RACE Ri LA I IONS Sl f UATIONS OF OVERSEAS INDIANS 5 2. A critique ^long the same general lines but with specific reference to the Caribbean context has been advanced by Hall. He points out that while the 'plural society' model conceiftrates our attention on segmental, cultural and institutional diveisity, it does not account for the mechanisms of class power, legitimation ai.d domination. This structure of legitimation, almost identically present in a1! Caribbean societies, in which a small upper class controls access to power and reward is, according t^ Hall, historically derived from 'slave plan'atio^8 society9. It was the s' ive plantation society, with its typical features of the 'separate worlds' of masters and slaves, to which the structure of ^ ^iLmalion as well as socio-cullural pluralism owe their existence. "Every ^jbsequcnl dev^lrpment or stage represents ... a modification and IransforL ustion, but not a structural break, with this generative model'9.11 In the generative model, the two socio-cultural worlds do not form plural segments of parallel but distinct cultures, but differentiated parts of a ssr^lc ^cio-ec. non ic system. Thus there exists a complex "differentiated unity" spec He to each social formation which requires analysis. Seen fron' ih's peispeclive, it becomes obvious that the plural society model crnceives th^ questions of power and conflict in "too limited and sc^mentaly a fashion" and without regard to the "unity" of slave-plantation, colonial or post-colonial society.12 3. The conceptualisation of the state poses another problem in theories of pluralism. The pluralism literature lightly emphasises the importance of state and political domination in society. The pluralists, however, treat the state as the independent variable. According to Leo Kuper, "the state precedes and constitutes society; it is the state that is primary and imposes some measure of ordered relations on otherwise hostile or dissociated groups.'913 Such a conception is obviously contary to the Marxist conception of the state, which is understood as dependent, however indirectly, on changing material conditions. We share the Marxist view of the state as a relatively autonomous institutional ensemble whose policies and practices are influenced by the articulated interests, demands and conflicts among the dominant and subordinate classes in a given social formation. It is by virtue of this interventionist role that the state has repercussions on race relations situations. 4. The plural society approach emphasises the importance of political dominance in race relations but at the expense of economic dominance and exploitation. In pluralism, "economic class formations (are considered) as largely irrelevant to the analysis of social and political structures99.14 Pluralists who do call attention to economic class formation relegate it to a minor role, arguing taat ethnic/racial solidarities are stronger than those based on economic class. For instance, Leo Kupcr contends that in plural societies class solidarity across ethnic/racial lines rarely appears and tfaat Marxist concepts of class do not fit situations in plural societies.15 Obviously, Kuper's notion of class is too simplistic and harks back to an outdated "orthodox99 Marxism. In this orthodox view lliere is little allowance made