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State, Power, Socialism
Developing themes of his earlier works, Poulantzas here advances a vigorous critique of contemporary Marxist theories of the state, arguing against a general theory of the state, and identifying forms of class power crucial to socialist strategy that goes beyond the apparatus of the state.
This new edition includes an introduction by Stuart Hall, which critically appraises Poulantzas’s achievement.
This new edition includes an introduction by Stuart Hall, which critically appraises Poulantzas’s achievement.
269 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
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About the author
Nicos Poulantzas
38 books86 followers(Greek: Νίκος Πουλαντζάς). Greek-French Marxist political sociologist. In the 1970s, Poulantzas was known, along with Louis Althusser, as a leading Structural Marxist and, while at first a Leninist, eventually became a proponent of eurocommunism. He is most well known for his theoretical work on the state, but he also offered Marxist contributions to the analysis of fascism, social class in the contemporary world, and the collapse of dictatorships in Southern Europe in the 1970s (e.g. Franco's rule in Spain, Salazar's in Portugal, and Papadopoulos's in Greece).
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
August 8, 2019
This is perhaps one of the best abstract theoretical accounts of what the state is from a Marxist perspective I have read. At the same time, Poulantzas suffers from a few key issues.
1. Like most male Marxists, he really doesn’t do more than pay lip service to feminism and the role of gender. It would have been better if he could more systematically theorizes his isolated comments on the role of gender relations in political power/the state, but he doesn’t. What he does say, how ever, is more promising for a feminist uptake and development of his work than are the misogynist and victim blaming comments made by the likes of Michel Foucault.
2. Speaking of Foucault, Poulantzas has some great critiques of Foucault and offers a real, viable theoretical alternative to the latter’s erasure of the state as a discrete entity and material force. Yet at several key moments, Poulantzas’ analysis collapses into basically Foucauldian anxieties about the supposedly ever expanding power of the “authoritarian state” into “every sphere of social life” (basically the myth of “biopower” under another name). This is a form of non-Marxist, non-empirical, basically liberal/libertarian anxiety that has no place in radical political theory. It also harbors a kind of masculinist fear of “state intervention” in the family/sexual/gender sphere. Poulantzas does say important things generally that run against these moments, but they are noticeable and annoying when present.
3. It is clear that this book was written in a very specific political moment and as such it contains several arguments that no longer make any sense. It is also very focused on Europe/France. First, the chapters on “authoritarian statism” name the wrong/non-existent enemy. Because the book was originally written in the late 1970s, Poulantzas was probably not able to correctly identify what he was seeing as a broader process of the transition from Keynesian to neoliberal political economy. Second, Poulantzas’ final chapter on “the democratic road to socialism” is a confused mess of scattered comments that culminate in a wholly unconvincing rejecting of “dual power” in favor of an argument for what is essentially dual power under another (but somehow more politically conciliatory) name. This I think stems from the fact that Poulantzas was himself involved in statist Eurocommunist politics and couldn’t afford to be wholly consistent with his own arguments for political reasons. The rest of the book militates directly against his strategy of basically “transform the state from the inside but also didn’t get co-opted somehow.” Again, this makes a certain limited but ultimately naive sense given the period he was writing in. The struggles of 1968 were in recent memory, the parliamentary Left and grassroots social movements had been having some limited success in appealing to the liberal/Keynesian state to get funding, start limited initiatives, and win elections, and neoliberal technocracy was not yet fully on the horizon. But ultimately, history has proven Marx right: the proletariat cannot grab hold of the ready made state machinery. Poulantzas also has a line about somehow transforming the police and military for democratic socialist ends, and just.....absolutely not.
So, a good and helpful read for abstract theoretical reflections that needs a good dose of feminism and anti-racism, a more global (non-European) focus, and which offers no concrete political guidance. Like most male and European authored Left theory from this or any period.
1. Like most male Marxists, he really doesn’t do more than pay lip service to feminism and the role of gender. It would have been better if he could more systematically theorizes his isolated comments on the role of gender relations in political power/the state, but he doesn’t. What he does say, how ever, is more promising for a feminist uptake and development of his work than are the misogynist and victim blaming comments made by the likes of Michel Foucault.
2. Speaking of Foucault, Poulantzas has some great critiques of Foucault and offers a real, viable theoretical alternative to the latter’s erasure of the state as a discrete entity and material force. Yet at several key moments, Poulantzas’ analysis collapses into basically Foucauldian anxieties about the supposedly ever expanding power of the “authoritarian state” into “every sphere of social life” (basically the myth of “biopower” under another name). This is a form of non-Marxist, non-empirical, basically liberal/libertarian anxiety that has no place in radical political theory. It also harbors a kind of masculinist fear of “state intervention” in the family/sexual/gender sphere. Poulantzas does say important things generally that run against these moments, but they are noticeable and annoying when present.
3. It is clear that this book was written in a very specific political moment and as such it contains several arguments that no longer make any sense. It is also very focused on Europe/France. First, the chapters on “authoritarian statism” name the wrong/non-existent enemy. Because the book was originally written in the late 1970s, Poulantzas was probably not able to correctly identify what he was seeing as a broader process of the transition from Keynesian to neoliberal political economy. Second, Poulantzas’ final chapter on “the democratic road to socialism” is a confused mess of scattered comments that culminate in a wholly unconvincing rejecting of “dual power” in favor of an argument for what is essentially dual power under another (but somehow more politically conciliatory) name. This I think stems from the fact that Poulantzas was himself involved in statist Eurocommunist politics and couldn’t afford to be wholly consistent with his own arguments for political reasons. The rest of the book militates directly against his strategy of basically “transform the state from the inside but also didn’t get co-opted somehow.” Again, this makes a certain limited but ultimately naive sense given the period he was writing in. The struggles of 1968 were in recent memory, the parliamentary Left and grassroots social movements had been having some limited success in appealing to the liberal/Keynesian state to get funding, start limited initiatives, and win elections, and neoliberal technocracy was not yet fully on the horizon. But ultimately, history has proven Marx right: the proletariat cannot grab hold of the ready made state machinery. Poulantzas also has a line about somehow transforming the police and military for democratic socialist ends, and just.....absolutely not.
So, a good and helpful read for abstract theoretical reflections that needs a good dose of feminism and anti-racism, a more global (non-European) focus, and which offers no concrete political guidance. Like most male and European authored Left theory from this or any period.
December 8, 2017
يتحدث الكتاب عن نظرية الدولة والأنظمة السياسية بشقيها البرلمانية والرئاسية .
خمس نجوم لامعه لبساطة الشرح والمعنى .
خمس نجوم لامعه لبساطة الشرح والمعنى .
October 5, 2014
Nicos Poulantzas's final book represents an odd melange of coming to a position that is less Althusser and more Marx, and yet drawing conclusions that seem to take him further from Marx's communist commitments. What he does at the beginning of SPS is to bring the necessity of considering the state and politics as being the product of the social relations of production, rather than seeing them being more independent (except in the last instance) of "economic" forces as Althusser did. The result is that the early sections of the book read like the "Young Marx" on his critique of politics, just with the Hegelian language taken out.
However, the key move that comes in which restores the essence of the Althusserian system is that in fact, once constituted on the basis of capitalist social relations, the state effectively becomes constitutive of how those relations operate, to the point of "inscribing" classes on real individuals and so on. Thus, far from being a rejection of the essence of Hegel's metaphysical thinking on the state (where the state constitutes the real individuals of civil society), Poulantzas simply repeats it, although wrapped in different language. The state ends up being granted remarkable independent powers to shape civil society and the economy, and its social basis soon disappears from view. State and civil society end up being not simply part of a wider unity, but are effectively portrayed as something close to an identity.
By way of contrast, Marx recognises that Hegel's view of an inverted relationship between state and society was not the product of a theoretical error but because Hegel described the fetishised form in which that relationship actually occurs, while the underlying essence is that the secret of the state is the civil society from which it is abstracted.
So, for Althusser all social struggles "traverse" the state and the task of socialists is to be inside the state in order to transform society by working to tip the balance of forces in a more favourable direction. This strategic outlook in fact treats the subaltern social actors in civil society as at best an obedient servant of the Left of the political class, right down to having to defend a Left government's efforts to maintain the health of the capitalist economy so as to prevent capitalist economic collapse. In the end, Poulantzas merely recapitulates the political point of view that Marx was so scathing of, relegating the real movement of society to a secondary player.
However, the key move that comes in which restores the essence of the Althusserian system is that in fact, once constituted on the basis of capitalist social relations, the state effectively becomes constitutive of how those relations operate, to the point of "inscribing" classes on real individuals and so on. Thus, far from being a rejection of the essence of Hegel's metaphysical thinking on the state (where the state constitutes the real individuals of civil society), Poulantzas simply repeats it, although wrapped in different language. The state ends up being granted remarkable independent powers to shape civil society and the economy, and its social basis soon disappears from view. State and civil society end up being not simply part of a wider unity, but are effectively portrayed as something close to an identity.
By way of contrast, Marx recognises that Hegel's view of an inverted relationship between state and society was not the product of a theoretical error but because Hegel described the fetishised form in which that relationship actually occurs, while the underlying essence is that the secret of the state is the civil society from which it is abstracted.
So, for Althusser all social struggles "traverse" the state and the task of socialists is to be inside the state in order to transform society by working to tip the balance of forces in a more favourable direction. This strategic outlook in fact treats the subaltern social actors in civil society as at best an obedient servant of the Left of the political class, right down to having to defend a Left government's efforts to maintain the health of the capitalist economy so as to prevent capitalist economic collapse. In the end, Poulantzas merely recapitulates the political point of view that Marx was so scathing of, relegating the real movement of society to a secondary player.
August 12, 2020
An extremely theoretical text from the 1970s about the nature of the capitalist state and its relationship to class struggle and the nature of power. There are some pretty interesting and useful concepts and ideas in here, such as the general idea that struggles in society at large always have an impact within the state, and that the state is absolutely riddled with all kinds of contradictions and various forms of in-fighting between not just the working class and the capitalists, but also between different capitalist fractions. But this is not a casual read - be prepared to put a lot of energy and focus into reading it, otherwise you're not gonna get much out of it! And, its also probably best if you have some knowledge about the state of politics and political economy in Europe in the 1960s and 19760s, since that is what the text is referencing (albeit in a very abstract and philosophical way).
August 3, 2021
Last chapter is definitely the best. Incisive critiques of dual power and social democracy. Appreciated the definitions of the state, and the implications for strategy (ex. state is not a 'thing' that can be 'smashed,' play to fractures within capital, direct democracy and representative democracy together get us to socialism, mass participation is everything).
July 31, 2021
this was a slog to read and a little brutal for your average organizer who doesn't spend enough time reading theory. BUT giving it 4 stars because the original ideas poulantzas advances about the form of the capitalist state and the road to democratic socialism are, i think, pretty useful contributions to the development of socialist strategy!
October 10, 2025
La verdad es que el capullo de Poulantzas tiene puntos muy buenos, aunque el enfoque general sea errado y la propuesta política, reformista. Especialmente buenos los capítulos sobre la Ley y el Terror y el del Estatismo autoritario.
February 17, 2021
Poulantzas accomplished two great things in this text: (1) he provided one of the most compelling Marxist analyses of the State and (2) he engaged with Foucault in a serious way. There are a lot of great insights to be gleaned from this text, such as the idea of class struggle being "inscribed" in the State itself, his analysis of "authoritarian statism." However, the trappings of Althusserianism (turgid writing style, anti-historicism, rationalism, etc.) really bogged me down and I think detracted from the analysis.
June 30, 2016
For one wishing to experience one of the most sophisticated theories of the State from a Marxist perspective, start with this book - which is admittedly one of his more easier to understand texts - and work backwards. Sometimes its a slog - especially when he talks about the nation - but Poulantzas sets out a comprehensive analysis of the nature of the capitalist State which I believe is a valuable analytical and prescriptive tool for us today.
December 6, 2020
Este libro está completísimo y sirve perfectamente como una guía para descubrir cómo funciona en verdad el sistema, el Estado y el mundo. Poulantzas verdaderamente tenía un pensamiento complejo y a cuestas miles de lecturas, pero me llama la atención que la mayoría de sus razonamientos tienen la asombrosa cualidad de una perspectiva mayor a cualquier ideología que sea afín, incluso llama la atención su tendencia a mezclar pero permaneciendo puro (?) no sé, es un fregón.
Es duro saber que un día de octubre, desde un piso 22 se lanzó Nicos Poulantzas al vacío. Pinche mundo.
Es duro saber que un día de octubre, desde un piso 22 se lanzó Nicos Poulantzas al vacío. Pinche mundo.
February 9, 2017
I wish some more time was spent with certain ideas and less with others, but the appraisals here are excellent, especially its expansive but precise rendering of the state and the breadth of its 'strategic field,' the insistence on ultimately relating power to the social division of labor, its keen eye for the intellectual division of labor reproduced within the state apparatus, and the closing sections on the political effects of alterations in the breakdown of functions between government, party and administration. The brilliant puncturing of bourgeois appreciation of 'the law' also leave one begging for more. Strangely, the final remarks on dual power seem underdeveloped, which seems odd considering how much weight Poulantzas clearly wants them to hold. Dense at times, but largely provoking and difficult to disagree with some of his clarifications on certain common repetitions in Marxist thought.
July 20, 2022
State, Power, Socialism is I think a fairly unique work in that it attempts to incorporate (though critically) Foucault's concepts of power and knowledge into a Marxist framework. Poulantzas was also one of the students of Althusser and his ship of structuralist Marxism, and who also became well known in his wake. But I think this work diverges quite pointedly from those two; at least as much as he diverges from his Marxist roots.
As an example of the latter, Poulantzas dismisses both Marx's concept of base and superstructure (or, economy and ideology, as Gramsci so tersely summed up in The Antonio Gramsci Reader: Selected Writings 1916-1935), and also his concept that older modes of production (or economic systems) contain the seeds of later ones—both concepts I personally find to be useful frames of reference and am not prepared to abandon.
On the other hand, Marx never got around to assembling a theory of the state (Poulantzas argues not very persuasively here it would have been impossible from Marx's point of view anyway), and Poulantzas's "apparatus"-centered (or structural) theory is both very insightful and a stimulating read, even all these years later. Perhaps Stuart Hall is right in his introduction: Poulantzas covers many subjects in too few pages. Perhaps it should have been twice as long, or even two or three books instead. But it is what it is, Poulantzas has made a strong (if scattershot) reformist argument, and this is the last topic about this book I'd like to write about.
Forty years later it is easy to pass judgement on his ideas—what positive steps have they given us? In two words: not much. The structural changes in western states which were on the rise at the time (what he labelled "authoritarian statism") are stronger than ever. Over all, the last line of the book really drove the whole thing home for me: Poulantzas has interesting ideas about the state, but he simply does not have the answer for changing the situation for the better.
As an example of the latter, Poulantzas dismisses both Marx's concept of base and superstructure (or, economy and ideology, as Gramsci so tersely summed up in The Antonio Gramsci Reader: Selected Writings 1916-1935), and also his concept that older modes of production (or economic systems) contain the seeds of later ones—both concepts I personally find to be useful frames of reference and am not prepared to abandon.
On the other hand, Marx never got around to assembling a theory of the state (Poulantzas argues not very persuasively here it would have been impossible from Marx's point of view anyway), and Poulantzas's "apparatus"-centered (or structural) theory is both very insightful and a stimulating read, even all these years later. Perhaps Stuart Hall is right in his introduction: Poulantzas covers many subjects in too few pages. Perhaps it should have been twice as long, or even two or three books instead. But it is what it is, Poulantzas has made a strong (if scattershot) reformist argument, and this is the last topic about this book I'd like to write about.
Forty years later it is easy to pass judgement on his ideas—what positive steps have they given us? In two words: not much. The structural changes in western states which were on the rise at the time (what he labelled "authoritarian statism") are stronger than ever. Over all, the last line of the book really drove the whole thing home for me: Poulantzas has interesting ideas about the state, but he simply does not have the answer for changing the situation for the better.
July 4, 2025
This is an unusually cogent and effective, if very dense and sometimes rather opaque, effort to theorise the state in a way that substantially develops beyond the classic Leninist formulation. The effort to do so is necessary and frequently admirable, addressing as it does the extraordinary administrative growth and shifting roles of the state through the mid-late twentieth century. At the same time, one of Poulantzas's key tasks here that differentiate this book from his earlier works is the effort to confront and respond to the conception of power advanced by Foucault. Poulantzas's critique of Foucault here is celebrated and for good reason. So there are lots of reasons I would genuinely recommend this book.
That said, it has real drawbacks. For one, it's written in a dense and abstract theoretical style. Some sections of it are actually good to read, but there are also significant passages that feel like a slog, and could surely have been written with more concern to bring the reader into Poulantzas's thought. Second, and importantly, the book closes with a very influential reflection on "the democratic road to socialism", in which Poulantzas attempts to trace a path to socialism which is neither Leninist nor social-democratic. The attempt is admirably bold and thought-provoking, but fails to really differentiate itself from longstanding reformist mistakes. This problem feels especially clear reading this some 50 years after it was written, in which time these proposals came to influence a whole generation of European Left parties whose story is precisely one of accommodation to reformism and, ultimately, failure. While I think this subsequent experience really has to be in one's mind when reading this book, I found it to be another case of a book which closes with some wrong answers, but was at least concerned to ask important questions, and to discuss them with seriousness and insight.
That said, it has real drawbacks. For one, it's written in a dense and abstract theoretical style. Some sections of it are actually good to read, but there are also significant passages that feel like a slog, and could surely have been written with more concern to bring the reader into Poulantzas's thought. Second, and importantly, the book closes with a very influential reflection on "the democratic road to socialism", in which Poulantzas attempts to trace a path to socialism which is neither Leninist nor social-democratic. The attempt is admirably bold and thought-provoking, but fails to really differentiate itself from longstanding reformist mistakes. This problem feels especially clear reading this some 50 years after it was written, in which time these proposals came to influence a whole generation of European Left parties whose story is precisely one of accommodation to reformism and, ultimately, failure. While I think this subsequent experience really has to be in one's mind when reading this book, I found it to be another case of a book which closes with some wrong answers, but was at least concerned to ask important questions, and to discuss them with seriousness and insight.
April 7, 2023
A highly theoretical book that requires some significant prior understanding of Marxist theory in order to follow Poulantzas' arguments. The Introduction by Stuart Hall sets up the text rather well, as it is obvious Hall has a deep respect for Poulantzas' scholarship but also points out the scattered and unfinished nature of the theories being presented. I found this a rather dry read, at times almost too academic for me to understand, let alone enjoy. The book is quite specific in its time and place, which does make some of the book read poorly, considering all that has transpired in the four decades since it was written. Still, an interesting if not always engaging book, one assuredly not for the casual reader.
September 7, 2025
An absolutely incredible, if dense and challenging, read, which was so worth the effort it takes to get through it. Poulantzas' elaboration of the state as a social relation, a "material condensation of the relationship of forces" which prevail within particular social formations, was and remains a piece of theoretical genius that continues to open up new avenues of analytic and strategic insights to everyone who considers the idea. Obviously it doesn't touch on everything, because it was published in 1979 and even then only outlined what would need to be elaborated by a broader research agenda. That hardly dampens the beauty of Poulantzas' innovation though.
December 31, 2009
The antidote to anarchist and liberal foolish regarding the state, Poulantzas' final work remains a vital contribution to the general understanding of how political power takes shape and functions.
May 3, 2010
Yes: the state is heterogeneous. Yes, yes, yes. I share Stuart Hall's disappointment that Poulantzas died before giving us the ultimate critique of Foucault.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews