>>2936528You are wrong. Being "tough on crime" is incompatible with the theory of scientific socialism, because the state does not stand above social classes; rather, it is an instrument used by one social class to oppress another. For a communist revolution to overthrow the bourgeois state and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, actions deemed "crimes" by the bourgeois state will be necessary—and such state repression would inevitably be directed against communists and workers. Therefore, the bourgeois state must never be granted the power to repress. Instead, the militias of the workers' self-defense committees must employ whatever force is required to consolidate the supremacy of the proletariat and suppress counter-revolutionaries, liberals, reactionaries, lackeys of imperialism, opportunists, and those who advocate for class conciliation—while also preparing for the re-education of enemies to encourage their surrender and demoralization.
The state is an instrument through which one class oppresses another, because a class-based society is characterized by irreconcilable antagonisms between property owners—both against one another and against those who lack property—which inevitably lead to conflict. For this reason, an entity separate from and alienated from this society emerges to provide a certain hypocritical “order” that maintains the ruling classes in power within a class-based society.
The industrial reserve army is necessary for capitalists to intensify the exploitation of workers; otherwise, instability and a decline in profit rates will occur, hindering the accumulation of capital in a capitalist system within a bourgeois state.
The state is not a neutral entity and it cannot have any opportunity to subdue the workers. Scientific socialism and revolutionary socialism are incompatible with any demand to empower the bourgeois state to repress the workers and take away their independence so that the proletarian class cannot organize, arm itself, and seize power to disarm the bourgeois class and its agents.
I will begin with excerpts from the political program of Marx and Engels that demonstrate this position and outline some points regarding how to combat the problem of the industrial reserve army of workers:
<4. Universal arming of the people. In future armies shall at the same time be workers’ armies so that the armed forces will not only consume, as in the past, but produce even more than it costs to maintain them.
<Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels March, 1848, Demands of the Communist Party in Germanyhttps://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/03/24.htm
<(ii) Gradual expropriation of landowners, industrialists, railroad magnates and shipowners, partly through competition by state industry, partly directly through compensation in the form of bonds.
<(iii) Confiscation of the possessions of all emigrants and rebels against the majority of the people.
<(iv) Organization of labor or employment of proletarians on publicly owned land, in factories and workshops, with competition among the workers being abolished and with the factory owners, in so far as they still exist, being obliged to pay the same high wages as those paid by the state.
<(v) An equal obligation on all members of society to work until such time as private property has been completely abolished. Formation of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
<(vi) Centralization of money and credit in the hands of the state through a national bank with state capital, and the suppression of all private banks and bankers.
<Frederick Engels, 1847, The Principles of Communismhttps://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm
<The French socialist workers, in adopting as the aim of their efforts the political and economic expropriation of the capitalist class and the return to community of all the means of production, have decided, as a means of organization and struggle, to enter the elections with the following immediate demands:
<A. Political Section<1. Abolition of all laws over the press, meetings and associations and above all the law against the International Working Men's Association. Removal of the livret, [6] that administrative control over the working class, and of all the articles of the Code [7] establishing the inferiority of the worker in relation to the boss, and of woman in relation to man;[…]
<3. Suppression of the public debt;<4. Abolition of standing armies and the general arming of the people;<5. The Commune to be master of its administration and its police.
<B. Economic Section
<1. One rest day each week or legal ban on employers imposing work more than six days out of seven. - Legal reduction of the working day to eight hours for adults. - A ban on children under fourteen years working in private workshops; and, between fourteen and sixteen years, reduction of the working day from eight to six hours;<2. Protective supervision of apprentices by the workers' organizations;<3. Legal minimum wage, determined each year according to the local price of food, by a workers' statistical commission;<4. Legal prohibition of bosses employing foreign workers at a wage less than that of French workers;<5. Equal pay for equal work, for workers of both sexes;<6. Scientific and professional instruction of all children, with their maintenance the responsibility of society, represented by the state and the Commune;<7. Responsibility of society for the old and the disabled;<8. Prohibition of all interference by employers in the administration of workers' friendly societies, provident societies, etc., which are returned to the exclusive control of the workers;<9. Responsibility of the bosses in the matter of accidents, guaranteed by a security paid by the employer into the workers' funds, and in proportion to the number of workers employed and the danger that the industry presents;<10. Intervention by the workers in the special regulations of the various workshops; an end to the right usurped by the bosses to impose any penalty on their workers in the form of fines or withholding of wages (decree by the Commune of 27 April 1871);<11. Annulment of all the contracts that have alienated public property (banks, railways, mines, etc.), and the exploitation of all state-owned workshops to be entrusted to the workers who work there;<12. Abolition of all indirect taxes and transformation of all direct taxes into a progressive tax on incomes over 3,000 francs. Suppression of all inheritance on a collateral line [8] and of all direct inheritance over 20,000 francs.
<Editorial Notes[…]
<6. The 'livret' was a certificate which a worker was legally obliged to present when taking up a new job, confirming that his debts and obligations to his previous employer had been discharged. The practice was finally abolished in 1890.<7. The Code Napoleon, the French law.
<Karl Marx and Jules Guesde, 1880, The Programme of the Parti Ouvrierhttps://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/05/parti-ouvrier.htmI will add another quote that proves my point in practice with Lenin:
<The party of the proletariat cannot rest content with a bourgeois parliamentary democratic republic, which throughout the world preserves and strives to perpetuate the monarchist instruments for the oppression of the masses, namely, the police, the standing army, and the privileged bureaucracy.
<The party fights for a more democratic workers’ and peasants’ republic, in which the police and the standing army will be abolished and replaced by the universally armed people, by a people’s militia; all officials will be not only elective, but also subject to recall at any time upon the demand of a majority of the electors; all officials, without exception, will be paid at a rate not exceeding the average wage of a competent worker; parliamentary representative institutions will be gradually replaced by Soviets of people’s representatives (from various classes and professions, or from various localities), functioning as both legislative and executive bodies.[…]
<11) Judges and other officials, both civil and military, to be elected by the people with the right to recall any of them at any time by decision of a majority of their electors.
<12) The police and standing army to be replaced by the universally armed people; workers and other employees to receive regular wages from the capitalists for the time devoted to public service in the people’s militia.[…]
<As a basic condition for the democratisation of our country’s national economy, the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party demands the abolition of all indirect taxes and the establishment of a progressive tax on incomes and inheritances.
<The high level of development of capitalism already achieved in banking and in the trustified branches of industry, on the one hand, and the economic disruption caused by the imperialist war, everywhere evoking a demand for state and public control of the production and distribution of all staple products, on the other, induce the Party to demand the nationalisation of the banks, syndicates (trusts), etc.
<To safeguard the working class from physical and moral deterioration, and develop its ability to carry on the struggle for emancipation, the Party demands:
<1) An eight-hour working day for all wage-workers, including a break of not less than one hour for meals where work is continuous. In dangerous and unhealthy industries the working day to be reduced to from four to six hours.
<2) A statutory weekly uninterrupted rest period of not less than forty-two hours for all wage-workers of both sexes in all branches of the national economy.
<3) Complete prohibition of overtime work.
<4) Prohibition of night-work (from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m.)in all branches of the national economy except in cases where it is absolutely necessary for technical reasons endorsed by the labour organisations—provided, however, that night-work does not exceed four hours.
<5) Prohibition of the employment of children of school age (under sixteen), restriction of the working day of adolescents (from sixteen to twenty) to four hours, and prohibition of the employment of adolescents on night-work in unhealthy industries and mines.
<6) Prohibition of female labour in all branches of industry injurious to women’s health; prohibition of night work for women; women to be released from work eight weeks before and eight weeks after child-birth without loss of pay and with free medical and medicinal aid.
<7) Establishment of nurseries for infants and young children and rooms for nursing mothers at all factories and other enterprises where women are employed; nursing mothers to be allowed recesses of at least half-hour duration at intervals of not more than three hours; such mothers to receive nursing benefit and their working day to be reduced to six hours.
<8) Full social insurance of workers:
<a) for all forms of wage-labour;
<b) for all forms of disablement, namely, sickness, injury, infirmity, old age, occupational disease, child-birth, widowhood, orphanhood, and also unemployment, etc.
<c) all insurance institutions to be administered entirely by the insured themselves;
<d) the cost of insurance to be borne by the capitalists;
<e) free medical and medicinal aid under the control of self-governing sick benefit societies, the management bodies of which are to be elected by the workers.
<9) The establishment of a labour inspectorate elected by the workers’ organisations and covering all enterprises employing hired labour, as well as domestic servants; women inspectors to be appointed in enterprises where female labour is employed.
<10) Sanitary laws to be enacted for improving hygienic conditions and protecting the life and health of workers in all enterprises where hired labour is employed; questions of hygiene to be handled by the sanitary inspectorate elected by the workers’ organisations.
<11) Housing laws to be enacted and a housing inspectorate elected by the workers’ organisations to be instituted for the purpose of sanitary inspection of dwelling houses. However, only by abolishing private property in land and building cheap and hygienic dwellings can the housing problem be solved.
<12) Industrial courts to be established in all branches of the national economy.
<13) Labour exchanges to be established for the proper organisation of work-finding facilities. These labour ex changes must be proletarian class organisations (organised on a non-parity basis), and must be closely associated with the trade unions and other working-class organisations and financed by the communal self-governing bodies.
<V. I. Lenin, 1917, Materials Relating to the Revision of the Party Programmehttps://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/reviprog/ch04.htm