Groups demand State intervention in their favor and neutrality against adversaries.

Evidence

Naturally liberals (“economists”) are for the “State as veilleur de nuit ”, and would like the historical initiative to be left to civil society and to the various forces which spring up there—with the “State” as guardian of “fair play” and of the rules of the game. Intellectuals draw very significant distinctions as to when they are liberals and when they are interventionists (they may be liberals in the economic field and interventionists in the cultural field, etc.). The catholics would like the State to be interventionist one hundred per cent in their favour; failing that, or where they are in a minority, they call for a “neutral” State, so that it should not support their adversaries. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 974

Categorization

• XREF: A mechanism of selective instrumentalism: each group wants maximum State power in its own favor and a neutral State to deny it to rivals — mirrors how claims of state ‘neutrality’ on religion operate.