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The State in Capitalist Society
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Presenting a sustained and concrete challenge to the current political consensus, this reference identifies the radical alternative of adopting socialism as the key issue facing civilization and the crucial condition of making substantial progress. Demonstrating that capitalist control of the state was so comprehensive that partial reforms were impossible, this reference attempts to explain how society has managed to evade socialism, exploring how its claims have failed to persuade many intellectuals and the potential benefactors of an alternative order. Reviewing the influence of economic elites and the dominant class, this study also probes the states claims to legitimacy, defines the purpose and role of governments, and analyzes the concepts of reform and repression. Depicting how the state reemerged from behind the mystifications of the political system and its behavior to become the central theme of political studies, this radical and philosophical investigation combines a political appeal with thorough, detailed scholarship. A discussion of servants of the state and the concept of imperfect competition are also included.
Presenting a sustained and concrete challenge to the current political consensus, this reference identifies the radical alternative of adopting socialism as the key issue facing civilization and the crucial condition of making substantial progress. Demonstrating that capitalist control of the state was so comprehensive that partial reforms were impossible, this reference attempts to explain how society has managed to evade socialism, exploring how its claims have failed to persuade many intellectuals and the potential benefactors of an alternative order. Reviewing the influence of economic elites and the dominant class, this study also probes the states claims to legitimacy, defines the purpose and role of governments, and analyzes the concepts of reform and repression. Depicting how the state reemerged from behind the mystifications of the political system and its behavior to become the central theme of political studies, this radical and philosophical investigation combines a political appeal with thorough, detailed scholarship. A discussion of servants of the state and the concept of imperfect competition are also included.
292 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1969
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
July 16, 2015
Really surprised how much I liked this. Poor bloke's not likely to get much of a look-in now thanks to his dreadful children. This book is a concise and powerful account of how state power functions in what he calls 'advanced capitalist countries', basically the Western liberal democracies then. Miliband was ahead of Chomsky (on the media), Althusser (on schools etc). Quite a book for its time.
The book is really good at balancing credit for the the limited benefits of a liberal democracy over a completely authoritarian/fascistic capitalist regime (press, basic trade union activity etc) with the point that these are fundamentally inadequate in bringing about a genuinely democratic, egalitarian society, and the state being utterly stacked against those ends. What stands out though is the emphasis on how the limited freeduhms serve the ideological status quo, set the limits on political imagination, etc. In short, Miliband takes as his starting point Marx's famous quote in The German Ideology and extends it to a book length treatment of state power.
There will be less here for anyone who's already signed up to revolutionary politics but it's still worth reading IMO. The sort of book that I would make compulsory for first-year undergrad.
The book is really good at balancing credit for the the limited benefits of a liberal democracy over a completely authoritarian/fascistic capitalist regime (press, basic trade union activity etc) with the point that these are fundamentally inadequate in bringing about a genuinely democratic, egalitarian society, and the state being utterly stacked against those ends. What stands out though is the emphasis on how the limited freeduhms serve the ideological status quo, set the limits on political imagination, etc. In short, Miliband takes as his starting point Marx's famous quote in The German Ideology and extends it to a book length treatment of state power.
There will be less here for anyone who's already signed up to revolutionary politics but it's still worth reading IMO. The sort of book that I would make compulsory for first-year undergrad.
December 31, 2021
Imagine being one of England's best Marxist writers and then your kids become Blairites. Terrifying.
October 13, 2019
Finally! I first came across this book in the early 2000s when I got into Marxist state theory, including the Poulantzas-Miliband debate but felt (ignorantly, pretentiously) I was ‘team Poulantzas’ lol and didn’t bother. I have always been good at picking sides in battles I don’t really understand.
Around the same time, especially after the 2008 global financial crisis there has been a significant interest in theories of the state in capitalism and the ‘capitalist state’ and the limits of the state’s reform efforts to counteract capitalism’s inherent contradictions, such as economic growth that leads to increased impoverishment of the many.
Miliband’s classic ‘The State in Capitalist Society’ from 1969, written over five years and finalized about a decade before neoliberalism directly challenged the post-war welfare state, showed even then that the great post-war compromise ‘new deal’ only strengthened capitalism and could not fundamentally influence capitalism’s structural contradictions. This of course allowed neoliberalism to present itself as a savior of capitalism, by then referred to by all political actors as ‘the economy’ since social democracy did not have an answer from the left, ie a programme to overcome rather than ‘fix’ capitalism. When Thatcher was asked in the 1990s what her greatest achievement was, she reportedly said ‘New Labour’ - when her mantra of ‘there is no alternative’ become reality.
It would take another 40 years until the emergence of a 21st century democratic socialist left with the election of Corbyn as the leader of the UK Labour party, the rise of Bernie during the 2016 Democratic primary elections and the election of socialist Representives in the 2018 US mid-term elections, such as AOC, which also made the question of the state in capitalism one of acute importance.
In 2009 a new edition of Miliband’s classic from 1969 was printed with a great foreword by Leo Panitch, one of Miliband’s students at LSE in the 1960s. In the foreword, Panitch also reflects on the Obama administration and how come that ‘progressive’ governments end up appointing hardcore neoliberals ‘Government Sachs’ to deal with an economic crisis caused by their own very model (...).
Then this year, it was the 50th anniversary of Miliband’s book with a lot of coverage in the Jacobin and I realized how incredibly timely this book is and how important it is to understand the nature and role of the state in capitalism.
Because if and when Corbyn and Bernie or ant other socialists in advanced capitalist countries ‘take over’, they will still have to administer a capitalist economy and operate within a deeply capitalist state. I think Labour under Corbyn, especially McDonnell, have developed the most advanced strategy on how to transform (not reform!) the state, economy and society from within - learning also from the failures of the new deal and the structural pressures and limits from the capitalist state itself, despite a potebtial socialist government.
Miliband’s ‘the state in capitalist society’ is sometimes referred to as one of the most important books in political science and sociology since WW2. I can see why and glad I finally read it, now where we may have an opening to find a progressive answer to capitalism’s crisis (with the neoliberal solution nearly off the table, the ‘transformation’ will come either from the left or the far right/ fascists. The sooner centrists understand the current juncture, the better).
In his foreword Panitch also makes clear that it’s possible to be both team Poulantzas and Milband! I think we also no longer have the luxury to engage in those academic debates and split into endless factions based on minor theoretical differences. Both Poulantzas and Miliband sought to contribute to socialist strategies, including through transforming the state in capitalist society/ capitalist state into a democratic socialist one. This remains the common goal and we were nowhere closer to this than in 2019.
Around the same time, especially after the 2008 global financial crisis there has been a significant interest in theories of the state in capitalism and the ‘capitalist state’ and the limits of the state’s reform efforts to counteract capitalism’s inherent contradictions, such as economic growth that leads to increased impoverishment of the many.
Miliband’s classic ‘The State in Capitalist Society’ from 1969, written over five years and finalized about a decade before neoliberalism directly challenged the post-war welfare state, showed even then that the great post-war compromise ‘new deal’ only strengthened capitalism and could not fundamentally influence capitalism’s structural contradictions. This of course allowed neoliberalism to present itself as a savior of capitalism, by then referred to by all political actors as ‘the economy’ since social democracy did not have an answer from the left, ie a programme to overcome rather than ‘fix’ capitalism. When Thatcher was asked in the 1990s what her greatest achievement was, she reportedly said ‘New Labour’ - when her mantra of ‘there is no alternative’ become reality.
It would take another 40 years until the emergence of a 21st century democratic socialist left with the election of Corbyn as the leader of the UK Labour party, the rise of Bernie during the 2016 Democratic primary elections and the election of socialist Representives in the 2018 US mid-term elections, such as AOC, which also made the question of the state in capitalism one of acute importance.
In 2009 a new edition of Miliband’s classic from 1969 was printed with a great foreword by Leo Panitch, one of Miliband’s students at LSE in the 1960s. In the foreword, Panitch also reflects on the Obama administration and how come that ‘progressive’ governments end up appointing hardcore neoliberals ‘Government Sachs’ to deal with an economic crisis caused by their own very model (...).
Then this year, it was the 50th anniversary of Miliband’s book with a lot of coverage in the Jacobin and I realized how incredibly timely this book is and how important it is to understand the nature and role of the state in capitalism.
Because if and when Corbyn and Bernie or ant other socialists in advanced capitalist countries ‘take over’, they will still have to administer a capitalist economy and operate within a deeply capitalist state. I think Labour under Corbyn, especially McDonnell, have developed the most advanced strategy on how to transform (not reform!) the state, economy and society from within - learning also from the failures of the new deal and the structural pressures and limits from the capitalist state itself, despite a potebtial socialist government.
Miliband’s ‘the state in capitalist society’ is sometimes referred to as one of the most important books in political science and sociology since WW2. I can see why and glad I finally read it, now where we may have an opening to find a progressive answer to capitalism’s crisis (with the neoliberal solution nearly off the table, the ‘transformation’ will come either from the left or the far right/ fascists. The sooner centrists understand the current juncture, the better).
In his foreword Panitch also makes clear that it’s possible to be both team Poulantzas and Milband! I think we also no longer have the luxury to engage in those academic debates and split into endless factions based on minor theoretical differences. Both Poulantzas and Miliband sought to contribute to socialist strategies, including through transforming the state in capitalist society/ capitalist state into a democratic socialist one. This remains the common goal and we were nowhere closer to this than in 2019.
January 19, 2022
Gute marxistische Analyse der Verstrickung von Staat und dem Kapitalismus inkl. den Widersprüchen und der eigentlichen Unmöglichkeit einer nicht-revolutionären, parlamentarischen Linken. 1 Stern Abzug, weil stellenweise etwas repetitiv - und das obwohl er durchaus in der Lage ist Sachverhalte an anderen Stellen ziemlich pointiert darzustellen. Trotzdem sehr lesenswert.
August 22, 2012
I read this as an undergradaute, and thirty years later I keep coming back to it as one of the foundational pieces about how I understand the State to work. It is elegant, fluid, compelling and 40 years after it was first published remains a fantastic foil for schoalrship and politics. Deservedly, a (almost, the) classic.
November 27, 2023
"In short, the state, subjected as it is to a multitude of conflicting pressures from organised groups and interests, cannot show any makred bias towards some and against others: its special role, in fact, is to accommodate and reconcile them all. In that role the state is only the mirror to which society holds up to itself" (5).
"What is really striking about these political leaders and political office-holders, in relation to each other, is not their many differences, but the extent of their agreement of their agreement on truly fundamental issues - as they themselves, when occasion requires have been wont to recognise, and as large numbers of people among the public at large, despite the political rhetoric to which they are subjected, recognise in the phrase 'politicians are all the same'" (50).
5 stars for its nuanced analysis of bureaucracy and various elite factions from a Marxist perspective, 3 for its excessively negative and dismissive attitude towards social mobility and for committing the cardinal sin of quoting untranslated text.
The state was something curiously understudied by Marxists who accepted an almost neutral view of the state. Perhaps this was due to the success of Marxist-inspired revolutions, who were able to grasp the state and take control (think of the Central Committee of the CCP or Revolutionary Russia) or perhaps it was due to the comparatively simple role that state's took prior to WWII. This is not to say that Marxists assumed that the capitalist state wasn't strong, or didn't play a role in maintaining and legitimating the order, but merely that the extent of state institutions and bureaucracies were simpler.
Miliband argues that only Gramsci (7) has produced a detailed Marxian account of the state, and it is clear that Gramscian thought seeps through Miliband's analysis. The media, judiciary, and state institutions all march to the tune of the business community. In the face of a multiplicity of elites, the state triangulates between them, all under the dominance of the business community.
"What is really striking about these political leaders and political office-holders, in relation to each other, is not their many differences, but the extent of their agreement of their agreement on truly fundamental issues - as they themselves, when occasion requires have been wont to recognise, and as large numbers of people among the public at large, despite the political rhetoric to which they are subjected, recognise in the phrase 'politicians are all the same'" (50).
5 stars for its nuanced analysis of bureaucracy and various elite factions from a Marxist perspective, 3 for its excessively negative and dismissive attitude towards social mobility and for committing the cardinal sin of quoting untranslated text.
The state was something curiously understudied by Marxists who accepted an almost neutral view of the state. Perhaps this was due to the success of Marxist-inspired revolutions, who were able to grasp the state and take control (think of the Central Committee of the CCP or Revolutionary Russia) or perhaps it was due to the comparatively simple role that state's took prior to WWII. This is not to say that Marxists assumed that the capitalist state wasn't strong, or didn't play a role in maintaining and legitimating the order, but merely that the extent of state institutions and bureaucracies were simpler.
Miliband argues that only Gramsci (7) has produced a detailed Marxian account of the state, and it is clear that Gramscian thought seeps through Miliband's analysis. The media, judiciary, and state institutions all march to the tune of the business community. In the face of a multiplicity of elites, the state triangulates between them, all under the dominance of the business community.
August 18, 2019
Miliband’s argument is that in advanced capitalist societies there exists a “private and ever more concentrated economic power” and that the men who hold this power have a decisive degree of political power “in society, in the political system, and in the determination of the state’s policies and actions”. Having explained the problems that Left 'reformers' face when they come to govern, Miliband advises that the only serious threat to the economic elite is a hegemonic party (i.e. a party capable of “creating a unity, not only of economic and political aims, but an intellectual and moral unity, posing all the issues which arise, not in the corporative level but on the ‘universal’ level’, a la Gramsci), which must have internal democracy, as well as flexible and responsive structures.
The book was written as a response to the idea that elite power is dispersed across different sites and that the state is the place where contestation occurs. Milliband puts forward that “the State” does not, as such exist but instead stans for a “a number of particular its reality and which interact as parts of what may be called that state system”.
While Miliband doesn’t state that labour has no power, he puts forward that it is ridiculous to act as if labour has equal balancing power against business (“of these other groups, it is labour, as an ‘interest’ in society, who set power is most often assumed to equal (when it is not claimed to surpass) the power of capital. But it’s his is to treat as an accomplished fact what is only an unrealised potentiality, whose realization is beset with immense difficulties.”). While the dominant economic interest in capitalist society can normally county on the active goodwill and support of those in whose hands state power lies (similar formation, conversativism, ideology, etc.), but does not rest on its laurels and instead also exerts its own pressures.
Two favourite quotes:
- “A deep malaise, a pervasive sense of unfulfilled individual and collective possibilities penetrates and corrodes the climate of every advanced capitalist society. Notwithstanding all the talk of integration, embourgeoisement, and the like, never has that sense been greater than it is now; and never in the history of advanced capitalism has there been a time when more people have been more aware of the need for change and reform. Nor has there ever been a time when more men and women, though by no means moved by revolutionary intentions, have been more determined to act in the defence and the enhancement of their interests and expectations. The immediate target of their demands may be employers, or university authorities, or political parties. But . . . it is towards the state that they are increasingly driven to direct their pressure; and it is from the state that they expect the fulfillment of their expectations.”
- “Given this permanent preponderance, the familiar claim, indeed the familiar assumption, that these are countries which have long achieved political equality, whatever may be the case in regard to economic and social equality, constitutes one of the great myths of the epoch. Political equality, save in formal terms, is impossible in the conditions of advanced capitalism. Economic life cannot be separated from political life. Unequal economic power, on the scale and of the kind of encountered in advanced capitalist societies, inherently produces political inequality, on a more or less commensurate scale, whatever the constitution may say.”
The book was written as a response to the idea that elite power is dispersed across different sites and that the state is the place where contestation occurs. Milliband puts forward that “the State” does not, as such exist but instead stans for a “a number of particular its reality and which interact as parts of what may be called that state system”.
While Miliband doesn’t state that labour has no power, he puts forward that it is ridiculous to act as if labour has equal balancing power against business (“of these other groups, it is labour, as an ‘interest’ in society, who set power is most often assumed to equal (when it is not claimed to surpass) the power of capital. But it’s his is to treat as an accomplished fact what is only an unrealised potentiality, whose realization is beset with immense difficulties.”). While the dominant economic interest in capitalist society can normally county on the active goodwill and support of those in whose hands state power lies (similar formation, conversativism, ideology, etc.), but does not rest on its laurels and instead also exerts its own pressures.
Two favourite quotes:
- “A deep malaise, a pervasive sense of unfulfilled individual and collective possibilities penetrates and corrodes the climate of every advanced capitalist society. Notwithstanding all the talk of integration, embourgeoisement, and the like, never has that sense been greater than it is now; and never in the history of advanced capitalism has there been a time when more people have been more aware of the need for change and reform. Nor has there ever been a time when more men and women, though by no means moved by revolutionary intentions, have been more determined to act in the defence and the enhancement of their interests and expectations. The immediate target of their demands may be employers, or university authorities, or political parties. But . . . it is towards the state that they are increasingly driven to direct their pressure; and it is from the state that they expect the fulfillment of their expectations.”
- “Given this permanent preponderance, the familiar claim, indeed the familiar assumption, that these are countries which have long achieved political equality, whatever may be the case in regard to economic and social equality, constitutes one of the great myths of the epoch. Political equality, save in formal terms, is impossible in the conditions of advanced capitalism. Economic life cannot be separated from political life. Unequal economic power, on the scale and of the kind of encountered in advanced capitalist societies, inherently produces political inequality, on a more or less commensurate scale, whatever the constitution may say.”
January 29, 2020
A five star masterpiece. Started reading on Saturday and finished on Tuesday night. Everything Miliband writes here rings true, and it is extremely well written. Miliband analyses the state in developed economies under late capitalism, contrasting his Marxist interpretation with the Liberal interpretation of the Bourgeoise Democratic state. He demonstrates that everything that constitutes the state, and all the most powerful forces within it, are inherently biased towards maintaining the status quo, Capitalism and Conservatism, whoever is in office. Even if a 'Left' wing party get into Government they are stymied by the fact that the civil service, the military, the banks, the media, the church, the education system and more are ideologically alligned to conservatism and capitalism. Even the social democratic and socialist parties and the trade unions are forced to prop up the system they are theoretically supposed to oppose by the immense weight of these forces. Reading this in the aftermath of the General Election we have just been through shows how brilliant and correct Miliband's analysis is. I cannot believe he wrote this in 1969, because everything that just happened conforms perfectly with his theory. I wish everyone would read this book, it is essential reading.
January 2, 2026
really good!! also horrendously ironic, obviously. reading theory books is always like Oh well i know and agree with all of this already and also what's the use of reading all this when i should be i don't know, amassing a revolutionary army, but it was nice to have it all laid out.
September 8, 2025
It literally explains everything. The perfect “theory” book.
March 29, 2023
This is a beautifully written book which outlines so many issues that are as relevant today in 2023 as they were in 1968 when Ralph Miliband wrote it. The second half of the book does go into interminable detail at times which require a bit of skip reading. Having said that there are some real gems buried in there and the second half of the book is essential reading. In particular I found his analysis of the Labor Party and social democratic parties and their role particularly in relation to authoritarianism and fascism highly enlightening and important.
June 17, 2022
This book is fine. Miliband is a good writer. Ideas are presented clearly and with snap. I can’t quibble with much of his systematic overview of how capitalist social organization maintains its control and reproduces itself through different mechanisms of power and legitimization. The first half of the book is more crisp and focused than the latter, which turns into Chomsky-lite: the media, academia, myriad cultural institutions, law enforcement, business interests--how they all indoctrinate the American citizenry and citizenries of all advanced capitalist societies so people think this (capitalist social organization) is the right way things should be done; this is the normal way things are done; this is the way that works best; this is the way they have always been done; this is the only realistic way things should be done. Chomsky mined a lot of this ground 20 years later in “Manufacturing Consent” and ever since then (“then” being 1969 when Milliband wrote this or ‘88 when Chomsky wrote MC) much “leftish” analysis has orbited around a false consciousness thesis, not usually to its credit (the Left’s). We’re being brainwashed, man.
But that’s not fair to Miliband and what he tries to do in this book. He doesn’t posit a “truth” to be realized once the false consciousness of capitalist social organization is stripped away. In fact, this isn’t really a Marxist text insofar as it lays out a systematic plan by which proletarians of the world can overthrow capitalist social organizations or rather even alter the capitalist mode of social organization or the balance of class forces. The book is Marxist oriented, yes, but what I just described would have been a revolutionary treatise, and like most Marxists since at least the end of WWII working in a social-democratic milieu (academia, politics, culture), Miliband theorizes why the forces of capital maintain their hegemony not how to overthrow that hegemony. This is a book of analysis, just as the title tells us, about how the state functions in a capitalist society. And it is a robust analysis, at least about half of it, and it does explain clearly how the mechanisms by which capitalist social organization legitimizes itself function and the logic by which they mystify the nature of that power and obfuscates its contradictions. So I guess my only quibble besides the fact the latter half of the book loses stream and the analysis gets thinner comes when Miliband write on p. 142:
"This, it needed hardly be said, has nothing to do with the personal attributes of social-democratic leaders as compared with those of conseravtive ones. The question cannot be tackled in these terms. It needs rather to be seen in terms of the tremendous weight of conservative pressure upon labour leaders; but also in terms of the fact that the ideological defenses of these leaders have not generally been of nearly sufficient strength to enable them or resist with any great measure of success conservative pressure, intimidation and enticement."
And there you have it folks. It has nothing to do with the “personal attributes'' of the particular leaders who are elected with a mandate to implement social-democratic financial measures or who have been elected because the electorate believes those self-same politicians are committed to social-democratic principles based on what they have previously done in their political careers of because of the degree to which they convinced the electorate during their campaigns they would fight for those principles. Bullshit. This is the cop-out par excellence from Carter to Clinton to Obama to Sanders to Ocasio Cortez to Biden. It’s always the systemic nature of the Parliament or the House or the Senate or the political trappings surrounding the presidency that prohibit him from fighting for the “working people'' or “every day Americans,” for the average “American,” for the “American with two jobs” etc. etc. etc, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
There should be a theory in sociology or political science called “the Lenin effect.” “The Lenin effect” would speak to the fact that “personal attributes” of leaders actually do play a not insignificant role in whether the possibility of changing the way a society is organized actually comes to fruition or not. It (the Lenin effect) reiterates and is proof positive that actual human beings who are engaged both at the theoretical and practical level with a given set of political commitments aimed at realizing significant changes to a country at a discrete moment in history can, all else being equal, be the decisive factor in whether or not change takes place. Refutation of the Lenin effect, essentially (I’m sure were Miliband alive he would scoff at such) holds that deterministic factors at discrete political-historical situations are always already too significant, too strong, too powerful for changes to take place to improve the lives of the people in whose name the given individuals purportedly are fighting for.
Anyway, it’s all bullshit. The leaders are everything. Their decisions are everything. Which isn’t the same as saying they’re at fault for failing to achieve in deed what their verbal political commit to. It just means they failed. They were beaten. Or they were scared. Or the 140k a year earned as a congresswoman is too satisfying to risk. Whatever. There are a hundred reasons why men and women either do or do not remain committed to their political visions once they achieve power and are actually in a position to effect change at the local, state, or national level. Humans are fickle, inscrutable creatures. But the fact remains that writing as if the deterministic features of a given political environment makes it “too hard” for social-democratic reforms or significant changes to take place in the political landscape is absurd.
But that’s not fair to Miliband and what he tries to do in this book. He doesn’t posit a “truth” to be realized once the false consciousness of capitalist social organization is stripped away. In fact, this isn’t really a Marxist text insofar as it lays out a systematic plan by which proletarians of the world can overthrow capitalist social organizations or rather even alter the capitalist mode of social organization or the balance of class forces. The book is Marxist oriented, yes, but what I just described would have been a revolutionary treatise, and like most Marxists since at least the end of WWII working in a social-democratic milieu (academia, politics, culture), Miliband theorizes why the forces of capital maintain their hegemony not how to overthrow that hegemony. This is a book of analysis, just as the title tells us, about how the state functions in a capitalist society. And it is a robust analysis, at least about half of it, and it does explain clearly how the mechanisms by which capitalist social organization legitimizes itself function and the logic by which they mystify the nature of that power and obfuscates its contradictions. So I guess my only quibble besides the fact the latter half of the book loses stream and the analysis gets thinner comes when Miliband write on p. 142:
"This, it needed hardly be said, has nothing to do with the personal attributes of social-democratic leaders as compared with those of conseravtive ones. The question cannot be tackled in these terms. It needs rather to be seen in terms of the tremendous weight of conservative pressure upon labour leaders; but also in terms of the fact that the ideological defenses of these leaders have not generally been of nearly sufficient strength to enable them or resist with any great measure of success conservative pressure, intimidation and enticement."
And there you have it folks. It has nothing to do with the “personal attributes'' of the particular leaders who are elected with a mandate to implement social-democratic financial measures or who have been elected because the electorate believes those self-same politicians are committed to social-democratic principles based on what they have previously done in their political careers of because of the degree to which they convinced the electorate during their campaigns they would fight for those principles. Bullshit. This is the cop-out par excellence from Carter to Clinton to Obama to Sanders to Ocasio Cortez to Biden. It’s always the systemic nature of the Parliament or the House or the Senate or the political trappings surrounding the presidency that prohibit him from fighting for the “working people'' or “every day Americans,” for the average “American,” for the “American with two jobs” etc. etc. etc, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
There should be a theory in sociology or political science called “the Lenin effect.” “The Lenin effect” would speak to the fact that “personal attributes” of leaders actually do play a not insignificant role in whether the possibility of changing the way a society is organized actually comes to fruition or not. It (the Lenin effect) reiterates and is proof positive that actual human beings who are engaged both at the theoretical and practical level with a given set of political commitments aimed at realizing significant changes to a country at a discrete moment in history can, all else being equal, be the decisive factor in whether or not change takes place. Refutation of the Lenin effect, essentially (I’m sure were Miliband alive he would scoff at such) holds that deterministic factors at discrete political-historical situations are always already too significant, too strong, too powerful for changes to take place to improve the lives of the people in whose name the given individuals purportedly are fighting for.
Anyway, it’s all bullshit. The leaders are everything. Their decisions are everything. Which isn’t the same as saying they’re at fault for failing to achieve in deed what their verbal political commit to. It just means they failed. They were beaten. Or they were scared. Or the 140k a year earned as a congresswoman is too satisfying to risk. Whatever. There are a hundred reasons why men and women either do or do not remain committed to their political visions once they achieve power and are actually in a position to effect change at the local, state, or national level. Humans are fickle, inscrutable creatures. But the fact remains that writing as if the deterministic features of a given political environment makes it “too hard” for social-democratic reforms or significant changes to take place in the political landscape is absurd.
August 11, 2024
There's some good stuff in here; one of my biggest criticisms of Mark Fisher's Capitalist Realism was his tendency to make broad, hyperbolic claims about capitalism without backing them up (even if they were mostly likely true). Miliband does not share this problem. Every point is carefully justified, explored, and reiterated, often ad nauseum (I am a hypocrite, I know).
I particularly liked the stuff about how the interests of labour are painted (e.g. strikes, by the media, government, the general population, etc) as opposed to the national interest rather than of capital; also the ways that capital infects and creates pro-capital bias in every strata of society - the civil service, education, intellectual circles, unions - while disguising that bias as neutral consensus. The stuff about all institutions being dominated by the upper and prosperous middle classes was exhaustive, and I liked the point about working class ascension to these institutions being accompanied by an escape from and rejection of their original class - basically, that politicians and top civil servants become middle class almost by definition.
That being said, this was a real slog. I was strongly reminded throughout of Orwell's essay Politics and the English Language, summed up nicely I think by this quote:
This book is chock-full of awful convoluted sentences, double negatives, and unnecessary qualifiers, e.g., "a word which is not, in its concrete context, without ironic connotations". Blegh.
It would be unfair to give this fewer than 4 stars, because it's great for what it is, but it's also super dry and I'm not sure I'd recommend it.
I particularly liked the stuff about how the interests of labour are painted (e.g. strikes, by the media, government, the general population, etc) as opposed to the national interest rather than of capital; also the ways that capital infects and creates pro-capital bias in every strata of society - the civil service, education, intellectual circles, unions - while disguising that bias as neutral consensus. The stuff about all institutions being dominated by the upper and prosperous middle classes was exhaustive, and I liked the point about working class ascension to these institutions being accompanied by an escape from and rejection of their original class - basically, that politicians and top civil servants become middle class almost by definition.
That being said, this was a real slog. I was strongly reminded throughout of Orwell's essay Politics and the English Language, summed up nicely I think by this quote:
It is easier – even quicker, once you have the habit – to say In my opinion it is a not unjustifiable assumption that than to say I think. If you use ready-made phrases, you not only don’t have to hunt about for words; you also don’t have to bother with the rhythms of your sentences, since these phrases are generally so arranged as to be more or less euphonious.
This book is chock-full of awful convoluted sentences, double negatives, and unnecessary qualifiers, e.g., "a word which is not, in its concrete context, without ironic connotations". Blegh.
It would be unfair to give this fewer than 4 stars, because it's great for what it is, but it's also super dry and I'm not sure I'd recommend it.
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August 22, 2024Useful and clear overview. The polemicising against liberal pluralist theories of the state is both its main strength and weakness.
It makes the argument clear and it thoroughly dismantles any liberal notions of state neutrality subject to competing (but relatively equal) interests.
It is also a weakness because it does not meaningfully develop an alternative theory of the state. We are left to draw our own conclusions from the broad - but clarifying - chapters on the various institutions that make up what Miliband argues is the state.
But how do they fit together? The question of the relative autonomy of these institutions from each other and from wider dynamics of capitalist development are left open. The sociological method is the culprit here - it suffers from a lack of historical development (although it is not ahistorical as such).
The caricature of Miliband as an ‘instrumentalist’ is not accurate. He certainly focuses on the sociological makeup of the actors who inhabit the roles of state functionaries, but it is also clear there are institutional determinations and constraints to their actions. Ultimately however, The determining factors in the actions of Marx’s wearers of the ‘character masks’ of social relations are left under-theorised.
It makes the argument clear and it thoroughly dismantles any liberal notions of state neutrality subject to competing (but relatively equal) interests.
It is also a weakness because it does not meaningfully develop an alternative theory of the state. We are left to draw our own conclusions from the broad - but clarifying - chapters on the various institutions that make up what Miliband argues is the state.
But how do they fit together? The question of the relative autonomy of these institutions from each other and from wider dynamics of capitalist development are left open. The sociological method is the culprit here - it suffers from a lack of historical development (although it is not ahistorical as such).
The caricature of Miliband as an ‘instrumentalist’ is not accurate. He certainly focuses on the sociological makeup of the actors who inhabit the roles of state functionaries, but it is also clear there are institutional determinations and constraints to their actions. Ultimately however, The determining factors in the actions of Marx’s wearers of the ‘character masks’ of social relations are left under-theorised.
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November 24, 2020British Sociolog Historian Ralph Miliband's "The State in Capitalist Society" is very useful book to understand the relations of the state and the capitalist class, the social changes of modern capitalist societies and the future of democracy in the modern capitalism. Ralph Miliband was one of the leaders of the British Marxism since 1968 the working class' and the students' movements in the world; since 1968, in the British politics, in the British social sciences, in the British philosophy, there is Ralph Miliband. Ralph Miliband's son David Miliband was the leader of Labour Party, his other son Ed Miliband was the Foreign Minister of England in the Labour Party's rule. Ralph Miliband growed a lot of students who played roles in the British politics. Ralph Miliband's "The State in Capitalist Society" is a useful book for thinking on the history of European societies since the 2. World War, for improving a new Marxist understanding of the world, and for thinking on "the world crisis" of 21. Century.
October 11, 2020
Parece com um excelente ensaio dividido em múltiplas partes que completam um grande tema central: como a construção de parcela da sociedade, formada pela junção da burguesia e das classes médias e alta (sendo as últimas, não necessariamente burguesas, mas ligadas à questão de educação e herança), sequestra as vias de poder governamental e se utiliza do Estado enquanto ferramenta aos seus anseios econômicos através da política com objetivo de favorecer a ordem social vigente.
June 26, 2020
I read this book as a textbook in college in 1975. I hated it because it was is unreadable. The problem is the author doesn't how to edit run-on sentences. 25-line sentences are common. This guy doesn't know how to write. The fact that he has written several books shows me how many sadists there are in the literary world.
October 7, 2023
An excellent book systematically and logically exposing the liberal and democratic facade of American and Western countries,calling themselves liberal democracies .
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September 11, 2025Jiminy Cibbins should read this book.
April 5, 2023
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 28, 2008
book that haunted by Mills death
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