The relationship of the police with production

[Comrade #138672]

What is the exact relationship of the police (and the military) with the means of production in Capitalist society? The police exist to protect private property on a national level, while the military exists to protect private property on an international level.

Are the police to be considered workers or bourgeois cops (as Trotsky put it)? It is strange, since the police are generally paid just as much as proletarians, although they do have a hierarchy in which they can advance to get a higher salary and more authority.

So if the bourgeois cops are mostly on the side of the (petty) bourgeoisie, aren't they more inclined to join Fascists than Communists? How did Lenin get the police and the military to join the Bolsheviks?

[Lowtech]

What is the exact relationship of the police (and the military) with the means of production in Capitalist society? The police exist to protect private property on a national level, while the military exists to protect private property on an international level.

that would be one definition, yes. although, it really depends upon what point of view you're basing your definition. it is true that the police and military are used as tools to maintain an ultimately plutocratic society. however no one ever joins the military or police thinking, "hey i want to join up to protect the rich and maintain plutocratic subjugation!" they unknowingly become the tool the rich use. which is really true of everyone, mathematically speaking.

also, capitalists do control production but this is only part of the scheme they employ. the rich monopolize production as well as alienate the worker from the organizational process and mathematically retain value they have not produced themselves by selling commodities above production cost and underpaying workers.

you mentioned that these groups have hierarchies to them. interesting thing is that there is a distinction between a practical hierarchy, as in a command structure as seen in a military allowing it to function in a coordinated manner during war, etc. and what a capitalist will have you believe is a "practical hierarchy" of the entrepreneur over his workers. however this capitalist contention is false.

the capitalist creates an abstract role or social construct, one that alienates the workers below him from the organizational process, allowing him to extract value the workers produce for his own gain. paying them just enough to appear like some sort of legitimate arrangement. the workers so subjected by artificial scarcity (all commodities sold above production cost) they feel completely unable to argue the terms of a blatantly elitist relationship. besides all that, these "hierarchies" that capitalists pass on as practical, middle management, corporate "leadership" etc. has no practicality at all. flat companies are just as competitive as the traditional and computers make faster and better decisions than people can anyway. so if a computer can make better decisions than the CEO, the massive amount of money allocated to his salary has no validity whatsoever.