Ruling classes can maintain permanent armed forces that work-bound classes cannot match

Evidence

It is stupid to believe that when one is confronted by illegal private action one can counterpose to it another similar action—in other words, combat commando tactics by means of commando tactics. It means believing that the State remains perpetually inert, which is never the case—quite apart from all the other conditions which differ. The class factor leads to a fundamental difference: a class which has to work fixed hours every day cannot have permanent and specialised assault organisations—as can a class which has ample financial resources and all of whose members are not tied down by fixed work. At any hour of day or night, these by now professional organisations are able to strike decisive blows, and strike them unawares. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 885

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: The material basis of asymmetric struggle foreshadows later analysis of state violence and policing against movements with no standing capacity.

Related

• A military class can permeate and partly occupy the state apparatus (similarity 0.79)
• Public authorities can sustain private armed forces beyond city control (similarity 0.78)