A Leftist Theory of the Authoritarian Social-Democratic State

Abstract

The article explores the notion of the State: first, as a philosophical concept; second, as a topic in the current socio-political discussion of democratization and globalization; and third, as a possible element of a left wing ideological program. In the prevailing understanding, the State is a regrettable technical necessity that should be kept to a minimum and that will gradually expire by itself. Both the orthodox and the Althusserian Marxists agree with liberals and neo-liberals on this. Their value preferences fuse with their diagnosis of actual tendencies. However, the article claims that, from the current leftist, social-democratic and post-Marxist point of view, the State is becoming stronger but there is nothing bad in that.This post-Marxist point of view coincides with the position of Karl Marx himself when he was a young man planning to write a critique of the State. That project was never completed, but what we have of it, A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, shows that a truly democratic state itself constitutes democratic society and thus forms a circle of mutual establishment and mutual authorization. The democratic form becomes the content; and everyone takes part in self-government, while socio-economic institutions in turn acquire a political nature. The article concludes with a brief account of the principles for the constitutional structure of such a state.