In and Against the State: Discussion Notes for Socialists

by London Edinburgh Weekend Return Group, Seth Wheeler (Introduction)

Originally published as a pamphlet in 1979 and again by Pluto in 1980, In and Against the State brought together questions of working-class struggle and state power, exploring how revolutionary socialists might reconcile working in the public sector with their radical politics. Informed by autonomist political ideas and practices that were central to the protests of 1968, the book’s authors spoke to a generation of activists wrestling with the question of where to place their energies.

Forty years have passed, yet the questions it posed are still to be answered. As the eclipse of Corbynism and the onslaught of the global pandemic have demonstrated with brutal clarity, a renewed socialist strategy is needed more urgently than ever. 

This edition includes a new introduction by Seth Wheeler and an interview with John McDonnell that reflect on the continuing relevance of In and Against the State and the questions it raises.

Genres: Politics

200 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1980

Reviews

[Owen Hatherley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the recent Pluto edition of this famous pamphlet with the postface by John McDonnell. Took me a very long time to read this, as it came out when I was decreasingly convinced the left could usefully be 'in' a certain organisation, and while it doesn't deliver all it promises, a book Of Great Historical Interest. What's really happening here is post-1968 leftists, both middle class and working class, realising that they're working for the state, whether as bus drivers or social workers, and after some heavy breathing about why that's a bad thing (too much of the book is this) some very suggestive and provocative short theses about what they could do in it that could democratise and socialise how people experience "the welfare state". Some of the sections on how the public state of the time was lacking haven't aged well, typically; some of these seem like nice problems to have from the vantage point of the 2020s, albeit a little less so than in most books of its kind. The main problem is that the real interest of the book - the 'in' - takes up a great deal less space than the more familiar 'against'.

The McDonnell material is typically charming and interesting on how the GLC used the book in allocating funds and organising during the eighties, but the comments on the Corbyn era only made me recall that while the organisations that came out of that moment were hardly prefigurative and emancipatory in the way the authors of In And Against propose, they also lacked the hierarchical but predictable and easily understood chains of command and means of appeal of an old-school Fabian/Morrisonian bureaucracy. In fact, Corbynite organisations and media were nearly all run like start-ups, moving fast and breaking things with opaque structures, charismatic but unaccountable figures at the top, and almost zero democracy of either a representative or participatory form; and 'defending Jeremy' or 'keeping the AWL out' won't suffice to explain why this was. Some day, people will write the assessment of all that, and where it got us.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

An underappreciated text which uses a semi-inquiry method through discussion with various socialists involved in the state in some way or another - either as an employee or someone on the receiving end of certain state welfare institutions - which attempts to start formulating an answer to the difficult and still pertinent question of how revolutionary communists should approach the state. Overall I think it comes to interesting conclusions, and the idea of 'in and against' certainly holds up in some regards, however, there are a number of conclusions that seem to me (perhaps due to the blessing of hindsight) to be misguided, particularly that which argues we should work within and against the Labour Party.

[Jnoub101 · Rating 4 out of 5]

A flawed but inspiring work. I must say that even if I have big critiques of this book I also think the problems it engaged, and, more importantly, how it approached them, offer important lessons for radicals today.

[Call Me Ismail · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this very apolitically for apolitical reasons.

[Molly Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this for work so idk if it counts but I did really like it