Abstract

"Staatsmaschine" and "Staatsmaschinerie" (State Machine and State Machinery) mean: a) that Marx's and Engels's aversion for the State Machine concerns the model of machine on which the State is built; a model defined by the laws of classical mechanics, and exemplified by the "Rechtsstaat" (State of law); b) that the breaking of this type of machine and its replacement by a thermodynamic machine is only the beginning of the extinction of the State and its replacement with another form of political organization; c) that this passage, glimpsed by Marx and Engels in the Paris Commune, implies the end of separation between State and civil society, and so the disappearance of both of them.