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In and Against the State: Discussion Notes for Socialists
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.
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.
202 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 20, 2021
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November 2, 2025holds up very well after 50 years. The interview with J McD at the back was surprisingly interesting too. I’m not sure how anyone read this in the 1970s and thought the lesson was that we should all join the labour party, but respect for all the stuff they tried in the GLC. Maybe the recent revival was more of a post hoc justification for giving labour another go than a well thought out strategy. I suppose the thinking was that we need to be in the state in order to be against it, rather than the existence of a sizeable number of socialists as state workers being a simple fact of class composition as opposed to a concerted effort to get there.
Totally on board with the tactics, but I think the disavowal of revolutionary organisation falls a bit flat now. There’s a Leeds based rank & file group referenced in one of the sections that noone I asked had heard of. Might have been helpful to hear how that campaign went and if any lessons were drawn from it! Preserving memory of these things is an important role for any future org. Although their criticisms of efforts existing at the time seem quite reasonable and applicable to your SPs and SWPs of today - they don’t seem to have changed much.
The rush to identify candidates for 2026 in my local Your Party grouping is extremely disheartening. We have barely had any immediately political discussion as a group let alone developed a strategy for local government, or even more importantly, relationships in the local area. Doesn’t do much to assuage my fear that YP is more of a Campaign to Make Jeremy Corbyn the Prime Minister than an org with wide ranging potential. Say what you will about Sultana at least she seems to grasp that this is a long-term project. The reasoning that ‘people are desperate for an alternative to vote for’ may be true, but perhaps fails to separate the source of that desperation from its expression.
That being said I think reading this highlighted for me how much revolutionary organisation, (inter)national in scope, is necessary. I still just can’t make the leap from that thought to the idea that throwing ourselves against the gates of Westminster (or even city halls) one more time is our most immediate priority (this time it’ll be different? Why?).
I think the best contribution the book makes is stressing the extremely ambivalent or basically antagonistic relationship most people have with this thing called the state. It’s necessary for survival but presents itself as a demeaning, arbitrary and often actively violent and repressive relationship. This has only sharpened with the passage of time. I think the social base for anti-cuts/‘save our services’ campaigning has long gone - we can barely get union members to stick up for services and their livelihoods depend on it. I would feel awkward trying to make the case against council cuts to your average service user. The fact that they rely on council services to one degree or another makes the whole approach feel more like a protection racket than an attempt to build inside/outside power and solidarity. Mutual antagonism towards the state in service of an alternative for meeting immediate needs seems to me a better approach.
That takes us back to the tactics proposed in the book and the need to both imagine and act to create proletarian organisation that is self-sustaining and able to meet its own needs as far as possible. We need base-building not because it is a platform to launch working class leaders into the arms of the state, but to build the confidence and ability for proletarians to run society in their collective interest.
In my own service, given our structural power as workers is basically negative, doing this seems even more of a priority. What do workers need and want from a library service? What would space dedicated to culture and free and open exchange of ideas and information look like? What’s stopping us from just doing it? How can we begin to build that in the here and now? If the state is more a series of relationships rather than Kafka’s inscrutable and unreachable Castle, state workers are vital to that effort. To a certain degree, it may not even be as imposing a task as smashing some abstraction we call the state, although that of course should still be the log term end of all this.
Totally on board with the tactics, but I think the disavowal of revolutionary organisation falls a bit flat now. There’s a Leeds based rank & file group referenced in one of the sections that noone I asked had heard of. Might have been helpful to hear how that campaign went and if any lessons were drawn from it! Preserving memory of these things is an important role for any future org. Although their criticisms of efforts existing at the time seem quite reasonable and applicable to your SPs and SWPs of today - they don’t seem to have changed much.
The rush to identify candidates for 2026 in my local Your Party grouping is extremely disheartening. We have barely had any immediately political discussion as a group let alone developed a strategy for local government, or even more importantly, relationships in the local area. Doesn’t do much to assuage my fear that YP is more of a Campaign to Make Jeremy Corbyn the Prime Minister than an org with wide ranging potential. Say what you will about Sultana at least she seems to grasp that this is a long-term project. The reasoning that ‘people are desperate for an alternative to vote for’ may be true, but perhaps fails to separate the source of that desperation from its expression.
That being said I think reading this highlighted for me how much revolutionary organisation, (inter)national in scope, is necessary. I still just can’t make the leap from that thought to the idea that throwing ourselves against the gates of Westminster (or even city halls) one more time is our most immediate priority (this time it’ll be different? Why?).
I think the best contribution the book makes is stressing the extremely ambivalent or basically antagonistic relationship most people have with this thing called the state. It’s necessary for survival but presents itself as a demeaning, arbitrary and often actively violent and repressive relationship. This has only sharpened with the passage of time. I think the social base for anti-cuts/‘save our services’ campaigning has long gone - we can barely get union members to stick up for services and their livelihoods depend on it. I would feel awkward trying to make the case against council cuts to your average service user. The fact that they rely on council services to one degree or another makes the whole approach feel more like a protection racket than an attempt to build inside/outside power and solidarity. Mutual antagonism towards the state in service of an alternative for meeting immediate needs seems to me a better approach.
That takes us back to the tactics proposed in the book and the need to both imagine and act to create proletarian organisation that is self-sustaining and able to meet its own needs as far as possible. We need base-building not because it is a platform to launch working class leaders into the arms of the state, but to build the confidence and ability for proletarians to run society in their collective interest.
In my own service, given our structural power as workers is basically negative, doing this seems even more of a priority. What do workers need and want from a library service? What would space dedicated to culture and free and open exchange of ideas and information look like? What’s stopping us from just doing it? How can we begin to build that in the here and now? If the state is more a series of relationships rather than Kafka’s inscrutable and unreachable Castle, state workers are vital to that effort. To a certain degree, it may not even be as imposing a task as smashing some abstraction we call the state, although that of course should still be the log term end of all this.
April 25, 2026
Very interesting concepts. I think a lot of the bits added in forwards/postscripts were just repeating the same thing but with current issues, which i think is unnecessary.
I think a lot of the theories were repeated over and over, which makes for a slightly boring read.
I think the best parts of this book were the examples of how people had resisted the state, especially those where they were advocating ways of disruption that effected the management and not the working class ‘customers’.
It definitely raises more questions than it answers! I understand thats the point but i think more examples/ideas of practical steps would be helpful.
I think a lot of the theories were repeated over and over, which makes for a slightly boring read.
I think the best parts of this book were the examples of how people had resisted the state, especially those where they were advocating ways of disruption that effected the management and not the working class ‘customers’.
It definitely raises more questions than it answers! I understand thats the point but i think more examples/ideas of practical steps would be helpful.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews