A Marxist Theory Of The State

Abstract

There is not one Marxian approach to social analysis; there are several. The last two decades attest to an intensifying debate about diverse Marxist theories. One of the more important points of debate concerns the relationship between the state as an institution and the rest of the social system in which it exists. This is an important point for Marxists for several reasons. States seem to have become relatively more powerful institutions within generally capitalist societies during this century. In those societies, it has often been argued that proper state policies can successfully prevent basic social change, particularly change toward socialism or communism. They can do this by helping to foster a profitable capitalist environment or by the actual repression of threats to that environment. In so-called Third World countries, the state looms large as an institution providing dominant leadership in terms of overall social development. Finally, Marxists generally recognize that in the socialist countries the state typically exercises great influence on the direction and pace of social development. For these and other reasons, Marxist theorists have been provoked to make a variety of efforts to explain what states are, why they persist, what they do, and how they are changing