Marx's theory of the state however, he already saw some limitations to that model: By the time he wrote "The German Ideology" (1846), Marx viewed the state as a creature of the bourgeois economic interest. Two years later that idea was expounded in "The Communist Manifesto" This represents the high point of conformance of the state theory to an economic interpretation of history: The forces of production determine peoples' production relations; their production relations determine all other relations, including the political. ("Determines" is the strong form of the claim, Marx also uses "conditions". Also, even "determination" is not causality, and some reciprocity of action is
Revolution of 1848 in Luxembourg belonged to the same social milieu: they were members of the same clubs and associations, and would meet in Masonic lodges. The different families of the bourgeoisie were all linked by intermarriage. The rest of the country, farmers, artisans, and workers, remained as excluded from political life as they had been before 1848: the Revolution changed little for them. Several of the achievements of the Revolution of 1848, including the Constitution itself, proved to be quite short-lived. William II died in 1849, to be succeeded by his rather more reactionary son, William III, who described the Constitution of 1848 as