Political Science · Western Political Thought
UGC NET November 2021 Political Science
Who considered bureaucracy as the 'State's consciousness'?
ALenin
BMarx ✓ Correct
CMiliband
DPoulantzas
Correct answer: (B) Marx — The thinker who spoke of bureaucracy in terms of the state's consciousness is Karl Marx.
Explanation
★The thinker who spoke of bureaucracy in terms of the state's consciousness is Karl Marx.
★In his early critique of Hegel's philosophy of right, Marx examined the bureaucracy as a distinct social formation.
★Hegel had treated the bureaucracy as a universal class embodying the general interest and the consciousness of the state.
★Marx turned this round, arguing that the bureaucracy only imagines itself to express the state's consciousness while serving particular interests.
★For Marx the bureaucracy mystifies its sectional role as if it were the universal mind of the state.
★Miliband and Poulantzas debated the capitalist state much later, but this formulation traces to Marx.
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