How would you define the state?

[The Man]

I always thought of it as the minority ruling over the majority. What would you define it as?

[Misanthrope]

That is definitely too simplistic. Oh and use the search option, this topic has been covered in depth numerous times. If you have any further questions do ask!

[syndicat]

a set of institutions for the making and enforcing of the basic rules of society where the structure is bureaucratic in the sense that decision-making and expertise is concentrated into a hierarchy, and these insitutions have this separation from the masses to make it easier for these institutions to serve their function of protecting the interests of the dominant classes, and in general defending the existing social arrangement including any structures of oppression tied in with the class system. in addition to protecting dominant class interests, the state must also try to gain sufficient appearance of legitimacy in the eyes of the populace as to be able to be secure in its ability to govern.

[Kléber]

An armed organization representing the interests of one or more classes, formed to defend them against opposing class interests.

[syndicat]

An armed organization representing the interests of one or more classes, formed to defend them against opposing class interests.


so a worker rifle league is a state?

[Kléber]

so a worker rifle league is a state?
A workers' council and its self-defense force represents the nucleus of a revolutionary workers' state.

Conversely, capitalist states are just a bunch of glorified bandits with guns.

[syndicat]

A workers' council and its self-defense force represents the nucleus of a revolutionary workers' state.

Conversely, capitalist states are just a bunch of glorified bandits with guns.

simplistic. and you've not said what a state is. a "workers state" is a contradiction in terms, given the definition i provided above.

[Kléber]

The Marxist definition of the state seems simplistic because that's all a state is: an organ of class oppression. We agree in theory that communism requires the abolition of the state, but we also agree in practice, even if you won't honestly admit it, that a revolutionary fighting organization with a hierarchical command structure is an absolute necessity to make revolution against the bourgeoisie today. The revolutionary state is of course a necessary evil, its authority needs to be minimized and democratized as much as possible since we plan to do away with hierarchy and violence altogether.

The anarchist definition of the state is not so much complex as it is confused. It it basically the Marxist definition plus the caveat that a state isn't a state so long as it is run by anarchists. In other words, anarchists can form military hierarchies, command troops, take over villages, represent constituencies, issue edicts, even drag class enemies out of their houses and blow their brains out... but it isn't a state authority, the organizers aren't leaders - because they're anarchists.

The "simplistic" Marxist definition is superior because it calls a spade a spade. That doesn't inoculate Marxists from becoming corrupted by state power, of course, but neither is anarchist ideology a cure for despotism and class treason.

[syndicat]

The anarchist definition of the state is not so much complex as it is confused. It it basically the Marxist definition plus the caveat that a state isn't a state so long as it is run by anarchists. In other words, anarchists can form military hierarchies, command troops, take over villages, represent constituencies, issue edicts, even drag class enemies out of their houses and blow their brains out... but it isn't a state authority, the organizers aren't leaders - because they're anarchists.



this is bullshit. you say that the state exists to defend class oppression. that's partly right. but it's a set of institutions and it exists to defend a particular economic order based on class oppression.

now if the working class seizes control of the means of production, replaces the management hierarchy with assemblies, delegate committees and workers self-management, and replaces the separate bureaucratic structure that is a state with an authentic form of working class direct power, there is no longer a structure of class oppression/domination. the dominating classes have been expropriated, pushed aside. so the governance structure created from below by an authentic worker movement doesn't preside over and defend a system of class oppression (which is a type of economic order). so it isn't a state.

and if anarchists advocate the same things as Leninists then you'll have to explain the conflict between anarcho-syndicalists and other libertarian socialists with the Bolsheviks in the Russian revolution and with the Communist Party in the Spanish revolution. what the Bolsheviks created in the Russian revolution and what the Spanish Communist Party tried to do in the Spanish revolution was to create a bureaucratic class system of class oppression/exploitation. so, yes, they were for the creation of states...to defend the interests of bureaucratic dominating, exploiting class.

[Jose Gracchus]

I always disliked the Marxist "formula" from the state, plucked uncritically from some pages Engels wrote. Clearly the modern state, and specific qualities of the bourgeois state, do matter, and hence the numerous political critiques and distinct stratagems thought up about different bourgeois state climates for revolutionary politics. To boil discussion of the state down to sectarian formulas is useless.

What we do agree on is there is a certain synergy between normative forms of political and social repression and features of social production and its intrinsic relations, including the formation of classes in various positions of power and privilege on one hand, or subordination and exploitation in the other. In the modern era, a particular type of polity, developing out of modern capitalism and following the Treaty of Westphalia that established a kind of normative legal form for the sovereign state as an international legal personality, rapidly proliferated. Following the French Revolution, a bourgeois nationalism centered on intellectuals' idea of a single national heritage (often at the expense of parochial local cultures in the national periphery and rurality or ethnic minorities), a kind of property-holders', and eventually men's and then even adult citizens' electoral consent via some kind of swivel-chair level of electoral choices, and a limited social state developed to legitimize the bourgeois state. It also adopted increasingly important managerial, defensive, coordinating, and stimulative functions to help extend power for the national bourgeoisie both internationally and more intensively domestically. There are clear qualities to the bourgeois state other than "it serves to defend the class system". To limit discussion to that formula is sectarian, reductionist, and semantics. Clearly its role and nature is wrapped up in that function, but let us be more specific and empirical about our claims. Rather than trying to populate bestiaries of social forms and quibble over definitions, what is the modern qualities of the state? To what extent will the state be challenged by workers' control over production? What requirements must be met to render the state obsolescent?

[not your usual suspect]

I would suggest that there are a few essential characteristics that exist in all states/government. (I use the terms almost interchangeably.)

There is a population and land where the state exists and over which it rules.
The government is invariably a significant minority which enforces its rules (laws) through the use of, or threat of, force (police, army, jail, courts, etc.).
It appears that government, if unchecked, expand their power and reach over time .There invariably exists a bureaucratic "class" (strata? clique?) that has significant power independent of any formal government (parliament or similar).

What is the purpose of a state? Marxists argue that it is a organ of class rule; used by one class to oppress the other classes that exist in society. I would suggest that this is simplistic. I would suggest that the state/government has it's own agenda independently of the nominal class which it represents. Yes, in most states today we see that the government is in favor of capitalism and supports the capitalist class. Yet, we can see in other states, where it is claimed that the state represents the working class, that the state oppresses the working class as equally as it oppresses the capitalist class. It is argued by many Marxists that once a true working class state exists, the need for it will disappear, and so to will it (and then we will have communism). I reject this, and put forward the argument in my penultimate bullet point, namely that states expand if unchecked. They don't give up any real power if they can help it. Moreover, in a modern state, the bureaucrats will reject any attempt to make them redundant. This analysis is unpolished, but I think contains most of the ideas that I would suggest are important.

[Rusty Shackleford]

An armed organization representing the interests of one or more classes, formed to defend them against opposing class interests.
may i modify this?

Organs of class rule which allow for a class to rule over another while also producing the monopoly of legitimate coercive force in society to maintain the aforementioned class's dictatorship.

[Black Sheep]

Marxist definition:
The aparrattus used in a class society, by the dominant class to oppress the lower class(es).

Anarchist definition (Weber's):
A monopoly in the use of legitimate violence.

[syndicat]

Anarchist definition (Weber's):
A monopoly in the use of legitimate violence.

Max Weber was no anarchist and his very abtract, ahistorical definition would make anarchism logically inconsistent. that's because any possible governance system is a state on his definition.

[Jose Gracchus]

As said before, a large workers' council with a militia of the armed people as its disposal is arguably a workers' government - it possesses a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence -, but may not be a state per se. Both are institutions of social management. However, the state is characterized by professional or prestige-based placement of executors, top-down corporate-military-bureaucratic division-of-labor-and-chain-of-command lined with graduated privileged civil servants and topped by administrative magistrates; the whole apparatus is in essence bureaucratic and alienated from the public. The monopoly on armed force is executed through ceremonially and legally privileged professional or specialized thugs answering to an officers' bureaucracy and command themselves. If one were to look at society as an organizational chart of chains-of-authority, one would find that in the state, the legitimate source is in direct lines always up. The lie of liberal democracy is that sticking swivel chairs at the top in place of thrones or strongmans' desks fixes the whole problem. And quite a few Leninoid, authoritarian apologists seem to thinks so too, as long as they belong to the properly disciplined workers' party with the 'correct lines' or some other neat check-list-for-socialism criteria.

The state is a serious phenomena empirically and historically in social life. It develops out of essential contradictions of productive labor and classes, but it is not reducible only to that.

[bricolage]

it's all semantics really.

[Jose Gracchus]

Not really. What we recognize across the planet as "the state" as distinct from other human societies, from a fair political science and anthropological perspective developed in its modern form following the formation of modern international legal system after the Treaty of Westphalia and was exported by the nascent capitalist modern states in their imperialism upon the rest of the world, dissipating primitive confederations and states based on kinship and more primitive property relations (just as the Enlightenment, the Scientific Revolution, the formation of capitalism had done in Europe). It has historicized and particular relations to production and classes, it performs certain functions, it has behaved in certain ways.

[syndicat]

it's all semantics really.

no it's not. the libertarian socialists (syndicalists, maximalists etc) in the Russian revolution had real disagreements with the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. the anarcho-syndicalists in the Spanish revolution had real disagreements with the Communists. that is, real disagreements over what the governance structure should be, over how to organize the armed forces, and so on.

[bricolage]

yes I think there are real disagreements but I think it has to do with the actual form of structures etc and not what you shift the parameters of 'the state' to mean. "real disagreements over what the governance structure should be, over how to organize the armed forces, and so on" are obviously real but all these discussions end up is in 'no that is not the state', 'yes that is the state' and so forth. 'the state' then becomes this towering abstract edifice from which political fault lines are drawn yet which noone really knows what they are talking about. all you have to do is take someone elses definition and suddenly you can move from 'anti-state' to 'pro-state and vice versa. the actual set of relations, structures, institutions and so forth that you are talking about don't change, only the word you use to describe them.

[syndicat]

instead of a lot of unclear verbiage, it's useful to have a simple word to chart out the distinction, that is, what we of the libertarian left are opposed to. we use "state" to chart this out.

compare this with the debate with the liberals over what "class" means. they will try to define it in terms of income or education or culture or whatever. that masks the fact it is a relation of domination and exploitation. that serves their purposes of defending capitalism. it is therefore important to be clear that the class structure is based on domination. if you say "Oh that's just semantics", then you don't understand the importance of the debate. it's a debate about something real.

[Die Rote Fahne]

"a committee for managing the common affairs of the bourgeoisie." - the communist manifesto.

This includes governmental bodies, the majority of it's bureaucracy, military, police, etc.

[Kléber]

this is bullshit. you say that the state exists to defend class oppression. that's partly right. but it's a set of institutions and it exists to defend a particular economic order based on class oppression.
Yes, a revolutionary state is still very much an organ of class oppression: it oppresses the old oppressors themselves until the counter-revolution is defeated, and the new economic order is secure.

That doesn't mean I'm some Stalinist pig who wants a thousand years of totalitarian tank brigades; I'm a former anarchist who doesn't believe we can overthrow imperialist capital on a potluck volunteer basis.


now if the working class seizes control of the means of production, replaces the management hierarchy with assemblies, delegate committees and workers self-management, and replaces the separate bureaucratic structure that is a state with an authentic form of working class direct power, there is no longer a structure of class oppression/domination. the dominating classes have been expropriated, pushed aside. so the governance structure created from below by an authentic worker movement doesn't preside over and defend a system of class oppression (which is a type of economic order). so it isn't a state.Management and municipal authorities alone do not constitute a state without coercive violence - something we both agree has no place in a classless society. But the history of anarchism is rife with such political violence in the process of making revolution.

Seizure of the means of production by the working class is indeed the revolution, but the revolution must also defend itself; some coercive authority is necessary for the revolutionary people to stop reactionaries and imperialists from sabotaging the new regime and restoring the old one. Genuine revolutionary anarchists like yourself agree with this in practice but theoretically deny that anarchists can be corrupted by power or even have power, because of some semantic hairsplitting and libertarian platitudes.


and if anarchists advocate the same things as Leninists then you'll have to explain the conflict between anarcho-syndicalists and other libertarian socialists with the Bolsheviks in the Russian revolution and with the Communist Party in the Spanish revolution. what the Bolsheviks created in the Russian revolution and what the Spanish Communist Party tried to do in the Spanish revolution was to create a bureaucratic class system of class oppression/exploitation. so, yes, they were for the creation of states...to defend the interests of bureaucratic dominating, exploiting class.Since you seem to be claiming the Makhnovists, you'll have to explain how exactly the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine did not exert a monopoly of "legitimate" violence in areas under its jurisdiction. If it's okay for Makhno to pull out a revolver and shoot one of his commanders in the face for being reactionary, isn't that a state?

The Soviet bureaucracy was not the embodiment of Bolshevism, that's what the right-wingers and Stalinists believe. On the contrary, the bureaucracy was a cancer, festering on the isolation and backwardness of the revolution, that swallowed up and destroyed Bolshevism and the Soviet power itself. The only old Bolsheviks who survived the purges were totally opportunist and/or totally insignificant. I'm not sure if you are claiming the Left S-R's too; they helped establish the Soviet power and the cheka, and participated in them until staging a revolt over foreign policy disputes.

As for Spain, if CNT-FAI paramilitaries can execute priests and right-wingers, and you would counterpose this brief spurt of revolutionary bloodshed to the centuries-long reactionary bloodlust of the priests and rightists themselves, then didn't the anarchists have "a monopoly of legitimate violence" at the height of their power?

The PCE may have planned to turn Spain into an extension of the Stalinist USSR, but throughout the war it behaved as if it were a reformist social-democratic party (albeit a very militaristic one); the PCE spent its energies defending a hopeless capitalist government and what capitalist property still remained in the Republican zone against both sides - the actual, Nationalist bourgeoisie and the revolutionary working class. The CNT-FAI for its part, in spite of the heroic actions of masses of workers, did not present a revolutionary alternative to Popular Frontism or Stalinism; those "anarchists" (or the better part of their political advance guard, anyway) retreated from the shadow of the bourgeoisie even as workers' power was being broken up and the revolutionary fighters and activists were being assassinated by the NKVD. Anyway, I am curious to know if you still think anarchist in the Casado junta, which handed over Madrid to Franco and his hangmen, was at all justified.

[TC]

A state is simply an organization capable of wielding an overwhelmingly majority of the organized use of overt force over a territory.


Nearly every Anarchist proposal for social organization in fact proposes a state ordered society they just deny that their preferred type of states are actually states by adding to the definition above, an additional provision:

"A state is simply an organization capable of wielding an overwhelmingly majority of the organized use of force over a territory that does something I don't like"

Of course even anarchist theorists admit the correct definition of a state as some version of an organization with a monopoly on the use of the force, but they rather argue that for a variety of real world or theoretical reasons, this in practice functionally entails additional attributes that include something they don't like. Their followers then mistake their basically empirical conclusions (that states are in practice bad) for being the core concept (that states are by definition a type of bad thing)

This is true of both left-anarchists and right-anarchists. But really it is just a misuse (or, more charitably, specialist or jargon use) of the term "state." That "something I don't like" may be hierarchy, it may be lack of democracy (in which case states are incorrectly defined as non-democratic in a circular status: since it would not be a state if it were democratic, if "non-democratic" is a premise condition of one's conception of a state) or for right-anarchists it may be taxation (in which case privately contracted armies and courts are thought of as not being state entities even though they would still have a local monopoly on the use of organized force).

There are non-state societies, of course, those where there is no organized use of force but these are impossible to sustain in the face of organized force because organization allows people to wield force far more effectively, and once a local monopoly is established, the ability to wield it openly rather than covertly also greatly adds to its efficiency.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

I'd say that all these definitions of the state are superficial. To talk about the state without talking about empire, without talking about the way the state shapes our direct experience and relationships: it's pointless. It's like trying to understand an organ outside the context of its body.
In this sense, the allegation that an anarchist definition of the state boils down to ". . . an organization capable of wielding an [overwhelming] majority of the organized use of force over a territory that does something I don't like" isn't necessarily such a bad place to begin from - assuming we accept that this must be located as a specifically anarchist analysis, since it is contingent on what it is that anarchists don't like. The anti-hierarchical, anti-state, anti-oppressive (all of the various antis one could ascribe to anarchist practice) organization of violence against empire is different than the state - the way it shapes our relationships, the way it is concretely experienced, etc. These broader questions, like, "How do we organize anarchist violence?" are more useful for understanding the state, in a practical way, than an abstract question trying to isolate what the state is.

[Catmatic Leftist]

A complete headache to deal with.