The State: Its History and Development Viewed Sociologically

by Franz Oppenheimer

The interests of every class set in motion an actual body of associated forces, which impel it with a definite momentum toward the attainment of a definite goal. All classes whatever have the same goal; viz., the total result of the productive labor of all the denizens of a given state. Every class attempts to obtain as large a share as possible of the national production; and since all strive for identically the same object, the class contest results. This contest of classes is the content of all history of states, except in so far as the interest of the state as a whole produces common actions. These we may at this point disregard, since they have been given undue prominence by the traditional method of historical study, and lead to one-sided views. Historically this class contest is shown to be a party fight. A party is originally and in its essence nothing save an organized representation of a class. Wherever a class, by reason of social differentiation, has split up into numerous sub-classes with varied separate interests, the party claiming to represent it disintegrates at the earliest opportunity into a mass of tiny parties, and these will either be allies or mortal enemies according to the degree of divergence of the class interests. Where on the other hand a former class contrast has disappeared by social differentiation, the two former parties amalgamate in a short time into a new party. As an example of the first case we may recall the splitting off of the artisans and Anti-Semite parties from the party of German Liberalism, as a consequence of the fact that the first represented descending groups, while the latter represented ascending ones. A characteristic example of the second category may be found in the political amalgamation which bound together into the farmers’ union the petty landed squires of the East Elbian country with West Elbian rich peasants on large plantations. Since the petty squire sinks and the farmer rises, they meet half-way. All party policy can have but one meaning, viz., to procure for the class represented as great a share as is possible of the total national production. In other words, the preferred classes intend to maintain their share, at the very least, at the ancient scale, and if possible, to increase it toward such a maximum as shall permit the exploited classes just a bare existence, to keep them fit to do their work, just as in the bee-keeper stages. Their object is to confiscate the entire surplus product of the economic means, a surplus which increases enormously as population becomes more dense and division of labor more specialized. On the other hand, the group of exploited classes would like to reduce their tribute to the zero-point, and to consume the entire product themselves; and the transitional classes work as much as possible toward the reduction of their tribute to the upper classes, while at the same time they strive to increase their unrequited income from the classes underneath.

This is the aim and the content of all party contests. The ruling class conducts this fight with all those means which its acquired dominion has handed down to it. In consequence of this, the ruling class sees to it that legislation is framed in its interest and to serve its purpose—class legislation. These laws are then applied in such wise that the blunted back of the sword of justice is turned upward, while its sharpened edge is turned downward—class justice. The governing class in every state uses the administration of the state in the interest of those belonging to it under a twofold aspect. In the first place it reserves to its adherents all prominent places and all offices of influence and of profit, in the army, in the superior branches of government service, and in places on the bench; and secondly, by these very agencies, it directs the entire policy of the state, causes its class-politics to bring about commercial wars, colonial policies, protective tariffs, legislation in some degree improving the conditions of the laboring classes, electoral reform policies, etc. As long as the nobles ruled the state, they exploited it as they would have managed an estate; when the bourgeoisie obtain the mastery, the state is exploited as though it were a factory. And the class-religion covers all defects, as long as they can be endured, with its “don’t touch the foundation of society.”

There still exist in the public law a number of political privileges and economic strategic positions, which favor the master class: such as, in Prussia, a system of voting which gives the plutocrats an undue advantage over the less favored classes, a limitation of the constitutional rights of free assembly, regulations for servants, etc. For that reason, the constitutional fight, carried on over thousands of years and dominating the life of the state, is still uncompleted. The fight for improved conditions of life, another phase of the party and class struggle, usually takes place in the halls of legislative bodies, but often it is carried on by means of demonstrations in the streets, by general strikes, or by open outbreaks.

But the plebs have finally and definitely learned that these remnants of feudal strategic centers, do not, except in belated instances, constitute the final stronghold of their opponents. It is not in political, but rather in economic conditions that the cause must be sought, which has brought it about that even in the modern constitutional state, the “distribution of wealth” has not been changed in principle. Just as in feudal times, the great mass of men live in bitter poverty; even under the best conditions, they have the meager necessities of life, earned by hard, crushing, stupefying forced labor, no longer exacted by right of political exploitation, but just as effectively forced from the laborers by their economic needs. And just as before in the un-reformed days, the narrow minority, a new master class, a conglomerate of holders of ancient privileges and of newly rich, gathers in the tribute, now grown to immensity; and not only does not render any service therefor, but flaunts its wealth in the face of labor by riotous living. The class contest henceforth is devoted more and more to these economic causes, based on vicious systems of distribution; and it takes shape in a hand-to-hand fight between exploiters and proletariat, carried on by strikes, coöperative societies and trades unions. The economic organization first forces recognition, and then equal rights; then it leads and finally controls the political destinies of the labor party. In the end therefore the trade union controls the party. Thus far the development of the state has progressed in Great Britain and in the United States.

Were it not that there has been added to the modern state an entirely new element, its officialdom, the constitutional state, though more finely differentiated and more powerfully integrated, would, so far as form and content go, be little different from its prototypes.

As a matter of principle, the state officials, paid from the funds of the state, are removed from the economic fights of conflicting interests; and therefore it is rightly considered unbecoming for any one in the service of the government to be taking part in any money making undertaking, and in no well ordered bureaucracy is it tolerated. Were it possible ever thoroughly to realize the principle, and did not every official, even the best of them, bring with him that concept of the state held by the class from which he originated, one would find in officialdom, as a matter of fact, that moderating and order making force, removed from the conflict of class interests, whereby the state might be led toward its new goal. It would become the fulcrum of Archimedes whence the world of the state might be moved.

But the principle, we are sorry to say, can not be carried out completely; and furthermore, the officials do not cease being real men, do not become mere abstractions without class consciousness. This may be quite apart from the fact that, in Europe at least, a participation in a definite form of undertakings—viz., handling large landed estates—is regarded as a favorable means of getting on in the service of the state, and will continue to be so as long as the landed nobility preponderates. In consequence of this, many officials on the Continent, and one may even say the most influential officials, are subject to pressure by enormous economic interests; and are unconsciously, and often against their will, brought into the class contests.

There are factors, such as extra allowances made by either fathers or fathers-in-law, or hereditary estates, and affinity to the persons in control of the landed and moneyed interest or allied with them, whereby the solidarity of interest among the ruling class is if anything increased from the fact that these officials, practically without exception, are taken from a class with whom since their boyhood days they have been on terms of intimacy. Were there, however, no such unity of economic interests the demeanor of the officials would be influenced entirely by the pure interests of the state.

For this reason, as a rule, the most efficient, most objective and most impartial set of officials is found in poor states. Prussia, for example, was formerly indebted to its poverty for that incomparable body of officials who handled it through all its troubles. These employees of the state were actually, in consonance with the rule laid down above, dissociated completely from all interests in money making, directly or indirectly.

This ideal body of officials is a rare occurrence in the more wealthy states. The plutocratic development draws the individual more and more into its vortex, robbing him of his objectivity and of his impartiality. And yet the officials continue to fulfil the duty which the modern state requires of them, to preserve the interests of the state as opposed to the interests of any class. And this interest is preserved by them, even though against their will, or at least without clear consciousness of the fact, in such manner that the economic means, which called the bureaucracy into being, is in the end advanced on its tedious path of victory, as against the political means. No one doubts that the officials carry on class politics, prescribed for them by the constellation of forces operating in the state; and to that extent, they certainly do represent the master class from which they sprang. But they do ameliorate the bitterness of the struggle, by opposing the extremists in either camp, and by advocating amendments to existing law, when the social development has become ripened for their enactment, without waiting until the contest over these has become acute. Where an efficient race of princes governs, whose momentary representative adopts the policy of King Frederick, which was to regard himself only as “the first servant of the state,” what has been said above applies to him in an increased degree, all the more so as his interests, as the permanent beneficiary of the continued existence of the state, would before all else prompt him to strengthen the centripetal forces and to weaken the centrifugal powers. In the course of the preceding we have in many instances noted the natural solidarity between prince and people, as an historic force of great value. In the completed constitutional state, in which the monarch in but an infinitesimally small degree is a subject of private economic interests, he tends to be almost completely “an official.” This community of interests is emphasized here much more strongly than in either the feudal state or the despotically governed state, where the dominion, at least for one-half its extent, is based on the private economic interests of the prince.