Istvan Meszaros

Throughout the history of the state in various class formations, vain attempts were made to establish the state on irreversible foundations, whether by way of Plato’s laws (which continually reproduced themselves as so many uncontrollable hydra heads), Aristotle’s median, Machiavelli’s republicanism, Hobbes’s absolute sovereignty, Kant’s universal peace, or Hegel’s universal class (45).

In every case, however, the class structure of society, constituting the very basis for the state, contradicted all such notions of irreversibility and pointed to continual
class struggle and war. Mészáros wrote: “People often ignore that the fundamental condition of the State’s sovereignty (its falsely claimed democratic aspect) is the necessary class oppression of the worker.”

Under capitalism the modern state has as its objective “the vital qualifying determination already at this stage: its historical irreversibility.”