It's fascinating that the Daily Mail, in its scurrilous attack on Ralph Miliband, notes amongst other things that:
Ralph Miliband himself, in his 1969 book The State In Capitalist Society, declared: 'Advanced capitalism is all but synonymous with giant enterprise; and nothing about the economic organisation of these countries is more basically important than the increasing domination of key sectors ... industrial, financial and commercial ... by a relatively small number of giant firms, often interlinked.'
Er, yes....... Isn't that now very clearly borne out by the very obvious evidence of what has happened since he wrote?
How can anyone be shocked by this? Shouldn't they be saying he got it right? And what are we going to do about it?
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I’ve just read the entire essay, Richard. Interesting in many ways, as I’ve never bothered to find out much about the history of the Milibands.
Leaving aside the spin that Levy puts on things to suit his argument, there’s another passage just before the one you quote that’s also of interest.
‘David was given a second name, Wright. As Miliband’s biographer Michael Newman explains, this was in honour of his father’s American friend, the sociologist C. Wright Mills, whose 1956 book, The Power Elite, suggested that the political, military and economic elites control power at the expense of ordinary people. Mills claimed that these elites see themselves as separate from, and superior to, the rest of society, and manipulate events to suit their own interests.’
The last sentence is the one to focus on. Written over 50 years ago we nowadays know this “claim” to be fact. Furthermore, we also know that the statement from Ralph Miliband that you highlight is also a fact, as you say.
So, surely the most shocking thing is not R. Miliband’s and C.Wright Mill’s “claims” but that Levy – and presumably many (most!) of the readers of the Daily Mail that he targets his essay at, are either so politically ill informed and/or unaware of reality, and/or ideologically hidebound that they can’t or won’t seperate fact from fiction, and, in this case, also recognise a blatant attempt to smear Ed Miliband through reference to the Marxism of his father.
No doubt taking their unspoken lead from Lynton Crosby we can expect much, much, more of this from journalists at papers such as the Mail.
I was so tempted to quote that paragraph as well
Ralph Miliband was prescient, and that is his sin it seems to me. He foretold the abuse we are suffering and which his younger son may at least be tilting at. No wonder a Rothermere paper does not like him
But it’s shocking people can’t recognise this truth
More shocking than all that is why his son is kowtowing to those very forces and remaining studiously silent on issues that need to be talked about!!
I have been saying for sometime that the D/Mail are getting more and more outlandish & very extreme in their attacks on the Leader of the Opposition. Not so many week ends ago we had pictures of Syrian body-bags juxtaposed against a picture of Milliband with quite scurrilous attacks on Ed’s position. What’s happening is the Daily Mail is taking up a position of intense propaganda & that’s because for example the polls are showing again Labour at 41% a big rebound in the last week. . My point is Ed’s Milliband office should have complained about the photographs & the Labour movement as a whole needs to get smarter on the tricks of this popular daily paper otherwise this propaganda is going to continue at a fever pitch for the next year or so. At some point complaints have to be made or a public awareness campaign using posters needs launching.
Very true Leslie. The spirit of Goebbels is alive and well in the Daily Mail, no doubt about that. The point of course is to con the ordinary, well meaning but probably not very well informed or interested person, into blaming those further down the social ladder for all of society’s problems, instead of them turning against the power elites.
Desperation amongst the faux journalists at the Daily Mail. Whatever happened to real journalism, the guardians of truth and democracy exposing corruption at the highest level of society etc etc?
OK, no need to answer, I know that spirit died amongst the mainstream media long ago!
Sorry, can’t get wound up over this, “Bloke’s dead dad was a Communist / Socialist / whatever”.
It isn’t going to make me vote one way or the other. The article is in bad taste but so are thousands of others in the Press.
I’m not a DM reader – it’s full of rubbish at the best of times.