RedStruggle
14th October 2006, 13:33
Comrades; I have began to read Lenin's State and Revolution and am greatly intriuged by the introductory chapter on the role of the state as a mediator of Class struggle and an institution that endeavours to maintain the present class relations and distribution of wealth.
According to Marx, the state is an organ of class rule, an organ for the oppression of one class by another; it is the creation of “order”, which legalizes and perpetuates this oppression by moderating the conflict between classes.
In the First Chapter, Lenin also discusses the means by which the State carries out its mediation, and it is obvious that Lenin considers these means to be limited to the coercive and openly exploitative sphere.
Engels elucidates the concept of the “power” which is called the state, a power which arose from society but places itself above it and alienates itself more and more from it. What does this power mainly consist of? It consists of special bodies of armed men having prisons, etc., at their command. We are justified in speaking of special bodies of armed men, because the public power which is an attribute of every state “does not directly coincide” with the armed population, with its “self-acting armed organization".
As I read this, however, I began to think whether the state's role as a mediator of class struggle was limited to what Lenin Described.
I often hear Revolutionary Socialists saying that the provision of the welfare state os relatively meaningless, because the workers have still maintained their fundamental place as people who do not own the means of production and must sell their wage labour in order to earn a living - and in turn, the Capitalists still continue to extract surplus labour value from workers.
If this is true, should we consider the welfare state a form of Class Struggle Mediation that is in the interests of the ruling class, and should we adapt Lenin's analysis to note that class mediaton contains both 'hard/coercive' and 'soft' spheres? The present system of propety relations could surely not be maintained without a basic standard of living for the workers, else they would rise up and move class struggle into the active sphere, or they would no longer be in a sufficient bodily condition to be avaliable for exploitation?
According to Marx, the state is an organ of class rule, an organ for the oppression of one class by another; it is the creation of “order”, which legalizes and perpetuates this oppression by moderating the conflict between classes.
In the First Chapter, Lenin also discusses the means by which the State carries out its mediation, and it is obvious that Lenin considers these means to be limited to the coercive and openly exploitative sphere.
Engels elucidates the concept of the “power” which is called the state, a power which arose from society but places itself above it and alienates itself more and more from it. What does this power mainly consist of? It consists of special bodies of armed men having prisons, etc., at their command. We are justified in speaking of special bodies of armed men, because the public power which is an attribute of every state “does not directly coincide” with the armed population, with its “self-acting armed organization".
As I read this, however, I began to think whether the state's role as a mediator of class struggle was limited to what Lenin Described.
I often hear Revolutionary Socialists saying that the provision of the welfare state os relatively meaningless, because the workers have still maintained their fundamental place as people who do not own the means of production and must sell their wage labour in order to earn a living - and in turn, the Capitalists still continue to extract surplus labour value from workers.
If this is true, should we consider the welfare state a form of Class Struggle Mediation that is in the interests of the ruling class, and should we adapt Lenin's analysis to note that class mediaton contains both 'hard/coercive' and 'soft' spheres? The present system of propety relations could surely not be maintained without a basic standard of living for the workers, else they would rise up and move class struggle into the active sphere, or they would no longer be in a sufficient bodily condition to be avaliable for exploitation?