[lbo-talk] query: from anarchist to marxist???

c b cb31450 at gmail.com
Mon Oct 17 10:53:16 PDT 2011


The Marxist position on the state is that it exists for ruling classes to oppress and exploit the ruled class. Once exploiting ruling classes are abolished by working class revolution, the state will whither away with no purpose.

Charles

Lenin adopt's Engels theory of the origin of the state entirely

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch01.htm#s1

1. The State: A Product of the Irreconcilability of Class Antagonisms

Summing up his historical analysis, Engels says:

“The state is, therefore, by no means a power forced on society from without; just as little is it 'the reality of the ethical idea', 'the image and reality of reason', as Hegel maintains. Rather, it is a product of society at a certain stage of development; it is the admission that this society has become entangled in an insoluble contradiction with itself, that it has split into irreconcilable antagonisms which it is powerless to dispel. But in order that these antagonisms, these classes with conflicting economic interests, might not consume themselves and society in fruitless struggle, it became necessary to have a power, seemingly standing above society, that would alleviate the conflict and keep it within the bounds of 'order'; and this power, arisen out of society but placing itself above it, and alienating itself more and more from it, is the state." (Pp.177-78, sixth edition)[1]

2. Special Bodies of Armed Men, Prisons, etc.

“The second distinguishing feature is the establishment of a public power which no longer directly coincides with the population organizing itself as an armed force. This special, public power is necessary because a self-acting armed organization of the population has become impossible since the split into classes.... This public power exists in every state; it consists not merely of armed men but also of material adjuncts, prisons, and institutions of coercion of all kinds, of which gentile [clan] society knew nothing...."

. The State: an Instrument for the Exploitation of the Oppressed Class

The maintenance of the special public power standing above society requires taxes and state loans.

“Having pubic power and the right to levy taxes,” Engels writes, “the officials now stand, as organs of society, above society. The free, voluntary respect that was accorded to the organs of the gentile [clan] constitution does not satisfy them, even if they could gain it....” Special laws are enacted proclaiming the sanctity and immunity of the officials. “The shabbiest police servant” has more “authority” than the representative of the clan, but even the head of the military power of a civilized state may well envy the elder of a clan the “unrestrained respect” of society.

Chapter V: The Economic Basis of the Withering Away of the State

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch05.htm

Presentation of the Question by Marx The Transition from Captialism to Communism The First Phase of Communist Society The Higher Phase of Communist Society



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