We typically think of "the state" as a structure that is created to protect the interests of the ruling class, by using (ultimately) "special bodies of armed men, prisons, etc." This is definitely the role that the state plays, I'll assume that part isn't controversial.
This also seems to be a good description of how the state is created - eg. feudalism is overthrown, the feudal state is abolished, and the victorious capitalist class establishes a new and different state to suit their needs. Establishing this new state is a historical process (involving trial and error, perhaps reusing parts of the old state, etc.) but the general pattern holds: the new ruling class creates a new state.
But what about more complex cases? Is it possible to have "bodies of armed men" arise first, and later establish themselves as a ruling class? Surely there must be examples of this, eg. a conquering warband ends up with territory that it now needs to administer, tax, prevent rebellion, etc. Or perhaps failed/partial revolutions where the old state is overthrown, but a new one is not established, so the remnants of the military establish themselves as the new state, and therefore as the new ruling class.
What I'm getting at is that perhaps the state and the ruling class create each other through a dialectical and historically contingent process. Maybe the bourgeois class designing and building a new state for itself, from scratch, is the exception historically (and/or an oversimplification in that case as well.) This would have big implications for how we think about post-revolutionary states.
I'm sure that there must be some existing writing about this - can anyone point me in the right direction here?
I highly recommend you check out On Kings by Marshall Sahlins and David Graeber. Has tons of examples of state formation proceeding from "bodies of armed men." Likewise, Society Against the State: Essays in Political Anthropology by Pierre Clastres goes over Brazilian rainforest tribal structure, and how they rejected coercive state power/a standard ruling class while still having a functioning and complicated society. The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815 by Richard White uses Society Against the State in examining Algonquin society during the 17th-19th century and has similar conclusions.
Interesting, I appreciate the recommendations. Not exactly what I expected, but I'm not sure what I did expect. Those look like interesting examples to think about.
On the idea of "bodies of armed men" preceding a state, I definitely don't think this is controversial. I don't have any particular examples on hand, but I would see it as reasonable to take this state on any of the (many) military coups that have rising throughout history. However, if we look at such a coup as an event in the Badiouian sense, I'd contend that any such event requires a prerequisite ideological frame to proceed. Getting to ideology raises some interesting questions, because it requires us to consider what frames the event, and more generally, whether it is the state or ruling class that create each other at all, or if there is something else that proceeds these that we have to consider as the locus point.
On this idea, I would point to Adorno of all people having some solid insight. He does not believe that either 'the state', or 'the ruling class' really creates one other, but rather both are formed by ideology. This idea seems pretty novel, and doesn't seem to answer out question about which creates which, but Adorno's views on how ideology operates have important implications upon how a social totality then comes to be. This is not to say that it is not important whether the state or the ruling class comes first, but rather that to really understand either being thrust into existence, we have to dig a bit deeper. So whilst I don't mean to downplay the original question at all, I would like to offer a thought experiment on how these things come to be - and particularly come to be accepted - in the first place. Namely, how these structures are assigned meaning - and thereby a validated existence - by the social body retroactively to when they come to be.
Adorno's theory of 'identity-thinking' posits that the social reality/dogma of a particular social totality becomes the foundation of how we can think within that totality. More than that, the social comes to be the metaphysical and epistemological grounding of a society; how we are framed to think creates - or validates - the state, and the ruling class, and retroactively positions them as some preordained order. Viz., the ideological becomes the frame of a given social totality, and when this frame is created, it enshrines the totality as a kind of accepted state of affairs, as part of the 'essential nature' of that society.
However - and vitally - in a dialectical reversal, it is neither the state, nor the ruling class that creates this totality. It is the social body - the 'discourse' - itself. Because when a conceptual frame (ideology) enters the social body and becomes predominant, the world becomes measured against this: "cut to fit". That is to say, a state or ruling class coming into being (seizing power) is one thing, but what give these authority is the process whereby they become an accepted part of the totality. Often retroactively, whereby the ideological frame of a given totality comes to frame it, and the world is then understood through it.
I guess what Adorno is trying to say here with his contention that ideology works retroactively is that there does not need to be some maniacal overlords pulling the strings to create the frame of a social totality. The social totality is rather the confluence of a million little decisions made made toward some end that retroactively creates a state of affairs that ideologically frame that society. Which is to say that a state and ruling class proceed from the ideological frame of a social body, yet are retroactively framed as the kind of 'natural state of affairs' of that social body.
Any state or ruling class can come into being, but what gives them power is the process whereby they come to be this kind of a priori accepted fact in the world. This happens through the process of 'identity-thinking'. So I would contend that it is not the state nor the ruling class that create each other, but rather identity-thinking that creates them both.
This obviously isn't aways the case, there are cases of violent seizures of power against the wishes of the social body. But, it gives valuable insight into how a state and ruling class that we view as 'wrong' can come to be not only in power, but socially accepted.
Apologies, I know this doesn't wholly answer your original question, but I hope you found some value in it. I believe that in discussions of the event that assigns some new state or ruling class it is important to consider how these things are ideologically formed, and retroactively validated in the first place. This is pretty heady ontological and epistemological stuff and doesn't really offer the overt material analysis necessary particular examples of whether the state or ruling class precedes the other in a given event. But I hope it has offered some interesting considerations on how these structures come to be validated lol. I guess my overall message is that key to these discussions of a state or class seizing power is the function of ideology and how informs and validates the event.
If you have any more interest in this topic, I'd recommend looking into Adorno's Negative dialectics https://aaaaarg.fail/upload/theodor-w-adorno-negative-dialectics-translated-by-e-b-ashton-2.pdf (if you are interested in this text, I'd recommend a strong familiarity with Kant, Hegel, Marx and Heidegger.)
For fantastic introductory texts that explains the context of Adorno's thought and how it relates to these thinkers, Buck-Morss The origin of negative dialectics and Cook (ed.)'s Theodor Adorno: key concepts are great https://aaaaarg.fail/upload/susan-buckmorss-the-origin-of-negative-dialectics-theodor-w-adorno-walter-benjamin-and-the-frankfurt-institute-1.pdf https://aaaaarg.fail/upload/deborah-cook-theodor-adorno-key-concepts.pdf
And once again, apologies that I haven't wholly answered your question (I've more so offered an aside), but I hope its given you some considerations about how it can even become the case that an event proceeds whereby a state or ruling class becomes thrust into being.
That's interesting, although it's kind of a lot to puzzle through at once.
I do think I was under-appreciating the role that ideology plays here, but I think Adorno's argument (if I'm understanding it correctly) is taking it too far by essentially giving it primacy, it seems anti-materialist. I also don't understand how (again, if I'm getting this right) ideological hegemony precedes revolutions, and shapes the immediately-post-revolutionary institutions and class organization, and also retroactively justifies the whole thing. It seems like only 2 of those 3 would be needed? Unless, again, ideology is just the main factor driving everything, which I'm skeptical on.
I am interested in learning more about how ideology works, how it's formed, perpetuated, changed, etc., I think in the past I've generally underestimated this. I was recently reading some secondary sources on Gramsci, since I thought diving into the prison notebooks was too intimidating. Any other recs? Especially as a relative starting point for an ignorant stemlord?
Yeah sorry it’s a lot of heady stuff to get into at once haha.
In giving ideology (what Adorno terms identity-thinking) primacy, he’s trying to articulate that the ‘event’ can’t proceed without some epistemological and ontological basis (epistemologically: I believe it is the case that change is needed / ontologically: the tensions of the world demands change, etc). This isn’t, for Adorno, anti materialist because he believes that, to even think in such a way requires some material grounding. A concept cannot precede its object; Ideology can’t proceed without some material condition informing at at some point. Re your second point, ideology proceeds an event because it is the causation for it. And It premedites how it is viewed after because the epistemological frame that informed the event shapes how it is even understood posthumously and the narratives we use to define it. And then this premeditation also informs how we act after the event.
This view assumes, as you are sceptical of , (rightly) that ideology shapes everything.
It is a view that is very compelling when you look into it, and ones I personally hold. Good reading on the ontology of ideology and how it functions is: Althusser (essential!), Foucault, Agamemnon, Debord, the entirety of the Frankfurt School, delueze, (early) zizek (before he became a pop philosopher), badiou and stiegler. These thinkers all describe or differently, but all tried to articulate how ideology frames our actions and then enframes us as subjects.
A good starting point would be the ‘culture industry’ chapter from Adorno and Hoekheimers Dialectic of Enlightenment and Mark Fishers Capitalist Realism. The former is the most essential text on describing how ideology functions in capitalist society, and how capitalist ideology and fascism are fruit from the same tree. The latter is a wonderful exposition of the history of theory on ideology. It covers nearly all these thinkers and tries to describe them in simple language whilst also defining the malaise of the contemporary techno capitalist subject and how it is premediated by ideology. Now I’ve mentioned it, I’d deffo recommend Fisher as a starting point. But additionally, you HAVE to read althussers ‘ideology and ideological state apparatuses’
Lmk if you would like further recs for the others I mentioned. I hope this was somewhat helpful in clarifying! Sorry I’m very drunk in writing this, hope I was clear lol
