Essay on the origin of the State (I)

Abstract

Ihis essay is the second in a series of studies on the problem of the State to be published successively in Análise Social. The first one concerning the definition of the State was included in no. 47 from this publication. The provisional result
reached there - that is, the definition of the State as a political power juridically - is the supporting point for the research, started in the present issue, concerning the famous problem of the origin of the State. The general plan the author intends to develop embraces the following points: 1. Hans Kelsen and the primitive juridical and state order; 2. The State origin according to Friedrich Engels; 3. The problem of the State origin in Lewis Morgan and Henry Maine; 4. The State origin in the Marxist corpus: from the Grundrisse up to structuralism; 5. contributions by the contemporary anthropology; 6. Final discussion. Among these six points, only the first three are here dealt with. The critical examination of Engel's theory on the State origin is indeed one of the main targets here aimed to. It is not, nevertheless, the only one. Much further and preparing the future approach to the great «kinds» of State in their articulation with the corresponding social formations, the author intends to identify and, if possible, understand the «first» political structures ever known.