Instrumental Marxism, or elite model, is a theory which reasons that policy makers in government and positions of power tend to “share a common business or class background, and that their decisions will reflect their business or class interests.” It tends to view the state and law as ultimately an instrument or tool for individuals of the economically dominant class to use for their own purposes, particularly maintaining economic exploitation while winning ideological assent to their hegemony. This view is contrasted with structural Marxism, which views the class background of policymakers, etc. as purely incidental to the "bourgeois" nature of the modern state, which is seen instead as a result of the position of the state and law in the objective structure of capitalist society, and the