Why will the abolition of class inherently abolish the state?
I am an anarchist and this is one of their central problems with Marxism. They believe that class and the state are co creating and that you can’t have one without the other. It’s sort of like a chicken and egg problem and it varies between theorist to theorist but Peter Gelderloos an anarchist anthropologist even suggests that state formation predated class. There are also critiques inspired by anarchism such as those found in seeing like a state frothing high modernist, Leninist and post colonial states. For anarchists they critique the fundamental notion that a lot of revolutionary Marxists have that the state “protects” of “defends” the revolution by linking it to common patriarchal and paternal narratives of times before. Also how do we know all the claims that Marxists make of counterrevolutionary threats are all real? States often manufacture threats to give society the facade that it needs extra control, thus justifying more state coercion? If capitalist states do this? Why are we to trust socialist states that their punitive actions were always in defense of the greater good?
What do you guys make of these points?
Posted Nov 7, 2025, 7:03 PM UTC