The Working Class and the Capitalist State: An Autonomist Marxist Perspective

Abstract

This article argues that Autonomist Marxism offers crucial theoretical insights for understanding how working-class struggle shapes the state form under capitalism. While Marxist state theory recognises class struggle’s importance, it often treats this relationship abstractly, missing how specific configurations of class composition produce concrete changes in state forms. Drawing on Autonomist concepts of working-class primacy and class composition analysis, alongside contributions from Autonomist feminism and the Autonomy of Migration approach, this paper develops a distinctive theoretical framework for analysing state transformation. The article argues that an Autonomist approach provides unique insights by: (1) grounding analysis in concrete instances of class struggle rather than abstract theorisation; (2) showing how expanded understandings of class composition reveal previously hidden state transformations; and (3) offering tools particularly suited to analysing contemporary state forms in an era of global capital mobility.

Keywords

capitalist state autonomist Marxism Negri Dalla Costa

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