Can we reform the state?

Marx’s views on the state were influenced by the Paris Commune of 1871 (Picture: Wikimedia Commons)

A new mass left-wing party is an exciting possibility in Britain. But all left-wing parties must confront the unelected power of the state if they want to challenge the status quo.

The state is not a civilising force that stops society descending into violence and chaos. It is a source of violence, inequality and harm.

The state is made up of parliament, the civil service, the criminal justice system and the army. It tries to present itself as a neutral arbiter of competing interests.

In courtrooms, weird wigs and obscure language are supposed to create a sense of legitimacy derived from tradition.

But the state is a product of class society, an instrument of coercive power for the rule of one class over another.

Frederick Engels argued that at the centre of this power were “special bodies of armed men having prisons, etc, at their command.”

The state holds a monopoly on “legitimate force”.

The ruling class determines what is legal or illegal. Genocide in Gaza is legal, protesting against it is terrorism.

The capitalist state carried out brutal punishments for crimes against property —branding, flogging, transporting and hanging. It unleashed barbaric violence against Indigenous people in its colonies.

The free market depended on the iron fist of the state.

The first police force in London was created by slave-owning sugar merchants to stop dock workers dipping into their cargo.

The working class posed a constant threat to the profits and the security of the rich.

The bourgeoisie needed a powerful state to uphold its rule at home and abroad.

But the class nature of this state was not immediately apparent.

In the 1830s, a young Karl Marx joined with many other radicals to campaign for more democratic rights. He shared the view that the state stood above the conflicts in “civil society” and represented the “common interests” of citizens. 

Marx’s understanding of the state changed as his class analysis of society deepened.

He began to see that both the landowners and the new industrialists had a class interest in preserving private property. 

His views on the state were further influenced by the Paris Commune of 1871. The poor of Paris created the first workers’ government.

The Commune showed that the “the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery and wield it for its own purposes”. Instead, the aim of workers must be “to smash it”.

Understanding the repressive power of the state is vital – but it is not the whole picture. After the Second World War, the state expanded healthcare, welfare and education. 

This was a response to both the demands of the working class and the developing interests of the ruling class who needed a healthy and educated workforce.

Millions of people fought and still fight for democratic rights. But parliamentary democracy is very limited.

Most of the positions within the state, from judges and generals to police chiefs, are part of vast unelected and powerful bureaucracies.

They will try to stop any radical policies being implemented.

If this seems a bit far-fetched, remember that in 2015, a senior general in the British Army threatened that the army “could stage mutiny under Corbyn”.

But we are not powerless. Enslaved people, trade unionists and women all broke the boss’s laws to fight for freedom and their democratic rights. Mass movements can force the state to concede to demands, to scrap unjust laws and tax the rich.

But no capitalist state has ever conceded its power to persuasive argument or parliamentary manoeuvres.

The Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin argued that socialists must cut the chains that bind the repressive aspects of the state to its life-enhancing activities.

We want to abolish the army, the police and the prison system and redistribute resources to expand health care, social care and education.

Ultimately, that will involve overthrowing the state altogether.