                   B.2 Why are anarchists against the state?

   As previously noted (see [1]section B.1), anarchists oppose all forms
   of hierarchical authority. Historically, however, they have spent most
   of their time and energy opposing two main forms in particular. One is
   capitalism, the other, the state. These two forms of authority have a
   symbiotic relationship and cannot be easily separated:

     "[T]he State . . . and Capitalism are facts and conceptions which we
     cannot separate from each other. In the course of history these
     institutions have developed, supporting and reinforcing each other.

     "They are connected with each other -- not as mere accidental
     co-incidences. They are linked together by the links of cause and
     effect."
     [Kropotkin, Evolution and Environment, p. 94]

   In this section, in consequence, as well as explaining why anarchists
   oppose the state, we will necessarily have to analyse the relationship
   between it and capitalism.

   So what is the state? As Malatesta put it, anarchists "have used the
   word State, and still do, to mean the sum total of the political,
   legislative, judiciary, military and financial institutions through
   which the management of their own affairs, the control over their
   personal behaviour, the responsibility for their personal safety, are
   taken away from the people and entrusted to others who, by usurpation
   or delegation, are vested with the power to make laws for everything
   and everybody, and to oblige the people to observe them, if need be, by
   the use of collective force." [Anarchy, p. 17]

   He continues:

     "For us, government [or the state] is made up of all the governors;
     and the governors . . . are those who have the power to make laws
     regulating inter-human relations and to see that they are carried
     out . . . [and] who have the power, to a greater or lesser degree,
     to make use of the social power, that is of the physical,
     intellectual and economic power of the whole community, in order to
     oblige everybody to carry out their wishes. And this power, in our
     opinion, constitutes the principle of government, of authority."
     [Op. Cit., p. 19]

   Kropotkin presented a similar analysis, arguing that the state "not
   only includes the existence of a power situated above society, but also
   of a territorial concentration as well as the concentration in the
   hands of a few of many functions in the life of societies . . . A whole
   mechanism of legislation and of policing has to be developed in order
   to subject some classes to the domination of others." [The State: Its
   Historic Role, p. 10] For Bakunin, all states "are in essence only
   machines governing the masses from above, through . . . a privileged
   minority, allegedly knowing the genuine interests of the people better
   than the people themselves." [The Political Philosophy of Bakunin, p.
   211] On this subject Murray Bookchin writes:

     "Minimally, the State is a professional system of social coercion --
     not merely a system of social administration as it is still naively
     regarded by the public and by many political theorists. The word
     'professional' should be emphasised as much as the word 'coercion.'
     . . . It is only when coercion is institutionalised into a
     professional, systematic and organised form of social control --
     that is, when people are plucked out of their everyday lives in a
     community and expected not only to 'administer' it but to do so with
     the backing of a monopoly of violence -- that we can properly speak
     of a State." [Remaking Society, p. 66]

   As Bookchin indicates, anarchists reject the idea that the state is the
   same as society or that any grouping of human beings living and
   organised together is a state. This confusion, as Kropotkin notes,
   explains why "anarchists are generally upbraided for wanting to
   'destroy society' and of advocating a return to 'the permanent war of
   each against all.'" Such a position "overlook[s] the fact that Man
   lived in Societies for thousands of years before the State had been
   heard of" and that, consequently, the State "is only one of the forms
   assumed by society in the course of history." [Op. Cit., p. 10]

   The state, therefore, is not just federations of individuals or peoples
   and so, as Malatesta stressed, cannot be used to describe a "human
   collectively gathered together in a particular territory and making up
   what is called a social unit irrespective of the way the way said
   collectivity are grouped or the state of relations between them." It
   cannot be "used simply as a synonym for society." [Op. Cit., p. 17] The
   state is a particular form of social organisation based on certain key
   attributes and so, we argue, "the word 'State' . . . should be reserved
   for those societies with the hierarchical system and centralisation."
   [Peter Kropotkin, Ethics, p. 317f] As such, the state "is a historic,
   transitory institution, a temporary form of society" and one whose
   "utter extinction" is possible as the "State is not society." [Bakunin,
   Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 151]

   In summary, the state is a specific way in which human affairs are
   organised in a given area, a way marked by certain institutions which,
   in turn, have certain characteristics. This does not imply, however,
   that the state is a monolithic entity that has been the same from its
   birth to the present day. States vary in many ways, especially in their
   degree of authoritarianism, in the size and power of their bureaucracy
   and how they organise themselves. Thus we have monarchies, oligarchies,
   theocracies, party dictatorships and (more or less) democratic states.
   We have ancient states, with minimal bureaucracy, and modern ones, with
   enormous bureaucracy.

   Moreover, anarchists argue that "the political regime . . . is always
   an expression of the economic regime which exists at the heart of
   society." This means that regardless of how the state changes, it
   "continues to be shaped by the economic system, of which it is always
   the expression and, at the same time, the consecration and the
   sustaining force." Needless to say, there is not always an exact match
   and sometimes "the political regime of a country finds itself lagging
   behind the economic changes that are taking place, and in that case it
   will abruptly be set aside and remodelled in a way appropriate to the
   economic regime that has been established." [Kropotkin, Words of a
   Rebel, p. 118]

   At other times, the state can change its form to protect the economic
   system it is an expression of. Thus we see democracies turn to
   dictatorships in the face of popular revolts and movements. The most
   obvious examples of Pinochet's Chile, Franco's Spain, Mussolini's Italy
   and Hitler's Germany are all striking confirmations of Bakunin's
   comment that while "[n]o government could serve the economic interests
   of the bourgeoisie better than a republic," that class would "prefer .
   . . military dictatorship" if needed to crush "the revolts of the
   proletariat." [Bakunin on Anarchism, p. 417]

   However, as much as the state may change its form it still has certain
   characteristics which identify a social institution as a state. As
   such, we can say that, for anarchists, the state is marked by three
   things:

   1) A "monopoly of violence" in a given territorial area;
       2) This violence having a "professional," institutional nature; and
       3) A hierarchical nature, centralisation of power and initiative
       into the hands of a few.

   Of these three aspects, the last one (its centralised, hierarchical
   nature) is the most important simply because the concentration of power
   into the hands of the few ensures a division of society into government
   and governed (which necessitates the creation of a professional body to
   enforce that division). Hence we find Bakunin arguing that "[w]ith the
   State there must go also . . . all organisation of social life from the
   top downward, via legislation and government." [The Political
   Philosophy of Bakunin, p. 242] In other words, "the people was not
   governing itself." [Kropotkin, Op. Cit., p. 120]

   This aspect implies the rest. In a state, all the people residing in an
   area are subject to the state, submitting themselves to the individuals
   who make up the institution of authority ruling that territory. To
   enforce the will of this few, they must have a monopoly of force within
   the territory. As the members of the state collectively monopolise
   political decision making power, they are a privileged body separated
   by its position and status from the rest of the population as a whole
   which means they cannot rely on them to enforce its will. This
   necessities a professional body of some kind to enforce their
   decisions, a separate police force or army rather than the people
   armed.

   Given this, the division of society into rulers and ruled is the key to
   what constitutes a state. Without such a division, we would not need a
   monopoly of violence and so would simply have an association of equals,
   unmarked by power and hierarchy (such as exists in many stateless
   "primitive" tribes and will exist in a future anarchist society). And,
   it must be stressed, such a division exists even in democratic states
   as "with the state there is always a hierarchical and status difference
   between rulers and ruled. Even if it is a democracy, where we suppose
   those who rule today are not rulers tomorrow, there are still
   differences in status. In a democratic system, only a tiny minority
   will ever have the opportunity to rule and these are invariably drawn
   from the elite." [Harold Barclay, The State, pp. 23-4]

   Thus, the "essence of government" is that "it is a thing apart,
   developing its own interests" and so is "an institution existing for
   its own sake, preying upon the people, and teaching them whatever will
   tend to keep it secure in its seat." [Voltairine de Cleyre, The
   Voltairine de Cleyre Reader, p. 27 and p. 26] And so "despotism resides
   not so much in the form of the State or power as in the very principle
   of the State and political power." [Bakunin, Op. Cit., p. 211]

   As the state is the delegation of power into the hands of the few, it
   is obviously based on hierarchy. This delegation of power results in
   the elected people becoming isolated from the mass of people who
   elected them and outside of their control (see [2]section B.2.4). In
   addition, as those elected are given power over a host of different
   issues and told to decide upon them, a bureaucracy soon develops around
   them to aid in their decision-making and enforce those decisions once
   they have been reached. However, this bureaucracy, due to its control
   of information and its permanency, soon has more power than the elected
   officials. Therefore "a highly complex state machine . . . leads to the
   formation of a class especially concerned with state management, which,
   using its acquired experience, begins to deceive the rest for its
   personal advantage." [Kropotkin, Selected Writings on Anarchism and
   Revolution, p. 61] This means that those who serve the people's
   (so-called) servant have more power than those they serve, just as the
   politician has more power than those who elected him. All forms of
   state-like (i.e. hierarchical) organisations inevitably spawn a
   bureaucracy about them. This bureaucracy soon becomes the de facto
   focal point of power in the structure, regardless of the official
   rules.

   This marginalisation and disempowerment of ordinary people (and so the
   empowerment of a bureaucracy) is the key reason for anarchist
   opposition to the state. Such an arrangement ensures that the
   individual is disempowered, subject to bureaucratic, authoritarian rule
   which reduces the person to an object or a number, not a unique
   individual with hopes, dreams, thoughts and feelings. As Proudhon
   forcefully argued:

     "To be GOVERNED is to be kept in sight, inspected, spied upon,
     directed, law-driven, numbered, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached
     at, controlled, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures
     who have neither the right, nor the wisdom, nor the virtue to do so
     . . . To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every
     transaction, noted, registered, enrolled, taxed, stamped, measured,
     numbered, assessed, licensed, authorised, admonished, forbidden,
     reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under the pretext of public
     utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under
     contribution, trained, ransomed, exploited, monopolised, extorted,
     squeezed, mystified, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the
     first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, despised, harassed,
     tracked, abused, clubbed, disarmed, choked, imprisoned, judged,
     condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and, to crown
     it all, mocked, ridiculed, outraged, dishonoured. That is
     government; that is its justice; that is its morality." [General
     Idea of the Revolution, p. 294]

   Such is the nature of the state that any act, no matter how evil,
   becomes good if it helps forward the interests of the state and the
   minorities it protects. As Bakunin put it:

     "The State . . . is the most flagrant, the most cynical, and the
     most complete negation of humanity. It shatters the universal
     solidarity of all men [and women] on the earth, and brings some of
     them into association only for the purpose of destroying,
     conquering, and enslaving all the rest . . .

     "This flagrant negation of humanity which constitutes the very
     essence of the State is, from the standpoint of the State, its
     supreme duty and its greatest virtue . . . Thus, to offend, to
     oppress, to despoil, to plunder, to assassinate or enslave one's
     fellowman [or woman] is ordinarily regarded as a crime. In public
     life, on the other hand, from the standpoint of patriotism, when
     these things are done for the greater glory of the State, for the
     preservation or the extension of its power, it is all transformed
     into duty and virtue. And this virtue, this duty, are obligatory for
     each patriotic citizen; everyone if supposed to exercise them not
     against foreigners only but against one's own fellow citizens . . .
     whenever the welfare of the State demands it.

     "This explains why, since the birth of the State, the world of
     politics has always been and continues to be the stage for unlimited
     rascality and brigandage . . . This explains why the entire history
     of ancient and modern states is merely a series of revolting crimes;
     why kings and ministers, past and present, of all times and all
     countries -- statesmen, diplomats, bureaucrats, and warriors -- if
     judged from the standpoint of simply morality and human justice,
     have a hundred, a thousand times over earned their sentence to hard
     labour or to the gallows. There is no horror, no cruelty, sacrilege,
     or perjury, no imposture, no infamous transaction, no cynical
     robbery, no bold plunder or shabby betrayal that has not been or is
     not daily being perpetrated by the representatives of the states,
     under no other pretext than those elastic words, so convenient and
     yet so terrible: 'for reasons of state.'"
     [Bakunin on Anarchism, pp. 133-4]

   Governments habitually lie to the people they claim to represent in
   order to justify wars, reductions (if not the destruction) of civil
   liberties and human rights, policies which benefit the few over the
   many, and other crimes. And if its subjects protest, the state will
   happily use whatever force deemed necessary to bring the rebels back in
   line (labelling such repression "law and order"). Such repression
   includes the use of death squads, the institutionalisation of torture,
   collective punishments, indefinite imprisonment, and other horrors at
   the worse extremes.

   Little wonder the state usually spends so much time ensuring the
   (mis)education of its population -- only by obscuring (when not hiding)
   its actual practises can it ensure the allegiance of those subject to
   it. The history of the state could be viewed as nothing more than the
   attempts of its subjects to control it and bind it to the standards
   people apply to themselves.

   Such behaviour is not surprising, given that Anarchists see the state,
   with its vast scope and control of deadly force, as the "ultimate"
   hierarchical structure, suffering from all the negative characteristics
   associated with authority described in the [3]last section. "Any loical
   and straightforward theory of the State," argued Bakunin, "is
   essentially founded upon the principle of authority, that is the
   eminently theological, metaphysical, and political idea that the
   masses, always incapable of governing themselves, must at all times
   submit to the beneficent yoke of a wisdom and a justice imposed upon
   them, in some way or other, from above." [Bakunin on Anarchism, p. 142]
   Such a system of authority cannot help being centralised, hierarchical
   and bureaucratic in nature. And because of its centralised,
   hierarchical, and bureaucratic nature, the state becomes a great weight
   over society, restricting its growth and development and making popular
   control impossible. As Bakunin put it:

     "the so-called general interests of society supposedly represented
     by the State . . . [are] in reality . . . the general and permanent
     negation of the positive interests of the regions, communes, and
     associations, and a vast number of individuals subordinated to the
     State . . . [in which] all the best aspirations, all the living
     forces of a country, are sanctimoniously immolated and interred."
     [The Political Philosophy of Bakunin, p. 207]

   That is by no means the end of it. As well as its obvious hierarchical
   form, anarchists object to the state for another, equally important,
   reason. This is its role as a defender of the economically dominant
   class in society against the rest of it (i.e. from the working class).
   This means, under the current system, the capitalists "need the state
   to legalise their methods of robbery, to protect the capitalist
   system." [Berkman, What is Anarchism?, p. 16] The state, as we discuss
   in [4]section B.2.1, is the defender of private property (see
   [5]section B.3 for a discussion of what anarchists mean by that term
   and how it differs from individual possessions).

   This means that in capitalist states the mechanisms of state domination
   are controlled by and for a corporate elite (and hence the large
   corporations are often considered to belong to a wider
   "state-complex"). Indeed, as we discuss in more depth in [6]section
   F.8, the "State has been, and still is, the main pillar and the
   creator, direct and indirect, of Capitalism and its powers over the
   masses." [Kropotkin, Evolution and Environment, p. 97] [7]Section B.2.3
   indicates how this is domination is achieved in a representative
   democracy.

   However this does not mean anarchists think that the state is purely an
   instrument of economic class rule. As Malatesta argued, while "a
   special class (government) which, provided with the necessary means of
   repression, exists to legalise and protect the owning class from the
   demands of the workers . . . it uses the powers at its disposal to
   create privileges for itself and to subject, if it can, the owning
   class itself as well." [Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas, p. 183]
   Thus the state has interests of its own, distinct from and sometimes in
   opposition to the economic ruling elite. This means that both state and
   capitalism needs to be abolished, for the former is as much a distinct
   (and oppressive and exploitative) class as the former. This aspects of
   the state is discussed in [8]section B.2.6.

   As part of its role as defender of capitalism, the state is involved in
   not only in political domination but also in economic domination. This
   domination can take different forms, varying from simply maintaining
   capitalist property rights to actually owning workplaces and exploiting
   labour directly. Thus every state intervenes in the economy in some
   manner. While this is usually to favour the economically dominant, it
   can also occur try and mitigate the anti-social nature of the
   capitalist market and regulate its worse abuses. We discuss this aspect
   of the state in [9]section B.2.2.

   Needless to say, the characteristics which mark a state did not develop
   by chance. As we discuss in [10]section H.3.7, anarchists have an
   evolutionary perspective on the state. This means that it has a
   hierarchical nature in order to facilitate the execution of its role,
   its function. As sections [11]B.2.4 and [12]B.2.5 indicate, the
   centralisation that marks a state is required to secure elite rule and
   was deliberately and actively created to do so. This means that states,
   by their very nature, are top-down institutions which centralise power
   into a few hands and, as a consequence, a state "with its traditions,
   its hierarchy, and its narrow nationalism" can "not be utilised as an
   instrument of emancipation." [Kropotkon, Evolution and Environment, p.
   78] It is for this reason that anarchists aim to create a new form of
   social organisation and life, a decentralised one based on decision
   making from the bottom-up and the elimination of hierarchy.

   Finally, we must point out that anarchists, while stressing what states
   have in common, do recognise that some forms of the state are better
   than others. Democracies, for example, tend to be less oppressive than
   dictatorships or monarchies. As such it would be false to conclude that
   anarchists, "in criticising the democratic government we thereby show
   our preference for the monarchy. We are firmly convinced that the most
   imperfect republic is a thousand times better than the most enlightened
   monarchy." [Bakunin, Bakunin on Anarchism, p. 144] However, this does
   not change the nature or role of the state. Indeed, what liberties we
   have are not dependent on the goodwill of the state but rather the
   result of people standing against it and exercising their autonomy.
   Left to itself, the state would soon turn the liberties and rights it
   says it defends into dead-laws -- things that look good in print but
   not practised in real life.

   So in the rest of this section we will discuss the state, its role, its
   impact on a society's freedom and who benefits from its existence.
   Kropotkin's classic essay, The State: It's Historic Role is recommended
   for further reading on this subject. Harold Barclay's The State is a
   good overview of the origins of the state, how it has changed over the
   millenniums and the nature of the modern state.

B.2.1 What is main function of the state?

   The main function of the state is to guarantee the existing social
   relationships and their sources within a given society through
   centralised power and a monopoly of violence. To use Malatesta's words,
   the state is basically "the property owners' gendarme." This is because
   there are "two ways of oppressing men [and women]: either directly by
   brute force, by physical violence; or indirectly by denying them the
   means of life and thus reducing them to a state of surrender." The
   owning class, "gradually concentrating in their hands the means of
   production, the real sources of life, agriculture, industry, barter,
   etc., end up establishing their own power which, by reason of the
   superiority of its means . . . always ends by more or less openly
   subjecting the political power, which is the government, and making it
   into its own gendarme." [Op. Cit., p. 23, p. 21 and p. 22]

   The state, therefore, is "the political expression of the economic
   structure" of society and, therefore, "the representative of the people
   who own or control the wealth of the community and the oppressor of the
   people who do the work which creates the wealth." [Nicholas Walter,
   About Anarchism, p. 37] It is therefore no exaggeration to say that the
   state is the extractive apparatus of society's parasites.

   The state ensures the exploitative privileges of its ruling elite by
   protecting certain economic monopolies from which its members derive
   their wealth. The nature of these economic privileges varies over time.
   Under the current system, this means defending capitalist property
   rights (see [13]section B.3.2). This service is referred to as
   "protecting private property" and is said to be one of the two main
   functions of the state, the other being to ensure that individuals are
   "secure in their persons." However, although this second aim is
   professed, in reality most state laws and institutions are concerned
   with the protection of property (for the anarchist definition of
   "property" see [14]section B.3.1).

   From this we may infer that references to the "security of persons,"
   "crime prevention," etc., are mostly rationalisations of the state's
   existence and smokescreens for its perpetuation of elite power and
   privileges. This does not mean that the state does not address these
   issues. Of course it does, but, to quote Kropotkin, any "laws developed
   from the nucleus of customs useful to human communities . . . have been
   turned to account by rulers to sanctify their own domination." of the
   people, and maintained only by the fear of punishment." [Anarchism, p.
   215]

   Simply put, if the state "presented nothing but a collection of
   prescriptions serviceable to rulers, it would find some difficulty in
   insuring acceptance and obedience" and so the law reflects customs
   "essential to the very being of society"
   but these are "cleverly intermingled with usages imposed by the ruling
   caste and both claim equal respect from the crowd." Thus the state's
   laws have a "two-fold character." While its "origin is the desire of
   the ruling class to give permanence to customs imposed by themselves
   for their own advantage" it also passes into law "customs useful to
   society, customs which have no need of law to insure respect" -- unlike
   those "other customs useful only to rulers, injurious to the mass of
   the people, and maintained only by the fear of punishment." [Kropotkin,
   Op. Cit., pp. 205-6] To use an obvious example, we find the state using
   the defence of an individual's possessions as the rationale for
   imposing capitalist private property rights upon the general public
   and, consequently, defending the elite and the source of its wealth and
   power against those subject to it.

   Moreover, even though the state does take a secondary interest in
   protecting the security of persons (particularly elite persons), the
   vast majority of crimes against persons are motivated by poverty and
   alienation due to state-supported exploitation and also by the
   desensitisation to violence created by the state's own violent methods
   of protecting private property. In other words, the state rationalises
   its existence by pointing to the social evils it itself helps to create
   (either directly or indirectly). Hence, anarchists maintain that
   without the state and the crime-engendering conditions to which it
   gives rise, it would be possible for decentralised, voluntary community
   associations to deal compassionately (not punitively) with the few
   incorrigibly violent people who might remain (see [15]section I.5.8).

   Anarchists think it is pretty clear what the real role of the modern
   state is. It represents the essential coercive mechanisms by which
   capitalism and the authority relations associated with private property
   are sustained. The protection of property is fundamentally the means of
   assuring the social domination of owners over non-owners, both in
   society as a whole and in the particular case of a specific boss over a
   specific group of workers. Class domination is the authority of
   property owners over those who use that property and it is the primary
   function of the state to uphold that domination (and the social
   relationships that generate it). In Kropotkin's words, "the rich
   perfectly well know that if the machinery of the State ceased to
   protect them, their power over the labouring classes would be gone
   immediately." [Evolution and Environment, p. 98] Protecting private
   property and upholding class domination are the same thing.

   The historian Charles Beard makes a similar point:

     "Inasmuch as the primary object of a government, beyond mere
     repression of physical violence, is the making of the rules which
     determine the property relations of members of society, the dominant
     classes whose rights are thus to be protected must perforce obtain
     from the government such rules as are consonant with the larger
     interests necessary to the continuance of their economic processes,
     or they must themselves control the organs of government." ["An
     Economic Interpretation of the Constitution," quoted by Howard Zinn,
     Op. Cit., p. 89]

   This role of the state -- to protect capitalism and the property, power
   and authority of the property owner -- was also noticed by Adam Smith:

     "[T]he inequality of fortune . . . introduces among men a degree of
     authority and subordination which could not possibly exist before.
     It thereby introduces some degree of that civil government which is
     indispensably necessary for its own preservation . . . [and] to
     maintain and secure that authority and subordination. The rich, in
     particular, are necessarily interested to support that order of
     things which can alone secure them in the possession of their own
     advantages. Men of inferior wealth combine to defend those of
     superior wealth in the possession of their property, in order that
     men of superior wealth may combine to defend them in the possession
     of theirs . . . [T]he maintenance of their lesser authority depends
     upon that of his greater authority, and that upon their
     subordination to him depends his power of keeping their inferiors in
     subordination to them. They constitute a sort of little nobility,
     who feel themselves interested to defend the property and to support
     the authority of their own little sovereign in order that he may be
     able to defend their property and to support their authority. Civil
     government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property,
     is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the
     poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none
     at all." [The Wealth of Nations, book 5, pp. 412-3]

   This is reflected in both the theory and history of the modern state.
   Theorists of the liberal state like John Locke had no qualms about
   developing a theory of the state which placed the defence of private
   property at its heart. This perspective was reflected in the American
   Revolution. For example, there is the words of John Jay (the first
   chief justice of the Supreme Court), namely that "the people who own
   the country ought to govern it." [quoted by Noam Chomksy, Understanding
   Power, p. 315] This was the maxim of the Founding Fathers of American
   "democracy" and it has continued ever since.

   So, in a nutshell, the state is the means by which the ruling class
   rules. Hence Bakunin:

     "The State is authority, domination, and force, organised by the
     property-owning and so-called enlightened classes against the masses
     . . . the State's domination . . . [ensures] that of the privileged
     classes who it solely represents." [The Basic Bakunin, p. 140]

   Under the current system, this means that the state "constitutes the
   chief bulwark of capital" because of its "centralisation, law (always
   written by a minority in the interest of that minority), and courts of
   justice (established mainly for the defence of authority and capital)."
   Thus it is "the mission of all governments . . . is to protect and
   maintain by force the . . . privileges of the possessing classes."
   Consequently, while "[i]n the struggle between the individual and the
   State, anarchism . . . takes the side of the individual as against the
   State, of society against the authority which oppresses it," anarchists
   are well aware that the state does not exist above society, independent
   of the classes which make it up. [Kropotkin, Anarchism, pp. 149-50, p.
   214 and pp. 192-3]

   Consequently anarchists reject the idea that the role of the state is
   simply to represent the interests of the people or "the nation." For
   "democracy is an empty pretence to the extent that production, finance
   and commerce -- and along with them, the political processes of the
   society as well -- are under control of 'concentrations of private
   power.' The 'national interest' as articulated by those who dominate
   the . . . societies will be their special interests. Under these
   circumstances, talk of 'national interest' can only contribute to
   mystification and oppression." [Noam Chomsky, Radical Priorities, p.
   52] As we discuss in [16]section D.6, nationalism always reflects the
   interests of the elite, not those who make up a nation and,
   consequently, anarchists reject the notion as nothing more than a con
   (i.e. the use of affection of where you live to further ruling class
   aims and power).

   Indeed, part of the state's role as defender of the ruling elite is to
   do so internationally, defending "national" (i.e. elite) interests
   against the elites of other nations. Thus we find that at the IMF and
   World Bank, nations are represented by ministers who are "closely
   aligned with particular constituents within their countries. The trade
   ministers reflect the concerns of the business community" while the
   "finance ministers and central bank governors are closely tied to
   financial community; they come from financial firms, and after their
   period in service, that is where they return . . . These individuals
   see the world through the eyes of the financial community."
   Unsurprisingly, the "decisions of any institution naturally reflect the
   perspectives and interests of those who make the decisions" and so the
   "policies of the international economic institutions are all too often
   closely aligned with the commercial and financial interests of those in
   the advanced industrial countries." [Joseph Stiglitz, Globalisation and
   its Discontents, pp. 19-20]

   This, it must be stressed, does not change in the so-called democratic
   state. Here, however, the primary function of the state is disguised by
   the "democratic" facade of the representative electoral system, through
   which it is made to appear that the people rule themselves. Thus
   Bakunin writes that the modern state "unites in itself the two
   conditions necessary for the prosperity of the capitalistic economy:
   State centralisation and the actual subjection of . . . the people . .
   . to the minority allegedly representing it but actually governing it."
   [Op. Cit., p. 210] How this is achieved is discussed in [17]section
   B.2.3.

B.2.2 Does the state have subsidiary functions?

   Yes, it does. While, as discussed in the [18]last section, the state is
   an instrument to maintain class rule this does not mean that it is
   limited to just defending the social relationships in a society and the
   economic and political sources of those relationships. No state has
   ever left its activities at that bare minimum. As well as defending the
   rich, their property and the specific forms of property rights they
   favoured, the state has numerous other subsidiary functions.

   What these are has varied considerably over time and space and,
   consequently, it would be impossible to list them all. However, why it
   does is more straight forward. We can generalise two main forms of
   subsidiary functions of the state. The first one is to boost the
   interests of the ruling elite either nationally or internationally
   beyond just defending their property. The second is to protect society
   against the negative effects of the capitalist market. We will discuss
   each in turn and, for simplicity and relevance, we will concentrate on
   capitalism (see also [19]section D.1).

   The first main subsidiary function of the state is when it intervenes
   in society to help the capitalist class in some way. This can take
   obvious forms of intervention, such as subsidies, tax breaks, non-bid
   government contracts, protective tariffs to old, inefficient,
   industries, giving actual monopolies to certain firms or individuals,
   bailouts of corporations judged by state bureaucrats as too important
   to let fail, and so on. However, the state intervenes far more than
   that and in more subtle ways. Usually it does so to solve problems that
   arise in the course of capitalist development and which cannot, in
   general, be left to the market (at least initially). These are designed
   to benefit the capitalist class as a whole rather than just specific
   individuals, companies or sectors.

   These interventions have taken different forms in different times and
   include state funding for industry (e.g. military spending); the
   creation of social infrastructure too expensive for private capital to
   provide (railways, motorways); the funding of research that companies
   cannot afford to undertake; protective tariffs to protect developing
   industries from more efficient international competition (the key to
   successful industrialisation as it allows capitalists to rip-off
   consumers, making them rich and increasing funds available for
   investment); giving capitalists preferential access to land and other
   natural resources; providing education to the general public that
   ensures they have the skills and attitude required by capitalists and
   the state (it is no accident that a key thing learned in school is how
   to survive boredom, being in a hierarchy and to do what it orders);
   imperialist ventures to create colonies or client states (or protect
   citizen's capital invested abroad) in order to create markets or get
   access to raw materials and cheap labour; government spending to
   stimulate consumer demand in the face of recession and stagnation;
   maintaining a "natural" level of unemployment that can be used to
   discipline the working class, so ensuring they produce more, for less;
   manipulating the interest rate in order to try and reduce the effects
   of the business cycle and undermine workers' gains in the class
   struggle.

   These actions, and others like it, ensures that a key role of the state
   within capitalism "is essentially to socialise risk and cost, and to
   privatise power and profit." Unsurprisingly, "with all the talk about
   minimising the state, in the OECD countries the state continues to grow
   relative to GNP." [Noam Chomsky, Rogue States, p. 189] Hence David
   Deleon:

     "Above all, the state remains an institution for the continuance of
     dominant socioeconomic relations, whether through such agencies as
     the military, the courts, politics or the police . . . Contemporary
     states have acquired . . . less primitive means to reinforce their
     property systems [than state violence -- which is always the means
     of last, often first, resort]. States can regulate, moderate or
     resolve tensions in the economy by preventing the bankruptcies of
     key corporations, manipulating the economy through interest rates,
     supporting hierarchical ideology through tax benefits for churches
     and schools, and other tactics. In essence, it is not a neutral
     institution; it is powerfully for the status quo. The capitalist
     state, for example, is virtually a gyroscope centred in capital,
     balancing the system. If one sector of the economy earns a level of
     profit, let us say, that harms the rest of the system -- such as oil
     producers' causing public resentment and increased manufacturing
     costs -- the state may redistribute some of that profit through
     taxation, or offer encouragement to competitors." ["Anarchism on the
     origins and functions of the state: some basic notes", Reinventing
     Anarchy, pp. 71-72]

   In other words, the state acts to protect the long-term interests of
   the capitalist class as a whole (and ensure its own survival) by
   protecting the system. This role can and does clash with the interests
   of particular capitalists or even whole sections of the ruling class
   (see [20]section B.2.6). But this conflict does not change the role of
   the state as the property owners' policeman. Indeed, the state can be
   considered as a means for settling (in a peaceful and apparently
   independent manner) upper-class disputes over what to do to keep the
   system going.

   This subsidiary role, it must be stressed, is no accident, It is part
   and parcel capitalism. Indeed, "successful industrial societies have
   consistently relied on departures from market orthodoxies, while
   condemning their victims [at home and abroad] to market discipline."
   [Noam Chomsky, World Orders, Old and New, p. 113] While such state
   intervention grew greatly after the Second World War, the role of the
   state as active promoter of the capitalist class rather than just its
   passive defender as implied in capitalist ideology (i.e. as defender of
   property) has always been a feature of the system. As Kropotkin put it:

     "every State reduces the peasants and the industrial workers to a
     life of misery, by means of taxes, and through the monopolies it
     creates in favour of the landlords, the cotton lords, the railway
     magnates, the publicans, and the like . . . we need only to look
     round, to see how everywhere in Europe and America the States are
     constituting monopolies in favour of capitalists at home, and still
     more in conquered lands [which are part of their empires]."
     [Evolution and Environment, p. 97]

   By "monopolies," it should be noted, Kropotkin meant general privileges
   and benefits rather than giving a certain firm total control over a
   market. This continues to this day by such means as, for example,
   privatising industries but providing them with state subsidies or by
   (mis-labelled) "free trade" agreements which impose protectionist
   measures such as intellectual property rights on the world market.

   All this means that capitalism has rarely relied on purely economic
   power to keep the capitalists in their social position of dominance
   (either nationally, vis--vis the working class, or internationally,
   vis--vis competing foreign elites). While a "free market" capitalist
   regime in which the state reduces its intervention to simply protecting
   capitalist property rights has been approximated on a few occasions,
   this is not the standard state of the system -- direct force, i.e.
   state action, almost always supplements it.

   This is most obviously the case during the birth of capitalist
   production. Then the bourgeoisie wants and uses the power of the state
   to "regulate" wages (i.e. to keep them down to such levels as to
   maximise profits and force people attend work regularly), to lengthen
   the working day and to keep the labourer dependent on wage labour as
   their own means of income (by such means as enclosing land, enforcing
   property rights on unoccupied land, and so forth). As capitalism is not
   and has never been a "natural" development in society, it is not
   surprising that more and more state intervention is required to keep it
   going (and if even this was not the case, if force was essential to
   creating the system in the first place, the fact that it latter can
   survive without further direct intervention does not make the system
   any less statist). As such, "regulation" and other forms of state
   intervention continue to be used in order to skew the market in favour
   of the rich and so force working people to sell their labour on the
   bosses terms.

   This form of state intervention is designed to prevent those greater
   evils which might threaten the efficiency of a capitalist economy or
   the social and economic position of the bosses. It is designed not to
   provide positive benefits for those subject to the elite (although this
   may be a side-effect). Which brings us to the other kind of state
   intervention, the attempts by society, by means of the state, to
   protect itself against the eroding effects of the capitalist market
   system.

   Capitalism is an inherently anti-social system. By trying to treat
   labour (people) and land (the environment) as commodities, it has to
   break down communities and weaken eco-systems. This cannot but harm
   those subject to it and, as a consequence, this leads to pressure on
   government to intervene to mitigate the most damaging effects of
   unrestrained capitalism. Therefore, on one side there is the historical
   movement of the market, a movement that has not inherent limit and that
   therefore threatens society's very existence. On the other there is
   society's natural propensity to defend itself, and therefore to create
   institutions for its protection. Combine this with a desire for justice
   on behalf of the oppressed along with opposition to the worse
   inequalities and abuses of power and wealth and we have the potential
   for the state to act to combat the worse excesses of the system in
   order to keep the system as a whole going. After all, the government
   "cannot want society to break up, for it would mean that it and the
   dominant class would be deprived of the sources of exploitation."
   [Malatesta, Op. Cit., p. 25]

   Needless to say, the thrust for any system of social protection usually
   comes from below, from the people most directly affected by the
   negative effects of capitalism. In the face of mass protests the state
   may be used to grant concessions to the working class in cases where
   not doing so would threaten the integrity of the system as a whole.
   Thus, social struggle is the dynamic for understanding many, if not
   all, of the subsidiary functions acquired by the state over the years
   (this applies to pro-capitalist functions as these are usually driven
   by the need to bolster the profits and power of capitalists at the
   expense of the working class).

   State legislation to set the length of the working day is an obvious
   example this. In the early period of capitalist development, the
   economic position of the capitalists was secure and, consequently, the
   state happily ignored the lengthening working day, thus allowing
   capitalists to appropriate more surplus value from workers and increase
   the rate of profit without interference. Whatever protests erupted were
   handled by troops. Later, however, after workers began to organise on a
   wider and wider scale, reducing the length of the working day became a
   key demand around which revolutionary socialist fervour was developing.
   In order to defuse this threat (and socialist revolution is the
   worst-case scenario for the capitalist), the state passed legislation
   to reduce the length of the working day.

   Initially, the state was functioning purely as the protector of the
   capitalist class, using its powers simply to defend the property of the
   few against the many who used it (i.e. repressing the labour movement
   to allow the capitalists to do as they liked). In the second period,
   the state was granting concessions to the working class to eliminate a
   threat to the integrity of the system as a whole. Needless to say, once
   workers' struggle calmed down and their bargaining position reduced by
   the normal workings of market (see [21]section B.4.3), the legislation
   restricting the working day was happily ignored and became "dead laws."

   This suggests that there is a continuing tension and conflict between
   the efforts to establish, maintain, and spread the "free market" and
   the efforts to protect people and society from the consequences of its
   workings. Who wins this conflict depends on the relative strength of
   those involved (as does the actual reforms agreed to). Ultimately, what
   the state concedes, it can also take back. Thus the rise and fall of
   the welfare state -- granted to stop more revolutionary change (see
   [22]section D.1.3), it did not fundamentally challenge the existence of
   wage labour and was useful as a means of regulating capitalism but was
   "reformed" (i.e. made worse, rather than better) when it conflicted
   with the needs of the capitalist economy and the ruling elite felt
   strong enough to do so.

   Of course, this form of state intervention does not change the nature
   nor role of the state as an instrument of minority power. Indeed, that
   nature cannot help but shape how the state tries to implement social
   protection and so if the state assumes functions it does so as much in
   the immediate interest of the capitalist class as in the interest of
   society in general. Even where it takes action under pressure from the
   general population or to try and mend the harm done by the capitalist
   market, its class and hierarchical character twists the results in ways
   useful primarily to the capitalist class or itself. This can be seen
   from how labour legislation is applied, for example. Thus even the
   "good" functions of the state are penetrated with and dominated by the
   state's hierarchical nature. As Malatesta forcefully put it:

     "The basic function of government . . . is always that of oppressing
     and exploiting the masses, of defending the oppressors and the
     exploiters . . . It is true that to these basic functions . . .
     other functions have been added in the course of history . . .
     hardly ever has a government existed . . . which did not combine
     with its oppressive and plundering activities others which were
     useful . . . to social life. But this does not detract from the fact
     that government is by nature oppressive . . . and that it is in
     origin and by its attitude, inevitably inclined to defend and
     strengthen the dominant class; indeed it confirms and aggravates the
     position . . . [I]t is enough to understand how and why it carries
     out these functions to find the practical evidence that whatever
     governments do is always motivated by the desire to dominate, and is
     always geared to defending, extending and perpetuating its
     privileges and those of the class of which it is both the
     representative and defender." [Op. Cit., pp. 23-4]

   This does not mean that these reforms should be abolished (the
   alternative is often worse, as neo-liberalism shows), it simply
   recognises that the state is not a neutral body and cannot be expected
   to act as if it were. Which, ironically, indicates another aspect of
   social protection reforms within capitalism: they make for good PR. By
   appearing to care for the interests of those harmed by capitalism, the
   state can obscure it real nature:

     "A government cannot maintain itself for long without hiding its
     true nature behind a pretence of general usefulness; it cannot
     impose respect for the lives of the privileged if it does not appear
     to demand respect for all human life; it cannot impose acceptance of
     the privileges of the few if it does not pretend to be the guardian
     of the rights of all." [Malatesta, Op. Cit., p. 24]

   Obviously, being an instrument of the ruling elite, the state can
   hardly be relied upon to control the system which that elite run. As we
   discuss in the [23]next section, even in a democracy the state is run
   and controlled by the wealthy making it unlikely that pro-people
   legislation will be introduced or enforced without substantial popular
   pressure. That is why anarchists favour direct action and
   extra-parliamentary organising (see sections [24]J.2 and [25]J.5 for
   details). Ultimately, even basic civil liberties and rights are the
   product of direct action, of "mass movements among the people" to
   "wrest these rights from the ruling classes, who would never have
   consented to them voluntarily." [Rocker, Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 75]

   Equally obviously, the ruling elite and its defenders hate any
   legislation it does not favour -- while, of course, remaining silent on
   its own use of the state. As Benjamin Tucker pointed out about the
   "free market" capitalist Herbert Spencer, "amid his multitudinous
   illustrations . . . of the evils of legislation, he in every instance
   cites some law passed ostensibly at least to protect labour,
   alleviating suffering, or promote the people's welfare. . . But never
   once does he call attention to the far more deadly and deep-seated
   evils growing out of the innumerable laws creating privilege and
   sustaining monopoly." [The Individualist Anarchists, p. 45] Such
   hypocrisy is staggering, but all too common in the ranks of supporters
   of "free market" capitalism.

   Finally, it must be stressed that none of these subsidiary functions
   implies that capitalism can be changed through a series of piecemeal
   reforms into a benevolent system that primarily serves working class
   interests. To the contrary, these functions grow out of, and
   supplement, the basic role of the state as the protector of capitalist
   property and the social relations they generate -- i.e. the foundation
   of the capitalist's ability to exploit. Therefore reforms may modify
   the functioning of capitalism but they can never threaten its basis.

   In summary, while the level and nature of statist intervention on
   behalf of the employing classes may vary, it is always there. No matter
   what activity it conducts beyond its primary function of protecting
   private property, what subsidiary functions it takes on, the state
   always operates as an instrument of the ruling class. This applies even
   to those subsidiary functions which have been imposed on the state by
   the general public -- even the most popular reform will be twisted to
   benefit the state or capital, if at all possible. This is not to
   dismiss all attempts at reform as irrelevant, it simply means
   recognising that we, the oppressed, need to rely on our own strength
   and organisations to improve our circumstances.

B.2.3 How does the ruling class maintain control of the state?

   In some systems, it is obvious how economic dominant minorities control
   the state. In feudalism, for example, the land was owned by the feudal
   lords who exploited the peasantry directly. Economic and political
   power were merged into the same set of hands, the landlords. Absolutism
   saw the monarch bring the feudal lords under his power and the relative
   decentralised nature of feudalism was replaced by a centralised state.

   It was this centralised state system which the raising bourgeoisie took
   as the model for their state. The King was replaced by a Parliament,
   which was initially elected on a limited suffrage. In this initial form
   of capitalist state, it is (again) obvious how the elite maintain
   control of the state machine. As the vote was based on having a minimum
   amount of property, the poor were effectively barred from having any
   (official) say in what the government did. This exclusion was theorised
   by philosophers like John Locke -- the working masses were considered
   to be an object of state policy rather than part of the body of people
   (property owners) who nominated the government. In this perspective the
   state was like a joint-stock company. The owning class were the
   share-holders who nominated the broad of directors and the mass of the
   population were the workers who had no say in determining the
   management personnel and were expected to follow orders.

   As would be expected, this system was mightily disliked by the majority
   who were subjected to it. Such a "classical liberal" regime was rule by
   an alien, despotic power, lacking popular legitimacy, and utterly
   unaccountable to the general population. It is quite evident that a
   government elected on a limited franchise could not be trusted to treat
   those who owned no real property with equal consideration. It was
   predictable that the ruling elite would use the state they controlled
   to further their own interests and to weaken potential resistance to
   their social, economic and political power. Which is precisely what
   they did do, while masking their power under the guise of "good
   governance" and "liberty." Moreover, limited suffrage, like absolutism,
   was considered an affront to liberty and individual dignity by many of
   those subject to it.

   Hence the call for universal suffrage and opposition to property
   qualifications for the franchise. For many radicals (including Marx and
   Engels) such a system would mean that the working classes would hold
   "political power" and, consequently, be in a position to end the class
   system once and for all. Anarchists were not convinced, arguing that
   "universal suffrage, considered in itself and applied in a society
   based on economic and social inequality, will be nothing but a swindle
   and snare for the people" and "the surest way to consolidate under the
   mantle of liberalism and justice the permanent domination of the people
   by the owning classes, to the detriment of popular liberty."
   Consequently, anarchists denied that it "could be used by the people
   for the conquest of economic and social equality. It must always and
   necessarily be an instrument hostile to the people, one which supports
   the de facto dictatorship of the bourgeoisie." [Bakunin, Bakunin on
   Anarchism, p. 224]

   Due to popular mass movements form below, the vote was won by the male
   working classes and, at a later stage, women. While the elite fought
   long and hard to retain their privileged position they were defeated.
   Sadly, the history of universal suffrage proven the anarchists right.
   Even allegedly "democratic" capitalist states are in effect
   dictatorships of the propertariat. The political history of modern
   times can be summarised by the rise of capitalist power, the rise, due
   to popular movements, of (representative) democracy and the continued
   success of the former to undermine and control the latter.

   This is achieved by three main processes which combine to effectively
   deter democracy. These are the wealth barrier, the bureaucracy barrier
   and, lastly, the capital barrier. Each will be discussed in turn and
   all ensure that "representative democracy" remains an "organ of
   capitalist domination." [Kropotkin, Words of a Rebel, p. 127]

   The wealth barrier is the most obvious. It takes money to run for
   office. In 1976, the total spent on the US Presidential election was
   $66.9 million. In 1984, it was $103.6 million and in 1996 it was $239.9
   million. At the dawn of the 21st century, these figures had increased
   yet again. 2000 saw $343.1 spent and 2004, $717.9 million. Most of this
   money was spent by the two main candidates. In 2000, Republican George
   Bush spent a massive $185,921,855 while his Democratic rival Al Gore
   spent only $120,031,205. Four years later, Bush spent $345,259,155
   while John Kerry managed a mere $310,033,347.

   Other election campaigns are also enormously expensive. In 2000, the
   average winning candidate for a seat in the US House of Representatives
   spent $816,000 while the average willing senator spent $7 million. Even
   local races require significant amounts of fundraising. One candidate
   for the Illinois House raised over $650,000 while another candidate for
   the Illinois Supreme Court raised $737,000. In the UK, similarly
   prohibitive amounts were spent. In the 2001 general election the Labour
   Party spent a total of 10,945,119, the Tories 12,751,813 and the
   Liberal Democrats (who came a distant third) just 1,361,377.

   To get this sort of money, wealthy contributors need to be found and
   wooed, in other words promised that that their interests will be
   actively looked after. While, in theory, it is possible to raise large
   sums from small contributions in practice this is difficult. To raise
   $1 million you need to either convince 50 millionaires to give you
   $20,000 or 20,000 people to fork out $50. Given that for the elite
   $20,000 is pocket money, it is hardly surprising that politicians aim
   for winning over the few, not the many. Similarly with corporations and
   big business. It is far easier and more efficient in time and energy to
   concentrate on the wealthy few (whether individuals or companies).

   It is obvious: whoever pays the piper calls the tune. And in
   capitalism, this means the wealthy and business. In the US corporate
   campaign donations and policy paybacks have reached unprecedented
   proportions. The vast majority of large campaign donations are, not
   surprisingly, from corporations. Most of the wealthy individuals who
   give large donations to the candidates are CEOs and corporate board
   members. And, just to be sure, many companies give to more than one
   party.

   Unsurprisingly, corporations and the rich expect their investments to
   get a return. This can be seen from George W. Bush's administration.
   His election campaigns were beholden to the energy industry (which has
   backed him since the beginning of his career as Governor of Texas). The
   disgraced corporation Enron (and its CEO Kenneth Lay) were among Bush's
   largest contributors in 2000. Once in power, Bush backed numerous
   policies favourable to that industry (such as rolling back
   environmental regulation on a national level as he had done in Texas).
   His supporters in Wall Street were not surprised that Bush tried to
   privatise Social Security. Nor were the credit card companies when the
   Republicans tighten the noose on bankrupt people in 2005. By funding
   Bush, these corporations ensured that the government furthered their
   interests rather than the people who voted in the election.

   This means that as a "consequence of the distribution of resources and
   decision-making power in the society at large . . . the political class
   and the cultural managers typically associate themselves with the
   sectors that dominate the private economy; they are either drawn
   directly from those sectors or expect to join them." [Chomsky,
   Necessary Illusions, p. 23] This can be seen from George W. Bush's quip
   at an elite fund-raising gala during the 2000 Presidential election:
   "This is an impressive crowd -- the haves and the have-mores. Some
   people call you the elites; I call you my base." Unsurprisingly:

     "In the real world, state policy is largely determined by those
     groups that command resources, ultimately by virtue of their
     ownership and management of the private economy or their status as
     wealthy professionals. The major decision-making positions in the
     Executive branch of the government are typically filled by
     representatives of major corporations, banks and investment firms, a
     few law firms that cater primarily to corporate interests and thus
     represent the broad interests of owners and managers rather than
     some parochial interest . . . The Legislative branch is more varied,
     but overwhelmingly, it is drawn from the business and professional
     classes." [Chomsky, On Power and Ideology, pp. 116-7]

   That is not the only tie between politics and business. Many
   politicians also have directorships in companies, interests in
   companies, shares, land and other forms of property income and so
   forth. Thus they are less like the majority of constituents they claim
   to represent and more like the wealthy few. Combine these outside
   earnings with a high salary (in the UK, MP's are paid more than twice
   the national average) and politicians can be among the richest 1% of
   the population. Thus not only do we have a sharing of common interests
   the elite, the politicians are part of it. As such, they can hardly be
   said to be representative of the general public and are in a position
   of having a vested interest in legislation on property being voted on.

   Some defend these second jobs and outside investments by saying that it
   keeps them in touch with the outside world and, consequently, makes
   them better politicians. That such an argument is spurious can be seen
   from the fact that such outside interests never involve working in
   McDonald's flipping burgers or working on an assembly line. For some
   reason, no politician seeks to get a feeling for what life is like for
   the average person. Yet, in a sense, this argument does have a point.
   Such jobs and income do keep politicians in touch with the world of the
   elite rather than that of the masses and, as the task of the state is
   to protect elite interests, it cannot be denied that this sharing of
   interests and income with the elite can only aid that task!

   Then there is the sad process by which politicians, once they leave
   politics, get jobs in the corporate hierarchy (particularly with the
   very companies they had previously claimed to regulate on behalf of the
   public). This was termed "the revolving door."
   Incredibly, this has changed for the worse. Now the highest of
   government officials arrive directly from the executive offices of
   powerful corporations. Lobbyists are appointed to the jobs whose
   occupants they once vied to influence. Those who regulate and those
   supposed to be regulated have become almost indistinguishable.

   Thus politicians and capitalists go hand in hand. Wealth selects them,
   funds them and gives them jobs and income when in office. Finally, once
   they finally leave politics, they are often given directorships and
   other jobs in the business world. Little wonder, then, that the
   capitalist class maintains control of the state.

   That is not all. The wealth barrier operates indirectly to. This takes
   many forms. The most obvious is in the ability of corporations and the
   elite to lobby politicians. In the US, there is the pervasive power of
   Washington's army of 24,000 registered lobbyists -- and the influence
   of the corporate interests they represent. These lobbyists, whose job
   it is to convince politicians to vote in certain ways to further the
   interests of their corporate clients help shape the political agenda
   even further toward business interests than it already is. This Lobby
   industry is immense -- and exclusively for big business and the elite.
   Wealth ensures that the equal opportunity to garner resources to share
   a perspective and influence the political progress is monopolised by
   the few: "where are the desperately needed countervailing lobbies to
   represent the interests of average citizens? Where are the millions of
   dollars acting in their interests? Alas, they are notably absent."
   [Joel Bakan, The Corporation, p. 107]

   However, it cannot be denied that it is up to the general population to
   vote for politicians. This is when the indirect impact of wealth kicks
   in, namely the role of the media and the Public Relations (PR)
   industry. As we discuss in [26]section D.3, the modern media is
   dominated by big business and, unsurprisingly, reflects their
   interests. This means that the media has an important impact on how
   voters see parties and specific politicians and candidates. A radical
   party will, at best, be ignored by the capitalist press or, at worse,
   subject to smears and attacks. This will have a corresponding negative
   impact on their election prospects and will involve the affected party
   having to invest substantially more time, energy and resources in
   countering the negative media coverage. The PR industry has a similar
   effect, although that has the advantage of not having to bother with
   appearing to look factual or unbiased. Add to this the impact of elite
   and corporation funded "think tanks" and the political system is
   fatally skewed in favour of the capitalist class (also see [27]section
   D.2).

   In a nutshell:

     "The business class dominates government through its ability to fund
     political campaigns, purchase high priced lobbyists and reward
     former officials with lucrative jobs . . . [Politicians] have become
     wholly dependent upon the same corporate dollars to pay for a new
     professional class of PR consultants, marketeers and social
     scientists who manage and promote causes and candidates in
     essentially the same manner that advertising campaigns sell cars,
     fashions, drugs and other wares." [John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton,
     Toxic Sludge is Good for You, p. 78]

   That is the first barrier, the direct and indirect impact of wealth.
   This, in itself, is a powerful barrier to deter democracy and, as a
   consequence, it is usually sufficient in itself. Yet sometimes people
   see through the media distortions and vote for reformist, even radical,
   candidates. As we discuss in [28]section J.2.6, anarchists argue that
   the net effect of running for office is a general de-radicalising of
   the party involved. Revolutionary parties become reformist, reformist
   parties end up maintaining capitalism and introducing polities the
   opposite of which they had promised. So while it is unlikely that a
   radical party could get elected and remain radical in the process, it
   is possible. If such a party did get into office, the remaining two
   barriers kicks in: the bureaucracy barrier and the capital barrier.

   The existence of a state bureaucracy is a key feature in ensuring that
   the state remains the ruling class's "policeman" and will be discussed
   in greater detail in section J.2.2 ([29]Why do anarchists reject voting
   as a means for change?). Suffice to say, the politicians who are
   elected to office are at a disadvantage as regards the state
   bureaucracy. The latter is a permanent concentration of power while the
   former come and go. Consequently, they are in a position to tame any
   rebel government by means of bureaucratic inertia, distorting and
   hiding necessary information and pushing its own agenda onto the
   politicians who are in theory their bosses but in reality dependent on
   the bureaucracy. And, needless to say, if all else fails the state
   bureaucracy can play its final hand: the military coup.

   This threat has been applied in many countries, most obviously in the
   developing world (with the aid of Western, usually US, imperialism).
   The coups in Iran (1953) and Chile (1973) are just two examples of this
   process. Yet the so-called developed world is not immune to it. The
   rise of fascism in Italy, Germany, Portugal and Spain can be considered
   as variations of a military coup (particularly the last one where
   fascism was imposed by the military). Wealthy business men funded
   para-military forces to break the back of the labour movement, forces
   formed by ex-military people. Even the New Deal in America was
   threatened by such a coup. [Joel Bakan, Op. Cit., pp. 86-95] While such
   regimes do protect the interests of capital and are, consequently,
   backed by it, they do hold problems for capitalism. This is because, as
   with the Absolutism which fostered capitalism in the first place, this
   kind of government can get ideas above its station This means that a
   military coup will only be used when the last barrier, the capital
   barrier, is used and fails.

   The capital barrier is obviously related to the wealth barrier insofar
   as it relates to the power that great wealth produces. However, it is
   different in how it is applied. The wealth barrier restricts who gets
   into office, the capital barrier controls whoever does so. The capital
   barrier, in other words, are the economic forces that can be brought to
   bear on any government which is acting in ways disliked of by the
   capitalist class.

   We see their power implied when the news report that changes in
   government, policies and law have been "welcomed by the markets." As
   the richest 1% of households in America (about 2 million adults) owned
   35% of the stock owned by individuals in 1992 -- with the top 10%
   owning over 81% -- we can see that the "opinion" of the markets
   actually means the power of the richest 1-5% of a countries population
   (and their finance experts), power derived from their control over
   investment and production. Given that the bottom 90% of the US
   population has a smaller share (23%) of all kinds of investable capital
   that the richest 1/2% (who own 29%), with stock ownership being even
   more concentrated (the top 5% holding 95% of all shares), its obvious
   why Doug Henwood argues that stock markets are "a way for the very rich
   as a class to own an economy's productive capital stock as a whole,"
   are a source of "political power" and a way to have influence over
   government policy. [Wall Street: Class Racket]

   The mechanism is simple enough. The ability of capital to disinvest
   (capital flight) and otherwise adversely impact the economy is a
   powerful weapon to keep the state as its servant. The companies and the
   elite can invest at home or abroad, speculate in currency markets and
   so forth. If a significant number of investors or corporations lose
   confidence in a government they will simply stop investing at home and
   move their funds abroad. At home, the general population feel the
   results as demand drops, layoffs increase and recession kicks in. As
   Noam Chomsky notes:

     "In capitalist democracy, the interests that must be satisfied are
     those of capitalists; otherwise, there is no investment, no
     production, no work, no resources to be devoted, however marginally,
     to the needs of the general population." [Turning the Tide, p. 233]

   This ensures the elite control of government as government policies
   which private power finds unwelcome will quickly be reversed. The power
   which "business confidence" has over the political system ensures that
   democracy is subservient to big business. As summarised by Malatesta:

     "Even with universal suffrage -- we could well say even more so with
     universal suffrage -- the government remained the bourgeoisie's
     servant and gendarme. For were it to be otherwise with the
     government hinting that it might take up a hostile attitude, or that
     democracy could ever be anything but a pretence to deceive the
     people, the bourgeoisie, feeling its interests threatened, would by
     quick to react, and would use all the influence and force at its
     disposal, by reason of its wealth, to recall the government to its
     proper place as the bourgeoisie's gendarme." [Anarchy, p. 23]

   It is due to these barriers that the state remains an instrument of the
   capitalist class while being, in theory, a democracy. Thus the state
   machine remains a tool by which the few can enrich themselves at the
   expense of the many. This does not mean, of course, that the state is
   immune to popular pressure. Far from it. As indicated in the [30]last
   section, direct action by the oppressed can and has forced the state to
   implement significant reforms. Similarly, the need to defend society
   against the negative effects of unregulated capitalism can also force
   through populist measures (particularly when the alternative may be
   worse than the allowing the reforms, i.e. revolution). The key is that
   such changes are not the natural function of the state.

   So due to their economic assets, the elites whose incomes are derived
   from them -- namely, finance capitalists, industrial capitalists, and
   landlords -- are able to accumulate vast wealth from those whom they
   exploit. This stratifies society into a hierarchy of economic classes,
   with a huge disparity of wealth between the small property-owning elite
   at the top and the non-property-owning majority at the bottom. Then,
   because it takes enormous wealth to win elections and lobby or bribe
   legislators, the propertied elite are able to control the political
   process -- and hence the state -- through the "power of the purse." In
   summary:

     "No democracy has freed itself from the rule by the well-to-do
     anymore than it has freed itself from the division between the ruler
     and the ruled . . . at the very least, no democracy has jeopardised
     the role of business enterprise. Only the wealthy and well off can
     afford to launch viable campaigns for public office and to assume
     such positions. Change in government in a democracy is a circulation
     from one elite group to another." [Harold Barclay, Op. Cit., p. 47]

   In other words, elite control of politics through huge wealth
   disparities insures the continuation of such disparities and thus the
   continuation of elite control. In this way the crucial political
   decisions of those at the top are insulated from significant influence
   by those at the bottom. Finally, it should be noted that these barriers
   do not arise accidentally. They flow from the way the state is
   structured. By effectively disempowering the masses and centralising
   power into the hands of the few which make up the government, the very
   nature of the state ensures that it remains under elite control. This
   is why, from the start, the capitalist class has favoured
   centralisation. We discuss this in the next two sections.

   (For more on the ruling elite and its relation to the state, see C.
   Wright Mills, The Power Elite [Oxford, 1956]; cf. Ralph Miliband, The
   State in Capitalist Society [Basic Books, 1969] and Divided Societies
   [Oxford, 1989]; G. William Domhoff, Who Rules America? [Prentice Hall,
   1967]; and Who Rules America Now? A View for the '80s [Touchstone,
   1983]).<.p>

B.2.4 How does state centralisation affect freedom?

   It is a common idea that voting every four or so years to elect the
   public face of a highly centralised and bureaucratic machine means that
   ordinary people control the state and, as a consequence, free. In
   reality, this is a false idea. In any system of centralised power the
   general population have little say in what affects them and, as a
   result, their freedom is extremely limited.

   Obviously, to say that this idea is false does not imply that there is
   no difference between a liberal republic and a fascistic or monarchical
   state. Far from it. The vote is an important victory wrested from the
   powers that be. That, of course, is not to suggest that anarchists
   think that libertarian socialism is only possible after universal
   suffrage has been won or that it is achievable via it. Far from it. It
   is simply to point out that being able to pick your ruler is a step
   forward from having one imposed upon you. Moreover, those considered
   able to pick their ruler is, logically, also able to do without one.

   However, while the people are proclaimed to be sovereign in a
   democratic state, in reality they alienate their power and hand over
   control of their affairs to a small minority. Liberty, in other words,
   is reduced to merely the possibility "to pick rulers" every four or
   five years and whose mandate (sic!) is "to legislate on any subject,
   and his decision will become law." [Kropotkin, Words of a Rebel, p. 122
   and p. 123]

   In other words, representative democracy is not "liberty" nor
   "self-government." It is about alienating power to a few people who
   then (mis)rule in your name. To imply it is anything else is nonsense.
   So while we get to pick a politician to govern in our name it does not
   follow that they represent those who voted for them in any meaningful
   sense. As shown time and time again, "representative" governments can
   happily ignore the opinions of the majority while, at the same time,
   verbally praising the "democracy" it is abusing (New Labour in the UK
   during the run up to the invasion of Iraq was a classic example of
   this). Given that politicians can do what they like for four or five
   years once elected, it is clear that popular control via the ballot box
   is hardly effective or even meaningful.

   Indeed, such "democracy" almost always means electing politicians who
   say one thing in opposition and do the opposite once in office.
   Politicians who, at best, ignore their election manifesto when it suits
   them or, at worse, introduce the exact opposite. It is the kind of
   "democracy" in which people can protest in their hundreds of thousands
   against a policy only to see their "representative" government simply
   ignore them (while, at the same time, seeing their representatives bend
   over backward ensuring corporate profits and power while speaking
   platitudes to the electorate and their need to tighten their belts). At
   best it can be said that democratic governments tend to be less
   oppressive than others but it does not follow that this equates to
   liberty.

   State centralisation is the means to ensure this situation and the
   debasement of freedom it implies.

   All forms of hierarchy, even those in which the top officers are
   elected are marked by authoritarianism and centralism. Power is
   concentrated in the centre (or at the top), which means that society
   becomes "a heap of dust animated from without by a subordinating,
   centralist idea." [P. J. Proudhon, quoted by Martin Buber, Paths in
   Utopia, p. 29] For, once elected, top officers can do as they please,
   and, as in all bureaucracies, many important decisions are made by
   non-elected staff. This means that the democratic state is a
   contradiction in terms:

     "In the democratic state the election of rulers by alleged majority
     vote is a subterfuge which helps individuals to believe that they
     control the situation. They are selecting persons to do a task for
     them and they have no guarantee that it will be carried out as they
     desired. They are abdicating to these persons, granting them the
     right to impose their own wills by the threat of force. Electing
     individuals to public office is like being given a limited choice of
     your oppressors . . . Parliamentary democracies are essentially
     oligarchies in which the populace is led to believe that it
     delegates all its authority to members of parliament to do as they
     think best." [Harold Barclay, Op. Cit., pp. 46-7]

   The nature of centralisation places power into the hands of the few.
   Representative democracy is based on this delegation of power, with
   voters electing others to govern them. This cannot help but create a
   situation in which freedom is endangered -- universal suffrage "does
   not prevent the formation of a body of politicians, privileged in fact
   though not in law, who, devoting themselves exclusively to the
   administration of the nation's public affairs, end by becoming a sort
   of political aristocracy or oligarchy." [Bakunin, The Political
   Philosophy of Bakunin, p. 240]

   This should not come as a surprise, for to "create a state is to
   institutionalise power in a form of machine that exists apart from the
   people. It is to professionalise rule and policy making, to create a
   distinct interest (be it of bureaucrats, deputies, commissars,
   legislators, the military, the police, ad nauseam) that, however weak
   or however well-intentioned it may be at first, eventually takes on a
   corruptive power of its own." [Murray Bookchin, "The Ecological Crisis,
   Socialism, and the need to remake society," pp. 1-10, Society and
   Nature, vol. 2, no. 3, p. 7]

   Centralism makes democracy meaningless, as political decision-making is
   given over to professional politicians in remote capitals. Lacking
   local autonomy, people are isolated from each other (atomised) by
   having no political forum where they can come together to discuss,
   debate, and decide among themselves the issues they consider important.
   Elections are not based on natural, decentralised groupings and thus
   cease to be relevant. The individual is just another "voter" in the
   mass, a political "constituent" and nothing more. The amorphous basis
   of modern, statist elections "aims at nothing less than to abolish
   political life in towns, communes and departments, and through this
   destruction of all municipal and regional autonomy to arrest the
   development of universal suffrage." [Proudhon, quoted by Martin Buber,
   Op. Cit., p. 29]

   Thus people are disempowered by the very structures that claim to allow
   them to express themselves. To quote Proudhon again, in the centralised
   state "the citizen divests himself of sovereignty, the town and the
   Department and province above it, absorbed by central authority, are no
   longer anything but agencies under direct ministerial control." He
   continues:

     "The Consequences soon make themselves felt: the citizen and the
     town are deprived of all dignity, the state's depredations multiply,
     and the burden on the taxpayer increases in proportion. It is no
     longer the government that is made for the people; it is the people
     who are made for the government. Power invades everything, dominates
     everything, absorbs everything." [The Principle of Federation, p.
     59]

   As intended, as isolated people are no threat to the powers that be.
   This process of marginalisation can be seen from American history, for
   example, when town meetings were replaced by elected bodies, with the
   citizens being placed in passive, spectator roles as mere "voters" (see
   [31]next section). Being an atomised voter is hardly an ideal notion of
   "freedom," despite the rhetoric of politicians about the virtues of a
   "free society" and "The Free World" -- as if voting once every four or
   five years could ever be classed as "liberty" or even "democracy."

   Marginalisation of the people is the key control mechanism in the state
   and authoritarian organisations in general. Considering the European
   Community (EC), for example, we find that the "mechanism for
   decision-making between EC states leaves power in the hands of
   officials (from Interior ministries, police, immigration, customs and
   security services) through a myriad of working groups. Senior officials
   . . . play a critical role in ensuring agreements between the different
   state officials. The EC Summit meetings, comprising the 12 Prime
   Ministers, simply rubber-stamp the conclusions agreed by the Interior
   and Justice Ministers. It is only then, in this intergovernmental
   process, that parliaments and people are informed (and them only with
   the barest details)." [Tony Bunyon, Statewatching the New Europe, p.
   39]

   As well as economic pressures from elites, governments also face
   pressures within the state itself due to the bureaucracy that comes
   with centralism. There is a difference between the state and
   government. The state is the permanent collection of institutions that
   have entrenched power structures and interests. The government is made
   up of various politicians. It's the institutions that have power in the
   state due to their permanence, not the representatives who come and go.
   As Clive Ponting (an ex-civil servant himself) indicates, "the function
   of a political system in any country . . . is to regulate, but not to
   alter radically, the existing economic structure and its linked power
   relationships. The great illusion of politics is that politicians have
   the ability to make whatever changes they like." [quoted in
   Alternatives, no.5, p. 19]

   Therefore, as well as marginalising the people, the state also ends up
   marginalising "our" representatives. As power rests not in the elected
   bodies, but in a bureaucracy, popular control becomes increasingly
   meaningless. As Bakunin pointed out, "liberty can be valid only when .
   . . [popular] control [of the state] is valid. On the contrary, where
   such control is fictitious, this freedom of the people likewise becomes
   a mere fiction." [Op. Cit., p. 212] State centralisation ensures that
   popular control is meaningless.

   This means that state centralism can become a serious source of danger
   to the liberty and well-being of most of the people under it. "The
   bourgeois republicans," argued Bakunin, "do not yet grasp this simple
   truth, demonstrated by the experience of all times and in all lands,
   that every organised power standing above and over the people
   necessarily excludes the freedom of peoples. The political state has no
   other purpose than to protect and perpetuate the exploitation of the
   labour of the proletariat by the economically dominant classes, and in
   so doing the state places itself against the freedom of the people."
   [Bakunin on Anarchism, p. 416]

   Unsurprisingly, therefore, "whatever progress that has been made . . .
   on various issues, whatever things have been done for people, whatever
   human rights have been gained, have not been gained through the calm
   deliberations of Congress or the wisdom of presidents or the ingenious
   decisions of the Supreme Court. Whatever progress has been made . . .
   has come because of the actions of ordinary people, of citizens, of
   social movements. Not from the Constitution." That document has been
   happily ignored by the official of the state when it suits them. An
   obvious example is the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution, which
   "didn't have any meaning until black people rose up in the 1950s and
   1960s in the South in mass movements . . . They made whatever words
   there were in the Constitution and the 14th Amendment have some meaning
   for the first time." [Howard Zinn, Failure to Quit, p. 69 and p. 73]

   This is because the "fact that you have got a constitutional right
   doesn't mean you're going to get that right. Who has the power on the
   spot? The policeman on the street. The principal in the school. The
   employer on job. The Constitution does not cover private employment. In
   other words, the Constitution does not cover most of reality." Thus our
   liberty is not determined by the laws of the state. Rather "the source
   and solution of our civil liberties problems are in the situations of
   every day . . . Our actual freedom is determined not by the
   Constitution or the Court, but by the power the policeman has over us
   on the street or that of the local judge behind him; by the authority
   of our employers; . . . by the welfare bureaucrats if we are poor; . .
   . by landlords if we are tenants." Thus freedom and justice "are
   determined by power and money" rather than laws. This points to the
   importance of popular participation, of social movements, for what
   those do are "to create a countervailing power to the policeman with a
   club and a gun. That's essentially what movements do: They create
   countervailing powers to counter the power which is much more important
   than what is written down in the Constitution or the laws." [Zinn, Op.
   Cit., pp. 84-5, pp. 54-5 and p. 79]

   It is precisely this kind of mass participation that centralisation
   kills. Under centralism, social concern and power are taken away from
   ordinary citizens and centralised in the hands of the few. This results
   in any formally guaranteed liberties being effectively ignored when
   people want to use them, if the powers at be so decide. Ultimately,
   isolated individuals facing the might of a centralised state machine
   are in a weak position. Which is way the state does what it can to
   undermine such popular movements and organisations (going so far as to
   violate its own laws to do so).

   As should be obvious, by centralisation anarchists do not mean simply a
   territorial centralisation of power in a specific central location
   (such as in a nation state where power rests in a central government
   located in a specific place). We also mean the centralisation of power
   into a few hands. Thus we can have a system like feudalism which is
   territorially decentralised (i.e. made up on numerous feudal lords
   without a strong central state) while having power centralised in a few
   hands locally (i.e. power rests in the hands of the feudal lords, not
   in the general population). Or, to use another example, we can have a
   laissez-faire capitalist system which has a weak central authority but
   is made up of a multitude of autocratic workplaces. As such, getting
   rid of the central power (say the central state in capitalism or the
   monarch in absolutism) while retaining the local authoritarian
   institutions (say capitalist firms and feudal landlords) would not
   ensure freedom. Equally, the abolition of local authorities may simply
   result in the strengthening of central power and a corresponding
   weakening of freedom.

B.2.5 Who benefits from centralisation?

   No social system would exist unless it benefited someone or some group.
   Centralisation, be it in the state or the company, is no different. In
   all cases, centralisation directly benefits those at the top, because
   it shelters them from those who are below, allowing the latter to be
   controlled and governed more effectively. Therefore, it is in the
   direct interests of bureaucrats and politicians to support centralism.

   Under capitalism, however, various sections of the business class also
   support state centralism. This is the symbiotic relationship between
   capital and the state. As will be discussed later (in [32]section F.8),
   the state played an important role in "nationalising" the market, i.e.
   forcing the "free market" onto society. By centralising power in the
   hands of representatives and so creating a state bureaucracy, ordinary
   people were disempowered and thus became less likely to interfere with
   the interests of the wealthy. "In a republic," writes Bakunin, "the
   so-called people, the legal people, allegedly represented by the State,
   stifle and will keep on stifling the actual and living people" by "the
   bureaucratic world" for "the greater benefit of the privileged
   propertied classes as well as for its own benefit." [Op. Cit., p. 211]

   Examples of increased political centralisation being promoted by
   wealthy business interests by can be seen throughout the history of
   capitalism. "In revolutionary America, 'the nature of city government
   came in for heated discussion,' observes Merril Jensen . . . Town
   meetings . . . 'had been a focal point of revolutionary activity'. The
   anti-democratic reaction that set in after the American revolution was
   marked by efforts to do away with town meeting government . . .
   Attempts by conservative elements were made to establish a 'corporate
   form (of municipal government) whereby the towns would be governed by
   mayors and councils' elected from urban wards . . . [T]he merchants
   'backed incorporation consistently in their efforts to escape town
   meetings.'" [Murray Bookchin, Towards an Ecological Society, p. 182]

   Here we see local policy making being taken out of the hands of the
   many and centralised in the hands of the few (who are always the
   wealthy). France provides another example:

     "The Government found. . .the folkmotes [of all households] 'too
     noisy', too disobedient, and in 1787, elected councils, composed of
     a mayor and three to six syndics, chosen among the wealthier
     peasants, were introduced instead." [Peter Kropotkin, Mutual Aid,
     pp. 185-186]

   This was part of a general movement to disempower the working class by
   centralising decision making power into the hands of the few (as in the
   American revolution). Kropotkin indicates the process at work:

     "[T]he middle classes, who had until then had sought the support of
     the people, in order to obtain constitutional laws and to dominate
     the higher nobility, were going, now that they had seen and felt the
     strength of the people, to do all they could to dominate the people,
     to disarm them and to drive them back into subjection.

     [. . .]

     "[T]hey made haste to legislate in such a way that the political
     power which was slipping out of the hand of the Court should not
     fall into the hands of the people. Thus . . . [it was] proposed . .
     . to divide the French into two classes, of which one only, the
     active citizens, should take part in the government, whilst the
     other, comprising the great mass of the people under the name of
     passive citizens, should be deprived of all political rights . . .
     [T]he [National] Assembly divided France into departments . . .
     always maintaining the principle of excluding the poorer classes
     from the Government . . . [T]hey excluded from the primary
     assemblies the mass of the people . . . who could no longer take
     part in the primary assemblies, and accordingly had no right to
     nominate the electors [who chose representatives to the National
     Assembly], or the municipality, or any of the local authorities . .
     .

     "And finally, the permanence of the electoral assemblies was
     interdicted. Once the middle-class governors were appointed, these
     assemblies were not to meet again. Once the middle-class governors
     were appointed, they must not be controlled too strictly. Soon the
     right even of petitioning and of passing resolutions was taken away
     -- 'Vote and hold your tongue!'

     "As to the villages . . . the general assembly of the inhabitants .
     . . [to which] belonged the administration of the affairs of the
     commune . . . were forbidden by the . . . law. Henceforth only the
     well-to-do peasants, the active citizens, had the right to meet,
     once a year, to nominate the mayor and the municipality, composed of
     three or four middle-class men of the village.

     "A similar municipal organisation was given to the towns. . .

     "[Thus] the middle classes surrounded themselves with every
     precaution in order to keep the municipal power in the hands of the
     well-to-do members of the community."
     [The Great French Revolution, vol. 1, pp. 179-186]

   Thus centralisation aimed to take power away from the mass of the
   people and give it to the wealthy. The power of the people rested in
   popular assemblies, such as the "Sections" and "Districts" of Paris
   (expressing, in Kropotkin's words, "the principles of anarchism" and
   "practising . . . Direct Self-Government" [Op. Cit., p. 204 and p.
   203]) and village assemblies. However, the National Assembly "tried all
   it could to lessen the power of the districts . . . [and] put an end to
   those hotbeds of Revolution . . . [by allowing] active citizens only .
   . . to take part in the electoral and administrative assemblies." [Op.
   Cit., p. 211] Thus the "central government was steadily endeavouring to
   subject the sections to its authority" with the state "seeking to
   centralise everything in its own hands . . . [I]ts depriving the
   popular organisations . . . all . . . administrative functions . . .
   and its subjecting them to its bureaucracy in police matters, meant the
   death of the sections." [Op. Cit., vol. 2, p. 549 and p. 552]

   As can be seen, both the French and American revolutions saw a similar
   process by which the wealthy centralised power into their own hands
   (volume one of Murray Bookchin's The Third Revolution discusses the
   French and American revolutions in some detail). This ensured that
   working class people (i.e. the majority) were excluded from the
   decision making process and subject to the laws and power of a few.
   Which, of course, benefits the minority class whose representatives
   have that power. This was the rationale for the centralisation of power
   in every revolution. Whether it was the American, French or Russian,
   the centralisation of power was the means to exclude the many from
   participating in the decisions that affected them and their
   communities.

   For example, the founding fathers of the American State were quite
   explicit on the need for centralisation for precisely this reason. For
   James Madison the key worry was when the "majority" gained control of
   "popular government" and was in a position to "sacrifice to its ruling
   passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other
   citizens." Thus the "public good" escaped the "majority" nor was it, as
   you would think, what the public thought of as good (for some reason
   left unexplained, Madison considered the majority able to pick those
   who could identify the public good). To safeguard against this, he
   advocated a republic rather than a democracy in which the citizens
   "assemble and administer the government in person . . . have ever been
   found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property."
   He, of course, took it for granted that "[t]hose who hold and those who
   are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society."
   His schema was to ensure that private property was defended and, as a
   consequence, the interests of those who held protected. Hence the need
   for "the delegation of the government . . . to a small number of
   citizens elected by the rest." This centralisation of power into a few
   hands locally was matched by a territorial centralisation for the same
   reason. Madison favoured "a large over a small republic" as a "rage for
   paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of
   property, or for any other improper or wicked project, will be less apt
   to pervade the whole body of the Union than a particular member of it."
   [contained in Voices of a People's History of the United States, Howard
   Zinn and Anthony Arnove (eds.), pp. 109-113] This desire to have a
   formal democracy, where the masses are mere spectators of events rather
   than participants, is a recurring theme in capitalism (see the chapter
   "Force and Opinion" in Noam Chomsky's Deterring Democracy for a good
   overview).

   On the federal and state levels in the US after the Revolution,
   centralisation of power was encouraged, since "most of the makers of
   the Constitution had some direct economic interest in establishing a
   strong federal government." Needless to say, while the rich elite were
   well represented in formulating the principles of the new order, four
   groups were not: "slaves, indentured servants, women, men without
   property." Needless to say, the new state and its constitution did not
   reflect their interests. Given that these were the vast majority,
   "there was not only a positive need for strong central government to
   protect the large economic interests, but also immediate fear of
   rebellion by discontented farmers." [Howard Zinn, A People's History of
   the United States, p. 90] The chief event was Shay's Rebellion in
   western Massachusetts. There the new Constitution had raised property
   qualifications for voting and, therefore, no one could hold state
   office without being wealthy. The new state was formed to combat such
   rebellions, to protect the wealthy few against the many.

   Moreover, state centralisation, the exclusion of popular participation,
   was essential to mould US society into one dominated by capitalism:

     "In the thirty years leading up to the Civil War, the law was
     increasingly interpreted in the courts to suit capitalist
     development. Studying this, Morton Horwitz (The Transformation of
     American Law) points out that the English common-law was no longer
     holy when it stood in the way of business growth . . . Judgements
     for damages against businessmen were taken out of the hands of
     juries, which were unpredictable, and given to judges . . . The
     ancient idea of a fair price for goods gave way in the courts to the
     idea of caveat emptor (let the buyer beware) . . . contract law was
     intended to discriminate against working people and for business . .
     . The pretence of the law was that a worker and a railroad made a
     contract with equal bargaining power . . . 'The circle was
     completed; the law had come simply to ratify those forms of
     inequality that the market system had produced.'" [Zinn, Op. Cit.,
     p. 234]

   The US state was created on elitist liberal doctrine and actively aimed
   to reduce democratic tendencies (in the name of "individual liberty").
   What happened in practice (unsurprisingly enough) was that the wealthy
   elite used the state to undermine popular culture and common right in
   favour of protecting and extending their own interests and power. In
   the process, US society was reformed in their own image:

     "By the middle of the nineteenth century the legal system had been
     reshaped to the advantage of men of commerce and industry at the
     expense of farmers, workers, consumers, and other less powerful
     groups in society. . . it actively promoted a legal distribution of
     wealth against the weakest groups in society." [Morton Horwitz,
     quoted by Zinn, Op. Cit., p. 235]

   In more modern times, state centralisation and expansion has gone hand
   in glove with rapid industrialisation and the growth of business. As
   Edward Herman points out, "[t]o a great extent, it was the growth in
   business size and power that elicited the countervailing emergence of
   unions and the growth of government. Bigness beyond business was to a
   large extent a response to bigness in business." [Corporate Control,
   Corporate Power, p. 188 -- see also, Stephen Skowronek, Building A New
   American State: The Expansion of National Administrative Capacities,
   1877-1920] State centralisation was required to produce bigger,
   well-defined markets and was supported by business when it acted in
   their interests (i.e. as markets expanded, so did the state in order to
   standardise and enforce property laws and so on). On the other hand,
   this development towards "big government" created an environment in
   which big business could grow (often encouraged by the state by
   subsidies and protectionism - as would be expected when the state is
   run by the wealthy) as well as further removing state power from
   influence by the masses and placing it more firmly in the hands of the
   wealthy. It is little wonder we see such developments, for
   "[s]tructures of governance tend to coalesce around domestic power, in
   the last few centuries, economic power." [Noam Chomsky, World Orders,
   Old and New, p. 178]

   State centralisation makes it easier for business to control
   government, ensuring that it remains their puppet and to influence the
   political process. For example, the European Round Table (ERT) "an
   elite lobby group of . . . chairmen or chief executives of large
   multi-nationals based mainly in the EU . . . [with] 11 of the 20
   largest European companies [with] combined sales [in 1991] . . .
   exceeding $500 billion, . . . approximately 60 per cent of EU
   industrial production," makes much use of the EU. As two researchers
   who have studied this body note, the ERT "is adept at lobbying . . . so
   that many ERT proposals and 'visions' are mysteriously regurgitated in
   Commission summit documents." The ERT "claims that the labour market
   should be more 'flexible,' arguing for more flexible hours, seasonal
   contracts, job sharing and part time work. In December 1993, seven
   years after the ERT made its suggestions [and after most states had
   agreed to the Maastricht Treaty and its "social chapter"], the European
   Commission published a white paper . . . [proposing] making labour
   markets in Europe more flexible." [Doherty and Hoedeman, "Knights of
   the Road," New Statesman, 4/11/94, p. 27]

   The current talk of globalisation, NAFTA, and the Single European
   Market indicates an underlying transformation in which state growth
   follows the path cut by economic growth. Simply put, with the growth of
   transnational corporations and global finance markets, the bounds of
   the nation-state have been made economically redundant. As companies
   have expanded into multi-nationals, so the pressure has mounted for
   states to follow suit and rationalise their markets across "nations" by
   creating multi-state agreements and unions.

   As Noam Chomsky notes, G7, the IMF, the World Bank and so forth are a
   "de facto world government," and "the institutions of the transnational
   state largely serve other masters [than the people], as state power
   typically does; in this case the rising transnational corporations in
   the domains of finance and other services, manufacturing, media and
   communications." [Op. Cit., p. 179]

   As multi-nationals grow and develop, breaking through national
   boundaries, a corresponding growth in statism is required. Moreover, a
   "particularly valuable feature of the rising de facto governing
   institutions is their immunity from popular influence, even awareness.
   They operate in secret, creating a world subordinated to the needs of
   investors, with the public 'put in its place', the threat of democracy
   reduced" [Chomsky, Op. Cit., p. 178].

   This does not mean that capitalists desire state centralisation for
   everything. Often, particularly for social issues, relative
   decentralisation is often preferred (i.e. power is given to local
   bureaucrats) in order to increase business control over them. By
   devolving control to local areas, the power which large corporations,
   investment firms and the like have over the local government increases
   proportionally. In addition, even middle-sized enterprise can join in
   and influence, constrain or directly control local policies and set one
   workforce against another. Private power can ensure that "freedom" is
   safe, their freedom.

   No matter which set of bureaucrats are selected, the need to centralise
   social power, thus marginalising the population, is of prime importance
   to the business class. It is also important to remember that capitalist
   opposition to "big government" is often financial, as the state feeds
   off the available social surplus, so reducing the amount left for the
   market to distribute to the various capitals in competition.

   In reality, what capitalists object to about "big government" is its
   spending on social programs designed to benefit the poor and working
   class, an "illegitimate" function which "wastes" part of the surplus
   that might go to capital (and also makes people less desperate and so
   less willing to work cheaply). Hence the constant push to reduce the
   state to its "classical" role as protector of private property and the
   system, and little else. Other than their specious quarrel with the
   welfare state, capitalists are the staunchest supports of government
   (and the "correct" form of state intervention, such as defence
   spending), as evidenced by the fact that funds can always be found to
   build more prisons and send troops abroad to advance ruling-class
   interests, even as politicians are crying that there is "no money" in
   the treasury for scholarships, national health care, or welfare for the
   poor.

   State centralisation ensures that "as much as the equalitarian
   principles have been embodied in its political constitutions, it is the
   bourgeoisie that governs, and it is the people, the workers, peasants
   included, who obey the laws made by the bourgeoisie" who "has in fact
   if not by right the exclusive privilege of governing." This means that
   "political equality . . . is only a puerile fiction, an utter lie." It
   takes a great deal of faith to assume that the rich, "being so far
   removed from the people by the conditions of its economic and social
   existence" can "give expression in the government and in the laws, to
   the feelings, the ideas, and the will of the people." Unsurprisingly,
   we find that "in legislation as well as in carrying on the government,
   the bourgeoisie is guided by its own interests and its own instincts
   without concerning itself much with the interests of the people." So
   while "on election days even the proudest bourgeois who have any
   political ambitions are forced to court . . . The Sovereign People."
   But on the "day after the elections every one goes back to their daily
   business" and the politicians are given carte blanche to rule in the
   name of the people they claim to represent."
   [Bakunin, The Political Philosophy of Bakunin, p. 218 and p. 219]

B.2.6 Can the state be an independent power within society?

   Yes it can. Given the power of the state machine, it would be hard to
   believe that it could always be simply a tool for the economically
   dominant minority in a society. Given its structure and powers, it can
   use them to further its own interests. Indeed, in some circumstances it
   can be the ruling class itself.

   However, in normal times the state is, as we discussed in [33]section
   B.2.1, a tool of the capitalist class. This, it must be stressed, does
   not mean that they always see "eye to eye." Top politicians, for
   example, are part of the ruling elite, but they are in competition with
   other parts of it. In addition, different sectors of the capitalist
   class are competing against each other for profits, political
   influence, privileges, etc. The bourgeoisie, argued Malatesta, "are
   always at war among themselves . . . Thus the games of the swings, the
   manoeuvres, the concessions and withdrawals, the attempts to find
   allies among the people against the conservatives, and among the
   conservatives against the people." [Anarchy, p. 25] This means that
   different sections of the ruling class will cluster around different
   parties, depending on their interests, and these parties will seek to
   gain power to further those interests. This may bring them into
   conflict with other sections of the capitalist class. The state is the
   means by which these conflicts can be resolved.

   Given that the role of the state is to ensure the best conditions for
   capital as a whole, this means that, when necessary, it can and does
   work against the interests of certain parts of the capitalist class. To
   carry out this function the state needs to be above individual
   capitalists or companies. This is what can give the state the
   appearance of being a neutral social institution and can fool people
   into thinking that it represents the interests of society as a whole.
   Yet this sometime neutrality with regards to individual capitalist
   companies exists only as an expression of its role as an instrument of
   capital in general. Moreover, without the tax money from successful
   businesses the state would be weakened and so the state is in
   competition with capitalists for the surplus value produced by the
   working class. Hence the anti-state rhetoric of big business which can
   fool those unaware of the hand-in-glove nature of modern capitalism to
   the state.

   As Chomsky notes:

     "There has always been a kind of love-hate relationship between
     business interests and the capitalist state. On the one hand,
     business wants a powerful state to regulate disorderly markets,
     provide services and subsidies to business, enhance and protect
     access to foreign markets and resources, and so on. On the other
     hand, business does not want a powerful competitor, in particular,
     one that might respond to different interests, popular interests,
     and conduct policies with a redistributive effect, with regard to
     income or power." [Turning the Tide, p. 211]

   As such, the state is often in conflict with sections of the capitalist
   class, just as sections of that class use the state to advance their
   own interests within the general framework of protecting the capitalist
   system (i.e. the interests of the ruling class as a class). The state's
   role is to resolve such disputes within that class peacefully. Under
   modern capitalism, this is usually done via the "democratic" process
   (within which we get the chance of picking the representatives of the
   elite who will oppress us least).

   Such conflicts sometimes give the impression of the state being a
   "neutral" body, but this is an illusion -- it exists to defend class
   power and privilege -- but exactly which class it defends can change.
   While recognising that the state protects the power and position of the
   economically dominant class within a society anarchists also argue that
   the state has, due to its hierarchical nature, interests of its own.
   Thus it cannot be considered as simply the tool of the economically
   dominant class in society. States have their own dynamics, due to their
   structure, which generate their own classes and class interests and
   privileges (and which allows them to escape from the control of the
   economic ruling class and pursue their own interests, to a greater or
   lesser degree). As Malatesta put it "the government, though springing
   from the bourgeoisie and its servant and protector, tends, as with
   every servant and every protector, to achieve its own emancipation and
   to dominate whoever it protects." [Op. Cit., p. 25]

   Thus, even in a class system like capitalism, the state can act
   independently of the ruling elite and, potentially, act against their
   interests. As part of its role is to mediate between individual
   capitalists/corporations, it needs sufficient power to tame them and
   this requires the state to have some independence from the class whose
   interests it, in general, defends. And such independence can be used to
   further its own interests, even to the detriment of the capitalist
   class, if the circumstances allow. If the capitalist class is weak or
   divided then the state can be in a position to exercise its autonomy
   vis--vis the economically dominant elite, using against the
   capitalists as a whole the tools it usually applies to them
   individually to further its own interests and powers.

   This means that the state it not just "the guardian of capital" for it
   "has a vitality of its own and constitutes . . . a veritable social
   class apart from other classes . . . ; and this class has its own
   particular parasitical and usurious interests, in conflict with those
   of the rest of the collectivity which the State itself claims to
   represent . . . The State, being the depository of society's greatest
   physical and material force, has too much power in its hands to resign
   itself to being no more than the capitalists' guard dog." [Luigi
   Fabbri, quoted by David Berry, A History of the French Anarchist
   Movement, 1917-1945, p. 39]

   Therefore the state machine (and structure), while its modern form is
   intrinsically linked to capitalism, cannot be seen as being a tool
   usable by the majority. This is because the "State, any State -- even
   when it dresses-up in the most liberal and democratic form -- is
   essentially based on domination, and upon violence, that is upon
   despotism -- a concealed but no less dangerous despotism." The State
   "denotes power, authority, domination; it presupposes inequality in
   fact." [The Political Philosophy of Michael Bakunin, p. 211 and p. 240]
   The state, therefore, has its own specific logic, its own priorities
   and its own momentum. It constitutes its own locus of power which is
   not merely a derivative of economic class power. Consequently, the
   state can be beyond the control of the economically dominant class and
   it need not reflect economic relations.

   This is due to its hierarchical and centralised nature, which empowers
   the few who control the state machine -- "[e]very state power, every
   government, by its nature places itself outside and over the people and
   inevitably subordinates them to an organisation and to aims which are
   foreign to and opposed to the real needs and aspirations of the
   people." If "the whole proletariat . . . [are] members of the
   government . . . there will be no government, no state, but, if there
   is to be a state there will be those who are ruled and those who are
   slaves." [Bakunin on Anarchism, p. 328 and p. 330]

   In other words, the state bureaucracy is itself directly an oppressor
   and can exist independently of an economically dominant class. In
   Bakunin's prophetic words:

     "What have we seen throughout history? The State has always been the
     patrimony of some privileged class: the sacerdotal class, the
     nobility, the bourgeoisie -- and finally, when all other classes
     have exhausted themselves, the class of the bureaucracy enters the
     stage and then the State falls, or rises, if you please, to the
     position of a machine." [The Political Philosophy of Michael
     Bakunin, p. 208]

   This is unsurprising. For anarchists, "the State organisation . . .
   [is] the force to which minorities resorted for establishing and
   organising their power over the masses." It does not imply that these
   minorities need to be the economically dominant class in a society. The
   state is "a superstructure built to the advantage of Landlordism,
   Capitalism, and Officialism." [Evolution and Environment, p. 82 and p.
   105] Consequently, we cannot assume that abolishing one or even two of
   this unholy trinity will result in freedom nor that all three share
   exactly the same interests or power in relation to the others. Thus, in
   some situations, the landlord class can promote its interests over
   those of the capitalist class (and vice versa) while the state
   bureaucracy can grow at the expense of both.

   As such, it is important to stress that the minority whose interests
   the state defends need not be an economically dominant one (although it
   usually is). Under some circumstances a priesthood can be a ruling
   class, as can a military group or a bureaucracy. This means that the
   state can also effectively replace the economically dominant elite as
   the exploiting class. This is because anarchists view the state as
   having (class) interests of its own.

   As we discuss in more detail in [34]section H.3.9, the state cannot be
   considered as merely an instrument of (economic) class rule. History
   has shown numerous societies were the state itself was the ruling class
   and where no other dominant economic class existed. The experience of
   Soviet Russia indicates the validity of this analysis. The reality of
   the Russian Revolution contrasted starkly with the Marxist claim that a
   state was simply an instrument of class rule and, consequently, the
   working class needed to build its own state within which to rule
   society. Rather than being an instrument by which working class people
   could run and transform society in their own interests, the new state
   created by the Russian Revolution soon became a power over the class it
   claimed to represent (see [35]section H.6 for more on this). The
   working class was exploited and dominated by the new state and its
   bureaucracy rather than by the capitalist class as previously. This did
   not happen by chance. As we discuss in [36]section H.3.7, the state has
   evolved certain characteristics (such as centralisation, delegated
   power and so on) which ensure its task as enforcer of minority rule is
   achieved. Keeping those characteristics will inevitably mean keeping
   the task they were created to serve.

   Thus, to summarise, the state's role is to repress the individual and
   the working class as a whole in the interests of economically dominant
   minorities/classes and in its own interests. It is "a society for
   mutual insurance between the landlord, the military commander, the
   judge, the priest, and later on the capitalist, in order to support
   such other's authority over the people, and for exploiting the poverty
   of the masses and getting rich themselves." Such was the "origin of the
   State; such was its history; and such is its present essence."
   [Kropotkin, Evolution and Environment, p. 94]

   So while the state is an instrument of class rule it does not
   automatically mean that it does not clash with sections of the class it
   represents nor that it has to be the tool of an economically dominant
   class. One thing is sure, however. The state is not a suitable tool for
   securing the emancipation of the oppressed.

References

   1. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB1.html
   2. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB2.html#secb24
   3. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB1.html
   4. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB2.html#secb21
   5. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB3.html
   6. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secF8.html
   7. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB2.html#secb23
   8. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB2.html#secb26
   9. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB2.html#secb22
  10. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secH3.html#sech37
  11. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB2.html#secb24
  12. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB2.html#secb25
  13. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB3.html#secb32
  14. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB3.html#secb31
  15. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secI5.html#seci58
  16. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secD6.html
  17. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB2.html#secb23
  18. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB2.html#secb21
  19. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secD1.html
  20. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB2.html#secb26
  21. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB4.html#secb43
  22. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secD1.html#secd13
  23. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB2.html#secb23
  24. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secJ2.html
  25. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secJ5.html
  26. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secD3.html
  27. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secD2.html
  28. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secJ2.html#secj26
  29. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secJ2.html#secj22
  30. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB2.html#secb22
  31. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB2.html#secb25
  32. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secF8.html
  33. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB2.html#secb21
  34. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secH3.html#sech39
  35. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secH6.html
  36. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secH3.html#sech37
