Political Science · Western Political Thought
Given below are two statements, choose the correct option.
- Statement I: Marx took an instrumentalist view of the state in capitalist society, that is, the state as an instrument to protect and further the interest of the whole bourgeois class
- Statement II: On the contrary, thinkers such as Louis Althusser and Nicos Poulantzas took a structuralist view, that is, the state as a social mechanism through which the capitalist structure and relations of production are continuously reproduced
ABoth Statement I and Statement II are correct ✓ Correct
BBoth Statement I and Statement II are incorrect
CStatement I is correct but Statement II is incorrect
DStatement I is incorrect but Statement II is correct
Correct answer: (A) Both Statement I and Statement II are correct — Both statements are correct, so the answer is that Statement I and Statement II are both true.
Explanation
★Both statements are correct, so the answer is that Statement I and Statement II are both true.
★Marx took an instrumentalist view, seeing the state as a tool of the whole bourgeois class.
★He called the modern state the executive committee of the bourgeoisie.
★Althusser and Poulantzas took the structuralist view of the capitalist state.
★For them the state serves capitalism by its structure, reproducing capitalist relations of production.
★This difference lies at the heart of the famous Miliband versus Poulantzas debate.
★So both the instrumentalist and the structuralist positions are correctly stated.
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