State Theory Quotes

“Whether overtly or not, all twentieth-century political theory has basically posed the same question: what is the relationship between the State, power and social classes?”
― Nicos Poulantzas, State, Power, Socialism

“just as there can be no general theory of the- economy (no 'economic science') having a theoretical object that remains unchanged through the various modes of production, so can there be no 'general theory' of the state-political (in the sense of a political 'science' or 'sociology') having a similarly constant object.”
― Nicos Poulantzas, State, Power, Socialism

“With regard to the dominant classes, and particularly the bourgeoisie, the State's principal role is one of organization. It represents and organizes the dominant class or classes; or, more precisely, it represents and organizes the long-term political interest of a power bloc, which is composed of several bourgeois class fractions (for the bourgeoisie is divided into class fractions), and which sometimes embraces dominant classes issuing from other modes of production that are present in the capitalist social formation.”
― Nicos Poulantzas, State, Power, Socialism

“The State maintains its relative autonomy of particular fractions of the power bloc (including fractions of monopoly capital itself) so that it may ensure the organization of the general interest of the bourgeoisie under the hegemony of one of its fractions.”
― Nicos Poulantzas

“The (capitalist) State should not be regarded as an intrinsic entity: like 'capital', it is rather a relationship of forces, or more precisely the material condensation of such a relationship among classes and class fractions”
― Nicos Poulantzas, State, Power, Socialism

“an institution destined to reproduce class divisions is not, and can never be, a monolithic bloc without cracks, whose policy is established, as it were, in spite of its own contradictions.”
― Nicos Poulantzas, State, Power, Socialism

“Contradictions among the dominant classes and fractions - or in other words, the relationship of forces within the power bloc - are precisely what makes it necessary for the unity of the bloc to be organized by the State.”
― Nicos Poulantzas, State, Power, Socialism

“If we confine ourselves to waiting, we will not get the 'great day' at all, but rather the tanks in the small hours of the morning.”
― Nicos Poulantzas, The Crisis of the Dictatorships: Portugal, Greece, Spain

“I shall begin by looking at the period of fascism, and use the opening provided by a quotation from Max Horkheimer, which forms the inscription in a recent German work, Faschismus und Kapitalismus. Horkheimer, reacting early against the whole conception of ‘totalitarianism’, wrote: ‘Anyone who does not wish to discuss capitalism should also stay silent on the subject of fascism.’ Strictly speaking, this is incorrect: it is he who does not wish to discuss imperialism who should stay silent on the subject of fascism.”
― Nicos Poulantzas, Fascism and Dictatorship: The Third International and the Problem of Fascism