Confusion Concerning Classes

The State in Capitalist Society, by Ralph Miliband. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 45s.

This is a confusing book in which Miliband sets out to prove what he takes to be the Marxist theory of the state. Although he does define his terms he uses words like ‘capitalism’ and ‘class’ in a non-Marxist way. Capitalism, he holds, is based on private enterprise, private profit and private accumulation. This raises suspicions, which are confirmed, that he has an odd view of Socialism too. Russia, he says, is ‘collectivist’, ‘non-capitalist’ and, in an unguarded moment, even ‘socialist’. The concept of state capitalism is clearly unintelligible to him and is nowhere discussed, not even in relation to nationalisation in the West.