3 - The state as partisan

Summary

We turn now to an image of the state, and a form of state scepticism, associated more with the political left than with liberals and the neo-liberal and libertarian right. It has deep roots in socialist and anarchist politics and through that pedigree line provides an exemplar of the anti-state thought which emerged hand in hand with the state tradition in the manner discussed in the previous chapter. As a disposition towards the state, it can, moreover, be argued to possess a contemporary relevance that stretches well beyond those bodies of deeply sedimented critical leftist thought, with proponents of this stance endorsing the broad concern of the liberal and the free marketeer about state violence and the paradoxes inherent in concentrating the power of legitimate coercion in the container of the state. But there the resemblance begins and ends. In contrast to liberalism, this leftist variant of state scepticism argues that the state's monopoly of violence is not merely a necessary precondition for the maintenance of a consensual ‘general order’. The police are, rather, a vehicle for upholding what Marenin (1982) calls ‘specific order’. They are a means of fortifying either the interests of the state itself, or those of constituencies favoured by the present configuration of economic and social relations. The state is, on this view, a partisan actor in social and political life, as are its agents the police.