MARXIST AND WEBERIAN THEORIES OF THE STATE
AND THEIR CONTEMPORARY RELEVANCE IN AMERICA
This research paper summarizes the concepts of state
power in Marxist philosophy and in the writings of the
German sociologist Max Weber and discusses how each theory
of the state might help explain its role in contemporary
American society. The Marxist view that the state is the
resultant of economic forces has proved to be a vast
oversimplification, but it is nevertheless closer to the truth
in present times than could have been imagined not long ago.
On the whole, Weber's theories and observations of the state have
proven, despite their somewhat mystical components, to have been
Marxist and Neo Marxist Theories of the State
A fundamental premise of all Marxist theory is that
economic factors determine the course and outcome of history
(economic determinism). Karl Marx and Friederich Engels said
that "the history of all hitherto existing society is the
history of the class struggle"1between the capitalist
class, which owned the means of production, and the working
class. As the following quotations illustrate, Marxists
view the state as the tool of the capitalists, the main
function of which (until communism triumphs by revolution)
is the oppression of the proletariat:
The state is "the executive committee of the
bourgeoisie . . . The task of government in a
capitalist state . . . is to repress the majority
of the people for the benefit of the wealthy few
who own the means of production."2
"What is the state? It is an organization of the
Engels later slightly modified this formulation by stating
that "various elements of the superstructure, the political
forms of the class struggle . . . exercise their influence upon
the course of the historic struggle, and in many cases
predominantly ...