Spyros Sakellaropoulos

ABSTRACT

The aim of this article is to present and criticize Althusser’s and Poulantzas’s key positions on the State and its mechanisms. To begin with there is a discussion on the notion that the State is an aggregation of ideological and repressive apparatuses and on the position according to which the State is an instrument. This is followed by a rejection of Althusser’s and Poulantzas’s claims in the light of the thesis that the State is the material outcome of a correlation of forces in the context of a specific mode of production but that there is a limit to the changes that may be made within the capitalist mode of production.

KEYWORDS

Marxism, State, Poulantzas, Althusser

From: International Critical Thought 2019 9 (1)

Editor: Wang Yi