" Interestingly, Engels in 1884 reiterated that the state “is, as a rule, the state of the most powerful, economically dominant class which, through the medium of the state, becomes the politically dominant class […] By way of exception, however, periods occur in which the warring classes balance each other, so nearly that the state power, as ostensible mediator, acquires, for the moment, a certain degree of independence of both.” He listed the “absolute monarchy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,” which held the balance between the nobility and the bourgeoisie, and “the Bonapartism of the First, and still more of the Second French Empire,” which held the balance between bourgeoisie and proletariat. In fact:
“In France, where the bourgeoisie as such, as a class in its entirety, held power for only two years, 1849 and 1850, under the republic, it was able to continue its social existence only by abdicating its political power to Louis Bonaparte and the army.”
So “by way of exception” accounted for over 250 years, bar a two year period! "
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A quote that apparently debunks the marxist idea of the state, from a writing