The Contemporary Liberian State and Its Achilles Heel

By Darius David Sumo

Many have arguably accustomed some sort of ostensible thoughts of the STATE. For some, whenever the STATE is mentioned, they think of Western countries, cities, regions, etcetera. Some have even gone as far as complicating the government with the state, veiling their perceptions in shadow to the fact that the state is wielded by the government, which is part of the superstructure of a bourgeois society. From an ideological perspective, when we endeavor to contextualize the exact creed of “THE STATE,” we unmask the obscured dogma, which outdoes what we perceived the state to be. THE STATE, which arose after the decline of the Primitive Communal society, stands out as the repressive apparatus of society. That is, the government, consisting of the courts, the prisons, the police, and the military, maintains social relations to protect the arrogant owners controlling the means of production from the exploited and oppressed masses.

What Has Been the Role of the State?

The role of the state is multifaceted. The tri-thinkers, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Lenin, consistently argued that the role of the state, from antiquity to the present, has never been neutral. The state has always been an instrument of class rule, partially serving the interests of one member/class of a society, primarily working to appease the interests of the economically dominant or bourgeoisie. From owners of slaves to feudal lords, and today the advanced capitalists, the trend has always been about oppressing and exploiting to protect and serve the best interest of those who control the means of production or economic power.

Critically analyzing the state from a historical materialist perspective, which posits that the economic base of a society shapes its social, political, and superstructure, it becomes evident that the state is not an independent body and is conditioned by the material conditions of society. Marx and Engels viewed the state as an instrument of exploitation, used by the ruling class to maintain its power and privileges and promote ideologies that justified inequality and obscured the true nature of class relations. "The state is nothing but an instrument of oppression of one class by another.” Friedrich Engels. Vladimir Lenin also categorized “the state as a product and manifestation of irreconcilable class antagonism.”

Predicated upon the dreadful nature in which the state is used to suppress and protect the owning few from the exploited and oppressed masses of the people, I am optimistic it was the sole purpose Marx and Engels theorized the dictatorship of the proletariat in the “Communist Manifesto” in 1848 and the “Class Struggle in France” in 1850, which postulated about the working class seizing political power and using the state to suppress the resistance of the bourgeoisie, abolish private property, and reorganize the economy along socialist lines.

The state has always been an instrument of dictatorship: of the slave owner over the slave, the feudal lord over the serf, the capitalist over the workers and oppressed. The workers’ state maximizes democracy for the working class as it exercises a dictatorship over the remnants of the former capitalist ruling class. The overthrow of capitalism worldwide will set the stage for the gradual disappearance of the state as the world currently knows it. It will provide the conditions for the world’s wealth, produced in abundance by modern technology, to be shared in common. Capitalism’s demise will unlock the potential for humans to live in a modern, peaceful society, without any need for the old state’s instruments of suppression.

The Liberian Context:

As a tool of class rule, the state in the world today has developed into an extensive and brutal one. In Liberia, the state has been used to shield a few elites: officials of government, high-core business tycoons, mining corporations, etc., while ordinary Liberians continue to suffer from its aggression. For instance, the meager earnings of Liberian workers are used through the so-called revenue generation to finance members of the legislature, who end up making bad and egoistic laws for the people they represent. Judicial proceedings, lawmaking, and oversight responsibility are influenced by the state to favor the privileged few while the masses are obliged to suffer from its kickback.

To grasp a clearer picture of how the state operates as a tool for class oppression, it’s imperative that we catalogue a few cases for references.

The Workers' Strike at Bea Mountain:

Between 28th and 29th of February, 2024, local residents of Kinjor and workers of Bea Mountain, a Turkish-owned company primarily mining gold in Kinjor, Grand Cape Mount County, began a peaceful demonstration to voice grievances against the dreadful operations of the company. Land rights, environmental concerns, economic disparities, tremendous labor abuse, and other levels of exploitation were some of their genuine concerns. The peaceful strike turned out to be catastrophic, as law enforcement personnel of the Republic of Liberia, standing in defense of the company despite its tremendous exploitation of those workers, confronted the protesters with excessive force that led to workers losing their lives while several others suffered varying degrees of injuries, further exacerbating the already tense situation. The outcome of the police actions remains justifiable despite the multiple calls for justice by Liberians.

Section 11.2 ‘a’ and ‘b’ of the Mineral Development Agreement (MDA) signed between the Liberian government and Bea Mountain clearly outline our argument about the state: (a.) “The Company may, directly or by contract with a responsible provider of security services, establish, manage, and maintain its own asset and employee security and protection service for the purpose of protecting assets in the production area and in the immediate vicinity of other locations at which the Company has or maintains property and assets through its own security force, and to do so always in accordance with law and rules and regulations promulgated by the Ministry of Justice relating to security forces. Such a security force shall not bear arms and shall at all times operate subject to the authority of, and coordination with, the Liberia National Police.”

(b) “In the event the Company deems it absolutely necessary to have armed guards for the purpose of protecting assets in the production areas and in the immediate vicinity of other locations at which the Company has or maintains property and assets, the Company shall make a written request to the Government. The Government shall provide armed guards as needed, whose expenses shall be borne by the Company.”

The Firestone Retirement Benefits Case:

In 2021, the 13th Judicial Circuit Court in Margibi County ruled in favor of Firestone retirees, ordering Firestone to restore and retroactively pay their pension benefits. The lower court ruling stated that "the retirees should not be deprived of their right to receive pensions until death without due process". In a twist of turns, Firestone appealed this ruling to the Supreme Court, the so-called final arbiter of justice, in 2022. The Supreme Court, in protection of the interests of the few arrogant elites, reversed the lower court's ruling, stating that the National Social Security and Welfare Corporation (NASSCORP) Act of 1980 superseded the labor practices law of 1961. The Supreme Court ordered that retirees receive their retirement benefits from NASSCORP. However, Firestone was obligated to pay any difference if NASSCORP paid less than 40% of the retirees' eligible pension benefits. This decision highlights the role of the state in protecting the interests of those who control the means of production.

The Alleged Rape Saga of Former Deputy Minister J. Bryant McGill:

The alleged raped saga of former Deputy Minister McGill in September 2025 validates Friedrich Engels’ perspective about the state: “…the state is a product and a manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms…” Being an elite and a member of the privileged class, the state shielded McGill and ensured he remained free while the investigation was ongoing, contrasting it with the swift arrest of Sando Kromah, a Ministry of Agriculture contractor, in a similar rape case. With exceptions of the aforementioned instances, there are several other instances that may be utilized to accurately characterize the function of the state in Liberia. Notwithstanding, the extreme poverty in Liberia and the world today, the state is being used to finance its massive armed forces, occupation forces, and lethal robotic drone bombers, which it sends to nations like Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Venezuela at will. It also funds the police state and prison system, which currently houses well over 2 million people, half of whom are people of color.

Conclusion:

The actual nature of the state is shown to the world or reaffirmed every time striking workers are brutalized or jailed by the police on the order of the courts. It's reaffirmed when students of the University of Liberia are beaten unmercifully and jailed at the Monrovia Central Prison for demanding their rights to quality education and a decent society. Every time a teenage gets raped or sexually abused by government officials and there's no outcome, be aware of the role of the state. The state has been nothing but a tool of oppression against the masses. Until a progressive revolution, which will lead to the elimination of all class conditions, led by working people of the world, only then will the state finally be abolished, thereby ushering in a truly progressive or communist society.

Cde. Darius David Sumo is a Liberian Marxist-Leninist student radical, educator and an emerging writer; an Amílcar Cabral trained cadre. He is currently studying English Literature and Media & Communication at the University of Liberia. Cde. Sumo can be contacted via WhatsApp at +231777490692 or email: dariussumo@gmail.com