The State; Its History and Development Viewed Sociologically

by Franz Oppenheimer

Over the years, many writers have claimed that the State has some kind of noble mission. Few have seen things with such clarity as the German sociologist Franz Oppenheimer. The State, Oppenheimer persuasively argues, is always born in the conquest of one group by another. The conquerors then set themselves up as the government and extract tribute in the form of taxes from the conquered. Furthermore, he argues, the State can have originated in no other way than through conquest and subjugation, and to advance his argument, he draws on vast historical knowledge with dramatic examples of the beginnings of the State from prehistoric to primitive, from huntsmen to herders, from the Vikings to modern day.

The State affects the most mundane as well as the most important aspects of our lives. As a powerful, sprawling institution, it shapes the other major institutions of society and reaches into our most personal everyday affairs. Yet, little of importance has been written on the State in terms of its nature and development. In this significant but long-neglected classic, Franz Oppenheimer develops his libertarian ideas on the origin and future of the State.

Franz Oppenheimer (18641943) was a German sociologist, political economist, and chair for sociology and theoretical political economy at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt/Main. From 1934 to 1935, Oppenheimer taught in Palestine, immigrating in 1936 to Los Angeles, where he was active in the American Sociological Association and became a founding member of the American Journal of Economics and Sociology.

Genres: Politics, Sociology, History, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Economics, Social

332 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1914

About the author

Franz Oppenheimer (March 30, 1864 – September 30, 1943) was a German sociologist and political economist, who published also in the area of the fundamental sociology of the state.

See Wikipedia.

Reviews

[Jeffrey Howard · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a far less pleasant read than I was expecting--Oppenheimer provides substance but makes it difficult to digest. His greatest contribution to political science and economics is the distinction between "economic means" and "political means." Still, I would like to see further expansion upon his theory of the origins of The State, and how it begins in some form of conquest and not out of social contract.

He gives a skeleton for his theory and provides enough historical examples to give it credence, but leaves it too bare to become persuasive. I am sympathetic to the case he makes, but would prefer a volume more heavy in history to truly detail how modern states have developed into what they are today; it would be a huge benefit if somebody built upon his work to also account for our globally and technologically connected world (this book was first published a century ago).

Moral of the story: anybody claiming the benevolence of government ignores that states are built upon the blood and tyranny of generations past, and continue to exist through similar but vastly more nuanced and complicated means. Government MIGHT be a necessary part of society, but let's not pretend it is virtuous, sacred, or salvific in any way.

[Tyler · Rating 3 out of 5]

I couldn't finish this book. There is something that is extremely irritating about it. Something that drives me nuts. However, the content that I read was extremely good and valuable. Oppenheimer argues against the social contract theory and produces a six step theory on how states arise. There is history in it but the history is not gone into in-depth, rather just used as a means to show what he is saying at the current section of the book. Overall, content is great, just a frustrating read. I wish I had the patience to read it. I will keep my bookmark on the page that I stopped at and will perhaps pick up where I left off when I am more patient with Oppenheimer's writing.

[Yogy TheBear · Rating 3 out of 5]

The most important contribution to state theory is the distinction between economic and political means. The rest of the book's content is a abstract history of the evolution of the state, using the above mentioned distinction, witch in my opinion is not complete and can only serve as a template to compare individual instances of state evolution. His attitude of capitalism is not quite the most informed, and a discussion on customs and ethics would have been good placed in his book.

[Alberto Vega · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lo mejor del libro me parece que es la distinción entre medios económicos (los frutos del trabajo del individuo y su intercambio libre) y medios políticos (la apropiación forzosa del trabajo ajeno).

El autor repasa la historia de la génesis del Estado desde sus orígenes prehistóricos hasta el Estado constitucional del siglo XIX. Su tesis principal es que el Estado ha sido, desde sus orígenes, un mecanismo de explotación de la clase dominante, que se ha servido de los medios políticos para apropiarse de los medios económicos de los gobernados. Su razonamiento me ha parecido bastante sólido y convincente hasta que llega al estado feudal, a partir de ese punto creo que el libro se vuelve cada vez más confuso y el análisis es bastante flojo.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A TRACING OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ‘SOCIOLOGIC IDEA OF THE STATE’

George H. Smith wrote in his Introduction to this edition, “Franz Oppenheimer’s ‘The State’ … has influenced a variety of radical intellectuals. Oppenheimer’s influence is measured not by the number of his readers but by their quality. Albert Jay Nock drew liberally from Oppenheimer in his great work, ‘Our Enemy, the State.’ Other influential libertarians, such as Walter Grinder and Murray Rothbard, have stressed the importance of Oppenheimer as well, and thereby extended his influence to a much wider audience. The ideas of Oppenheimer were disseminated by fellow intellectuals, who in turn influenced thousands of their readers. This … happened because Oppenheimer wrote like the scholar he was, rather than writing the simplistic pap in the hope of reaching a popular audience.” (Pg. viii-ix)

Author Franz Oppenheimer wrote in the ‘Author’s Preface,’ “This little book… has, unquestionably, revived the discussion on the origin and essence of the State.” (Pg. il) Later, he says, “It is not my purpose to develop this historical theme. I am concerned only in tracing the development of the sociologic idea of the State. The first effect of this meeting of the two streams of thought was a mischievous confusion of terminology… In this little book I have followed the Western European terminology. By the ‘State,’ I do not mean the human aggregation which may perchance COME ABOUT TO BE, as it properly SHOULD BE. I mean by it that summation of privileges and dominating positions which are brought into being by extra-economic power. And in contrast to this, I mean by Society, the totality of concepts of all purely natural relations and institutions between man and man, which will not be fully realized until the last remnant of the creations of the barbaric ‘ages of conquest and migration,’ has been eliminated form community life.” (Pg. lv-lvi)

He begins the book, “This treatise regards the State from the sociological standpoint only, not from the juristic… Our object is to trace the development of the State from its socio-psychological genesis up to its modern constitutional form; after that we shall endeavor to present a well-founded prognosis concerning its future development… This treatise is, in short, a contribution to the philosophy of State development; but only in so far as the law of development here traced from its generic form affects also the social problems common to all forms of the modern State… to anticipate somewhat the outcome of our researches, every State has been and is a class State, and every theory of the State has been and is a class theory.” (Pg. 3-4)

He states, “all the ground of not occupied economically, this must mean that it has been preempted politically. Since land could not have acquired ‘natural scarcity,’ the scarcity must have been ‘legal.’ This means that the land has been preempted by a ruling class against its subject class, and settlement prevented. Therefore the State, as a class State, can have originated in no other way than through conquest and subjugation. This view, the so-called ‘sociologic idea of the State,’ as the following will show, is supported in ample manner by well-known historical facts. And yet most modern historians have rejected it, holding that both groups, amalgamated by war into one State, before that time had, each for itself formed a ‘State.’ As there is not method of obtaining historical proof to the contrary, since the beginnings of human history are unknown, we should arrive at a verdict of ‘not proven,’ were it not that, deductively, there is the absolute certainty that the State, as history shows it, the class State, could not have come about except through warlike subjugation.” (Pg. 8)

He outlines, “In the genesis of the State, from the subjection of a peasant folk by a tribe of herdsmen or by sea nomads, six stages may be distinguished… The first stage comprises robbery and killing in border fights, endless combats broken neither by peace nor by armistice… The State may remain stationary at this point for centuries… Gradually… there develops the second [stage], in which the peasant, through thousands of unsuccessful attempts at revolt, has accepted his fate and has ceased every resistance… The third stage arrives when the ‘surplus’ obtained by the peasantry is brought by them regularly to the tents of the herdsmen as ‘tribute,’ a regulation which affords to both parties self-evident and considerable advantages. By this means, the peasantry is relieved entirely from the little irregularities connected with the former method of taxation… The fourth stage… adds the decisive factor in the development of the State… namely, the union on one strip of land of both ethnic groups… the fourth to the fifth stage… fashions almost completely the full State. Quarrels arise between neighboring villages or clans, which the lords no longer permit to be fought out… The lords assume the right to arbitrate, and … to enforce their judgment… The necessity of keeping the subjects in order and at the same time of maintaining them at their full capacity for labor, leads step by step from the fifth to the sixth stage, in which the State, by acquiring full intra-nationality and by the evolution of ‘Nationality,’ is developed in every sense. The need becomes more and more frequent to interfere, to allay difficulties, to punish, or to coerce obedience; and thus develop the habit of rule and the usages of government.” (Pg. 27-37)

He clarifies, “throughout this book, it is not the fortune of a single people that is investigated; it is rather the object of the author to narrate the typical development, the universal consequences, of the same basic traits of mankind wherever they are placed… The process to be narrated now is a change, gradually consummated but fundamentally revolutionary, of the political and social articulation of the primitive feudal State: the central authority loses its political power to the territorial nobility; the common freeman sinks from his status, while the ‘subject’ mounts.” (Pg. 82)

He notes, “The combination of Caesar and Pope tends in all cases to develop the extreme forms of despotism; while the partition of spiritual and temporal functions brings it about that their exponents mutually check and counterbalance one another.” (Pg. 83)

Later, he says, “we do not maintain that the city comes thus into being, but only the INDUSTRIAL CITY. There has been in existence the real historical city, to be found in every developed feudal State… Although there may have been a few changes in the exterior of the historical city, there has taken place an internal revolution on a magnificent scale. The industrial city is directly opposed to the State. As the State is the developed political means, so the industrial city is the developed economic means. The great contest filling universal history, nay its very meaning, henceforth takes place between city and State. The city as an economic, political body undermines the feudal system with political and economic arms. With the first the city FORCES, with the second it LURES, their power away from the feudal master class.” (Pg. 106-107)

He summarizes, “The system of exchange by means of money matures into Capitalism, and brings into being new classes in juxtaposition to the landowners; the capitalist demands equal rights with the formerly privileged orders, and finally obtains them by revolutionizing the lower plebs. In this attack on the sacredly established order of things, the capitalists unite with the lower classes, naturally under the banner of ‘natural law.’ But as soon as the victory has been achieved, the class based on movable wealth, the so-called middle class, turns its arms on the lower classes, makes peace with its former opponents, and invokes in its reactionary fight on the proletarians, its late allies, the theory of legitimacy, or makes use of an evil admixture of arguments based partly on legitimacy and partly on pseudo-liberalism. In this manner the State has gradually matured from the primitive robber State, through the stages of the developed feudal State, through absolutism, to the modern constitutional State.” (Pg. 114)

He states, ‘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 had 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.” (Pg. 117)

He concludes, “Athens was doomed to dissolution… there was no outlet except death to the population… Our path will lead to life. The same conclusion is found by either the historical-philosophical view, which took into account the tendency of the DEVELOPMENT OF THE STATE, or the study of political economy, which regards the tendency of economic development; viz, that the economic means wins along the whole line; while the political means disappears from the life of society, in that one of its creations, which is most ancient and most tenacious of life, Capitalism, decays with large landed estates and ground rentals. This has been the path of suffering and of salvation of humanity… from war to peace, from the hostile splitting up of the hordes to the peaceful unity of mankind, from brutality to humanity, from the exploiting State of robbery to the Freeman’s Citizenship.” (Pg. 129)

This book will appeal to many Libertarians, anarchists, and similarly-minded persons.

[Sean Rosenthal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting Quotes:

"I propose in the following discussion to call one's own labor and the equivalent exchange of one's own labor for the labor of others, the 'economic means' for the satisfaction of needs, while the unrequited appropriation of the labor of others will be called the 'political means.' . . .

"All world history, from primitive times up to our own civilization, presents a single phase, a contest namely between the economic and the political means; and it can present only this phase until we have achieved free citizenship . . .

"The State is an organization of the political means. No State, therefore, can come into being until the economic means has created a definite number of objects for the satisfaction of needs, which objects may be taken away or appropriated by warlike robbery."

-Franz Oppenheimer, the State

"Wherever opportunity offers, and man possesses the power, he prefers political to economic means for the preservation of his life. And perhaps this is true not alone of man, for according to Maeterlinck's Life of the Bees, a swarm which has once made the experiment of obtaining honey from a foreign hive, by robbery instead of by tedious building, is thenceforth spoiled for the 'economic means.' From working bees, robber bees have developed.

-Franz Oppenheimer, the State


"[When] the Feudal State has reached its pinnacle[,] [i]t forms, politically and socially, a hierarchy of numerous strata; of which, in all cases, the lower is bound to render service to the next above it, and the superior is bound to render protection to the one below. The pyramid rests on the laboring population, of whom the major part are as yet peasants; the surplus of their labor, the ground rental, the entire 'surplus value' of the economic means is used to support the upper strata of society."

-Franz Oppenheimer, the State, 1914

I had never really understood before why so many people found the labor theory of value compelling during the time from Adam Smith through Karl Marx. I wonder if its attraction partially followed from the previous structuring of society during feudalism, in which labor was in a very compelling sense the primary source of value. This analogy to feudalism (allegedly a necessary step on the inevitable road to communism) would also explain Marx's endorsement of his false theory that the bourgeois expropriated the labor of the proletariat.

[Alican · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oppenheimer's State contains pretty unique aproach to early state theories. He is seen as a critique of marxist aproach with the 'political means' perspective of society. When in Engels' "origin of the state, family and private property" the state derives from the society itself, for oppenheimer the state concept is actually unfamiliar with both 'villager'(or settled) and 'sheppards'(nomads) which actually becomes conquered and conquerer communities after they encounter with eachother. As we can see here the Conquest creates the states.

It is a quite precious book if you are study about state, classes and their origins, especially when it is read with the Engels' work.

[Cortney R · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and quick theory on where government comes from.

[Bálint Táborszki · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic book, one of the most important books of political philosopy and absolutely indispensible for a proper understanding of the nature and history of government. The State - as Oppenheimer explains - in essence is the means with which one group of people enslaves and plunders a subjugated group. It is the means of those who want to live off not by productive work (the economic means, as he calls it) but by violent robbery (the political means to wealth). He goes through the history of well-known and lesser-known states to trace the development from its genesis, when the first group of shepherds realized that it is more profitable to keep a foreign group enslaved instead of merely plundering and murdering them, to the modern constitutional state and demonstrates how throughout the ages and changes the form of the State remains domination and its content remains the raw plunder of the subjugated group by a ruling class. The fact that the ruling class serves as a protector of the plundered is often seen as proof that the State is a benign institution; yet, as Oppenheimer shows, nothing could be more natural than the fact that those who live off of the products of their slaves protect their serfs from outside aggression and internal conflicts to keep them productive. In short, the State is, has always been and will always be but a criminal organization.

There is a reason why this book was so influential that it made an enormous impression on Albert Jay Nock, Murray N. Rothbard and consequently the modern libertarian movement. It is indeed brilliant.

As a sidenote, I never really understood the concept of feudalism before. That phase of history always eluded my understanding for its manifestations varied so greatly through time and place and I never saw the fundamental common denominator. Oppenheimer explains the phenomenon clearly and shows how the same laws of dominion manifest themselves throughout the countless different instances of the feudal arrangement not just in Medieval Europe, but in all around the world.

[DrBabić · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book, not an easy read. German to English translation might be a cause. A lot of good ideas, I wish there was a revised edition with a better structure.

--------
There are two fundamentally opposed means whereby man, requiring sustenance, is impelled to obtain the necessary means for satisfying his desires. These are work and robbery, one’s own labor and the forcible appropriation of the labor of others… I propose in the following discussion to call one’s own labor and the equivalent exchange of one’s own labor for the labor of others, the “economic means” for the satisfaction of needs, while the unrequited appropriation of the labor of others will be called the “political means.”Franz Oppenheimer argues that there are two fundamentally opposed ways of acquiring wealth: the “political means” through coercion, and the “economic means” through peaceful trade.

-------

What, then, is the State as a sociological concept? The State, completely in its genesis, essentially and almost completely during the first stages of its existence, is a social institution, forced by a victorious group of men on a defeated group, with the sole purpose of regulating the dominion of the victorious group over the vanquished, and securing itself against revolt from within and attacks from abroad. Teleologically, this dominion had no other purpose than the economic exploitation of the vanquished by the victors.
No primitive state known to history originated in any other manner.

[Bernard English · Rating 4 out of 5]

The nation begins because conquerors decided that sparing the victims in order to exploit their labor is better than just killing them off. Thus begins organized exploitation and the long history of class conflict. Oppenheimer was writing at a time when there really was far more ethnological and anthropological data to bolster his case than when Marx and Engels or Spencer were writing so that his arguments are more convincing.

[Ganimarepublic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone should read at least once.
Hillarious.

[Marco García Panizo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesante teoría, con multitud de argumentos y referencias.

Ciertamente, algunas afirmaciones hay que cogerlas con pinzas, y el desarrollo de la narración se hace un poco tedioso a veces.

[Reed Schwartz · Rating 3 out of 5]

we live in a State

[AK]

You can't write sociology like this any more. What's the topic? The state. The state where? States all over the world. From what period? From the time of "huntsmen and grubbers" to the "modern constitutional state." This book is broad as hell and slippery as can be. There are useful insights within but they are hard to grab.

It is no wonder most people who now claim to be influenced by Franz Oppenheimer seem to have a vague idea what he actually said or what he was actually proposing. They see that he defines the state as "one class dominating over another class," and that his ideal society will have no state, and so Oppenheimer has become a name dropped by free market libertarians, anarcho-capitalists, and 'American communitarians' among others, all of whom seem to claim them as one of their own. Oppenheimer, a Jewish man who wrote the plan for one the first agricultural communes in Palestine in 1911, is mentioned on libertarian forefather and anti-Semite's Albert Nock's wikipedia page as an "anti-collectivest thinker" who deeply inspired Nock. According to others, Oppenheimer is either a left-anarchist who hated the state and loved communitarianism, or he was a "minarchist" who believes that the state should exist, but only to protect private property. Franz Oppenheimer, a sociologist for anyone who has a contentious relationship with the idea of a state, no matter what form that contentiousness might take!

I don't have any clarity to add to the matter, unfortunately. The ideas in this book look completely different depending on what angle the light hits them. I'm reading it because the agrarian communitarian turned fascist I study was influenced by him, so perhaps we can add 'agricultural fascism' to the list of ideologies that claim Oppenheimer as an inspiration. I'll keep trying to sort this out.

[Ronald · Rating 3 out of 5]

First published in Germany in 1908, this book by Dr. Franz Oppenheimer traces the development of the State from its "socio-psychological genesis up to its modern constitutional form."

[Will Green · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read enough of it...Maybe I'll buy it again soon.

[Aaron Yoder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book was a bit over my head. But still very good!

[Mz · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://marginalia.gr/arthro/o-franz-...

[Joshua Leach · Rating 5 out of 5]

My thoughts: https://sixfootturkey.blogspot.com/20...