Goran Therborn’s deep analysis of the practices of the ruling class in its reproduction, and of the class character of the state, lays out a detailed, structural account of the ruling class in power; it shows us not only ‘a framework for empirical analysis’ but also for ‘serious political discussion’ (p13). It succeeds admirably at both, and at the latter especially when contrasted with Althusser’s volume in this Radical Thinkers series, On Ideology, with its lacunae and eplises, its dogmatism, its insights amid woolly phrasing and woolly thinking. Therborn felt neither of Althusser’s twin inhibitions, free from both a need to justify his thinking to the French Communist Party (PCF) and a limiting structuralism, with its associated (often vague) ideas of the overdetermination of the economy by a variety of political and ideological factors detached from the base. Instead, he gives a clear (if long) and impressively wide-ranging account of the practices of the ruling class in staying the ruling class, with a (radical) sociologist’s keen eye (rather than a French structuralist’s anti-humanist Marxism and obfuscation).

The intricacy of Therborn’s complete theory avoids brief summary. The central point is that the ruling class rules by reproducing itself, through a historically specific state which represents it and mediates its interaction with the ruled classes. Therborn sees this occurring ‘in the thick of class struggle’ (p242), arguing that theories of straight legitimation (that justify the ruling class’ rule) or consent (often reducible to the ‘bribing’ of the workers with reforms) are simplistic, and sociologically unsound. Instead, the ruling class is able to reproduce through a combination of repression and gaining representation in the institutions (at the top of ‘political society’) that mediate class conflict, such as parliament and civil service.

The state uses a myriad of mechanisms in sealing the ruling class from the ruled, and allowing the ruling classes’ reproduction. Therborn highlights particularly the importance of economic constraint (bankruptcy, unemployment, poverty), physical violence (from the beating of pickets to foreign military invasion), and ideological excommunication (the threat or risk that no-one will listen to a given discourse).

The book is comprised of three essays (the third a set of slightly mouldy reflections on the political climate of the late 1970s). The first essay, a comparative analysis of the class character of the state in feudalist, capitalist and socialist societies, serves as a heuristic exercise in understanding how the state develops and relates to the dominant class in society; the second essay addresses the central question of what the ruling class does when it rules, and how it is able to reproduce itself. It is this second essay which begins to outline a sociologically-grounded conception of a ruling class in society, and position the state in its correct class location. One of Therborn’s central points is that the problematic for the ruling class is not just to secure the legitimation of its rule, but attempt to ensure representation in the special apparatuses of the state together with state mediation of its rule over other classes.

The idea that legitimation of its rule is not the key goal of the ruling class seems controversial. Habermas and Weber both held that in order for the conditions of (capitalist) accumulation to be reproduced, the consent of the workers supplying labour (among other resources) had to be secured. However, the importance given to legitimation in Habermas and Weber relies on the rationalist assumption (which can be questioned today) that the ruled do not rebel only, or mainly, because they consider the rule of their rulers to be justified. As other theorists have pointed out, dominant ideologies have anyway always functioned more to unite the dominant class than justify positions of subservience to the dominated class. Instead, it may be the case that the ruled classes may be broadly ignorant of and disinterested in the form of rule to which they are subjected; they may not be aware of alternative modes of social organization and, even if they are, they may feel ‘powerless to affect the existing state of affairs’ (p171). Therborn is right that ideology not only affects perceptions of what exists, and what is right and wrong, but also what is possible. The contemporary problem of mass disinterestedness in, and withdrawal from, the political process due to the idea that “things can’t change” is especially worrying in light of the necessity of understanding these attitudes not as given, but as a key ‘part of the overall process of social reproduction’ (p171). Therborn’s analysis, then, may be less pertinent if we think people are less concerned about whether there is a ruling class today; it may be more pertinent if we wish to change this situation.

The analysis is clearly written from a different standpoint than the one we approach it from thirty years later—the sociological standpoint makes this obvious, which serves not as a weakness per se but a point with which to engage (and stimulate debate on the book’s key thoughts). Put simply, Therborn’s variety of sociology, with its twin concerns of empirical social theory and the practice of revolutionary politics in advanced capitalist societies is virtually no longer written; one of the two (empirics or politics) seems to suffice for contemporary theorists. This highlights both the book’s central strength (its attempts to historicize the state and provide sociological foundations for a class to rule, even in absentia) and its major weakness (the aging, irrelevance even, of a large part of the political argument).

To take these points in turn, it is key that Therborn’s historicisation of the class character of the state remains valid, and insightful— even if we are forced to consider how the situation now looks thirty years on from the optimism of the Marxist analysis of the book. Talking himself about the changes since the original publication in 1978, Therborn conceded that today it seems hard to deny that there is only class power of capital with no overt class struggle; when a ruling class is all powerful, analyses of it ‘lose their sex appeal’. Perhaps so. But it is far from self-evident that the ruling class is all powerful. Elites have lost their confidence in their ability to rule, and the coherence of the ruling class seems diminished as the processes of “meritocracy” erode the homogeneity of the old boys networks of ruling class institutions. It is crucial to consider how the current ruling class coheres, and what level of autonomy (and class character) the state now has, especially if simplistic analyses of state repression and ideological apparatuses do not begin to account for the “detached” and ‘partially hidden’ position of contemporary ruling classes. In this context, Therborn’s way of thinking (perhaps more than his specific conclusions) remains ‘radical’.

The role of the state in ‘class struggle’ has clearly been (increasingly) problematised by developments which have continued from the 1970s. Capitalist development in the twentieth century has advanced such that competition between privately owned companies gave way to monopoly capitalism; through state intervention and nationalization this monopoly capitalism increasingly merged with the state. The state is now more actively engaged in securing the conditions for the reproduction of capital, but arguably less visibly so. The state cannot be neutral; its role in advanced industrial democracies in the creation of terrorized publics requires a new form of legitimation and opens new avenues for ruling class reproduction.

But, it is equally important to realise that the reflections on socialism and democracy that constitute the third essay (as well as in separate concerns throughout) seem dated, depressingly so if only for the optimism and energy that pervades them. Still, the observation that political reflections date quickly is not a new one, nor is it, to the reasonable reader, one which blunts the questions that motivate them. Indeed, even if the short twentieth century—the century of strong and visible modern class struggle — has ended, and the challenges to the ruling class will come from other roots than a revolutionary labour movement, the central question of Therborn’s work is still valid. What does the ruling class do when it rules, and how does it reproduce itself and the conditions of its rule? In that context, Therborn’s radicalism, with his calls for insurgent sociologists and a critical sociology, continues to show itself anew. We still need to aim for realism and specificity in our analyses of the state; we still need to bear in mind not just the selection of who the ruling class are, but also that we need to understand the wider conditions that bring them power, and how they are determined. Railing against the inequities of the capitalist state, or its ruling class, without understanding the larger processes that determine and perpetuate the status quo is insufficient, clearly; it is swimming against the tide. Instead, Therborn’s message is that while ‘to tell the truth is revolutionary’, it is more important that ‘if you want to change something fundamentally and in a definite direction, you have to know how it works; if you want only to sit on it, then no such problems arise’ (p.18).