Basically, the state is not a neutral body. This has been the source of my quarrel with Buford, which has lacked the clarity it deserves because of his tendency to fudge things.
I would not expect history to behave any differently in the years to come than it did in earlier periods of crisis. When the capital accumulation cycle winds down, the capitalist class uses the state as a battering ram against the working-class. Cops are used to break strikes and the courts ratify unpopular decisions such as declaring strikes illegal. This is what happened in the US during the 1930s and I recommend Farrell Dobbs's history of the teamsters union as a good reference for the period.
When the capitalist class goes on the offensive, it disarms the working class to think in terms of "evolving" toward socialism using the state as fulcrum. Under these conditions, the notion of unions having the ability to "transform" institutions of capitalist power is dangerous folly. As the class struggle heats up, the bosses will do everything they can to bust the unions and prevent workers from protesting or voting in their own interest.
The proper strategy would be one that operates on a clearly delineated class basis. This means, first and foremost, that independent institutions of the working class be strengthened. This includes unions, parties, newspapers, mutual aid associations, etc. In addition, the social movements should make every effort that they can to rely on their own strength rather than collaborating with the ruling class. This means breaking with "progressive" friends of black people or women in the Democratic Party.
As this class-against-class dynamic deepens, it will at some point become necessary for working people to defend themselves against ruling class violence. There are lessons from the 1930s on how to do this. The key is not to attempt to defeat the ruling-class through ultraleft armed skirmishes, but to use the power of numbers to make attacks too costly. When attacks do come, they should be beaten back through appropriate methods.
At some point, a revolutionary situation will develop in which there is something that Marxists call "dual power." Namely, workers organizations will exist as an embryonic government that carry out tasks such as protecting the citizenry, raising revenue, policing the streets, etc. Arrayed against them will be the old state, with the Congress, the army and cops, courts, etc. The main responsibility of a revolutionary party in this period will be to effect the transfer of power to the workers governing bodies.
Everything I have described above is drawn from the theoretical heritage of classical Marxism. Our job, of course, is to make it relevant and not some kind of wild-eyed panacea of the sort that the Trotskyists put forward. I don't expect that it will become relevant until unemployment, ecological ruin, war, racist violence and health epidemics reach crisis proportion. That, needless to say, characterizes the period we are entering into.
Louis Proyect
(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)