Is the State a Capitalist Institution?

By Kendrick Williams

The state as we know it, is supposed to be an institution where it is supposed to serve all residents living inside of it. However, many oppressed people groups both today and in the past would beg to differ. The role of the state in modern day capitalism is a debated topic. What is it really supposed to do? And furthermore, does the state truly live to serve the interests of the people residing in it, or does it live only to serve corporate interests? This topic will be discussed in this blog article.

Marxist ideology expresses that the state must be something that is abolished. The state is aggressive and simply only exists to bend to the interests of the private sector. However, “Marxism in action” has been rebels who drastically expanded the role of the state. Many Marxists would argue that this was not a reflection of what “true” Marxism because the these said rebels were then supposed to disperse themselves into the general population after the “revolution”, but for many of the real world examples, that never happened.

Engels states “As the state arose from the need to hold class antagonisms in check, but as it arose, at the same time, in the midst of these classes, it is, as a rule, the state of the most powerful, economically dominant class, which, through the medium of the stat e, becomes also the politically dominant class, and thus acquires new means of holding down and exploiting the oppressed class. Thus, the state of antiquity was above all the state of slave owners for the purpose of holding down the slaves, as the feudal state was the organ of the nobility for holding down the peasant serfs and bondsmen, and the modern representative state is an instrument of exploitation of wage labour by capital.” (Engels, Origin, p. 283)

The argument given is that the state is nothing more than a meeting place for the bourgeoise and it has no care for the common worker. It only serves to purely serve the interest of the wealthy.

I ask you, reader, were these political theorists correct? The new administration has more than enough ties to big money . Rex Tillerson, the CEO for Exxon oil is currently our secretary of state! And must we even ask about Donald Trump?! I believe this is an important social justice topic because how can oppressed groups express their voice to a government who isn’t listening just because they don’t have enough money in their wallets?

The state, in my opinion, is not beneficial to the people and serve the interests of corporations and lobbyists. The state may appear benevolent, but in reality they only give their citizens scraps. Programs such as Meals for Wheels was cancelled, but yet we can spend $800 million on a military budget. Everyone is out to feed themselves, even our elected officials. However, there is hope. The voice of the people is far greater than the voice of some arbitrary “state”.