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The state unmasked

By Paul Feldman

In Britain, the state we live under is described as a "parliamentary democracy". But under the impact of corporate-led globalisation, the state and its political institutions have shed many of the democratic and representative features they once had in favour of building a new "market state".

We are living through an ever-closer merging of the state, politics and economics into a sinister type of corporate rule, especially in Britain and the United States. This is one of the most significant outcomes of corporate-led globalisation. Alongside this qualitative change, there is a growing authoritarianism introduced by the Blair and Bush regimes under the cloak of the "war on terror", a conflict which conveniently has no time limit. Taken together, these developments have created an historic crisis of legitimacy of the capitalist state system of rule in Britain and elsewhere.

The fact that the world economy is dominated by a decreasing number of transnational corporations (TNCs) is self-evident; their brands and logos are on every high street and they have an overwhelming impact on jobs and consumption. Less obvious is the means by which capitalism expresses itself politically. For capitalism not only has economic power - crucially it has political power too. Only this is more disguised, taking the form of an apparently democratic process open to all. Whether acknowledged or not - and it goes mostly unacknowledged by those who oppose capitalism - the issue of the nature of the state is pivotal. When the Bolsheviks overthrew the emerging Russian capitalist state in 1917 and founded a new system based on Soviets, they were accused of "trampling democracy" into the dust. Talking to students in July 1919 about this issue, Lenin, the leader of the revolution, commented:

"Is the state in a capitalist country, in a democratic republic -especially one like Switzerland or America - in the freest democratic republics, an expression of the popular will, the sum total of the general decision of the people, the expression of the national will, and so forth; or is the state a machine that enables the capitalists of a given country to maintain their power over the working class and the peasantry? That is the fundamental question around which all political disputes all over the world now centre." For him, there was a straightforward answer to the question: "… the more democratic it is, the cruder and more cynical is the rule of exploitation."

But why does the capitalist class need a state? Capitalists are a diverse class with competing interests which is one vital reason why they cannot rule directly. The state fulfils a number of vital social and political roles which capital by itself cannot deliver and creates and develops a framework without which capitalist production could not function. The state intervenes, for example, in all sorts of ways to mediate class conflict and preserve a degree of social stability necessary for the system of production. The tendency to crisis inherent in the profit system also gives the state unavoidable tasks in dealing with the consequences of economic collapse. The state has a key role in securing a rational monetary system which is absolutely indispensable for the circulation and exchange of commodities that lies at the heart of the capitalist system of production. When markets fail, or are threatened by rival military powers, the state will use its powers to intervene as the two world wars of the 20th century showed. Taken as a whole, the function of any state is to lend legitimacy and authority to power within a given territory. In the case of the modern capitalist state, it gives employers the legal sanction to exploit the labour of others. It is the state that ensures the constant supply of trained and educated labour that enables a worker to become a commodity.

Over time, specialists in ruling have come to dominate affairs. The state rather than serving society, stands above and aloof from the population. This political alienation adds to the impression that the existing state system is something independent, neutral, normal and irreplaceable. The overwhelming majority of the population have no direct control, access to or involvement in the running of the state. Occasionally we are consulted through a general or local election, or a referendum. We have the right to choose our rulers - but not the right to replace those who rule over us.

This is a short excerpt from an in-depth article published in Socialist Future Review.

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