We need WORKERS democracy from the Middle East to the USA and around the world!

WolfLarsen

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Feb 26, 2011
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This'll be my last thread start for a while. I'm new here and I don't want to monopolize the conversation. I'm just happy to get my feelings off my chest. I realize this is not the most brief opinion piece in the world, and perhaps my way of delivering my opinions are a little unorthodox, but everyone is a bit unique. Cheers!

What Is the State and What Is Its Nature?
An Interview with Wolf Larsen


Question: What do Marxists mean by the state?
Answer: What we mean by the state is not like the state of Indiana in the United States or the state of Amazonas in Brazil. Basically, the state is the entire government from the President all the way down to the police officer. The state includes the army, the police, the courts, the prisons – all of that is the apparatus of the state. I am not a great theoretician, but I can tell you for sure that most states on our planet today are dominated by the wealthy. These states dominated by the wealthy preside over capitalist economies that benefit only a privileged few. These states use their police forces, their armies, their courts, and bureaucracies to foster the domination of the rich over the working people.

Q. But if these states are Democratic then can't the working people use democracy to change the nature of the state?
A. Let me make something absolutely clear. All the democracies currently on this planet are democracies dominated by the rich people. In addition, most of the dictatorships on this planet rule in the interests of the rich people as well. It is obviously better to live in a democracy dominated by the rich than to live in a dictatorship dominated by their rich. In a dictatorship you rarely have freedom of speech. In a democracy there is more freedom of speech – up to a point.

Q. So are you saying that even in a democracy the workers don't have much freedom?
A. In a capitalist democracy the workers have more freedom than in a capitalist dictatorship. That is obvious. However, in a capitalist democracy the workers still do not have the right to a job, they do not have the right to a decent minimum wage, they don't have the right to quality affordable housing, etc. In order to have these kinds of rights you have to have a major change. You have to end the democracy of the rich and replace it with a democracy of the working class. The democracy of the working class is socialism. In a democracy of the rich the government often oppresses the workers in a manner similar to a dictatorship. When the bourgeoisie feel threatened by the workers – such as if the workers have a general strike that shuts down everything – regardless of whether the state is a bourgeois democracy or a bourgeois dictatorship – the apparatus of the state with its police and army and courts and jails often comes down very hard on the workers and attacks the workers and imprisons the workers and workers are often beat up by the police. Sometimes the police shoot down the workers in cold blood. So you see the state is an instrument of oppression where one class dominates the other class. The rich use the police, the army, the courts, the laws, and the prisons to keep the workers down. The police and army are the apparatus of the state – it is how the rich enforce their rule upon the workers.

Q. I don't believe you answered my question. Can't the workers use democracy to reform the state?
A. I believe I have answered your question. It is impossible to change the nature of the state. The state is an instrument of class oppression. The rich people use the state to oppress the workers. It is not possible to change the nature of the state. When workers elect supposedly pro-worker politicians to office those politicians almost always betray the interests of the workers. What workers can do is engage in social struggle that wins them some rights. For example, during the period of the Great Depression there was a great deal of social struggle by workers and the unemployed. In order to help ensure its survival the bourgeoisie gave in to some of these demands and the government implemented things like unemployment insurance, Social Security, and things like that. These were things that the workers and the unemployed fought for. During the 1960s you see some similarities to what happened in the 1930s. The black people of our nation made social struggle for racial equality. Because of this social struggle the government enacted civil rights legislation. None of these reforms however changes the nature of the state. The state is an instrument of class oppression where the rich use the state to oppress the workers. In order to calm all the social struggle down the rich sometimes give in on some points and enact legislation like unemployment insurance, Social Security, and civil rights laws. But inevitably the bourgeoisie seeks to backtrack. The bourgeoisie seeks to eliminate the gains that working-class and minorities made in social struggle. That's why you see the government later weakening social programs and civil rights laws in periods of lesser social struggle.

Q. So it sounds like under capitalism there's constant struggle between the rich and the working people.
A. That's right. The rich want to pay their workers as little as possible. The workers want more money. The rich want to cut back on or eliminate as many social programs as possible. In periods of less social struggle that's exactly what the rich people's government does – it cuts back on social programs. In times of more social struggle the bourgeoisie often give a little – and their government introduces more social programs or increases funding for social programs. The government does not increase social programs or create civil rights legislation because they have bleeding hearts and are concerned about the workers, the politicians do this in order to avert social struggle. It's like when there are more strikes and protests the rich people's government gives in a little in order to cool things off but as soon as things cool off then the rich man's government seeks to backtrack and undermine the civil rights legislation, they seek to lower funding for Social Security, and things like that.

Q. If social struggle brings more benefits to workers and minorities and women then all the workers and minorities and women need to do is engage in constant social struggle – isn't that true?
A. Social struggle can be good. It can help the workers and minorities and women and gays achieve many rights and other things. However, social struggle is dangerous. The police beat people up. The police shoot people. And if that's not enough the rich man's government calls in the army or the National Guard and they start shooting people. Social struggle can turn into a bloody mess! Social struggle without revolution does not permanently solve the problem of capitalism and the many problems that capitalism brings about – things like war, poverty, unemployment, racial discrimination, homophobia, gender discrimination, and so on and so forth. Social struggle is better than nothing, but it doesn't permanently resolve the problem of the state.

Q. So how do you solve the problem of the state?
A. You have to change the nature of the state. Currently the nature of the state is that it is a bourgeois state. It is a state dominated by the rich people. So you have to throw the bourgeois state in the garbage and replace it with a workers state.

Q. So how do you do that? Do you vote Democrat? Aren't the Democrats more for the workers?
A. (Laughs) What the Democrats and the Republicans represent are two different wings of the ruling class. The ruling class are the rich people. You have to throw the Democrats and the Republicans in the garbage can, because they are rich peoples parties. The same is true of the Labour Party in England. The Labour Party in England has become a rich peoples party. It says a bunch of pretty words about workers and has the title "labor" but basically all the Labor Party cares about is helping the rich. What reformist parties like Labor and the Democrats seek to do is to confuse the workers and spawn illusions in the rich people's government. That is, they want to fool the working people and the poor people into believing that they can reform the government in the working man's favor. But after these reformist parties like Labor and the Democrats get elected they pretty much do the same as the Republicans or the Tories. Within the framework of a bourgeois democracy different wings of the ruling class can argue out loud about their differences of opinion. With their different political parties and newspapers and television news outlets the different wings of the ruling class argue with each other about this, that, and the other thing. In a capitalist dictatorship, on the other hand, it's much more difficult for the different sections of the ruling class to discuss out in the open their differences. What's more, in a capitalist dictatorship some asshole decides what's best for the rich. So often the ruling class prefers a bourgeois democracy over a bourgeois dictatorship, because the bourgeoisie have more freedom of speech to discuss and argue amongst themselves. In addition, in a bourgeois democracy the workers often have more illusions that they can reform the system. And thus in that manner it is easier for the rich to dupe the workers into submission, or at least in tolerating the capitalist system. Sometimes the bourgeoisie resorts to a dictatorship because they're simply just too afraid of the workers to have democracy.
 
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