The State in Capitalist Society

by Ralph Miliband

Overview

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 state’s 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780850366884
Publisher:	Merlin Press Limited, The
Publication date:	09/01/2009
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	360
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Ralph Miliband was one of the key intellectual figures of the British New Left and the founder of the Socialist Register. He was a professor at the London School of Economics, Brandeis University, York University–Toronto, and the graduate center of the City University of New York and was chair of politics at the University of Leeds. He is the author of Divided Societies, Marxism and Politics, and Socialism for a Sceptical Age. He is the coeditor of A Dictionary of Marxist Thought.

Read an Excerpt

[From Foreword by Prof. Leo Panitch]

Almost as soon as The State in Capitalist Society was published in 1969, it was recognized as one of the most important books in political science and sociology to have appeared since the Second World War.

It was even more widely celebrated as exemplary of what innovations the New Left was capable of bringing about in intellectual as well as political life.

Four decades later, and in the wake of a neoliberal era almost universally characterized in terms of 'the retreat of the state, the massive scale of state intervention today makes the republication of Ralph Miliband's classic study extremely timely. Its famous opening sentences on how we live in the shadow of the state and more than ever depend on its sanction and support could scarcely be more evocative of the current conjuncture. As always, what is happening in America draws most global attention. 'Barack Obama is putting the state in charge of the economy in the land of free enterprise' is the front-page headline that greets me as I sit down to write.

Table of Contents

Foreword Leo Panitch ix

Preface 1

1 Introduction 3

2 Economic Elites and Dominant Class 19

3 The State System and the State Elite 36

4 The Purpose and Role of Governments 49

5 Servants of the State 86

6 Imperfect Competition 106

7 The Process of Legitimation – I 130

8 The Process of Legitimation – II 159

9 Reform and Repression 193

Notes 203

Index 235