A bureaucratically centralized state capable of military defense and expansion, the management of economic crises, the construction of transport infrastructure, the domination of labor, and the suppression of oppressed groups is very much in capital’s general interests, so long as its interventions do not impinge upon the rights of property and the “liberties” of business. Such a state is an integral aspect of the capital relation, expressing and managing the forms of alienation unique to capitalist society and the conflicts it generates through institutions of impersonal power. Excessively fragmented state powers are generally suboptimal to this project, and they carry the risk that conflicts between regionalized part-sovereigns can become militarized.
David McNally, Blood and Money: War, Slavery, Finance, and Empire
