What Does the Ruling Class Do When It Rules?: State Apparatuses and State Power under Feudalism, Capitalism and Socialism

by Göran Therborn

In his new book, Göran Therborn – author of the now standard comparative work on classical sociology and historical materialism, Science, Class and Society – looks at successive state structures in an arrestingly fresh perspective. Therborn uses the formal categories of modern system analysis – input mechanisms, processes of transformation, output flows – to advance a substantive Marxist analysis of state power and state apparatuses. His account of these is comparative in the most far-reaching historical its object is nothing less than the construction of systematic typology of the differences between the feudal state, the capitalist state and the socialist state. Therborn ranges from the monarchies of mediaeval Europe through the bourgeois democracies of the west in the 20th century to the contemporary regimes in Russia, Eastern Europe and China. The book ends with a major analytic survey of the strategies of working class parties for socialism, from the Second International to the Comintern to Eurocommunism, that applies the structural findings of Therborn’s enquiry in the ‘Future as History’. Written with lucidity and economy, What Does the Ruling Class Do when it Rules? represents a remarkable sociological and political synthesis.

Genres: Sociology, Politics, Nonfiction, Class, Philosophy

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Göran Therborn is a professor of sociology at Cambridge University and is amongst the most highly cited contemporary Marxian-influenced sociologists. He has published widely in journals such as the New Left Review, and is notable for his writing on topics that fall within the general political and sociological framework of post-Marxism. Topics on which he has written extensively include the intersection between the class structure of society and the function of the state apparatus, the formation of ideology within subjects, and the future of the Marxist tradition.

Reviews

[Homo · Rating 1 out of 5]

"What then does the ruling class do when it rules ? Essentially, it ensures that its dominant positions in the economy, state apparatus and ideological superstructures are reproduced by the state in rela­tion both to the other modes of production present within the social formation and to the international system of social formations. These reproductive state interventions are enmeshed in the struc­tural dynamics of the mode of reproduction, but they also have to be secured in the thick of the class struggle."

[Esioan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Standard work of sociology, I particularly liked the analysis of how feudalism transitioned into industrial capitalism. I hadn't known Marx recognized the enclosure movement as a destructive force to the extent that the average Saxon serf was supposedly better off than the average 1700s London commoner.

[Left_coast_reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

What does the ruling class do when it rules? Göran Therborn provides some answers in this book. A rigorous, analytical examination of feudal, capitalist, and socialist states and how they function. This is accomplished with a nuanced approach to Marxist concepts like base/superstructure, hegemony, and more.

The book is well-organized. Therborn likes to categorize and enumerate. As a contribution to this summary and to provide a glimpse into his methodical approach, his schema is as follows:
INPUTS INTO THE STATE
1) Principles regulating the type of tasks the state handles
2) Criteria of personnel recruitment
3) Modes of securing state revenue
PROCESSES OF TRANSFORMATION
4) Modes of decision making
5) Patterning of organizational positions and relations between their incumbents
6) Modes of allocation/utilization of material resources
OUTPUTS
7) Patterning of decisions and practices
a. toward other states
b. toward its own society
8) Patterning of relations of state personnel
a. with the personnel of other states
b. with other members of its own society
9) Modes of outflow of material resources

He pays close attention to the institutional forms or "organizational technologies" used by different states. He goes on to explain what is required to actually wield state power. He argues that the state must "represent" the ruling class--it must promote and defend this class and its mode of exploitation through a system of leadership selection. And the state must "mediate" the exploitation or domination of this class over other subordinate classes. He explains how the bourgeoisie has maintained power even in an era of universal suffrage.

This is the first I've read of Therborn and I'm impressed. His clarity of thought and the deliberateness of his writing style is excellent. He's at his best when he provides concrete historical examples of his various categories. The one negative is that at times the number of abstract concepts becomes overwhelming. The reader needs a lot of patience. This feels like a book best enjoyed with big chalkboard and a comradely professor. I'll return to this book in the future and continue learning from it.