property and capital, and the free market. Ralph Miliband sees the regime of Louis Bonaparte as politically independent of the dominant class, but still subject to the social and economic dominance of that class. Like Elster, he investigates the 'class balance' theory of the state, which Miliband calls Marx's 'secondary view of the state'. This is in contrast with the primary view asserted in the Communist manifesto, and reproduced at the top of this essay. This secondary view is 'that of the state as independent from and superior to all social classes, as being the dominant force in society rather than the instrument of a dominant class' (6). Later in the same work, he adds to this by saying, 'the Bonapartist state, however independent it may have been politically from any given class, remains, and cannot in a class society but remain, the protector of an economically and socially dominant class'. This can be explained with reference to Marx's version of the Hegelian view of the state. Even though the state under Bonapartism may have been politically independent, is must still stabilise the existing Civil Society, which is one dominated by private capital. Even though the state is independent, it 'represents' the society over which it presides. The autonomy of the state from the direct control of the dominant class can be referred to as Relative Autonomy. Nicos Poulantzas explains this with reference to 19th century England and Bismarkian Germany as well as Bonapartist France, that, 'the state can only