The Problem of the Capitalist State

Abstract

Ralph Miliband's published work, The State in Capitalist Society, is in many respects of capital importance. Marx concentrated on the economic level of the capitalist mode of production, and did not deal specifically with the other levels such as the State. This chapter considers some of the concrete themes of Miliband's book. The first problem which Miliband discusses, is that of the ruling class, by way of reply to the bourgeois ideologies of managerialism. Another problem that Miliband selects is the of the relation between the ruling class and the State. Indeed in the case of the capitalist State, it can be said that the capitalist State best serves the interests of the capitalist class only when the members of this class do not participate directly in the State apparatus, that is to say when the ruling class is not the politically governing class. One last problem is the role of ideology in the functioning of the State apparatus.