We hear all kinds of definitions of the State. Some claim that the state is just the government.
Some say it’s a hierarchical force with a monopolisation of violence over a given area.
Some say it’s a combination of the government and armed forces, that acts as a neutral bystander in
the interest of all toward a greater public good. And some claim it’s the means by which
shape-shifting reptilian overlords from Alpha Draconis control humanity.
But, while it may not be as exciting as conspiracies involving planet-hopping lizard
people, Marxists also have our own unique analysis of the State, how it emerged historically,
and the purpose it serves to this day. So, let’s get into it – what is the Marxist
understanding of the State? Welcome to Socialism 101,
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Now, in the general sense, the State refers to the apparatuses used by one class to repress another,
both directly and indirectly - the set of tools used to secure class domination and exploitation.
Lenin wrote in State and Revolution that “The state is a product and a manifestation of the
irreconcilability of class antagonisms. The state arises where, when and insofar as class
antagonism objectively cannot be reconciled. And, conversely, the existence of the state proves that
the class antagonisms are irreconcilable.” So, contrary to what capitalist society would
have us believe, the state is not merely a neutral bystander in affairs that protects
and supports all people equally, regardless of their class. Rather, it exists specifically to
protect the interests of the exploiting class – today, the bourgeoisie – which necessarily
comes at the expense of the interests of the exploited class – today, the proletariat.
Engels wrote in Anti-Dühring that “Society, thus far, based upon class antagonisms,
had need of the State. That is, of an organization of the particular class which was,
[at that moment in time], the exploiting class, an organization for the purpose of preventing any
interference from without with the existing conditions of production, and, therefore,
especially, for the purpose of forcibly keeping the exploited classes in the condition
of oppression corresponding with the given mode of production (slavery, serfdom, wage-labor).”
And we can trace the emergence of the State historically. In pre-class society, there was
no State. The rise of the state followed the rise of social classes, specifically at the point of
transition from pre-class society to slave-society – and its corresponding slave-state – exemplified
in the Ancient Athenian city-state. But how did we get from pre-class,
primitive communist, hunter-gatherer societies where all property was
held in common to this slave-society? Well, with the advent of agriculture and
pastoralism, a new surplus of products came into being. The matrilineal “Mother right” of primitive
communist society was overthrown in order to facilitate inheritance and intergenerational
accumulation under patrilineage. With the newly-formed patriarchal family unit,
private property began to accumulate across generations. Beyond pastoralism’s ownership
of animals, humans themselves quickly became the private property – something which would have been
impossible in earlier hunter-gather societies as there simply wasn’t enough food to go around.
And so, classes emerged – slave-owners and slaves.
In contrast to the primitive communist mode of production, the new slave-owning
mode of production depended on strict class divisions. However, as the slave-owners were
heavily outnumbered by the slaves, this mode of production could only be maintained by force of
arms wielded by a group working in service of the exploiting class that was necessarily
detached from the broad masses of society. The State was thus established by the exploiting
class as way of maintaining the class relations that had emerged from the private property
that accumulated out of agriculture and pastoralism, facilitated by the patriarchal
family unit’s system of inheritance. We take armed forces like the military
and the police for granted today. But prior to the Slave-State, in pre-class society,
it was the people themselves who used force. For example, one tribe might go to war with
another tribe – but neither would’ve had detached armies or police forces as such.
However, with the rise of class society, there emerged armed groupings that were detached from
the broad masses of people - bought off by the exploiting class - in order to maintain
the particular relations of production which the benefitted the ruling class. With the advent of
slave-society’s slave-state, “The true “people in arms,” organized for its self-defense in its
gentes, phratries, and tribes, was replaced by an armed “public force” in the service of these state
authorities and therefore at their command for use also against the people. […] The ancient state
was, above all, the state of the slave-owners for holding down the slaves, just as the feudal state
was the organ of the nobility for holding down the peasant serfs and bondsmen, and the modern
representative state is the instrument for exploiting wage-labour by capital.”
So, we can see that, since the dawn of class society (and specifically class society alone),
the state has been an apparatus of class domination, securing the rule of those who benefit
from the exploitation of the oppressed classes by force of arms, whether under slave society,
feudalism, or even today under capitalism. Now, we’ve spoken a bit about the role of
the State in general terms and why it emerged historically. But what is the State specifically?
What are its constituent parts? At its core, Lenin writes that
“A standing army and police are the chief instruments of state power.”
But beyond this core of the military and the police, Engels further explains
that “[The state] consists not merely of armed men but also of material appendages, prisons,
and institutions of coercion of all kinds, of which [pre-class] society knew nothing.”
When we consider “institutions of coercion”, this necessarily deepens and complicates our
understanding of what constitutes the state. Suddenly, we need to consider
things like the education system and religious institutions, and how they are used to reinforce
a society’s relations of production. A distinction thus emerges between
Repressive State Apparatuses and Ideological State Apparatuses.
“Repressive State Apparatuses” refers to “the police, the courts, the prisons; but also the
army, […]; and above this ensemble, the head of State, the government and the administration.
[…] Repressive suggests that the State Apparatus in question 'functions by violence' -- at least
ultimately (since repression, e.g. administrative repression, may take non-physical forms)”
So, these Repressive State Apparatuses constitute the core of the State that all Marxists agree on;
the police, the army, and the totality of the bureaucratic apparatuses used
to violently enforce class dictatorship. However, when we take Engels’ assertion that
the State refers to “institutions of coercion of all kinds”, this forces us to expand our
understanding into what Althusser would come to label “Ideological State Apparatuses” as well.
The distinction between Repressive State Apparatuses and Ideological
State Apparatuses is that Repressive State Apparatuses function primarily by violence,
and secondarily by ideology, whereas Ideological State Apparatuses function primarily by ideology,
and secondarily by violence. Class domination is thus enforced not only
violently by one unified Repressive State force, but also coercively through numerous seemingly
disparate Ideological State Apparatuses, such as “The religious ISA (the system of the different
Churches); the educational ISA (the system of the different public and private 'Schools');
the family ISA; the legal ISA; the political ISA (the political system,
including the different Parties); the trade-union ISA; the communications ISA (press,
radio and television, etc.); the cultural ISA (Literature, the Arts, sports, etc.).”
Note that both public and private schools are included under the Educational Ideological
State Apparatus. Althusser expands on this by arguing that “It is unimportant whether
the institutions in which they are realized are 'public' or 'private'. What matters is how they
function. Private institutions can perfectly well 'function' as Ideological State Apparatuses.”
We can apply this same explanation to the distinction between state-run public media
outlets on the one hand, and private media outlets on the other; both of which ultimately carry out
the very same function of coercively maintaining class domination in order to protect the society’s
relations of production and perpetuate the exploitation of the oppressed classes.
Today, we’ve taken a look at the Marxist conception of the State. We began by looking
at where the State came from by looking at how classes materialised historically out of the
accumulation of private property facilitated by the patriarchal family unit. In order to
maintain the new exploitative class relations that had emerged between slave-owners and slaves,
the exploiting class assembled detached armed forces to maintain the subjugation of the
enslaved class – thus creating the first state and formalising into the first class-society
in human history in the process: slave society. The state continued to be used as the apparatus
by which the exploiting class would maintain their class domination throughout the course of Slavery,
Feudalism, and continues now today under Capitalism. Following this historical explanation
for the emergence of the state, we proceeded to look at what exactly constitutes the state,
firstly looking at the core Repressive State Apparatuses of the police, military, prisons,
courts, as well as the government, head of State, and administration – all of which ultimately
function primarily through violence. And, secondly, we looked at the coercive Ideological
State Apparatuses, such as institutions of education, religion, culture, family, the media,
and so on – which, regardless of whether private or public sector, function primarily to
ideologically maintain the exploitative relations of production in service of the ruling class.
Now, it should be clarified that not all Marxists explicitly consider Ideological State Apparatuses
to be part of the State, per se, but rather just part of the broader societal superstructure that
reinforces the base. However, Marxists are largely in agreement on the violent core of the Repressive
State Apparatuses or simply just State Apparatus. To explore the topic of RSAs and ISAs and make
up your own mind on the matter, have a read of Althusser’s essay Ideology and
Ideological State Apparatuses, which you’ll find linked in the description box below.
If you’d like a more thorough historical materialist explanation of how the state
emerged with the transition to class society which we very briefly skimmed over earlier, have a read
of Engels’ Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State. For more foundational works on the
State, be sure to have a read of chapter 3 from Engels’ Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (or the
larger Anti-Dühring from which its drawn) as well, of course, as the monumental State and Revolution
by Vladimir Lenin. All are linked below. After you’ve gotten through them, it’ll be
crystal-clear that the state isn’t just a neutral bystander that serves everyone equally regardless
of class, as the liberals and conservatives would have us believe. Nor is the state itself the root
cause of all social ills in society, meaning we can simply abolish the State and everything will
be A-okay in the world. While private property remains intact, if we abolish the State there will
continue to be classes of possessors and those who possess nothing. The possessing classes will
then in turn will simply use their wealth to hire their own personal private armed forces to protect
their private property, which will once again develop back into a full State apparatus because
capital necessitates expansion and that expansion will necessitate further forces to maintain, and
we’ll find ourselves right back at square one. This is why Marxists emphasise that in order
to abolish the State, we first need to abolish the conditions which have given
rise to it historically; meaning, abolition of private property and all class distinctions by
proletarianizing the entire population worldwide. Then, and only then, will the State be able to
permanently be abolished, as we’ll have torn out the roots of private property from which it grew.
Only then will we finally be able to achieve stateless, classless, moneyless society.
Right, thanks very much for watching this video! Hopefully you’ve found this useful in one way
or another and you have a stronger understanding of the Marxist conception of the State after it.
We’ll return to the question of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat and
how the State “withers way” in a later video. Thanks very much especially to the supporters on
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