in fact, be traced back to either the contradictions among the ruling classes or the efforts of the working class and the peasantry to fight for and realise a democratic economy and a democratic polity. To come to a precise understanding of these demands for State autonomy it is essential to grasp the underlying forces that provide the push towards the centralisation of political power. Centralisation Inherent in Capitalist Development The development of capitalism necessitates, as one of its conditions, the formation of larger markets for commodity production. This necessity plus the requirements of big capital demand growing centralisation. The centralisation of state power is in part a reflection of this law of centralisation inherent in the capitalist development. The consequent erosion of the rights of the States or denial of autonomy to them is not simply a matter of will of this or that leader or this or that party in a pure subjective sense, although, as will be shown later, such factors do play a role in a given objective configuration of political power. Hence the issue of State autonomy and State rights is more than a question of simple choice between federal and unitary preferences on a mere constitutional level. The issue is closely bound to the sphere of operation of the law of centralisation inherent in the capitalist path of development. It may not be out of place here, even if by way of digression, to note that such a tendency towards centralisation and concentration of political power has been universal in the constitutional evolution of all 'liberal democracies'. It has been clearly discernible even in the advanced capitalist states of West Europe and North America. What has come to be described by political analysts as the growth in the powers of the federal government in the USA and other federations and also its concentration with the executive—President or Prime Minister and Cabinet — is in actual fact the working out of the tendency inherent in the operations of big capital noted above. Any empirical-temporal analysis of the centralisation of political power or major shifts in the constitutional functioning in favour of federal governments in advanced capitalist states would show that such a development has generally followed the rise of big capital or monopolies as the dominant element in the economies of these societies.