This very idea of government intervention into social welfare is reflected heavily in American government today. Yet, Marx saw how, "parliamentary democracy could provide the appearance of popular participation even while the economic basis of political power was becoming more concentrated," (66). ...
It will predominantly focus on the second chapter, Economics and Dominant Class, as it is here that Miliband most clearly outlines his gripes with capitalist Western democracies in terms of inequality, its cause (in what he saw as the unfair distribution of power and money), and the dominant class's mechanisms of maintaining their position at the top as part of a 'self-perpetuating oligarchy'. ... Describing Britain to be the 'most obvious example' of this inequality, seeing as the richest '1% of the population owned 42% of personal wealth, 5% owned 75% and 10%...
