Weeks+8-9 - The State'The purpose of the State is always...

The State

'The purpose of the State is always the same: to limit
the individual, to tame him, to subordinate him, to
subjugate him.'
M
AX
S
TIRNER
The Ego and His Own (1845)
The shadow of the state falls upon almost every human
activity. From education to economic management, from
social welfare to sanitation, and from domestic order to
external defence, the state shapes and controls, and where it
does not shape or control it regulates, supervises, authorises
or proscribes. Even those aspects of life usually thought of as
personal or private (marriage, divorce, abortion, religious
worship and so on) are ultimately subject to the authority of
the state. It is not surprising, therefore, that politics is often
understood as the study of the state, the analysis of its
institutional organisations, the evaluation of its impact on
society, and so on. Ideological debate and party politics,
certainly, tend to revolve around the proper function or role
of the state: what should be done by the state and what
should be left to private individuals and associations? The
nature of state power has thus become one of the central
concerns of political analysis. This debate (the so-called 'state
debate') touches on some of the deepest and most abiding
divisions in political theory.
The key issues discussed in this chapter are as follows:
Key issues
? What is the state, and how can it be distinguished from
government?
? How has state power been analysed and explained?
? Is the state a force for good or a force for evil?
? What roles have been assigned to the state? How have
responsibilities
been apportioned between the state and civil society?
? Is the modern state under threat, and, if so, how are its
powers being
usurped?
Contents
What is the state?
Rival theories of the
state
The pluralist state
The capitalist state
The leviathan state
The patriarchal state
The role of the state
Minimal states
Developmental states
Social-democratic states
Collectivised states
Totalitarian states
The twilight of the state?
Summary/Questions
for discussion/Further
reading
8
4
5 •
THE
STA
TE

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831)
German philosopher. Hegel was the founder of
modern idealism and developed the notion that
consciousness and material objects are in fact
unified. In Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), he
sought to develop a rational system that would
substitute for traditional Christianity by
interpreting the entire process of human history,
and indeed the universe itself, in terms of the
progress of absolute Mind towards self-
realisation. In his view, history is, in essence, a
march of the human spirit towards a determinant
endpoint. His major political work,
Philosophy of Right (1821), portrayed the state
as an ethical ideal and the highest expression
of human freedom. Hegel's work had
considerable impact upon Marx and other so-
called 'young Hegelians', and it helped to
shape the development of both liberal and
fascist thought.

What is the state?