The State, Democracy, and Autonomy
August 5th, 2003
"When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called 'the People's Stick.'" - Mikhail Bakunin, Statism and Anarchy
Due to the way they are structured, all states are a mechanism by which a minority imposes its will on a majority. They are not neutral bodies that can be used by any group for whatever purpose they desire. So-called "democratic" states are a mechanism by which a minority imposes its will on the majority; they just attempt to fool the majority into thinking that they are in charge when they aren't. Representative democracy is a form of minority rule that pretends not to be. States are not neutral tools that anyone can use for any purpose; they are autonomous organizations that develop their own dynamics & interests.
The state is a top down organization of armed bodies of people that maintains control over the population in the area(s) it rules. It is a centralized organization that forces all those under its rule to obey its orders. In modern states these orders often come in the form of laws. It maintains armed bodies of people (such as the police and military) and coercive institutions (such as prisons and courts) with which to compel those under its rule to obey its orders. These coercive institutions and armed bodies of people are organized hierarchically with a top down chain of command. A few people give orders, the rest obey. These hierarchical armed bodies of people maintain control over the area(s) the state rules and forces the people in those area(s) to obey the orders of those on top of the hierarchy. The degree of centralization and the form of this hierarchy varies greatly from state to state, but all states are based on some kind of hierarchy backed up with armed bodies of people.
States generally maintain a monopoly (or near monopoly) on the legitimate use of violence. Legitimate violence is violence that is viewed by the majority of the population as being acceptable. For the most part, the majority of the population usually sees the state as the only legitimate source of violence, with occasional exceptions, and all other sources as illegitimate. Police use force all the time but ordinary citizens are barred from using force except for a few cases specifically exempted by law. A society with a state is a society with specialized social roles for the use and authorization of violence (police, soldiers, politicians, generals, judges, etc.). The state attempts to monopolize violence so that it is the only source of violence, all others are suppressed. The state seeks to create a situation where, in the view of the majority, the state can use violence while others cannot. The state means some people can whack others with impunity.
This monopoly of force can be delegated. For example, a state can make an exception for self-defense, legalize private security companies, or authorize the military forces of an allied state to operate on its territory. However, in all of these cases the state is the final authority for what violence may or may not be used; only violence it authorizes may be used. In practice the state rarely achieves a total monopoly, there is usually at least a fringe that does not regard state violence as legitimate. In some cases the state's monopoly of force may face major challenges from armed groups within society or even lose that monopoly all together (due to massive revolts, etc.). However, all states at least purport to hold a monopoly of force (even if this is a myth) and, to the extent possible, attempt to suppress all groups that challenge this monopoly, even if they are unsuccessful at it.
The state's monopoly (or near-monopoly) on legitimate violence and its centralized, hierarchical characteristics tend to reinforce each other. The state attempts to monopolize all violence, and to portray its own violence (and violence it has authorized) as the sole legitimate form of violence, so as to strengthen its power and insure those on the top of the hierarchy maintain control over the rest of the population. Organizations that monopolize the legitimate use of violence tend towards hierarchy and centralization, easily coming to dominate the rest of the population. If some people can whack others with impunity then that ability means they can easily gain power over others. As a result of this, they can use force against anyone who disobeys them with little likelihood of retaliation or resistance. This is a recipe for hierarchy and centralization of power into a small elite.
A common fallacy is the confusion of the state with society and/or organization. The state is not synonymous with order or large-scale organization but is rather a specific kind of organization with a monopoly of violence, centralization, etc. This fallacy confuses two very different things - the state and society. There have been many stateless societies. A related fallacy is the idea that the state doesn't have to be violent. The state is an inherently violent organization. You can hardly have an organization with a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, and its own armed bodies of people that coerce the population into obeying it, without violence. Usually this fallacy is based on the confusion of society and/or large-scale organization with the state. A purely non-violent organization would not be a state. Rather than the state, voluntary non-hierarchical associations such as confederations of popular assemblies could organize society.
The state is a particular kind of social relation, a set of ways in which humans behave and interact with each other. The state is a hierarchical social relationship, in which some people obey other people. The state organizes society in a pyramidal manner, with individuals trained to obey and/or give orders. In order to abolish the state it is necessary to change this behavior, for people on the bottom to stop obeying the orders of those on the top and to destroy the capacity of those on the top to force those below to obey. If the state were to suddenly disappear without any corresponding change in behavior there would be a social breakdown followed by the recreation of the state. If most people are used to obeying orders (as they are under a state) and continue to behave in the same way in the absence of people giving orders, then society will breakdown (because there is no longer anyone giving orders and people are not organizing themselves in a manner that they don't need to be given orders) and the state will soon be rebuilt. If, however, members of that society choose to change their behavior and stop depending on others giving them orders, to organize society in a non-hierarchical manner as free and equal individuals, then such results will not occur.
In order for a society to go from having a state to not having a state it is necessary for most members of that society to choose not to obey orders and to instead form alternative ways of running society that do not require some giving orders and others obeying them. They must change their behavior to a non-hierarchical form instead of a hierarchical form. The state cannot be destroyed by a few pounds of explosives; it can only be abolished through a popular rebellion from the bottom up.
The most direct way to do this is through a large anarchist movement. Examples of this include the Ukrainian, Manchurian, and Spanish revolutions, all of which prove that anarchy works and that it is possible to go from a state society to a stateless society. The reason these three were defeated was not because of any intrinsic defect with anarchism, but because they were vastly outgunned by statist enemies, who drowned the revolutions in blood, and because they made the mistake of allying with authoritarian leftists, who shot the anarchists in the back. There are also examples of similar changes of behavior beginning in situations where there was no anarchist movement or the anarchist movement was small, such as parts of the French, Russian, and Iranian revolutions. However, these are less likely to result in a stateless society because the lack of mass anarchist consciousness makes it easy for authoritarian groups to channel rebellion in a direction that benefits them and does not lead to a stateless society.
Sometimes countries in civil war are cited as examples of societies without states; the Somali civil war is a common example of this. Such examples are used to argue that without a state society will inevitably degenerate into chaos under all circumstances. This is incorrect; such examples of civil war are really cases of a state breaking into multiple smaller states and warring with one another, not the abolition of the state. In the Somali civil war different factions maintained their own armed forces with a chain of command that controlled part of the country and, to the extent possible, attempted to maintain a monopoly of force in the areas they ruled. These were just micro-states, each ruling its own part of the country and battling other micro-states for territory. In the West, the heads of these micro-states are called warlords. There was no attempt to abolish the state or bring about an anarchist revolution.
There have been numerous stateless societies throughout history, such as every hunter-gatherer ever observed and some other primitive societies as well as more modern examples like the Spanish revolution. These conclusively disprove all arguments that all societies must have a state or that any society without a state always turns to chaos no matter the circumstances.
Democracy and the State
The state is an instrument by which a small elite dominates and exploits the rest of the population; all states are instruments of minority rule because of the way they are structured. A small group of people on top of the state hierarchy (kings, parliaments, military juntas, bureaucrats, etc.) makes decisions and forces the rest of the population to obey those decisions. Because a minority of the population makes these decisions this is a form of minority rule, as decision making power stays with a small elite.
The state usually acts as an enforcer to protect the rule of a (minority) ruling class, and to insure its ability to exploit the rest of the population. The ruling class is parasitical, living off the labor of the lower class(es). It extracts a surplus from the laboring population, from which it lives and usually accumulates great wealth. The form this ruling class and the accompanying exploitation takes varies greatly. Under European feudalism it took the form of nobles exploiting serfs. Under capitalism it takes the form of capitalists exploiting workers.
In addition to different kinds of exploitation there are also different kinds of states. Some are monarchical and absolutist, some are multi-party republics, some are military dictatorships and others take over forms. Some allow a high degree of civil liberties and others a low degree. Although some states are better than others, the primary function of all states is to defend the rule of a small elite over the population.
Most modern states claim to be "democratic" states, in which the "the people" rules, rather than a small elite. This belief is used to mask the oligarchic character of all states, to fool people into thinking they are in charge when a tiny elite is actually in charge. This makes it easier for that elite to rule since it decreases the probability that those under its rule will rebel. In actual practice election of representatives to state office does not result in popular control of the state. Real power in capitalist "democracies" lies with the corporations and state bureaucracies, not with ordinary people.
Once elected politicians are free to take any position they want, regardless of what the electorate wants or their platform during the election campaign. Representatives are not tied in any substantial way to any particular policy. After being elected the politician is isolated from the public but subjected to powerful pressures from corporations and state bureaucracies. As such they end up acting in their interests, not obeying the "will of the people." Everyone has heard of politicians who, once in office, chose not to do what they said they would do during the election campaign or even done things entirely opposite of it. This isn't just because politicians are lying scum; it's a natural outcome of the system of representative democracy. Representative government is just another form of elite rule, just as all other states are.
The term "government" is used in two ways. One is as a synonym for the state. The other refers to the various politicians who (officially) make up the top levels of the pyramid. The state is a permanent collection of hierarchical institutions with their own vested interests whereas, in a representative state, governments (politicians) come and go. Because the hierarchical institutions that make up the state are permanent (as are many of the people in the higher offices) while the representatives come and go they tend to accrue more power than elected politicians.
The corporate elite subverts elections through several means. One is through using their extreme wealth to manipulate elections and politicians. Politicians are dependent on money in order to finance their election campaigns. Those with more money are more likely to win since it allows them to buy more ads, make more campaign stops, etc. This makes politicians dependent on those who fund their campaigns. Since the capitalist class is extremely wealthy this means they will have extreme influence over who is elected. Sometimes this is little different from bribery; wealthy donors give money in exchange for enacting policies they desire. Other times it is not so direct - the capitalist class simply funds whichever candidates have platforms they like and do not fund those with platforms they do not like. Those with platforms they like are likely to win, since they will have far more money (and thus more ads, etc.) then those with platforms opposed by the capitalists.
Even if capitalists could not donate money directly to election campaigns they can simply use their money to propagate their ideas by directly buying ads, etc. to support whichever candidates or issues they desire. Because of the extreme inequalities inherent in capitalism they will inevitably drown out any attempt by an ordinary person to do the same. These wealth inequalities also give individual capitalists a major advantage when attempting to win office. A millionaire can afford to run with little outside funding, but a non-millionaire must win the favor of the wealthy in order to fund his/her campaign. The proportion of millionaires and billionaires in elected offices is much higher than in the general public.
Control over the private (corporate) bureaucracies is another mechanism through which they influence the state. Corporate control over the media influences elections by portraying candidates hostile to corporate power in an unfavorable light (or ignoring them entirely) while portraying candidates favorable to corporate power in a more favorable light. A media that is owned and funded by the rich will tend to portray issues and candidates in a manner favorable to their interests.
Capital flight is also a powerful means of forcing the state to obey the capitalist class. If policies are implemented that hurt the corporate elite's interests then their profits will decrease and they will disinvest, sending their investments elsewhere and depriving the economy of new investments. This results in the economy crashing and in the politicians who angered the corporate elite being forced out of office (through losing the election or other means) if they do not change policy in a direction more favorable to the corporate elite. Because they control the economy there can be no investment or any kind of production unless their will is obeyed. Merely the threat of capital flight is often enough to insure that the government will not defy them. Threatened with economic collapse, more than one government has been disciplined by the corporate elite in this way (the British labor government in the mid-70s is one of many examples).
All states develop hierarchical organizations to help those on the top of a state hierarchy (politicians, etc.) make and implement decisions. In the modern state they take the form of state bureaucracies. These hierarchical organizations develop interests of their own and soon become more powerful than elected representatives. Elected representatives are placed in an environment where they are isolated from the general public, surrounded by bureaucrats, and dependent on bureaucrats for information, advice, and implementation of their policies. This give the state bureaucracy a great deal of influence over elected representatives, far more than ordinary people, and more then once has allowed them to pressure elected politicians into changing their positions. For example, US President Woodrow Wilson was originally opposed to intervening in the Russian revolution but his advisers persuaded him to launch a secret invasion of Russia in order to defeat the Bolsheviks.
Should the interests of the state bureaucracy clash with elected politicians bureaucrats have many tools at their disposal through which they can ensure that elected representatives do not implement policies they disagree with. They are the ones who actually run the functions of the state, from organizing elections to commanding the armed bodies of people used to enforce the orders of the state. This can easily be used to subvert the decisions of elected politicians. The bureaucrats are the ones who implement the policies, and if they don't like them they can refuse to implement them. Black ops, disinformation, bureaucratic slowdowns and media manipulation have all been used to force politicians not to implement policies that conflict with the state bureaucracy.
The armed bodies of people used by the state to enforce its policies can also be used to suppress groups that oppose the interests of the bureaucrats. An extreme example of this is the coup d'etat - politicians are forced out of power by the state bureaucracy (specifically, the military) at gunpoint. In addition, they can make it virtually impossible for any group they do not like to win elections by persecuting them, arresting their leaders, rigging elections, etc.
There are many examples of state bureaucracies subverting the will of elected politicians and preventing groups they don't like from coming to power through democratic elections. In the US, there is the famous military-industrial complex that insures the US has a perpetually large military budget because it serves the interests of the state bureaucracy (and corporate elite), and which pressures all governments into following this policy. In late 19th century America many states passed eight hour working day laws, but they frequently went un-enforced until working class unrest forced the government to enforce them. In 1976 British Prime Minister Harold Wilson was forced to resign as the result of a campaign against him by parts of the state bureaucracy which included burglaries, smears in the media, and other means. In 1960 the US state bureaucracy sabotaged a peace conference between the US and USSR by flying a U2 spy plane over the USSR, which ran out of fuel and crash landed in Soviet territory. President Eisenhower had ordered all such spy missions stopped in preparation for his historic summit with the USSR, but this summit conflicted with the interests of the defense establishment, which defied his orders (Mark Zepeaur, The CIA's Greatest Hits, p. 18-19). There have been many coups that deposed elected governments - Chile, Portugal, Nigeria, Brazil, Pakistan, Spain, and numerous other countries have all experienced them.
The state bureaucracy has acted many times to suppress groups that might influence policy though electoral channels or otherwise when it conflicted with their interests. The FBI's infamous Cointelpro program, starting in the 50s, suppressed many domestic groups seeking change. During World War One and afterwards the state bureaucracy suppressed the Socialist Party, ending any chance it had to come to power electorally.
The CIA has manipulated many foreign governments and launched numerous coups without congressional knowledge or approval (sometimes even without Presidential approval); it could easily do the same domestically if the elected government came into conflict with the state bureaucracy. The CIA also employs several hundred academics to write books and other materials used as propaganda to manipulate public opinion, both foreign and domestic.
"Democratic" states are therefore instruments of elite rule, just like all other states. Real power lies with the corporate elite and the upper levels of the state bureaucracy, not "the people." Government policies that benefit non-elite groups and appear altruistic, such as welfare or national healthcare, actually serve elite interests by decreasing unrest and preventing the spread of revolutionary ideologies. Unrest can threaten elite interests by interfering with their ability to control the populace, disrupting their ability to make profit, and opening the possibility that unrest could grow to the point where it results in revolution. The spread of revolutionary ideologies can threaten elite interests because it can increase unrest and because it makes the overthrow of the elite more likely. To a lesser extent, non-revolutionary ideologies critical of the status quo can also have a similar effect but not to the same degree because they don't call for the overthrow of the elite.
Certain phenomenon, like poverty or ecological destruction, can encourage unrest & the spread of revolutionary ideologies. Appropriate government policies can counter-act this, or at least decrease it. For example, widespread poverty can lead to large scale resistance by the poor (civil disobedience, riots, squatting, or other forms of direction action) and the growth of a large revolutionary movement seeking to abolish capitalism. Implementing welfare programs can decrease this by decreasing poverty, which was fueling rebellion & a revolutionary movement, and by making the government seem benevolent. The same is true of many other seemingly benevolent government programs; they are a way of containing rebellion.
Of course, these programs are generally only implemented when unrest and/or revolutionary movements grow to the point when they outweigh the cost to elite interests (both direct and indirect) of implementing those programs. For example, in the mid-twentieth century powerful revolutionary socialist movements arose to challenge the established order in many parts of the world. Many countries developed extensive welfare states as a way of warding off the threat of revolution and containing working class rebellion. In the last several decades those movements have declined, and as a result the welfare state has been progressively dismantled since its reason for existence has largely disappeared.
Representative democracy is self-refuting. Democratic government presupposes that ordinary people are capable of analyzing and understanding the politics and issues that need to be decided. If ordinary people are capable of determining whether the platform and decisions of their representatives are good or bad (and thus determining who to vote for) then they are capable of making those decisions themselves. We can simply dispense with representatives and the state entirely in favor of direct self-rule.
Although elections are not an effective way for the general public to control the state, elections are an effective means for the state to control the general public. Elections create the (false) impression that the state is controlled by "the people," instead of the elite, and thus causes more people to see the state as a legitimate institution. Rebellion against that state is therefore less likely since more people see it as legitimate. That is why virtually every state in the world today has elections, even states like North Korea where elections are thoroughly rigged. A vote in elections isn't just a vote for a particular politician; it’s also a vote for the current system.
Elections can also control the population by getting opposition movements to devote time and resources into elections, instead of other actions that might actually undermine the status quo. If that opposition movement manages to get its party elected that party will end up doing mostly the same thing as the opposition parties, for reasons explained above (the social democratic movements of the early 20th century are a classic example of this). This can cause supporters of that party to become disillusioned and drop out from activism & politics, effectively neutralizing (or at least weakening) that opposition movement.
Today some states use referendums, in which citizens directly vote on particular laws or policies, in addition to elections for representatives. Referendums, even if used on a large scale, still do not secure popular control of the state. The pressures of wealth described earlier still apply. The wealthy & large corporations can and will use their far greater wealth to buy more advertisements and other propaganda in favor of their position, drowning out opposing views. Corporate control of the media means coverage will tend to favor the views of their corporate owners (and the advertisers who fund them, also corporations) over the views of other groups. If a referendum(s) votes for something that hurts the interests of the corporate elite, their profits will decline and they will withdraw their investments, causing the economy to crash until citizens vote in laws more favorable to big business (and usually less favorable to workers & the environment). In effect, the wealthy hold the economy hostage to force citizens to vote the way they want.
Politicians and the state bureaucracy frequently manipulate referendums. Perhaps the most common method is simply through restricting what issues are on the ballot. Fundamental issues about how society is organized, like whether capitalism, hierarchy, or the state should exist, are never on the ballot. Even major reforms are generally excluded when they conflict with the elite. Referendums are typically binary, e.g. you can vote to raise property taxes to pay for new schools or you can vote not to do that but you cannot vote to close tax loopholes for big business in order to pay for those schools (or to decrease agribusiness subsidies in order to pay for those schools or a thousand other excluded options). Excluded options generally correlate with things the elite strongly oppose, since the elite control the referendum process. More often then not referendum issues are restricted to options which do not conflict with elite interests, which the elite are divided on, or in which the result is reasonably certain.
In most cases putting a referendum on a ballot requires the approval of the government (typically the legislative body and/or executive), and so referendums are naturally limited to issues upon which the government does not object. This means that issues on the ballot are restricted to issues upon which the elite, especially the state bureaucracy, does not object because the elite controls the government. In other cases it is possible to get a referendum on the ballot by collecting a certain number of signatures on a petition, thereby circumventing politicians/bureaucrats. This just shifts power away from the state bureaucracy and towards the corporate elite. The corporate elite, by virtue of being extremely wealthy, can afford to hire lots of people to collect lots of signatures, giving them a major advantage over poorer groups and effectively allowing them to dominate the referendum process.
Another method of manipulation is to repeatedly put a measure on the ballot over and over until the vote goes the way the elite wants it. For example, when the Irish government wanted to ratify the Nice treaty, which assisted corporate interests and increased militarism, it was forced to let the general public vote in a referendum on it due to a clause in their constitution. Irish citizens voted it down in 2001. Most bureaucrats, politicians, & capitalists didn't like the results of that referendum, so they held another referendum in 2002, which passed. No further referendums were held on the issue or are planned on it. When the referendum doesn't go the way the elite wants they keep putting it back on the ballot until the vote goes the way they want. If the vote goes the way they want even once they cease holding further referendums on the issue no matter how many previous times it was rejected. Local governments in the United States also commonly use this technique in the occasional case when citizens won't vote the 'right' way.
In addition, the state bureaucracy can use many of the same means to pressure and mislead the electorate that it can use against elected representatives. They have a monopoly (or near-monopoly) on violence, with an effective system capable of coercing anyone into obeying them. This gives them more power than the general populace. They can "interpret" referendums in a manner consistent with their own interests (which extensive legalese makes easy) or selectively enforce them. Judges in California, for example, have repeatedly interfered with referendums. If the upper levels of the state bureaucracy universally and strongly reject a referendum some excuse can be found to reject it and little can be done (legally) to prevent them from doing so, since they have a monopoly on force.
Disinformation, bureaucratic slowdowns and media manipulation can also be used to advance the goals of the state bureaucracy should they conflict with the public. The ability of the military and intelligence services (and often police) to act in secret makes it very easily for them to keep 'inconvenient' facts from the public, covertly fund unpopular projects and carry out actions that the public would not otherwise approve. Groups campaigning for something the state bureaucracy doesn't like can be attacked, harassed and even suppressed by the police or other parts of the government. Coups can be used to undo the results of referendums just as they can be used to undo the results of elections. All of this gives the upper levels of the state bureaucracy greater power than the ordinary citizen, which means they rule rather than "the people."
Referendums increase the legitimacy of the state, and thereby increase its power, even more than elections. The illusion that ordinary citizens control the state is even greater when citizens can directly vote on particular policies, in addition to electing representatives. Laws approved in a referendum are less likely to be questioned because they are perceived to be made by the "the sovereign people," instead of by politicians. In addition to legitimizing the state in general, getting a particular policy approved in referendum is a useful way of shoring up support for enforcement of that policy, especially important for policies that will prove controversial or provoke significant resistance.
Beyond all this, the modern state has grown so big and extensive that citizens cannot effectively keep track of every bureaucrat and every budget; there simply is not enough time in the day. Thus the state can act on its own with its own autonomy and cannot be effectively controlled by the general public through any means, be it election, referendum, or something else. The state's centralization of power and monopoly of force insure that an elite (those in the top levels of the hierarchy) will always emerge in any state and that all attempts to subject it to democratic controls will ultimately fail, because centralization of power means those in the upper levels have real power and because their monopoly of force makes it impossible to (legally) stop them.
State Autonomy
In radical leftist circles it is often claimed that the state is totally controlled by the corporate elite (or other ruling class), that it is the "executive committee" of the corporate elite. This is closer to the truth than the myth that the state is controlled by "the people," but is not entirely correct. It often appears to be the case because the interests of the upper levels of the state bureaucracy (the state elite) and the interests of the corporate elite usually coincide, and in many cases the two groups overlap and intermingle.
The state acts first and foremost to maintain its authority, to insure that it can maintain its domination of the general population. If it cannot do this, then the state is soon overthrown. It therefore shares a broad interest with the corporate elite in keeping the working class subordinated and at work in the existing economy. The corporate elite's interests are clearly to keep the working class subordinate and at work, where it can extract a surplus from them. By keeping the workers down and maintaining the economic system (through enforcing property rights and other means) the state maintains its authority and privileges over the general population.
The state leeches off the surplus extracted by the corporate elite to give the state elite privileges over the population and serve the goals of the state. Taxation is one of the most obvious ways this is done, but there are others. Politicians and members of the state elite can often gain lucrative positions in the private economy after leaving their government positions. A productive economy capable of extracting large surpluses from the subordinate class(es) can be used to achieve the goals of the state by funding its programs, building things to be used by the state, producing war materials, etc.
The corporate elite does exert an extreme influence on the state through the threat of capital flight and other means, but does not directly control it. This ability to influence the state is dependent upon the corporate elite's control of economic resources that exists solely because the state enforces private property. The state protects their interests by enforcing private property (and other means) because by doing so it protects its own interests, not because the corporate elite directly controls the state. The state sets up a separate economic elite that can more effectively exploit the laboring class(es) than the state doing so directly, and then leeches off the surplus that economic elite extracts. In normal circumstances, preserving the existing economic and class structure is the smoothest way to maintain the state's authority over the population.
The interests of the state elite and the private capitalists/corporate elite do not always coincide, though they often do. There are many examples of conflicts between the state and the private capitalist class. The Bonapartist state in France from the 1850s until the 1870s repeatedly acted against the interests of the private bourgeoisie. In 1968 a military coup in Peru deposed the civilian government and installed a military dictatorship. Unlike most Latin American military dictatorships, the new "Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces" moved against big business and the domestic oligarchy. It implemented many authoritarian socialist reforms that harmed the oligarchy, including nationalizing several industries and resources, agrarian reform, and a law allowing limited worker participation in the management of businesses. The US state sabotaged the reforms and insured that the Peruvian state was not in a better situation as a result of these actions, causing it to abandon these policies in favor of neocolonialism by the early '80s. In 1937 the Mexican state nationalized oil as a result of conflict between the state elite & (foreign) corporate elite. The oil companies openly and publicly refused to obey Mexican law, thus threatening the state's authority. So they nationalized the oil. There are many other examples of conflict between the state elite and corporate elite, but most of the time their interests coincide. The same applies to the state and pre-capitalist ruling classes.
Under capitalism a minority of the population, the capitalist class, monopolizes the means of production and the rest must sell their labor (from which an economic surplus is extracted) to the capitalist class in order to survive. One of the main functions of the capitalist state is to protect this monopoly and to suppress any rebellions against it. The protection of this monopoly is called "enforcing property rights." Two bureaucracies run the economy in most capitalist societies: a private (corporate) one and a public (state) one. In extreme cases one of these bureaucracies runs all or nearly all of the economy. Under laissez-faire capitalism private (corporate) bureaucracies dominate the economy; under state monopoly capitalism public (state) bureaucracies dominate the economy. Late 19th century USA was an example of the former and the USSR of the later.
The state will intervene in the economy beyond enforcing private property in order to keep the economy running and protect the interests of the state elite. If the corporate elite finds it has difficulty keeping the economy running and properly exploiting the workers the state will often step in to insure that exploitation and the smooth running of the economy continue. Capitalist states have implemented regulations to prevent financial collapse, subsidized industries to prevent them from going under, provided infrastructure which private companies could not provide on their own (roads, railways, etc.), created government programs to stimulate consumer spending and avoid underconsumptionist crises & stagnation, tariffs to protect weak or developing industries, and many other actions which help the corporate elite and thereby help the state elite. In situations where large-scale unrest threatens the interests of the state bureaucracy it may implement concessions to the laboring class(es) (welfare policies, labor laws, etc) in order to maintain its authority. In many cases these concessions may also be supported by big business (unrest can also threaten their interests), but the state may sometimes implement these concessions even when a large portion of the corporate elite opposes them.
Imperialist states pursue neocolonialist policies that protect the investments and interests of the corporate elite abroad, as well as reinforcing state power at home by using the fear of a foreign enemy to scare the populace into submission and justify otherwise unpopular policies. Client states often find it in their own interests to protect the interests of foreign capitalists rather than domestic capitalists (and if they do not they will soon find themselves overthrown by the imperialist state). "Third World" nationalist states that become independent of foreign powers often pursue a state-capitalist economic policy in which the state bureaucracy plays a major role because domestic private capitalists are too small & weak to develop the economy as effectively as a statist route and also because capital flight is not an effective means of influencing the government when there is little capital. Nationalization of key resources and industries can also help solidify the power of the state by giving it control over important areas of the economy; this can be used to prevent foreign domination by "first world" corporations.
When private capitalists find it difficult to exploit the workers in an industry the state will sometimes nationalize that industry, in order to better exploit them itself. The corporate elite does not always oppose this, since they can recoup loses by selling unprofitable industries to the government. When the situation is reversed, and private capitalists can exploit the workers better than the state, resources are often privatized. Should the interests of the state elite and the corporate elite clash, nationalization is also a mechanism that can neutralize the threat of capital flight.
When the USSR fell their state elite decided that it would be better off setting up a separate economic elite to exploit the workers under a market capitalist system rather than the state monopoly capitalist system that previously prevailed. In many cases that economic elite is made up of people who were formerly part of the state elite; in other cases foreign capitalists have bought sections of the economy. The same elite that ran things under the old system is by and large still running things today. Putin, Yeltsin and most of the rest of the elite are all former party members and bureaucrats. The wave of privatizations that swept Russia & its former satellites after the fall of the USSR succeeded in enriching the elite, while simultaneously impoverishing the majority of workers.
In the case of a representative government, all of this is driven by the needs of the state bureaucracy, not which particular people are elected to office. If the state bureaucracy seeks to nationalize or not nationalize something then it will pressure elected representatives into going along with their will, or remove them from office if necessary.
Under free market capitalism (and a few other systems) the state enforces the ability of a separate economic elite to dominate and exploit the subordinate class(es) (by making sure they stay subordinate) and leeches off the surplus extracted. It is not necessary for the state to set up a separate economic elite to exploit the subordinate class(es), it can exploit them directly itself. Egypt under the Pharaohs, the Aztec state, ancient Persia, Titoist Yugoslavia, the USSR, and Maoist China were all examples of this. In these cases, the state is the ruling class. Under state monopoly capitalism (which was practiced in the USSR, Red China, and elsewhere) the state directly manages production and acts like a giant capitalist corporation with a monopoly over everything, exploiting the working class via wage-labor. The state bureaucracy (or sections of it) is a bureaucrat-capitalist class, living off the labor of the workers.
It is also possible for the state to directly exploit the subordinate class(es) without either managing production itself or setting up a separate economic elite. In Titoist Yugoslavia officially workers had control over their own workplaces (through a distorted form of workers' control); the bureaucracy exploited them through taxes (and other means). Workers control was limited to the point where it did not interfere with the interests of the bureaucracy; the state would interfere with workers control when necessary - including controlling investment and manipulating the decisions of workers. In much of feudal Europe production was organized by peasant communes and had to give a portion of their crops and unpaid labor to the state/nobility (which were often the same) who exploited the peasantry. It is only in these cases where the state is the ruling class that the state can be said to be the "executive committee" of the economic elite because the state and the economic elite are one and the same.
The primary function of all states is to maintain the power and privilege of the state elite over the rest of the population. If it does not do this by setting up an economic elite separate from the state (such as a private capitalist class) then it does it by directly exploiting the population itself. Because the state is a hierarchical organization, based on centralization of power, it is always an organ of minority rule. It is the minority in the upper levels of the state hierarchy (the state elite) that makes the decisions, and it is thus this minority that rules. Giving an elite coercive power over the rest of the population (which is what the state does) is a recipe for a parasitical (minority) ruling class that dominates and exploits the majority. The state, because of its structure, has its own dynamics and vested interests and is not a neutral tool that can be used by anyone. The state, by its very nature, tends to take on a life of its own. It is a Frankenstein’s monster, rampaging around the world.