Key socialists and their reflections on the state

• Marx and Engels - St (S)

  - Viewed the existing state as fundamentally corrupted and exploitative

  - Incapable of reform and to be destroyed via revolution to then be rebuilt along socialist lines and values such as state ownership and control all aspects of industry and business
• Luxemburg - St (S)

  - Shared the Marxist belief that the existing state must be overthrown by revolution, but argued that the replacement state should be a democracy with individual freedoms

  - Also favoured mass strikes as the means to achieve the revolution rather than an armed uprising
• Webb - St (S)

  - Saw the state as having a key role in gradually transforming society into one based on socialism

  - Believed in the 'inevitability of gradualism'

  - State did not need to be overthrown but to be changed within and expanded
• Crosland - St (S)

  Believed that democratic socialist governments could make changes radical enough to help create a fairer society based on socialist principles
• Giddens - St (S)

  - Emphasis was on making the existing state work better

  - Could come about by greater decentralisation and by encouraging greater political participation

  - State should also invest more heavily in public services such as transport and education where free market capitalism had its limitations

  - Day to day management and ownership of business was not the state's job
• General consensus - St (S)

  - Have a natural affinity and affection for the state as the primary vehicle for economic, social and political change

  - State is crucial to the redistribution of wealth, the provision of public spending and the promotion and moulding of human nature into a collaborative and cooperative approach

  - Is a degree of difference as to whether the state needs to be overthrown and replaced or changed from within