    ************** The State **************
                     from Workers Solidarity No 31

ONE OF THE best known catch phrases of 
Anarchism has got to be "Smash the State".  It's 
also one that's easily open to misunderstanding.  
Particularly in Ireland, where the 26 counties 
once had the rather humorous title of "Free 
State", many see state as meaning the 
geographical area of a country.  This slogan has 
also been misrepresented by anarchism's 
opponents as meaning opposition to all forms of 
organisation and decision making.  Obviously 
neither of these is what anarchists mean, but 
what exactly is the state and how do we smash 
it?

Anarchists see the state as a mechanism by which a 
minority imposes its will on the majority of the 
population.  To maintain its hold of power the state 
forms whatever armed forces and judicial apparatus 
are deemed necessary to keep the level of dissent 
manageable.  This is different from how most 
Marxists define the state, concentrating on the 
mechanism by which the state stays in power (bodies 
of armed men) rather then the function of the state.  
It is the characteristic of minority rule which defines 
the state for anarchists, the 'bodies of armed men' 
serve to protect this minority rather then defining the 
state in itself.  This distinction has some important 
consequences.

The state apparatus cannot maintain a permanent 
separation from the ruling economic power.  In fact 
most of the time its function is carrying out a crude 
expression of the wishes of the ruling class.  It 
represents the limited ability of this class to control 
and plan the economic life of a country.  In advanced 
capitalism the state is used to regulate the level of 
exploitation of the workforce through various labour 
laws.  

THE 'CARING' STATE

At the outbreak of World War 1 Britain found that a 
huge percentage of the working class had been so 
exploited that they were unfit for military service.  
Although the almost unhindered exploitation had 
been good for individual bosses up to that time, in the 
war when it came to using the working class to win 
colonies and markets it turned out to be against their 
collective interest.  At the end of the war revolutions 
and army mutinies swept across Europe.  

To defuse the level of class struggle and prepare for 
the next war the bosses used the state apparatus to 
impose limitations on themselves and the level of 
exploitation they could use.  It also started to use it to 
divert part of every workers' wage to form a new 
social wage which would be used for the education of 
workers and limited social security.  In this it hoped 
to head off future periods of struggle.

The state is the collective body through which the 
bosses keep themselves in power.  It's judiciary and 
police force protect each boss from his own workers, 
intervening where necessary to smash strikes, 
criminalise activists and censor critics.  This is its 
most direct and obvious intervention but through its 
control of the education system and its ability to 
criminalise social behaviour which goes against the 
bosses wishes it intervenes into every aspect of 
workers lives.  

SCAPEGOATS & SAFE CHANNELS

In it's scapegoating of single mothers, immigrants or 
Travellers it directs the anger of workers away from 
the real causes of their poverty.  It ensures that much 
of the care for the sick and the raising of new 
generations of workers is kept cheap by keeping it in 
the home.  It therefore is hostile to non-family 
relationships, or even family relations which might 
challenge the prevalent ones and thus pose an 
indirect threat.  This is why the state is so opposed to 
single parent families or families where both parents 
are of the same sex.

The state in modern capitalism provides safe 
channels for dissent.  By funding unemployed centres 
it achieves a political veto on their activities, 
effectively ensuring a concentration on services like 
the production of CV's - with campaigning limited to 
minor tinkering with the system.  Through the use of 
elections it creates a veneer of ordinary people being 
in control while the decisions are being made 
elsewhere.  By pretending neutrality it can set up 
and arbitrate on disputes between workers and 
bosses through the use of bodies like the Labour 
Court.  All these are methods to defuse and control 
social unrest.

The state can also be the organ of transformation and 
creation of a new ruling class.  With positions in the 
state hierarchy come powers over both people and 
goods.  Well placed individuals can make a fortune in 
bribes.  After the Russian revolution a minority, in 
the shape of the Bolshevik party, came to control the 
state.  

'STATE SOCIALISM' - A CONTRADICTION

Their distrust in the ability of workers to run the 
economy themselves was to result in armed force 
being used against the very workers they claimed to 
be liberating.  From that point on the party attracted 
power seekers, within a short period of time this 
resulted in a new ruling elite.  Socialism can not be 
built through use of the state structure, the existence 
of such a structure will lead to the development of a 
new ruling elite.

The anarchist rejection of the state as an organ for 
the transformation of society is often deliberately 
misrepresented.  Leninists, for instance, typically try 
to confuse undemocratic and unaccountable state 
regimes like those of the Bolsheviks with democratic 
bodies like workers councils or 'soviets'.  In general it 
is implied that anarchism is against all forms of 
organisation.  

This says a lot about the people making such 
arguments.  Do they believe that the only form of 
organisation that is feasible is one where the mass of 
society are told what to do by a leadership?  
Anarchists say socialism can only be created by mass 
democracy, that why we define the state as being an 
unaccountable leadership capable of forcing its will 
on society.  We explicitly reject any form of running 
society that relies on such methods.

Against the statists we propose; decision making at 
the lowest possible level: election of recallable, 
mandated delegates for decisions that cannot be 
made by mass assemblies, and for all delegates to 
remain part of the workforce where possible.  Where 
this takes them away from their workplaces their 
positions should be held for short periods only, and 
without any special privileges.  This, a society based 
on mass democracy, is our alternative to the state.  
Its not just our aim to achieve such a society after the 
revolution but also to use such methods now in our 
struggle for such a society.  We argue for such 
methods in our unions, associations and campaigning 
groups.

Andrew Flood


