In And Against The State?

I was reading an old copy of Capital & Class today – journal of the Conference of Socialist Economists – from Summer 1979. In particular, I was reading an article defending the Alternative Economic Strategy by the London SCE group. The argument centred around using the strategy as a means by which to mobilise class struggle. Part of that argument referred to a concept familiar at the time known as “In and Against The State”. The reference struck a chord with me, because it also keys into a discussion I have had over recent weeks with Charlie McMenamin about health and social care that began with him raising a question about that in relation to his elderly mum. It also keys into many of the arguments I have been making over the last few years about socialist strategy and the State. This short blog is to set down as succinctly as I can what I think this issue comes down to.

The concept of “In and Against The State” essentially means that we have to accept that the Capitalist State exists, and that having recognised that, we have to see it not as some monolithic construct, but as an arena of class struggle. We should not attempt to ignore its existence, and simply make propagandistic calls for its abolition, but work within it, and attempt via class struggle to win reforms of it. As far as that goes I have no immediate problem. No one would suggest that every socialist working as a teacher, healthcare worker, or civil servant for instance simply packed their bags and looked for alternative employment! Consequently, for so long as they are “In” the state they have to deal with it, and carry out class struggle from the inside, both in terms of the kind of “Economistic” struggle that every worker has to undertake against any employer, and in terms of a more general political struggle alongside the working class in general to try to win reforms that limit the ability of that state to act against workers interests, and where possible to secure some democratic control over it, where it is supposed to work in the interests of society (including workers) overall – for example, the NHS.

But, here is where the problem and the danger arises. Let me reduce the question to its most basic. If we think about the State as what it is – the Executive Committee of the Capitalist Class then in dealings with it, we should treat it as such, as being just some other Capitalist employer. So let us think about how socialists respond to any other Capitalist employer. Let me make a short digression here to speak about something I was considering the other day that makes the point I think graphically. I was thinking about the Left’s opposition to PFI. What is PFI? PFI is a means of the Capitalist State financing investment – in hospitals, schools etc. It does this by leasing these building from private companies who are commissioned to build them for that purpose. Why does the left oppose PFI? To be honest as a Marxist I have absolutely no idea!!!! Such decisions are made by individual Capitalist enterprises everyday! Capitalist firms raise money for investment, by borrowing money from the Bank, by issuing Debentures or Bonds, by Public Share Offerings and so on. No Marxist would dream of advising the Capitalists who make such decisions on which of these options is the most effective, so why on Earth should they feel it necessary to advise the State Capitalist about what is the most effective means of running the Capitalist economy???

In looking at relations with the Capitalist State this is precisely the attitude as Marxists we should take. Every worker in a Capitalist enterprise is as much “IN” that enterprise, as are the workers “In” the State. Every worker in trying to defend their working conditions, their pay etc. is as much “Against” that organisation as are workers in the State itself. Where workers are strong within any workplace at some point in time they might even seek to exercise some control over their work process, they might as the Lucas workers did, even draw up their own plans of how production should be organised, and so on.

But, it is unreconstructed reformism to believe that workers can simply continue to negotiate better wages and conditions, or will be allowed for any, but the shortest, period of time to exert control over the work process whilst remaining within the confines of the Capital-Labour relationship! At some point, sooner rather than later, Capital will re-assert its dominance, and roll-back whatever workplace “reforms” the workers have secured. Yes, there are some exceptions that prove the rule. The Scott-Bader Partnership that I referred to in my series on Co-operatives, is an example, of a Capitalist enterprise that effectively liquidated itself by allowing the workers to take over the enterprise as a Co-operative. But, generally Capitalists are in business to make profits for themselves not to share them with their workers. To believe otherwise is to believe that there is no fundamental contradiction between the interests of the contending classes.

It is precisely, this belief that leads to Trade Union consciousness being essentially bourgeois, leads precisely to the idea that although workers should be “In” and “Against” their particular Capitalist firm, there are limits to the “Against”, it is an “Against” that continues to recognise the need for the firm to exist. It is precisely this concept which makes the concept of “IN” and “Against” the State equally reformist, because nowhere in the concept is their any strategy for making the “Against” into a strategy for replacing the existing State with something else.

It is the fact that whilst trapped within the Capital-Labour relationship, workers are limited in the advance they can make that leads to the need for Marxists to demonstrate to workers the need to go beyond it. It is what leads directly to the demand that workers take back into their ownership the means of production through the establishment of worker co-operatives. But, it is exactly the same with workers relationship with the State Capitalist employer. For so long as they lack the power to change their relationship to it, workers have to continue to operate within those existing State structures whilst, carrying out class struggle within them. But, such class struggle can never have as its end the REFORM of those structures, for exactly the same reason that workers cannot simply reform the Capital-Labour relationship in general. The workers strategy, the whole emphasis of Marxists’ propaganda and programme has to be to drive beyond the existing structures.

It does not matter whether that structure is the State’s Military organisation as discussed in my blog on “Proletarian Military Policy”, or the Police, or the NHS, or any other structure, our strategy must be, not to simply look to a reform of these forms of the State, but their abolition, and replacement with new forms directly under the ownership and control of workers. That can be done in one of two ways. It can be done by calling on workers to undertake some political revolution such as that in 1917 in Russia – which means for now, and until the cows come home or workers are convinced of the need for that, reducing the strategy to nothing more than maximalist propaganda – or else it can be done in the way I have proposed of supporting and encouraging workers to create such new forms here, and now, thereby creating the framework and social power of the working class, which makes the political revolution possible, and more readily assures its success.