The state is a machine by which one class suppresses another and protects its wealth and property. It rests on and reinforces the relations between classes in production. In a capitalist society, the state protects the private property of the capitalist class. For example, if you own a factory, you have the right to exploit people, that is, to hire them, pay them for the time they spend working in that factory (not for the value of what they produce) and then to accumulate wealth based on the difference.

Private property doesn’t refer to our individual possessions, such as a car or clothes or a television. Private property refers to the ownership of the means of exploitation and the ownership of the means of accumulating wealth based on a system of exploitation. If you own a bank, for example, you accumulate wealth that doesn’t flow directly from production, but that depends on exploitation. Laws and regulations also give you all sorts of deals and breaks that maximize your ability to accumulate that wealth.

The state protects private property and the class that owns it. The form and role of the state evolve with shifts in the predominant forms of private property, which, in turn, begin with the advance of the motive force in production and new methods of production.

 

October.2006.Vol16.Ed6
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