Authors: Bobbio, Matteucci, Pasquino
Summary: The entry focuses on the Marxist theory of the state. It concentrates on Marx's critique of Hegel, his analysis of the bourgeois state, and the concept of the withering of the state.
In keeping with his general inversion of Hegel's thought, Marx subverts the Hegelian relation between civil society and the state. He solves the political problem by absorbing the state within civil society rather than the reverse, as Hegel had done-Marx saw the state as part of the ideological "superstructure" that rests on a material base.
Further, Marx saw the state as a political machine that one class uses to further its exploitation of another class. In such a view the state is not neutral, but a critical tool for the bourgeoisie to defend its interests and property.
Finally, Marx envisaged a radical transition from the bourgeois state to a proletarian one: the old state would be destroyed, and in its place would arise wholly new institutions. The "dictatorship of the proletarian" would find expression in this transitional state. Ultimately, Marx envisaged the emergence of a society without classes, and thus without the state.