The managerial perspective subordinates the capitalist aspect of the state to the bureaucratic aspect. The relations between the “state” and the “economy” are defined as those between organizations commanded by elites. They are structures in conflict, not functions in tension or aspects of a contradictory system. Capitalist society is not the key level of analysis.

The managerial critique of class analysis

Many theorists within some variant of the managerial world view have developed their ideas in a conscious critique of Marxism, challenging the functionalist version, which sees the state as the executive committee of the bourgeoisie. Authority relations have replaced class relations; political power has superseded economic power; industrialization has transcended capitalism. Forces of production become resources of energy and information. As the theoretical vocabulary changes, so does the world view.

French sociologist Raymond Aron emphasizes the pervasiveness of a political class or ruling elite, regardless of who owns the means of economic production. Aron says that “the operation of the state apparatus is never independent of the social classes but yet is not adequately explained by the power of only one class” (1966, p. 203). The “political class” is a “narrow minority who actually exercise the political functions of government.”