"The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie". (Communist Manifesto)

In what ways does Miliband address the shortcomings of Marx's assertion regarding the framework of capitalist societies?


Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published the Communist Manifesto in 1848 as turmoil wracked Europe. Few people noticed this major work, even though Marx and Engels saw it as one of the most important documents ever written. In writing the Manifesto, they were sure they had found the solution to most of the problems that plagued humankind.

(Marx & Engels, p7)


When Marx made the statement in the Communist Manifesto that: "…the Executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie", he also gave the bourgeoisie credit for historically playing a revolutionary role in changing society and in taking over that same society, replacing the hierarchy of the monarchy with the political power of the bourgeoisie. Marx saw this new capitalist class as using the state to administer, control and rule. (p82)


The idea that the executive of the modern state was there to look after the interests of the bourgeoisie comes up in many of Marx and Engels work as Miliband writes: "…they never departed from the view that in capitalist society the state was above all the coercive instrument of a ruling class, itself defined in terms of its ownership and control of the means of production." This concept was accepted universally by Marxists but was too simplistic according to Miliband and not a good enough explanation as to what the state stood for. Although the early period of capitalism studied by Marx and Engels was not the Monopoly capitalism we know now, present day Marxists still attach themselves to Marx's explanation. (Miliband,pp5-7)


In criticising Marx, Miliband...