Pluto Press

Chapter Title: The State, Instrument of Class Domination

Book Title: Introduction to Marxism

Book Author(s): Ernest Mandel
Published by: Pluto Press. (1982)
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt18mvnq0.6

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Introduction to Marxism

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 Chapter 3
The State, Instrument
of Class Domination

I The social division of labour and the birth of the state

In primitive classless societies, administrative functions were
carried out by all the members of the tribe. Everyone carried
arms. Everyone took part in assemblies which took all
decisions concerning the life of the community and the
relations of the community with the outside world. Internal
conflicts were also settled by the members of the community.
Of course, one should not idealise the situation within these
primitive communities which lived under clan or tribal
communism.
The society was very poor. Life was a constant struggle with
the forces of nature. The morals, customs, and rules for the
settlement of internal and external conflicts resulted, even
though they were collectively applied, from ignorance, fear
and magical beliefs. However, it is necessary to emphasise
the fact that society collectively governed itself within the
limits of its knowledge and possibilities.
It is therefore not true that the notions of 'society',
'collective human organisation' and 'the state' are
practically identical and can be found mutually interlinked
throughout humanity's existence. On the contrary, for
thousands of years humanity lived in societies quite ignorant
oftheexistenceofastate.
The state was born when the functions which were
previously undertaken by all members of a society became
the prerogative of a separate group ofpeople:
- an army distinct from the mass of armed citizens;
judges who took over from the mass of citizens the task
of judging their equals;
- hereditary chiefs, kings and nobles in place of
representatives or leaders of a particular activity, elected

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 thestate 27
temporarily and always recallable by the collective;
- 'ideological producers' (priests, clerks, teachers, philo-
sophers, scribes and mandarins) set apart from the rest of the
community.
The birth of the state is therefore the product of a double
transformation: the appearance of a permanent social
surplus product, relieving a part of the society from the
obligation to work in order to ensure its subsistence, and thus
creating the material conditions for this part of society to
specialise in the accumulative and administrative functions;
and a social and political transformation permitting the
exclusion of the rest of the community from the exercise of
the political functions which had hitherto been everyone's
concern.
2 The state in the service of the ruling classes
The fact that the functions which had been carried out by all
the members of primitive communities became at a certain
point in time the prerogative of a separate group of people
indicates in itself that there are people who profit from this
exclusion. It is the ruling classes who organise the exclusion
of the members of the exploited and productive classes from
the exercise of those functions which would allow them to
abolish the exploitation imposed on them.
The example of the army and armament is the most
convincing proof of this. The birth of the ruling classes is
brought about through the appropriation of the social
surplus product by a fraction of the society. The evolution
which one finds at the origin of the birth of the state in the
oldest Eastern Empires (Egypt, Mesopotamia, Iran, China,
India, etc.) has been reproduced over the last few centuries in
many African tribes and villages: gifts, services in the form
of mutual aid, which were at first benevolently exchanged
between all households, progressively become obligatory and
are transformed into levies, taxes and forced labour.
But it is still necessary to make this requisitioning secure.
This is mainly done through the constraint of arms. Groups
of armed men - it matters little whether they be called
soldiers, police, pirates or bandits - compel the culti-
vators and cattle breeders (later also the artisans and

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28
merchants) to give up a part of their production for the
benefit of the ruling classes. To this end they carry arms and
prevent the producers from being armed as well.
In Ancient Greece and Rome it was strictly forbidden for
slaves to possess arms. It was the same for the serfs of the
Middle Ages or the peasants in feudal Japan. The first slaves
were, moreover, often prisoners of war who were kept alive,
and the first exploited peasants were often inhabitants of
conquered countries; in other words, they were the victims of
a process which disarms the producers and accords the
monopoly of arms to conquerors, rulers and their retinue.
In this sense, Engels is right to sum up the definition of the
state with the formula: a body of armed men. Of course, the
state fulfils functions other than that of arming the
propertied classes and disarming the productive class. But, in
the last analysis, its function is that of constraint exercised
over one section of society by another. Nothing in history can
justify the liberal bourgeois thesis that the state was born of
a 'contract', a 'convention', freely engaged in by all the
members of a community. On the contrary, everything
confirms the fact that it is the product of a constraint of
violence exercised by a few against the rest.
If the appearance of a state allows the ruling classes to
maintain the appropriation of the social surplus, this same
appropriation allows the members of the state apparatus to
be paid. The more important this social surplus is, the more
the state can bolster itself up with greater numbers of
soldiers, officials and ideologists.
The development of the state in the feudal Middle Ages
makes these relations particularly transparent. At the height
of feudalism each feudal noble was 'in his domain' the head of
the army, the tax collector, empowered to mint new
currency, the administrator in chief, and director of the
economy. But progressively, as feudal domains were
extended, as a hierarchy was established among nobles, and
dukes and barons emerged with power over considerable
areas of land, it became impossible to exercise all these
functions personally. This was even more true of kings and
emperors.
Thus the characters incarnating the separation of these

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 thestate 29
functions emerged: seneschals, marshals, ministers, secre-
taries of state, etc. But a study of the meaning of words
reveals how ministers were originally the slaves or serfs of the
lord; that is to say, they were in a state of total dependency
on the ruling class.
3 Violent constraint and ideological integration
Although, in the last analysis, the state is a body of armed
men, and~the power of the ruling class is based on violent
constraint, it cannot limit itself exclusively to this. Napoleon
Bonaparte said that you can do anything with a bayonet
except sit on it. A class society which only survived through
armed violence would find itself in a state of permanent civil
war in other words, in a state of extreme crisis.
To consolidate the domination of one class over another for
any length of time, it is therefore absolutely essential that the
producers, the members of the exploited class, are brought to
accept the appropriation of the social surplus by a minority
as inevitable, permanent and just. That is why the state does
not only fulfil a repressive function, but also a function of
ideological integration. It is the 'ideological producers•· who
make the fulfilment of this function possible.
Humanity is unique in that it cannot assure its survival
except by social labour, which implies social relations
between people.
These indispensable bonds imply the necessity of communi-
cation, of language, which permits the development of
consciousness, reflection, and the 'production of ideas'.
Thus all important actions in human life are accompanied by
reflections on these actions in people's heads.
But these reflections do not come about in a totally
spontaneous manner. Each individual doesn't just invent
new ideas. Most individuals think with the help of ideas
learnt in school or in church, and, in our times, with the help
of ideas borrowed from TV, radio, advertising and the
newspapers as well. The current production of ideas, and of
systems of ideas called ideologies, is therefore rather limited.
It is to a large extent also the monopoly of a small minority in
society.
In every class society the dominant ideology is that of the

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30
ruling class. This is the case essentially because the producers
of ideology find themselves in material dependence on the
owners of the social surplus product. In the Middle Ages,
poets, painters, and philosophers were literally maintained
by the nobility and the Church (itself the largest feudal
landlord apart from the nobility). When the social and
economic situation changed, the merchants and rich banke~
appeared as the patrons of literary, philosophical and artistic
works. The material dependence is no less pronounced. It is
not until the arrival of capitalism that ideological producers
appear who are no longer directly dependent on the ruling
class. They work for an open market on which, however,
almost the only buyers are capitalists and the bourgeois
state.
Whatever the dominant ideology, its function is that of
stabilising the society as it is - in other words, of stabilising
class rule. The law protects and justifies the predominant
form of ownership. The family plays the same role.
Religion teaches the exploited to accept their fate. The
predominant moral and political ideas seek to justify the rule
of the dominant class with the help of sophisms and
half-truths (for example, the thesis of Goethe, formulated
during and against the French Revolution, according to
which the disorder provoked by the struggle against injustice
would be worse than the injustice itself. Moral: do not
change the established order) .
4 Ruling ideology and revolutionary ideology
But if the dominant ideology of each epoch is that of the
ruling class, this in no way means that the only ideas that
exist in a given society are those of the ruling class. In general
- and simplifying - each class society contains at least three
major categories of ideas within it:
- the ideas reflecting the interests of the ruling class of the
epoch, which are dominant;
- the ideas of the previous ruling classes, who have already
been defeated and thrown out of power, but who continue to
exercise an influence on people. This fact is due to the force
of inertia of consciousness, which always lags behind
material reality. The transmission and diffusion of ideas is

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 thestate 31
partly independent of what is happening in the sphere of
material production. They can therefore remain influenced
by social forces which are no longer the predominant forces
economically;
- the ideas of a new revolutionary class which is emerging
and, although still dominated, has already begun the fight
for its emancipation and must, at least partially, throw off
the ideas of its oppressors before it can throw off the
oppression itself.
The example of Nineteenth Century France is very typical.
The bourgeoisie is the ruling class. It has its own thinkers,
lawyers, ideologists, philosophers, moralists and writers
from the beginning to the end of the century. The
semi-feudal nobility have been overthrown as the ruling class
by the French Revolution. They will not return to power with
the Bourbon restoration of 1815. But their ideology,
especially ultra-montane clericalism, will continue to exercise
a profound influence for decades, not merely on the remains
of the nobility, but also on parts of the bourgeoisie, and on
certain layers of the petty bourgeoisie (peasants) and even of
the working class.
Side by side with bourgeois ideology and semi-feudal
ideology there has, however, already developed a proletarian
ideology, first of all that of the supporters of Babeuf and of
the Blanquists, then that of the Proudhonists and of the
collectivists, which leads us to Marxism and the Paris
Commune.
5 Social revolutions and political revolutions
The more stable a class society is, the less the domination of
the ruling class is challenged, and the more class struggle is
absorbed into limited conflicts which do not question the
structure of that society, what Marxists call the basic
relations of production or the mode of production. But the
more the economic and social stability of a particular mode
of production is shaken, the more the domination of the
ruling class is being challenged, the more class struggle will
develop to the point of posing the question of the overthrow
of this domination - the question of a social revolution.
A social revolution breaks out when the exploited and

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32
oppressed classes no longer accept this domination as
inevitable, permanent and just; when they no longer allow
themselves to be intimidated and repressed by the violent
constraints of rulers, when they no longer accept the ideology
justifying this rule, when they are gathering the material and
moral forces necessary for the overthrow of the ruling class.
Profound economic transformations prepare such condi~
tions. The existing social organisation and the given mode of
production, which have allowed the productive forces and
the material wealth of the society to develop during a certain
period, have become a brake to their continued development.
The expansion of production enters into collision with its
social organisation, with the social relations of production.
There lies the ultimate source of all the social revolutions in
history.
A social revolution substitutes the rule of one class for that
of another. It presupposes the elimination of the previous
ruling class from state power. Every social revolution is
accompanied by a political revolution. The bourgeois
revolutions are in general characterised by the elimination of
the absolute monarchy and its replacement by a political
power in the hands of assemblies elected by the bourgeoisie.
The Estates-General suppressed the power of Philip II of
Spain in the revolution of the Netherlands. The English
Parliament destroyed the absolutism of Charles I in the
English revolution of 1649. The American Congress
destroyed the domination of George III over the thirteen
colonies. The various Assemblies of the French Revolution
destroyed the power of the Bourbon monarchy.
But if every social revolution is at the same time a political
revolution, every political revolution is not necessarily a
social one. A revolution which is only political implies the
replacement, by revolutionary means, of one form of
domination, one state form of a class, by another state form
ofthesameclass.
Thus the French revolutions of 1830, 1848 and 1870 were
political revolutions which successively installed the July
Monarchy, the Second Republic, the Second Empire and the
Third Republic, all different political forms of government
of the same s<Jcial class - the bourgeoisie. In general,

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 sourcesofinequality 33

political revolutions overthrow the state form of the same

social class as a function of the predominant interests of the
various layers and factions of that same dass which succeed
each other in power. But the fundamental mode of
production is in no way overthrown by these revolutions.
6 Particularities of the bourgeois state
The modern bourgeoisie did not start from scratch in
creating its state machine. It largely contented itself with
taking over the state machinery of absolute monarchy and
then remodelling it into an instrument which would serve its
class interests.
The bourgeois state is distinct in that, apart from its repressive
function and its ideological (integrationist) function, it also
fulfils a function which is indispensable to the smooth running
of the capitalist economy: that of guaranteeing the general
conditions of capitalist production. Capitalist production is
effectively generalised commodity production based on private
property, and therefore on competition. This fact itself means
that the collective interests of the bourgeoisie as a class cannot
be identified with the interests of any one capitalist, even the
richest. The state acquires a certain autonomy in order to be
able to represent these collective interests; it is the 'ideal
collective capitalist' (Engels).
Stable and equal conditions of law and security for every
capitalist are necessary if the capitalist economy is to
function in a normal, not to say an ideal manner. At the very
least, a unified national market, a monetary system based on
a certain number of national currencies, and a national and
international system of acknowledged (i.e. written) law must
exist. All these conditions do not spontaneously result from
private production and capitalist competition. They are
created by the bourgeois state.
When the bourgeoisie is economically prosperous and in
ascendancy, sure of its social and political domination, it
tends to reduce the economic functions of the state to the
minimum we have just mentioned. In conditions where
bourgeois rule is weakening and in decline, however, it tries on
the contrary to extend these functions so as to make the state
guarantee private profit.

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