The state as an apparatus of control

 

This is the image of the state with which most people are familiar. It is concerned with policy-making and policy-implementation. It means much more, therefore, than the government or any other group of politicians who may control the administrative apparatus at the centre. It consists also of all other public servants including the armed forces, the police and administrators in local government.

 

 

It may help in envisaging the scope of the modern state to examine the broad functions of the contemporary state. The functions can be grouped under five headings.

 

3.1.1 Guardian of law, order and property

This is the oldest function of the state. It includes:

 

 

1.policing backed up if necessary by the armed forces

 

2. punishing and imprisoning

 

3. interpreting the laws the function of the judiciary

 

 

3.1.2 Treasurer

This takes two forms.

 

1. Tax gatherer. This is another ancient function. Today more than two-thirds of annual British revenue is collected by the Board of Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise. Schumpeter called the modern state the 'tax state' because of its scope and range. ¹ Taxes make a great impact on the public as they emphasise the punitive role of the state.

 

2. Accountant. This is a more recent function in a professional sense. The Comptroller and Auditor General and his department examine the details of the national accounts. He is independent of the executive and responsible to Parliament.

3.1.3 Inspector

This is a more recent function, dating from the nineteenth century. Factory inspection began in 1833 and sanitary inspection in 1866. Vehicle licensing and safety checks are twentieth-century functions and food inspection is even more recent. The state with its inspectors is enforcing standards in numerous fields.

 

3.1.4 Allocator of values

Because of its activities in rewarding some sections of society and penalising others the modern state is very much involved in making value-judgements. This is especially so with the redistribution of income, collected through the state's function as tax gatherer, taking place under the umbrella of what is called the 'Welfare State'. Some of these functions go back to the late nineteenth century

 

 

	1. Provider for the poor. This is the oldest social function, beginning with the Elizabethan Poor Law. Money is paid, though often with increasing reluctance, to people not able to provide for themselves.

 

	2. Educator. Education is compulsory between the ages of 5 and 16 and is largely administered by local governments though, increasingly, central government has intervened as inspector and regulator.

 

	3. Insurance agent. The state makes provision for people in work against sickness and unemployment. Contributions by citizens to these schemes helps to provide benefit after retirement in the form of old age pensions.

 

4. House builder and landlord. In Britain this function dates from the 1920s when 'homes fit for heroes to live in' were provided for ex-servicemen of the First World War. Provision was delegated to local governments who rented them out and so became landlords.

 

	5. Doctor and nurse. Since 1947 British governments have administered a National Health Service, providing free medical care to the population.

 

3.1.5 Coordinator

 

The modern state is a coordinator in three ways: it coordinates functions, resources and policies

1. To coordinate functions governments have increasingly structured themselves on hierarchical lines. In parliamentary government there is a tendency to ranking among ministers with not all departmental ministers being in the cabinet. There is what S.E. Finer called the 'cone of command' with the prime minister at the top. ² The increase in the functions of the state which has gradually taken place has led to more layering of power, and this is bound to lead to more coordination

2. The coordination of resources takes place in national treasuries which vet the annual estimates of expenditure of all government departments. A process of evaluation and prioritisation takes place with treasuries arbitrating between different claims. Demands from sections of the electorate and pressure groups are great, and these tend to be passed on to appropriate government departments

3. The coordination of policies is necessary because of the proliferation of policy-making. In Britain the trend is for more of it to proceed in committees and sub-committees of the Cabinet and especially in inter-departmental committees of civil servants. Ultimate synchronisation, at one time achieved through the Cabinet Office, has in recent years passed increasingly to the Prime Minister's Office. As economic policy and the management of it has become more and more important, the necessity for a position giving national direction and supervising the steering has correspondingly increased

 

To sum up: the state as an apparatus of control has passed through several stages in the last three centuries, usefully summarised under four headings. The early or 'primitive state' was characterised by rudimentary law and order, some legal recognition of claims to property, and a currency and a taxation system that required the beginnings of bureaucracy. Industrialisation and the advent of democracy made this type of state obsolete. It was succeeded by the 'collectivist state' with many more functions, a much larger bureaucracy and a much greater impact on its people, largely in response to their pressures. In the twentieth century the 'interventionist state' emerged as a result of experiences of wartime control of economies, intellectual teachings of economists like Keynes and the growing strength of left-wing ideas and political parties. Over the last twenty years a fourth type, the 'managerial state', has arisen. It is dedicated to efficient management, decentralisation of decision-making within a framework of centrally devised guidelines, and a brisk assertion of centralised power without too much attention to the niceties of constitutional conventions and civilised behaviour.