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... it for them) that this action is commonly seen as intolerable. The proletariat may lobby and demonstrate for industrial (workplace) democracy; this can be tolerated. It is when they unilaterally implement it themselves at the base level (the worker's shop floor) that police are brought in. Concerned citizens can appeal to the government to end abuses by government operated security agencies; this can be tolerated. However; when they (the citizens) investigate the agencies themselves and publish the identity of secret service operatives or details of their operations, the government creates legislation and invokes harassment to stop them.
Miliband contends that even when leftist parties are elected, the capitalist class maintains preservation. Considering that elections are the defining hallmark of a democratic state, we need to look closer at why they fail to subdue the capitalist class. In principle, elections should work for moderately small electorates and political systems, where accountability can be maintained through regular contact. Elections often work better in municipal systems than in national parliaments where decisions affecting millions of people are made.
In large systems, a whole new set of reinforcing mechanisms has developed: political party machines, mass media advertising, government manipulation of the news, make work projects (government spending in local areas), and bipartisan politics. The party machines choose the candidates, canvass voters and impose platforms. Mass advertising treats candidates like commodities, emphasizing personality over policies. Government manipulation of the news includes a variety of techniques by which the mass media become dependent on government suppliers and shapers of information. Government grants in selected regions is a standard technique to attract (or threaten) voters. Finally, bipartisan politics, namely the adoption of identical or near-identical policies by allegedly competing parties, reduces the range of issues that are subject to political debate.
Voters are given the choice between Candidate "A" and Candidate "B", then besieged with a medley of techniques to sway them towards one or the other. Some maintain the faith that a mainstream party may be reformed or radicalized. Others look towards new parties. Nevertheless, all the historical evidence suggests that parties are more of an impediment than a driving force to radical change. One obvious problem is that parties can, and are, voted out. All the policy changes they brought in may simply be reversed later.
More important, though, is the placating influence of the radical party itself. As a result of popular upsurges, radical parties have been elected to power. Time and again, the radical parties have become manacles to hold back the process of real change. Miliband gives several examples where labour or socialist parties, elected in periods of social turbulence, acted to reassure the controlling capitalist class and subdue the popular movement. The Popular Front, elected in France in 1936, made its first responsibility the ending of strikes and occupations and dampening popular militancy, which was the Front's strongest ally in bringing about change.
The Labour government elected in Britain in 1945 made as few reforms as possible, leaving basic social structures untouched. In contrast, the US New Deal Democratic administration that took office in 1933 did undertake structural changes to restore and strengthen capitalism. Miliband in these examples writes from the Marxist perspective in which the state is the servant of capitalism. His insights about the reluctance of reforming political leadership of the state to challenge the economic foundation of society applies even more strongly to the unwillingness of this leadership to challenge state power itself. SUMMARY Miliband, throughout his book, systematically maps the political terrain of capitalism and charts a course for socialist struggle within it. He also offers an account the anatomy of class and state power in capitalist society.
Miliband emphasizes the barriers that the capitalists erect against a more humane and democratic social order, as well as the resources and agencies available to overcome them. Miliband argues convincingly for the left to reform the socialist alternative by way of a crucial commitment to electoral democracy and class politics. The strength of Miliband's work is indeed the strength of classical Marxist theory itself, in that it facilitates a fundamental critical perspective on class and power structures related to the disposition of capital. In Marxist tradition, Miliband claims the state represents a form of class power and does not operate in the interests of society as a whole. While it may be true that the top ranks of various institutions of the state often comprise of the same social stratum, this does not mean that the different institutions have the same interests or that they represent the interests of one particular class. Indeed, if the state is to survive under liberal democracy, then it will need some autonomy from pure class interests in order to secure a standard of broad-based legitimacy for the successful deployment of its powers.
This does not appear to be the case and capitalist democracies are in a permanent crisis. Here it is worth mentioning that Miliband does defend Marx's "position 1 ", allowing independence of the state during crisis and war. Some readers may find this perplexing since, if the state is an instrument, its capacity for autonomy is fairly restricted, still, Miliband allows some relative autonomy. I felt Miliband was unable to offer conceptual evidence regarding the limits of state exercised power on behalf of capital, except to say that such exercise of power could be met with popular resistance. This, according to Miliband, reduces the state to an instrument of the capitalist class.
This has led to characterization of Miliband as "an instrumentalist." Defined by: the bourgeoisie class, which owns the means of production; has links to powerful institutions and has unbalanced representation in all levels of the state apparatus. Thus, the state is ultimately an instrument for the domination of society, under certain socioeconomic constraints determined by the capitalist nature of society. I agree with Miliband in that socialism will not come into existence by making incremental changes to capitalism until it one day becomes socialism. Miliband clearly believed, and even more so in recent years, that socialism is an objective that cannot be achieved in a single life-time.
It is very difficult to read Miliband's works and reject the socialist perspective. Miliband is unambiguously committed to true democratic socialism. Without restraint, he conceded the inadequacies of traditional socialism in confronting the questions of gender, race and nation and accepted the lessons of new social movements; but he never lost sight of capitalism as an all-spanning totality or of class as its constitutive principle. I felt this one quote from his book summarizes everything: "The bourgeoisie has tended to be much more successful at developing class identity than the proletariat" (Ralph Miliband 1969) REFERENCES Miliband, Ralph, 1991, Divided Societies: Class Struggle in Contemporary Capitalism, Oxford University Press Miliband, Ralph, 1969, The State in Capitalist Society, New York: Basic Books.
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Research essay sample on The State In Capitalist Society
