In the class perspective, state bureaucratization is also related to capitalism. According to Isaac Deutscher, the “massive ascendancy of bureaucracy as a distinct and separate social group came only with the development of capitalism” (1969, p. 15). But, Deutscher immediately adds that the classical Marxist writings approached bureaucracy “relatively optimistically – one might say lightmindedly,” partly because bureaucracy was not seen as an independent force (p. 19). As capitalist states have become more centralized, the degree and consequences of bureaucratic rationalization have become topics of considerable debate.

Within the general world view that changing class relations must affect the bureaucratic state there are a number of subthemes. Bureaucratization within and between agencies and levels of government is treated as a form of institutionalized intraclass organization within the state. State autonomy is seriously circumscribed by the instrumental demands of classes and class segments and by the requirements of sustaining capital accumulation. The concentration of state power in the executive and its administration is seen as caused not by the technical requirements of managing a complex industrial economy but by the need to bypass representative institutions in order to protect capitalist power and to overcome the political incapacity of the capitalist class. The difference in the managerial and class views of the bureaucratic state can be summarized succinctly. In the former view, class interests are one factor in the transformation of legal structures; in the latter, legal structures are one factor in the transformation of class rule.