The Marxist theory of the state

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I:b 4e# l'1 å,T4 by Ernest Mandel to the These talks were originally delivered. the Federation Nationale study circle of the äi"ttaä section of and were subsequentlv des Etudiants so"i.ir'åï lor s"tsi"^), of its'publication printed by the FNEI tt' u tp"õial number 'n o',u*

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Porter Translated from the French from Ruth iI

First Edition' SePtember 1969 Second Printing' SePtember 1971

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Pathfinder Press 410 West Street

New York,

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in the History of

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N.Y'

10014

Societies

II

The Bourgeois State: The Face of Everyday Reality

Part

III

The Proletariat Notes

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Foreword

Part I "Origin and Development of the State

Copyright o 1969 by Y^:tit PublishersInc' copvrighi é rgzr bv Þathfinder Press' Ali rights reserved of America Manufactured in thã United States it

CONTENTS

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5

FOREWCIRD Every branch of knowledge has a central concept that expresses the fundamental feature or function of the sector of reality it investigates and deals with. The pivotaÌ category of politicaÌ science is the state.

The political thought of the various social classes and groupings throughout civilization is above all character2ed by their attitude toward the state and their definition of its essential nature. Thus the ancient Greek aristocrat A¡istotle conceived of the state-or, more precisely, the city-state of his time-as "an association for the good life," based on the family and village; excluded from the rights and benefits of citizenship, however, were laborers and arti-

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sans, women, foreigners, and slaves. The bourgeois philosopher Hegei, like his idealist precursor Plato, asserted that the nation-state was a product of the Objective Mind, o-est governed by a constitutional monarchy. Middleclass liberaìs nowadays-and the reformist socialists and

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Stalinists who trail in their wake and mimic their ideas-believe in the existence of a state that stands as an impartial arbiter above the selfish contention of classes and deals justly with the respective claims of diverse "interest groups." This exalted notion of a classless state presiding over a pure democracy based on the consent of the people, rather than engaged in the defense of the property rights of the ruling class, is the core of bourgeois-democratic ideology. Historical materiaìism takes a more realistic view of the natu¡e of the state. The state is ihe product of irreconcilable cÌass conflict within the social structure, which it seeks to regulate on behalf of the ruling class. Every state is the organ of a given system of production based upon a predominant form of property owner-

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