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Repressive State Apparatus

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Repressive State Apparatus

The Repressive State Apparatus is a component of the State Apparatus. It is Mechanism of Reproduction used by the Accumulating Class to help them reproduce the labour requirements of The System." It includes the courts, police, military, prisons, and government powers that are used to violently suppress and control.[1] [2]

Mechanisms of Reproduction

Elements of the State

Related LP Terms

Non-LP Related Terms

Notes

Quotes

"The role of the repressive State apparatus, insofar as it is a repressive apparatus, consists essentially in securing by force (physical or otherwise) the political conditions of the reproduction of relations of production which are in the last resort relations of exploitation. Not only does the State apparatus contribute generously to its own production (the capitalist State contains political dynasties, military dynasties, etc.), but also and above all, the State apparatus secures by repression (from the most brutal physical force, via mere administrative commands and interdictions, to open and tacit censorship) the political conditions for the action of the Ideological State Apparatuses."[3]

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Footnotes

  1. Louis Althusser, On Ideology (New York: Verso, 2008).
  2. Althusser, Louis. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.” In Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. Monthly Review Press, 1971. https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1970/ideology.htm.
  3. Althusser, Louis. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.” In Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. Monthly Review Press, 1971. https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1970/ideology.htm.